Three Generations of Sister Missionaries Serving in the Same Mission in Asia

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By Mary Richards, Church News

Three generations of women are serving missions simultaneously in the Asia Area of The Church of Jesus Christ of Latter-day Saints at the same time, an experience they say has brought them great joy and deepened their faith in God’s miraculous work.

It all started with Sister Tanya Tolman, from Malaysia, who began serving as a mission leader of the Singapore Mission with her husband, President Taitama Tolman, in July 2022. Her daughter, Sister Kiara Tolman, started her service mission in the same mission in July 2023. And now her mother, Sister Linda Yost Barrand, from Utah, recently joined the mission as a full-time senior missionary.

“I never envisioned that my daughter and mother would get to join me in my mission,” Sister Tanya Tolman said. “It is true that God’s plans are always better than ours can ever be.”

Sister Amy A. Wright, First Counselor in the Primary General Presidency and a member of the Church’s Missionary Executive Council, met Sister Tanya Tolman while ministering on assignment in Asia and was inspired to hear of this missionary service.

“As our beloved Prophet, President Russell M. Nelson, so powerfully testified, ‘The best is yet to come, because the Savior is coming again,’” Sister Wright said. “Therefore, we need all hands on deck to prepare for His return. We need all abilities, all talents, all gifts, all testimonies, all ages, all hearts. Everyone is an essential part of the body of Christ with a vital role to play in helping to build His kingdom.”

A Daughter and Service Missionary

Sister Kiara Tolman said she never saw herself serving a full-time mission because she did not feel it would fit her medical and mental abilities. But her parents invited her to pray about a service mission opportunity.

Service missionaries live at home and serve locally as close to full time as their abilities and circumstances allow. Service missions are designed for young women ages 19–29, for a period up to 18 months, and young men ages 18–25, for up to 24 months, whose talents and abilities are better suited to a service mission.

While living with her family as her parents served as mission leaders, Sister Kiara Tolman took a leap of faith and trust that serving a service mission was the right one — and after a few months of serving, she felt a confirmation that she was where she was supposed to be. Sister Kiara Tolman began serving for a six-month period and has extended her mission several times. She will be released in January 2025 after having served 18 months.

Her mission responsibilities include managing two Facebook pages for the mission, facilitating and creating content in the three mission languages, serving at soup kitchens and senior homes, training missionaries on media and referral finding work, fellowshipping friends during lessons with the teaching missionaries, and helping at home with her siblings.

“My service mission has allowed me to tie my interests into the Church and work on skills I never thought I’d ever be able to have,” Sister Kiara Tolman said. Despite having performance anxiety, she now contributes to discussions with friends, sings in front of crowds, gives zone conference training and talks to strangers about the gospel.

When asked via email how her mission has been, Sister Kiara Tolman wrote back, “It has been just the best. I love, love, love my mission.”

She said, “I know that ‘God prepared a more excellent way; and it is by faith that it hath been fulfilled’ (Ether 12:11).”

A Mother, Grandmother and Senior Missionary

Sister Barrand, from the Lehi 8th Ward in the Lehi Utah North Stake, is serving a mission with her husband, Elder Mark Barrand, after losing her youngest daughter — Sister Tanya Tolman’s sister — to breast cancer.

Service has helped Sister Barrand heal.

When applying, senior missionaries are allowed to select their top preferences for locations and responsibilities. With the Tolmans already there as mission leaders, the Barrands were assigned to be Member Leader Support missionaries in Kuala Lumpur, Malaysia, which is part of the Singapore Mission.

In their role, the Barrands have a special relationship with the young missionaries, becoming “an oasis from a bit of homesickness, a heart and hand up to deal with discouragement,” Sister Barrand said.

Happiness is gathering with the young sisters and elders: “We feel their spirit, enthusiasm and love.”

The senior missionaries also play a key role in sharing their joy and enthusiasm for the gospel with friends of the Church.

Their mission call letter included an invitation from the Prophet to read the Book of Mormon before starting their mission. Sister Barrand made a list of the different names of Christ in the Book of Mormon, one of which is the Lord Omnipotent.

The Savior is powerful and He is in the details, Sister Barrand said, quoting the late Elder Neal A. Maxwell of the Quorum of the Twelve Apostles, who said: “The same God that placed that star in a precise orbit millennia before it appeared over Bethlehem in celebration of the birth of the Babe has given at least equal attention to placement of each of us in precise human orbits.”

Sister Barrand is learning new things and working through hard things — she often falls into bed exhausted. She misses grandchildren in the United States. But she said, “Our Savior knows our lives, too. He has placed my husband and me in the ‘precise human orbit’ where we can not only bless others but can be a blessing to my daughter and granddaughter, too.

“He has placed us where He can bless us. Where He can heal us. Where He can grow us into the humans He knows we can be.”

A Mother and Mission Leader

Sister Tanya Tolman, from the Petaling Jaya Branch, Kuala Lumpur Malaysia District, always wanted to serve a mission and knew she would have a chance — she just didn’t expect to get the call to be a mission leader while mothering four teenagers.

But she tells anyone that if they have the desire to serve God, they are called to the work (Doctrine and Covenants 4:3). She worked to push aside her own fears and thoughts of inadequacies and chose to trust God.

“God knew my worries and has always given me strength and direction on balancing my roles as mother and mission mother,” she said. “God knows us, and He knows what we need, and how we can best serve. All we need to do is desire to serve Him.”

She is filled with gratitude to be a part of the Lord’s great work with her husband, children and her mother by her side. Other times, she feels the influence of her mother-in-law and her own grandmother, who have died: “I imagine a chain of strong women woven together in faith and sisterhood.”

Being a mission leader is a blessing of hope, she said. Like with her own daughter, she sees transformations in the missionaries’ lives every day.

“We see God’s miracles not only in their young lives but the people that they are teaching and serving. … It fills me with hope and love every day for a better tomorrow for God’s elect.”

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