Missionary – Page 13 – Letters from Home

With a Smile

I think when I look back on this time in my life, I will be thankful that I was present when Tim came home from Frisbee practice, muddy and smiling. I will not regret being home and available to video chat with Daniel for the first time since Christmas. I will smile when I think of the jokes I made with Mark about the DWISBA as I drove him home from school. I will remember the texture of each boy’s hair in my fingers as I gave haircuts and the smell of starch while ironing shirts. I will smile at the memory of the beautiful home I worked to create. I will remember the souls I loved and the ones who loved me. I will remember that this was a sweet time. Sometimes I feel weary, unwanted, and stagnant, too, but that will not be the melody when I look back at this time with the perspective of age. I can see myself looking back with a smile. These little moments make me smile today.

A Baptism Here and There

A few weeks ago we studied as a family about being born of water and the spirit. While offering our family prayer after sharing what we learned, I felt I should thank our Heavenly Father for baptism. In an instant, I felt what this ordinance, along with confirmation, have meant to our family. Immense, personal, empowering, enhancing, clarifying, cleansing, gathering, unifying, and sanctifying, these gifts are something to cherish. Our Father is generous, and because of the sacrifice of his Son, we can be baptized. The Holy Ghost fills us and leaves its elevating effects without fanfare. The influence and power of the Father, Son, and Holy Ghost seem to come together at important days like baptism, not just at the Jordan River, but for little David, Maria, and each of us. At baptism, we are gathered, and we find where we belong.

To the person who

…drives the band in the school bus to and from state basketball tournament games safely…

…sees me and talks to me while checking my groceries…

…gives my sons rides home from church activities…

…stays up a little later to make a lesson plan a little more engaging…

…donates money so our daughter can have scholarships and art grants…

…feeds our missionary son and asks for the recipe of his favorite dessert, even though it is in a different language and has different standard measurements…

…takes time to visit the school to speak encouragement and tell fun stories to my middle schooler…

…reads my self centered words…

…takes time to write to me…

…remembers important days and acknowledges them…

…shares talents…

…RSVP’s to a party invitation even when I don’t ask for it…

…shares a real life experience with me, not a contrived version she thinks would be more palatable…

…inspires me to seek deeper meanings in my study of scripture…

…inspires me to be myself…

…notices when we are missing…

…sees that we are trying…

…asks good questions and listens to the answers…

…doesn’t try to define us as just one thing…

…delivers mail in the snow…

…takes away our trash every week…

…selected our piano for their showroom so we could find it in Tucson…

…planted the trees in the yard…

…selected our white kitchen cabinets…

…wrote the book I finished today…

…shared the Book of Mormon with my family/ancestors…

I feel gratitude for you and many, many more.

Missionary Monday

“These last few weeks have really just driven home my gratitude for the all-encompassing perfection of God’s plan.” -Elder Ross

I came across this song by divine accident after visiting with Daniel today. The tender voice of Collin Raye and the lyrics spoke to my thoughts and mood as nothing else could.

Here I Am, Lord

I, the Lord of sea and sky,
I have heard my people cry,
All who dwell in dark and sin,
My hand will save. I who made the stars of night,
I will make their darkness bright,
Who will bear my light to them?
Whom shall I send?

Here I am Lord, Is it I, Lord?
I have heard you calling in the night.
I will go Lord, if you lead me.
I will hold your people in my heart.

I, the Lord of snow and rain,
I have borne my people´s pain,
I have wept for love of them, they turn away. I will break their hearts of stone,
Give them hearts for love alone,
I will speak My word to them,
Whom shall I send?

Here I am Lord, Is it I, Lord?
I have heard You calling in the night.
I will go Lord, if You lead me.
I will hold Your people in my heart.

I, the Lord of wind and flame
I will tend the poor and lame.
I will set a feast for them,
My hand will save. Finest bread I will provide,
Till their hearts be satisfied.
I will give My life to them,
Whom shall I send?

Here I am Lord, Is it I, Lord?
I have heard You calling in the night.
I will go Lord, if You lead me.
I will hold Your people in my heart.

I will hold Your people in my heart.

Hello, Elder Ross!

We had a nice text exchange with our missionary for the first time today.

With a home centered focus at church, it makes sense that home and missionary work should mingle more often. Home and family are central to God’s plan. They can add strength. If they don’t, we can trust the missionaries and mission presidents and families to figure things out.

A few weeks ago, Daniel wrote to me, expressing that he wished he had talked to me more. What a blessing it is that we can now. Who else is excited in our house about this? His two brothers. This will bless their lives. Amen.

Organization

I have a sous chef in the house who likes to get creative with the spices. Lately, I have not been able to find anything in the cupboard because someone else has been using it. It was time to get organized.

I can find everything easily now, and Mark’s go-to spices have their own container. Why does this thrill me so much?

I did it to the medicine cabinet, too.

