Sponsored by the church, both Janet Allen and Russel Haggard have left on their separate church missions to the Utah and Massachusetts respectively.

The Recorder spoke with the pair in advance of their departure.

Senior missionary Ms Allen has been living in Port Pirie for more than a decade, but she was excited to be visiting somewhere that she had never been before.

While she anticipated that it would be hard to say goodbye to her family, Ms Allen was hoping that by completing the mission she would be able to gain blessings for the church, her family and herself. “Saying goodbye is hard, but I will be able to correspond by letter and phone-calls on Mothers Day and at Christmas,” she said.

Plotting ancestry worldwide, Ms Allen’s second church mission will continue her own love of ancestry from Salt Lake City in Utah in the next two years.

“The missions help us to grow and better assist others,” she said.

Mr Haggard also spoke with The Recorder just days before he was set to leave Port Pirie.

Since his arrival in Port Pirie at the age of 16, Mr Haggard said he had been dreaming of his church mission that he had hoped would include either a visit to the US or the learning and use of another language.

He was happy with the details of the mission assigned to him.

“I have always wanted to go,” he said.

Quickly learning as much Spanish as he could before he left, Mr Haggard hoped to better-communicate with the Latino and Hispanic populations in Boston, Massachusetts, where his mission was to spread the church’s religious message.

Mr Haggard is based at the Missionary Training Centre in Utah for his induction and is expected to leave for Boston in the coming days.

While he will be away for two years and his priorities may change, Mr Haggard hoped to return to Port Pirie before entering the Australian Police Academy.

STATES OF PRAYER…Missionaries from the Port Pirie Church of Jesus Christ and Latter-Day Saints Russel Haggard, left, and Janet Allen have left Australia on church missions to the States of Massachusetts and Utah.