My first step was to go to my colleagues and ask to be released from the agreement into which I had entered with them. They were as much surprised at the turn affairs had taken as I had been, but readily agreed not to stand in the way of the Lord's call. A letter was then sent to the Mission Board, informing them of the call to service and my readiness to go and at once if they deemed it advisable to send me. Much had been said about missionary work and many had seemed eager to go, so that I somewhat tremblingly awaited the result, feeling that they might not consider me fitted. At the same time a private letter was dispatched to my father, who was Chairman of the Board, telling him of my convictions and call. A letter came first from dear father. He had been quite unprepared for the news contained in my letter, and his answer can best be summed up in two of his sentences: "How can I say yes? and how dare I say no?" He closed the letter by advising me to wait a year or two until others were ready to go. The official letter from the Board through the Secretary, Elder Jesse Engle, stated that I was the only applicant so far and had been accepted, but that there would be time to finish the year's teaching. It was quite a surprise and disappointment to me to learn that there were still no other applicants, but not long afterwards word came that Elder Jesse Engle and wife were likewise seriously considering the question. He, as many of my readers know, had realized a call to give the Gospel to the heathen while he was still a young man, but probably from lack of encouragement and from other seemingly insurmountable obstacles had not obeyed. Now, at the advanced age of fifty-nine years, he still felt that his work was not done; and he was ready to enter the field, if his way opened, even though it might appear to be at the eleventh hour. And she, who had nobly stood by his side for so many years, could still say, "My place is beside my husband. Where he goes I too will follow." In the meantime the question as to the location of this first missionary venture was beginning to agitate the minds of some of us. The Board felt that the missionaries should be consulted in the matter. The conditions then existing in South America were attracting the attention of the Christian world. Some countries, notably Equador, were for the first time being opened to missionaries. The sore need there appealed to me and led to correspondence with others in reference to that field; but no one was ready to go there. Later I learned from Brother Engle that he was led to Africa, the country of his early call. The location was immaterial to me, for my call was to the neediest field, and I soon realized that Africa, with its unexplored depths, its superstition and degradation, its midnight darkness, was surely in need of the Light of Life.