A Bit From Abe

I wanted to share two quick and contrasting experiences from Abe's recent letters. While he glossed over the moment of being asked to leave, things like that have to be awkward and uncomfortable encounters. And it makes me sad to think of anyone being unkind to my boy who is just out trying to do good. On the other hand, it makes me happy that he was able to so quickly have The Spirit help him know how to view the whole business in a positive manner. 

And the second experience? I just love so much the people who, interested in their message or not, are kind and acknowledge the goodness of kids away from home trying to serve God. I love whoever that young guy in the car was.

Story 1:

... shortly after those contacts, we were approached by someone that worked there and promptly asked to leave and not come back. That was too bad, but as we drove out, I thought, "How many people have been cast out for Christ's sake? We just got thrown out for preaching the gospel! Made me think of this scripture about the ancient apostles:

Acts 5:

41 ¶ And they departed from the presence of the council, rejoicing that they were counted worthy to suffer shame for his name.

42 And daily in the temple, and in every house, they ceased not to teach and preach Jesus Christ.

Here we are, ceasing not to preach Jesus Christ. Life is pretty good.

Story 2:

We were visiting an apartment complex to help someone move and were able to jump through the swinging gates just as they closed (almost as cool as a spy movie). We then heard a shout, "Hey! Are you representing your religion?" We looked around but could not see anybody through the fence and bushes on the outside of the gates. The cry was repeated again. Thinking it was an angry security guard, we replied, "Uhh, we are just helping someone move right now!" The other voice started to respond, and we finally peered through a gap in the bushes and saw that it was a guy just a little older than us yelling from his car. We said, "But, yes, we are missionaries and represent our church as well!" He said, "Hey, keep doing what you are doing! The world needs more people doing what you do! Lots of respect. If it gets hard or people reject you just [as he makes prayer hands] keep going!"

And, to end, a bonus humorous story:

[W]e ... got a call about someone in our area that needed help moving. ... [W]e ran on over in our suits and just shed the jackets. Things went pretty well until there was a really big box. Elder Stewart got on one end and I on the other, and I executed a wonderful example of lifting with your legs and not your back. Unfortunately, the stiff, non-stretch suit material was not quite as large a fan of deep squats and the stitching ripped open all the way up. After a shame-faced, backwards retreat, we were able to go and switch into some more flexible pants and finish the move.

The End

Post In Which We Send Abe On His Mission. Again.

On the morning of June 23rd, nearly three months into having Abe unexpectedly back home with us, Mike and I loaded him (along with the suitcases and carry-on that had been sitting, at the ready, on his bedroom floor since late March) into our small white car; and, with his siblings jumping up and down and shouting goodbyes from the street corner until we were out of sight, headed to the airport where he would be boarding a plane to Las Vegas for his “second mission” (as I’d begun to think of it).

For weeks my mind had rocked back and forth in time over all the activities playing themselves out in a strange repeat of last year. I kept thinking of our family last summer — and how we never would have even thought to imagine all the sameness we’d be experiencing this summer: a last Bear Lake trip, looking up mission Facebook pages, choosing a quitting date for Abe’s job, taking care of last minute preparations (last June it was buying luggage and getting an apostille, this June it was fixing a suit hem and shipping a bike), and that same heavy rock in my stomach expanding upward as the days grew closer to goodbye.

All that replication. Everything so tossed back in time. And yet we’d experienced so much in the space between that first goodbye and this reprise! We knew and understood all of these things that we hadn’t before.

Which served as a comfort. Definitely.

But also allowed for a more full comprehension of the magnitude of our goodbye.

I knew pretty well just what was ahead this time. It reminded me of natural childbirth the second time around — when I went in with the benefit of experience and knowing somewhat what to expect but also ... with the very realistic trepidation of experience and knowing somewhat what to expect.

And so, knowing what his absence was, and not feeling at all ready to begin it again, I shed far more tears and hugged Abe goodbye much longer this time than I ever did the first time.

But, having him home was joy. (Below are a few pics off his phone of some of his various adventures.) And while, already, the memory of his being here — snuggly fitted into our life again — is beginning to feel like snatching at those dust particles in a stream of sunlight, I feel so lucky to have had those months of reconnection.

And, I don’t know if I can describe this properly, but there is something so lovely I’ve begun seeing in all of this. It keeps circling in my mind, wrapping and tucking its way into my understanding, and showing increasing areas of application in my own life. Sort of a "faith precedes the miracle" concept. So, between Abe, his many close friends who were brought home from foreign missions at the same time as he was, the many missionaries who returned to the US from his same mission, and the friends who had just received foreign calls to places they now could not go, we witnessed a host of missionaries being given new assignments the last few months. There was an interesting feel about the response to these reassignments. The emphasis on where (which had seemed so hugely paramount before) dwindled to ... nearly gone. Not that they weren’t anxious or eager to know where they would be. But, for all of them, it was different from where they thought they would be. And most, including Abe, seemed to care relatively little about where their new assignment was. They’d committed to a mission. And they were simply going to finish it. Where didn’t really matter much anymore.

