Hooks Off to Ohio ... or Indiana

For the 6th time in their 28-years of married life, Dean and Margaret Hooks will leave their home and family behind to serve the Lord.  This time they will serve as Record Preservation Missionaries in the Ohio Cincinnati Mission where their wardrobe will be "business casual" instead of the usual missionary wear (which means Elder Hooks will not be required to wear a tie - except on Sunday).

As Record Preservation Missionaries, they will work in Indiana with record custodians at churches, county court houses, state and/or national archives to identify, organize, and capture images of records using digital camera equipment so the information they contain can become available on http://www.familysearch.org.

The Hooks will enter the MTC on August 11 for training on the equipment they will use as fulltime senior missionaries. 

Their first mission together took them to the Dakotas where Elder Hooks served as Mission President (1991-94). After moving from Tucson, Arizona where he had retired after 36 years as a petroleum jobber for Chevron, the Hooks’ served their second mission in the Family History Center in St. George - he for 4 ½ years, she for 5 ½ years.

They had hoped their 5^th mission would be an 18-month call to Guyana, South America to replace the Sappington’s as PEF / employment missionaries – an assignment they know well after back-to-back PEF / employment missions (their 3^rd and 4^th) to South Africa. Alas, the Lord had other plans for them as they were called to serve one year in the Missouri Independence Mission … but came home from the Kansas Topeka Mission (one of 57 new missions created by the Church in 2013 in response to the age change for young missionaries).

The church’s goal is to eventually have 25,000 seniors serving in any of hundreds of assignments in 405 missions.  In this “adventure of a lifetime” there are calls to “preach the gospel, perfect the saints and redeem the dead” in every part of the world - including welfare and humanitarian service; in temples, family history centers, mission offices, and historic sites . . . “and, your grandchildren will still be here when you get back," notes Elder Hooks.