The Phone Call vs The Letter

When you have a missionary out serving, Mothers' Days are extra special. The handmade cards are sweet. The breakfast cooked by the kids and husband is yummy. The gifts are great. But...

Nothing can compare to the excitement of the much anticipated PHONE CALL ! For the last 3 Mothers' Days I've had that "gift"... Matt from Argentina and Jon from Pennsylvania. We even finagled a three-way so we could all talk together when both sons were out serving! Emails and letters are great but there is nothing like hearing their voice. That amazing and spiritual young man you are talking to you swear is not the young boy you sent off! You can feel their strength of testimony through the phone lines. Or... if you are on your cell phone, that power bounces off the satellites right through the walls of your home and into your ear!!

Several of my friends have missionaries out and it was fun to hear about their calls... and the efforts to coordinate the timing of the calls from different time zones while trying to squeeze in their block of church and get extended family members together for the big event. Whew!

But, with Josh still in the MTC, I knew there would be no phone call at our house that day... If they let those thousands of missionaries in there make even a 5 minute phone call, it would probably overwhelm the phone grids all over Utah Valley! It would be a logistics nightmare! Matt called me from Hawaii so that was sorta like the "call". I always like to hear my children's voices.

But... Josh didn't forget about mom's day and I received the most wonderful letter from him this week! And it TOTALLY made up for not hearing his voice on Sunday! Because what is better than a handwritten note from your child thanking you for everything you've sacrificed for him and telling you how lucky he is to have the best mom in the world?? (I'm not bragging... just quoting him.) I had to chuckle when he said, "It's wierd...when I throw my clothes into the laundry here, they don't come out all nice and folded on my bed for me! And when I go to dinner not everything is edible... I'm not used to that!" And then he goes on to share his testimony and his feelings and how much he is learning and that he will do his best to "become the missionary you believe I am." And even though I can't hear him saying these things, I can feel him saying these things! And the tears are streaming down my face as I'm trying to read and he's writing that he doesn't know if he can totally relate to being one of the 2000 Stripling Warriors, but he slightly changes Alma 56:47-48 to read "I have been taught by my mother, that if I doubt not, God will deliver me...I do not doubt my mother knew it."

No words in a blog can describe what my heart feels... And since I wasn't blogging during the time Matt and Jon were serving their missions, just let me put into the record that I also received amazing hand-written letters from them during their time out serving and I also read them with tearing streaming down my face and feeling seriously blessed!