When Ken Barrow was growing up in Texas, he saved money earned delivering newspapers, selling yard plants, working in a brick factory and as a plumber's helper so he, like other Mormon youths, could someday pay his way during mission service.

At 19, when he received his official call to mission work, he barely knew where South Korea was on a map, and he certainly didn't know a word of the language. He studied hard and was convinced that he'd arrive for his two-year term able to converse with anyone there.

"I really thought I knew it … until I landed in that country and found the official at the airport who was there to greet me. I said 'hello' in Korean, and he didn't even understand it," laughed Barrow, who with his wife, Diane, will leave their Sugar Land home in June for South Korea, where he'll serve as president of the Korea Seoul Mission in the port city of Busan.

"I had always thought about serving and saved for it just like missionaries today. I had a remarkable experience," said Ken Barrow, vice president and general counsel at Benchmark Electronics, of his experience as a young man. "When I was called to go back (as mission president), I was excited but also a little fearful because I haven't spoken Korean since."

With the Church of Jesus Christ of Latter-day Saints' 405 mission destinations - and its 80,000 youth and 10,000 senior missionaries worldwide - it's not uncommon for a city the size of Houston to have someone called to preside over a mission. But two Houston-area families were recently called at the same time to serve as mission presidents for three years in different parts of the world, starting this summer.

In addition to the Barrows, who will take their youngest son with them to South Korea, Friends-wood residents Jon and Alexis Schmitt and their four children will head to San Diego, where he will be president of a Spanish-language mission.

It's a rite of passage as well as an expression of faith for young Mormon men and women to perform the church's traditional mission work. They can be sent anywhere in the world and are expected to learn the language to prepare. Their time is often spent in community service, aiding the needy and teaching the LDS doctrine of Christ and the church.

Mission presidents - like Ken Barrow and Jon Schmitt - are the adult volunteers who supervise the day-to-day work of those youths. Though the call to serve in this office goes to men, their wives join them in the work in a busy but unofficial way.

As mission presidents, Barrow and Schmitt must walk away from their jobs and their homes for their unpaid posts.

Both men are stake presidents; a stake is a geographical church area whose president runs the local churches, or wards, and their programs. Though a busy job, most still work full time while serving as stake presidents.

Jon and Alexis Schmitt both did their youth service in California, with Jon working in a Laotian-speaking mission in Fresno and Alexis working in a Spanish-speaking mission in Anaheim.

"I didn't realize it would be a pattern for my life, getting to know people," said Alexis Schmitt, an emergency-room physician at the Michael E. DeBakey Veterans Affairs Medical Center. "It helps as a physician, wife and mother. It really helps in every way, in addition to spirituality and maturity."

Alexis Schmitt said she learned Spanish for her youth mission work and, in the process, fell in love with the Hispanic people and culture she encountered during her time in Anaheim.

She won't have nearly as much language work to do as her husband, an attorney at Baker Hughes, who doesn't know a word of Spanish.

Though Diane Barrow didn't do mission work - it was less common for women when she was younger - her husband and the Schmitts all said that they hope to live up to the good example of the mission presidents who saw them through their own youth mission work.

"I accepted the call to serve with excitement, fear and deep humility. Humility, in part, is for the mission presidents and their wives when I was young," Ken Barrow said. "They were father and mother figures to me. I wonder how we can fill the same role for them. It's a humbling experience."