Local LDS youth choosing mission work

BY HEIDI ZENEFSKI
Correspondent

Six young adults from Susquehanna County are serving throughout the world as full-time missionaries for The Church of Jesus Christ of Latter-day Saints.

These young men and women, ages 18-22, have volunteered, at their own expense, to leave their families, homes, and college education for up to two years to dedicate their lives to helping other people through their service and teaching them about their Christian religion.

Abigail Burt of Kingsley has been serving in the Porto Alegre South

Mission in the south of Brazil since January of 2013.

Burt knew she wanted to serve a mission at age 15. “I knew that serving a mission was what God wanted for me at this time in my life. I knew that He would bless me and my family if I chose to serve,” she said.

Most rewarding, Burt says, has been the opportunity to work with people she doesn’t know and having a positive impact on those lives, as well as her own. She has also enjoyed living in a different culture and has

become fluent in Portuguese.

Her mission trip has not been without challenges. “There are so many different customs and traditions here, that I admit I was a little bit lost at first, not to mention that I didn’t know a lick of Portuguese,” she said.

But, she added, the church remained as a familiar place. “It is the same church no matter what country you are in. Now that I have been here for a year it feels like home to me.”

Burt will complete her mission and return home in July before continuing her college education at Brigham

Young University-Idaho in the fall. She is the daughter of David and Pamela Burt of Kingsley and graduated from PA Cyber Charter School in 2010.

Three of David and Wendy Hansen’s children are serving missions at the same time. Oldest daughter, Macy, is at the Federal Way Mission in the state of Washington; Mead is also in Washington but is at the Kennewick Mission; and Coleman Hansen is serving in the Santo Domingo West Mission in the Dominican Republic.

Macy, a 2010 Montrose Area High School graduate, and Mead, a 2012 graduate from Susquehanna Community, applied for missionary service on the same day, and attended the missionary training in Provo, Utah, at the same time in 2013.

Their oldest, Macy, who graduated from Montrose Area High School in 2010 before her family moved to Susquehanna, is serving in the Federal Way Mission in Washington (state). Her brother Mead, who graduated from Susquehanna Community High School in 2012, is also serving in Washington, but in the Kennewick Mission.

The siblings submitted their paperwork to apply for missionary service on the same day and received their mission calls, or assignments, on the same day. They also left to go to the Missionary Training Center in Provo, Utah on the same day, February 13, 2013.

Macy said that people from all over the world including South America, Mexico, Russia, Africa, Middle East, Marshall Islands, and Samoa are stationed at the Federal Way Mission.

She said, “The most challenging part of the mission is learning how to be selfless. You have to learn how to forget about yourself so that you can help others.”

Macy will return home to Pennsylvania in August before returning to college.
Mead said the mission has been some of the hardest work he’s ever had to do, with long hours and limited personal time each week.

“But we missionaries still have fun as we work. It’s crucial to be positive and to enjoy the work, even if it’s hard,” he said. “But as I’ve been on my mission, I’ve realized that I’m not here for myself; but for others. And I become happier as I see the people who I serve become happier.”

Younger brother Coleman Hansen left for his mission on Aug. 1, 2013 in the Dominican Republic after graduating from Susquehanna that same year.

Living and working in a foreign country is very different than what Coleman was used to growing up. “Everyone here speaks Spanish, I don’t have electricity or running water all the time,” he said.

Learning a new language was also hard but worth it, Coleman said.

And like his siblings and the other missionaries, he said the experience of bringing about change in people’s lives was the most rewarding experience and served to reinforce their own faith and commitment.

Kenny Cooper of Brackney, son of Ken and Sue Cooper, is a missionary in Boise, Idaho. He started his mission at the end of July 2013 and will return in July 2015.

The most recent missionary to leave from Susquehanna County is Zachary Geisler-Zenefski who left in October 2013 for his mission in Roseville, Calif.

In his mission work, Zenefski has been met with rejection many times each day with doors closed in his face. “One of the most challenging things I see every day is people rejecting something that I know that they need in their life. When they reject this message it is sad to think they won’t experience the wonderful joy and happiness that this gospel brings,” he said.

But he’s also enjoying his time in a different part of the United States. “(Northern California) is“totally different; different people, different area, just about everything is different, except for the language. I love it here it. I am very blessed to have this opportunity to serve here in Northern California. I would not have it any other way.”

Zenefski is a 2012 graduate of Montrose Area High School and the son of John and Heidi Zenefski. And like Abigail Burt, he plans to continue his education at BYU-Idaho when he returns from his mission work.

While these six missionaries already in the field, another Susquehanna County young adult is preparing to begin her journey in mission work.

Amanda Rucker, a 2013 graduate of Montrose Area High School, will be leaving in April to enter the Missionary Training Center in Mexico City, Mexico where she will learn the Spanish language and how to be a missionary.

After she completes the training, Rucker will be serving the Spanish community in Provo, Utah.

It’s a different path than the recent grad thought she would be on in her life. Ricker had intended to study dental hygiene at Old Dominion University in Virginia before she felt the pull to mission work. “Things lined up just as I wanted them to, but then I was led by the Spirit in another direction which was to serve a mission,” she said.

Rucker said she decided to serve a mission because “over a period of two years I really gained a strong testimony of the gospel and I saw the changes it made in my life and I thought that if it could make such a positive change in my life, then it can make a positive change in someone else’s life.”

Her siblings, Michael and Carrie, have each served as missionaries. She is the daughter of Ellis and Linda Rucker of Montrose.

Two other high school seniors are getting ready to submit their applications to become missionaries and hope to leave in the fall; Megan Geisler of Montrose and Nick Acosta of Susquehanna.

The Church of Jesus Christ of Latter-day Saints currently has 80,000 missionaries from 63 countries serving in 405 missions across 150 nations of the world.

In 1984, Steven Chudleigh of Springville was the first missionary who left from Susquehanna County. He served in Veracruz, Mexico. Since then 33 men and women from Susquehanna County have served full-time missions for the Church, serving in 16 foreign countries and 15 different states.