Missionary Mom Tip #5: Prayers and Transfers

Pray, pray, and pray some more for your missionary, their companion, the mission leaders, the senior missionary couples serving and helping in so many ways, and ALL the people that encounter the missionaries – their new friends. Prayer works!

While we cannot be with our missionary or have constant contact with them, through prayer, I think we can. There are so many things we can pray to Heavenly Father about and ask Him to bless our daughter or son in a specific and particular way. I know He likes prayers of gratitude also. Don’t forget those.

Pray for your specific child’s mission leaders. Just think of all they do for three years to serve and bless, to organize, teach, inspire, praise, encourage, worry about, feed, and more! Top that off with things going well in the mission and then shuffling things up every 6 weeks with changes and transfers. Inspiration and guidance are needed constantly.

Transfers are a big deal. What a puzzle to put together. For my family and me, it is exciting to see the transfer board and how Eliza’s mission leaders and the Lord are putting together the missionary teams throughout the mission. 

Transfers are a big deal for the missionary, too. Will they be staying where they are? Or packing up all their belongings and moving to another area? It is not easy for them to say goodbye to a companion they have grown to love and work well together. Welcoming a new companion they don’t know and must live with can be frightening and exciting. Do what you can from home to praise, inspire, and encourage. Faith and trust, growth, and experience – lots of good things come from it all.

Before I had missionary children, I remember a sister in my ward offering the opening prayer at church and praying for the missionaries in our ward and including something like praying they could get along with and work well with their companions. I don't think I had every heard that kind of prayer before. Having had children serve missions, I now know those kinds of prayers are needed too.

A missionary needs our prayers and encouragement every step of the way, and so do mission leaders. Bless them, Lord! 

A big shout out and prayers of gratiude often continue from me for President and Sister Munns, President and Sister Hammond, and President and Sister Chamberlain. Thank you!!! 

Missionary Mom Tip #4: Emails and Keeping a Record

Missionary Mondays, with emails waiting in my inbox when I wake up, is such a joy!  You might think I am crazy, but it's kind of like Christmas morning - the excitement and anticipation. I'm going to miss Eliza's weekly emails so much. My emails are not as concise, or witty, or have reference to much pop-culture, but I know she likes getting weekly emails and updates from home too.

The emails will become a history, a record of her mission. Don't delete them! 

I discovered mymission.com with my first missionary child, Abbey, and used it with Andrew, and now Eliza. The system is a wonderful place to track the locations the missionary serves, who their companions are, it stores the emails they send and even emails from home, pictures can be uploaded, and more. I really like that there are options to print a book with their emails and pictures. Something else that is helpful is the Called to Serve app that syncs with the website. Anyone who downloads the app and has the code for the missionary, can follow along on the missionary's journey. Great for grandparents. Honestly, great for the parents - this mom loves it!!

A missionary will not have their @missionary.org email address forever. They will be given some time once they return to download and save their emails and pictures. With My Mission, emails can automatically be uploaded and saved when a missionary sends an email. So slick! 

Maybe writing emails, or letters home are not the missionary's jam. Besides keeping a journal, some other ways to keep a record might be blogging, vlogging, or Facebook posting. What other ways would you suggest?

Whatever way, please keep a record.

If you are following along with the "Come Follow Me" for this week, you might have read:  "Behold, there shall be a record kept among you;" from Doctrine and Covenants 21:1. 

Records and histories are important to the Lord. After all, The Book of Mormon, that missionaries are using to teach people about Jesus Christ and His restored Church on the earth today, is a record of people who lived in ancient America. The book is a record of groups of people and their interaction with and seeing the resurrected Savior. There are records of many different people and time periods who share their experiences and dealings with God - good and bad. Reading their experiences blesses us.

Likewise, missionaries come to know their Savior better and more intimately during their mission. As they record their experiences, testimony, and own conversion; as well as witnessing God’s hand helping them, it blesses their lives and ours too. 

Yes, keep a record!

And another tip that will help to do so is sending your missionary off with a Bluetooth keyboard.  

The following are screenshots from the Called to Serve app:

Missionary Mom Tip #3: Temple Preparation

It’s temple Thursday! A perfect day to share some of my thoughts about preparing a missionary to receive their holy endowment and enter the House of the Lord for the first time. 

Plus, enjoy Eliza's pictures at the Paris France and Preston England temples. 

* Temples.churchofjesuschrist.org AND the scriptures are important resources - use them. 

* Encourage your child to attend a temple preparation class your bishop or ward might offer, but remember, you are still the best teacher.

* Attend a temple open house and point out the different rooms, explaining what to expect for when they go to receive their own endowment. 

* Don't forget the "Temple and Family History" tab on the Gospel Library app. Lots of goodness! 