These are from Target. They are clear so you can see everything in them, they are as deep as my cabinets, and pull out easily. I bought every one from two Targets. I also bought some other sizes and they were a highlight from my week until I learned that missionaries can call home every week now.

Good things

Tonight we ate cake to celebrate Daniel’s first six months on his mission.

My sister Sarah sent me a book for a surprise, along with a kind note. I got it on the snowy day when we were stranded at home because the plows couldn’t get to our street until early evening.

Paige is in New York this weekend for an illustration conference. Her boyfriend came to dinner on Sunday. We like him.

5 new feet of snow fell at Alta ski resort.

My week has been punctuated by time with friends, and wow, it has been so fun.

Witness

Today Daniel’s apartment building caught on fire in Santiago, Chile. He escaped, thanks to living angels who stopped to warn, guide, and unlock doors. Feel free to join me in prayers of gratitude for his protection. He grabbed his scriptures, wallet, keys, camera, and photos which were already prepared for travel. He already had his shoes on when the call came to escape. He and the other elders had to abandon a smoky stairwell with hot handrails for a different route out. When they were trapped on the roof, with only locked doors to stairs going down, someone came up to open a locked door to a safe stairwell. A quote from his message today:

Needless to say, that was an intense experience. Maybe we were never in real danger. But my mindset changed. As a missionary, I already have very few personal belongings, but as I stood there with reminders of my family and my scriptures with all my markings and couldn’t think of anything else I would want to save I realized how easily we can get distracted by things that don’t last. There are a lot of things I left behind that don’t matter, and now that’s especially clear to me.

God really does protect us, guide us, answer prayers, and puts people, thoughts, and when necessary angels in our lives to help us return to live with him again. The Savior truly understands us, and through his infinite sacrifice and atonement we can be cleansed from sin.
-Elder Daniel Ross

I was very unwell all morning before I heard about this. Maybe I knew on some level he was in danger. I also felt complete peace when he announced his call (mission assignment) last April. I don’t need any more assurance that all will be well, whatever things look like at present. I don’t think he has his “cloak,” but he does have his “parchments,” (2 Timothy 4:13), and knows the value of them.

And last of all, here is a link to the journal page for our study of Matthew 2 and Luke 2 at our house for the week of January 14-20.

Some good memories from December

We visited Temple Square on one of the warmest December nights we have known. We were able to listen to the Nativity narration outdoors and noticed for the first time that there is a star mounted on top of the Tabernacle. We had just fed the missionaries dinner before we came, and their message was to “Look up!” Amen.

Timothy and I played a medley of German Christmas carols at church and for family. He is a great pianist and accompanist.

We had a birthday party for Tim and my parents came.

Mark made raspberry jam for his dad’s Christmas present. 😍

I shopped for stuffed animals. The giraffe!

We were able to do a video call with Daniel and we didn’t need all of those questions we planned to ask. He talked non-stop, with enthusiasm, zeal, and happiness pouring forth. I didn’t know how much I needed to just see him and hear him speak. I didn’t take a picture of the screen, but imagine light, clothed in the Christmas tie that I was told he probably wouldn’t receive in the mail, a short haircut, sunburned neck, and speaking a mixture of Spanish and English, really fast. That was Daniel. Nothing sad about that.

Paige is with us, and moves from her room, where she is catching up on some reading, to the piano, every few hours throughout the day. Chopin, Debussy, and Jane Austen scores are now in the mix played on our piano. She is all things lovely.

Type and Shadow

I feel kinship and pity for Mary who gave birth in a stable. I had an emergency birth with strangers to attend, in a place I didn’t choose, and the feelings I had were fear, frustration, disappointment, and embarrassment. The shepherds were ready to proclaim his birth, but Mary kept these things and pondered them in her heart. I think that is appropriate. In order for there to be tidings of great joy, Mary’s experience had to be difficult, and not easily explained. I read that the manger was likely carved from limestone, somewhat similar to an altar. Even in this lowly place, there was a type and shadow of sacrifice for the Savior’s bed. Luke’s record seems to have the details Mary would remember. The cold manger is one of those details, type and shadow, present even at birth.

Shadows of another kind also accompany Christmas. All light will produce it. In contrast to my feelings of cheer, there is also shadow. My solution when I feel it is to hang more lights and decorations. We have four Christmas trees this year.

The full nature of the Savior’s ministry was to conquer every difficulty, and in this is our hope: he is a man of sorrows and acquainted with grief. The pivotal truth of Christmas is that Jesus came, experienced, and overcame all. He was real. Jesus wept.

I have wept as I comforted a friend this month, and felt more Christmas spirit in that act than any other thing I have done to keep Christmas. I welcome this shadow, because somewhere in that shared cry was also joy.

Daniel’s light still shines for us, and is a source of joy, but his absence is still shadow. This year, Christmas brings into focus a stone manger as an altar, and feelings about my own son far from home. It is a joyful Christmas, but like a drawing, there is neither definition nor depth without shadow.