Happy Mission Things

I haven't been recording much of Abe's mission here. I post his letters to their own little blog (should any of you readers be interested in more of the details of his adventure). And, while I email him weekly, I haven't been using those letters as updates here as often as I thought I would (since they don't always make sense out of context of the letter I am replying to). But, here are a few happy little things mission things:

1. He calls every week now. (Something we didn't have established until about seven or eight weeks in.) The connection is sometimes a little crummy. And it’s hit and miss if the call comes when kids are home. And sadly Mike is never here. (Though I think Abe will eventually figure how to do a normal phone call through google hangouts and talk to Mike at work for a minute once in awhile.) He doesn't have a lot of leeway with the timing of his calls as they have to travel one and a half hours to the stake center where they have Wi-Fi and the timing has to work around other districts using the stake center, etc. BUT! It is really nice. I remember my sister saying how hard it was at Christmas talking to her son because he got emotional saying goodbye and it felt heartbreaking to end the conversation that way. And when the phone calls were only twice a year you felt a panic to try and say everything. But when it is every week for 15 or 20 minutes it’s just so normal that you feel you can chat about any little thing (Jesse can tell him about some science project they did at school or Daisy can ask him about how he got his Weber State transcripts from some concurrent enrollment class to his BYU application). And there is no panic in goodbye since you’ll talk again in a week.

(I think it’s even easier in most mission [as most of them require the elders to have phones -- which Abe's mission does not use]. My sister-in-law says she chats with my nephew off and on and even text on p-days, and then he even calls his married siblings, etc.) 

2. He can have his harmonica down there! 😄 One of my favorite things back when Abe was here was listening to him up in his room (when he should have been sleeping) playing hymns on his harmonica! The general mission guidelines said not to bring instruments on your mission, so Abe left his harmonica behind. But he recently discovered that they are allowed them in his mission! So not only do I have something good to send him for Christmas now (Mike quickly found him a better quality one than the cheap one he had when we found out he could have one there), but it just makes me happy thinking of him playing his harmonica again at nights before bed! So happy! Like this odd little line through distance and time between him here and him there. I almost think I'll be able to hear him if it's very quiet and I'm very still. 🙂 (Though I don't know how he will resist ending with "Sweet Home Alabama" like he generally did here. . . . Haha.)

3. He can print emails! Hahha. I know that sounds silly. But he couldn't at first. And both Mike and my sister Shannon said how nice it was, on their missions, to pull out and read letters before bed, etc. It made me sad to think of him just frantically trying to read through things we wrote so he could respond and get his group email all sent and hopefully call us before his time was up. And I try to put effort into writing things I think will lift him and make him happy. So it seemed sad to think of him having to just scan through letters quickly. But now he brings his own paper and prints out emails to take with him. It makes me happy to know he can read our words when he's feeling a little tired or homesick or just when he has a few minutes waiting for a bus or whatever. And it is especially nice as he has so many friends on missions right now sending weekly group emails which, in his limited p-day time, he couldn't usually read. Anyway, hurrah for printed letters!

4. He sounds genuinely just so fine and happy! I know he will have tough times. Being sick will be miserable for him. He will see people he has come to love suffer very difficult things because of this rough circumstances in El Salvador (and because life is full of hard things) and he will see people nearly embrace and then reject the truths and light has tried so hard to share with them. And every transfer I'll be anxious about life becoming unknown for him again or the possibility of having a difficult companion. And even the little things aren't perfect. (For example he told me the other day how desperately he misses washing machines -- as he spent two hours of his p-day [his weekly preparation day] this week scrubbing all his laundry by hand. [Which doesn't really dry in the humid air.] And he says how they have a half hour to exercise in the mornings (which he was excited about as, much like my dad was, he's big on physical fitness) but getting straight out of bed onto a dirty cement floor without any time to fully wake before the half-hour is over is a bit tricky.) BUT! Generally, despite the language still being difficult, he just sounds truly fine! Just like this is his life now and he's content and not pining for home, and he loves and enjoys all the small details of his experience (as you'll quickly note if you read his letters) -- even things like a fish in the cement "pila" they use to wash their clothes makes him happy.

5. Small connections. Two times now friends of mine have messaged me that a good friend of theirs had a son leaving to El Salvador. Both times I didn't think much of it because the mission has many missionaries and they are spread all over the country (in three separate missions). But in both instances, almost immediately, a picture of Abe with the said missionary would show up. In one instance they were sitting on the bus together travelling form the airport to the mission home. In the other instance, Abe was actually on splits with this elder just days after the elder arrived. It isn't as if I know these boys. Or even the friends of my friends who these boys belong to. But somehow these connections still make me incredibly happy. Just knowing that people I know and love have people they know right down there with my Abe makes me feel more certain of God's kindness and generosity in arranging connections. I think it makes him happy to arrange situations and timing in ways that allow us to exclaim, "What are the chances!" and feel a little extra aware of . . . His awareness of us.

Anyway, that is all for now. Just a few of the things that have made me happy about Abe's mission experience of late!