* The Gospel Library app also includes the Church Handbook of Instructions to help answer questions.

* This article came a little too late for me, but it might not be for you. It is such a helpful resource - "How Are You Talking about the Temple?', a November 2023 YA article.

How Are You Talking about the Temple? From the November 2023 Liahona Magazine.

https://www.facebook.com/share/r/16D7r9aXSz/?mibextid=oFDknk.

* There is a lot to take in on that first temple experience. Reassure your child they don't need to know or remember everything. You might also explain that a family member (or other escort they choose) and a temple worker will be with them to help every step of the way. As you are able, tell them what to expect.

* Follow up with your child after their experience. Listen to them and encourage them to share. There may be some questions they might have or some misunderstandings you can help to address. 

* Consider scheduling a sealing appointment to do as a family while you are still in the temple. Your child will get to see and participate in all the ordinances. Which might be especially helpful if your child will be leaving soon after their temple experience for their mission. They will have a better picture of what they will be teaching and sharing with others. 

* If a child chooses to receive their endowment a few months before they begin their mission, they will have more time to go again and again and become more comfortable and confident in their proxy service. You might need to point this out to them.

* Don't underestimate your example and preparation. The examples of my mother and grandmother were huge to me. Especially how they would talk about, care for, and honor wearing the temple garment. Seeing them attend the temple and care for the ceremonial clothing was also an example and encouragement for me. Their examples have been a blessing in my life. 

Because I have recently become a temple ordinance worker, I am a better temple patron and my knowledge about the temple has increased since the time I first started preparing my young adult children for temple experience. I did my best based on what I knew at that time, but now I know more and understand better. I would do things a bit different. But no matter what, I hope I can continue to show by word and example my commitment to God and be an example to others about temple worship and the joy it is. 

______

Each of my children have chosen the temple they want to go to for the first time. We’ve gone to the Ogden temple, the Logan temple, and the Brigham City Temple. 

If time is available, consider setting up a sealing appointment for after the endowment. Why? This way your son or daughter can see and participate in all the ordinances of the temple. Which also makes it helpful when they are on their mission and teaching others about the temple, covenants and ordinances,  testifying of the blessing of sealing families together for eternity. Additionally, if you have other family members with you, you might be able to schedule the entire sealing session for just your family and get a lot sealings performed for your family. 

We spend a lot of time preparing a child for their mission, when we probably should be spending more time preparing them to make covenants with God in His holy house. The ordinances in the temple are saving and important. The mission, while important, is not a necessary or saving ordinance. 

Inviting grandparents and some other family members to join us, we’ve also tried to add to the memorable and special occasion of the day by going to dinner afterwards. 

Missionary Mom Tip #2: Pictures, Pictures, and More Pictures

On March 12, 2025, I posted the following on my social media and shared tips about pictures.

Eliza comes home in a week - just 7 days!! Here is Tip #2: Pictures

For Christmas I got a digital frame and I finally set it up. My thought was to have Eliza's mission pictures loaded and surprise her with it when she comes home, but oh what gladness the digital frame has been for Lance and me already! I only wish I had done it earlier. Literally, it has been so fun to see her silly poses and faces, the food, the beauty of her surroundings, her mission pals, and new friends ready for baptism and dressed in white. 

This is a new joy for me and a happy tip to share - get a digital photo frame to showcase your missionary's pictures.

We've heard it before, "A picture is worth a thousand words."

There are countless stories contained in Eliza’s pictures that I don't even know about. I look forward to knowing the stories, the experiences, and more about the friends, people, and places. I hope she is ready; she has thousands of pictures to tell me about.

While my daughter, Abbey, was on her mission (2017-19) she had a digital camera and a lot of SD cards, which a few times got infected when she would go to an internet cafe to download pictures to send home in her emails. Things changed, so by late 2019, Andrew and now Eliza, have been able to take pictures on their phone and can easily upload them to Google photos to share with others. It is so spectacular for the family back home to easily see the pics.

I'm including a few of my favorite missionary pics of them.

Other picture tips:

* Send pictures from home to your missionary. They enjoy seeing what is going on back home.

* Before memory fades, label the images, digital or printed, with people's names and places. (I still need and want to do this with my husband's mission photos, too.)

* For soon-to-be missionaries, it is my understanding that the picture uploaded at the time of submitting mission papers is the picture that will be used for your entire miss.

* I printed some 4x6 photos of my daughter's companions and some of her mission friends. I had them hanging on her bedroom wall  

If you have a missionary serving right now, do they also use a digital camera or just their phone camera?

What photo tips would you share?

Running out of Google photos storage seems to be an issue for missionaries. My missionary too.

Any tips on organizing digital photos?