[NOTE: This article is part of an ongoing series profiling Church members who serve as mentors to associates receiving training at Deseret Industries.]
In early 2008 Bob and Gayla Ward of the Draper Utah Corner Canyon Stake were middle-aged grandparents who wanted to augment the amount of their service in the Church. But with Brother Ward's job owning and operating a carpet store, and with retirement still several years off into the future, a full-time mission was not an immediate possibility for them. Instead, they sought out the opportunity of becoming part-time inner-city missionaries in Salt Lake City.
"The ward we live in, I was a Primary teacher but they released me," Brother Ward said. "My wife was also released from what she was doing at the time. So we didn't have anything else to do really except home teaching and visiting teaching, and then she got called to work in the temple. We'd always wanted to go on a mission, and we still want to do one someplace away from here.
"But (Sister Ward) had been saying things like, 'Why don't we go on an inner-city mission? People are needed.' As soon as I got up and around after my hip replacement surgery, we went to our bishop and said, 'We want to go on an inner-city mission.' He came over and interviewed us." The bishop then filled out the missionary recommend forms and they were called to serve in the inner-city mission.
The Wards serve in the Haven Ward of the South Salt Lake Stake. The Haven Ward bishop assigned Brother and Sister Ward to be mentors for eight Deseret Industries associates, including two less-active single sisters and six political refugees from Myanmar (formerly Burma). Because they still work full time at their carpet store, their mentoring service rendered on evenings and weekends can take a toll.
"The most challenging part is finding the time because the need is so great," Brother Ward said. "Last night, for example, we left the store at 4:00 p.m., and I think we got home around 10:15 p.m. And all the other couple missionaries we serve with do this too."
But in the final analysis, the Wards consider themselves blessed because of the associations they're forming as inner-city missionaries and Deseret Industries mentors.
"One thing about it, you know, you just fall in love with the people," Brother Ward said. "We've become really good friends. They invite us to their birthdays, to any celebrations they have, and we've probably gone to 90 percent of them. They come up with nicknames for you – like, I'm 'Buddha Belly,' 'Loudspeaker' and 'Chatterbox.'
"Of course, that's not hard to do that when they worship the ground you walk on. They think you're just the coolest thing there ever was. They want you involved in everything. You become so close, you're basically adopted. We've become family, because of the way we feel about them and vice versa."