So they went. And then ... God began showing them that the where did matter after all! Almost as if they’d passed some test in their submissive willingness to go even if the spot no longer mattered. “Good work,” God seemed to smile and say. “I'm so proud that you were willing to serve when you felt the place maybe didn't even matter anymore. And now I will show you that it does matter.” Things like Abe meeting, within two weeks of his arrival in Las Vegas, two different families who knew people he knew in El Salvador. (A country of 6.5 million where he had only spent 8.5 months). Just these kind little nods from God saying, “There is connection here and purpose in all of this. And I have had no trouble arranging important things for your mission even through a pandemic.”

And of course, seeing glimpses of things like that, always make the sacrifice seem small compared to: God directing a path and granting amazing opportunities to have certain people brought into our lives, to serve him, and to learn specific lessons. It's amazing. And exciting. 

So. Here we go again. On to “second mission”. ...

 

But Also .... Don't You Have a Son ...

somewhere in the world? Far away from you? In the midst of all this craziness? Have you forgotten about him?

Ah yes. My oldest child. Oh no. He is not forgotten. With the rest of my children all safely gathered in, it is this child who occupies my prayers and thoughts most of all just now. 

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A month or so ago I dreamt that Abe returned home from his mission. It didn't add up or make a bit of sense -- his having come home; he wasn't at the end of his two years; he was just right where he was in time in his mission. I don't recall consciously thinking, during my dream, that all the missionaries from his mission had gone home, yet that must have been the backdrop idea, because I did feel this overwhelming sadness that the light of all those missionaries was gone out of El Salvador. Abe was home. And I was grieving for El Salvador. 

I told Abe just laughingly on the phone that I'd dreamt he'd come home. And then we both forgot all about it. It was just a silly dream. How could it have anything to do with reality?

It wasn't until this last Sunday, when we got first official word that Abe would be coming home (and amidst the stress over both the current situation Abe is in, and the anxiousness over the disappointment he might feel with this news) that I suddenly recalled the dream. The scripture from Isaiah came to mind, "... before it came to pass I shewed it thee …", and I was reminded that the Lord knew of this long before He ever called Abe to El Salvador. We might have imagined up two full years in that country. But God already knew that this shift would be part of Abe's path. (This certainty sounded more straight forward and simple than it was. We have been through a whirl-wind of emotions the past few days.)

With current world-wide conditions, concerns over missionaries health, and the availability of health care in many countries, our church has determined it best to return most foreign missionaries to their home countries. Nothing like this has ever happened before, and thousands upon thousands of missionaries have been and will be impacted by this. Missionaries and all those involved in the logistics of arranging and rearranging all of their plans have been on my mind maybe more than anything else with this coronavirus pandemic. 

Once Abe returns, he will be quarantined here at our house for two weeks and then eventually reassigned in the US. I hope quickly -- and that he won't have to be in limbo with the future unknown for too long. But with missionaries across Northern America also being in quarantine, and with the vast numbers returning and awaiting reassignment, I have no idea how quickly it will happen.

Abe is currently in the midst of a 30-day military-style lockdown in Usulatan, El Salvador (several hours of bus rides away from the mission home or airport). With intense restrictions on going out (he hasn't been able to leave at all), and public transportation unavailable, I have no idea how or when Abe will get out. In Abe's mission, they have nothing, in their little cement homes, that allows them access to email, etc. so he has been able to communicate very little and has had very little to help them pass the time -- which has made me anxious over his well-being. They have one small flip phone between the two of them. We finally received his phone number and were able to talk to him briefly on Monday. The news of his upcoming departure had come as an enormous and wholly unexpected shock to him. I can't pretend to know all of his emotions, but I do know that in the midst of his distress, and with his family miles away and unable to be contacted, he knew where to turn for comfort. And he found it. (Learning to turn to God for support and strenght is, I suppose, in and of itself enough of a thing to make this entire mission worth it.)

Anyway, this is just … one of those things that you hear everyone around you going through. (Between ward members with kids on missions, siblings with kids on missions, and Abe's friends out on missions, it is a topic I hear being discussed all around me.) But when it is you and your child experiencing it, it feels so much more complex and huge and significant. Because it is of course. 

We will see what the next weeks and months hold!

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!