Girls called to serve missions

Two more young women from the Fort Walton Beach Ward 2 of the Church of Jesus Christ of Latter-day Saints have been called to serve missions.

Allie Brill’s decision to serve a mission was made when she learned of the lowering of the ages for women to go on missions from 21 to 19 years of age. To quote her, it caused her “to have a greater desire” to serve.  Her special letter announcing her destination arrived while she was staying with her grandmother, Sherie Christensen, in Utah.

Whenever a missionary letter arrives, friends and family gather for the anticipated opening when the prospective missionary will find out where she will go.  It is a very special and exciting moment. Her triplet brother Joseph is already serving a two-year mission in France and so she was thrilled to learn she would go to Manchester, England.

For this special moment in her young life, her parents, grandparents, and several cousins were there in the flesh. Through the use of many cell phones her brothers and sisters in Fort Walton Beach and another grandparent were faraway witnesses to her excitement and joy as she opened her letter.

Allie left Feb. 11 for the Preston, England, Missionary Training Center, one of the new centers to open when the missionary force swelled from 55,000 to 88,000 missionaries. Allie has traveled and lived in five different places as a daughter of an air force chaplain and is a 2014 graduate of Choctaw. After her 18-month mission she hopes to attend Southern Virginia University. She has two triplet brothers, Joseph and Sam, a student at Utah State U, a sister Alivia, 15, a brother Elijah, 13, and a newly adopted baby brother, Thomas, 11 months. Allie is the daughter of Sara and Chaplain Scott Brill of Shalimar.

Brooke McSheehy waited an extra long while for her letter, and then she waited some more until all her many relatives and friends in the area could gather for the big moment. She could hardly wait. But her father, Sean McSheehy, had other plans. He managed to purloin her letter and attach it to a long wire which extended from  his drone. He then waited for her car to come toward the house and allowed the cord holding the letter to descend toward her windshield. When she saw her precious letter floating in the skies over Kenwood she was astonished and frightened. She just knew it would be lost and she would have to endure a longer wait to learn of her destination.

However, it all ended well with her retrieving the dangling letter, and organizing all her special media devices so her friends and relatives from Idaho to New York City could share her good news. And Brooke is going to serve in the Mesa, Ariz., Temple Visitor’s Center Mission. She will be able to use social media to teach the Gospel of Jesus Christ. At present she is putting in very long hours at the Missionary Training Center in Utah and then she will receive more training specific to the Mesa Temple Visitors Center.

Brooke has two sisters — Taylor will graduate in May with her doctorate in physical therapy and Skyler, a recent Choctaw grad, is attending Northwest Florida State College. Brooke, a former senior at BYU Idaho and newest McSheehy missionary, is the daughter of Taffy and Sean McSheehy of Fort Walton Beach.