Supporting Your Own Missionaries

 Supporting Your Own Missionaries

April 17, 2014

A friend of mine from back home has been asked to help with a sharing booth at the next BYU Women’s Conference.  Her assigned topic is “Supporting your own missionaries.”  She is searching for ideas and insights.  Since I am in the perfect place to get feedback, I decided to see what I could find out from the Italy Rome Missionaries.  We had a Zone Leader Conference today in Rome and had 18 elders attend  (sorry, no sisters this time).  I asked them for suggestions and a very enlightening discussion followed.  At the end of the session, several of the missionaries asked if I would please post it on the blog so their parents would see it.  It wasn’t something I had thought about, but in order to honor their request, here it is:

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*The #1 requested item was peanut butter.  (We live in a country where it’s very difficult to find peanut butter, and even if you do find it, it’s very, very expensive.  If parents send it to their missionaries, they may or may not get it.  All mail goes through customs and may have a huge customs fee attached that the individual missionary has to pay before getting it.)

*The next item was deodorant, Old Spice to be specific.  (Remember this is all elders responding.)

(At this point the discussion turned very serious when one elder opened his heart and shared what he really liked to get.)

*Doctrinal insights--things his parents or family have learned through the years.  Personal stories of how this insight came about and how they have used it throughout the years.

*Family History--They have reached a point in their lives where they love learning about their ancestors.  (Family history is something we are stressing in our mission because the Italian people love their families.)

*Updates on what their family is learning in church.  One elder’s mother sends him a letter every week telling what she learned in Relief Society.  He was really touched by it.

*Praying for investigators by name--Missionaries love it when their family members tell them they prayed for one of their investigators and referred to him/her by name.  The support suddenly becomes more real and personal.

*Parents and siblings who respond to the challenge to read the Book of Mormon.  We have several missionaries who are recent converts to the church and in many instances are the only members in their family.  It’s an emotional thing for them to learn that a family member is trying to understand why they joined the church and left home and how the Book of Mormon has influenced their lives.

*Feedback on letters sent home.  The missionaries love it when their questions are answered and not just ignored.  Many times new things have transpired and parents and family tell them about those things and forget that their missionary doesn’t know what happened the week before.  (I have one missionary that really feels bad because he gets a letter every week, but nobody answers his questions.  We’ve talked about it a couple of times.  Surprisingly enough, he was in the room today, but it was another elder who brought it up.)

*Helping solve problems.  When a missionary tells his family about a problem, it usually isn’t because he/she is complaining, but because they really want to find solutions.  One missionary said how much it meant when his parents sent quotes that deal with the problem and what they did on their missions to deal with similar things.

*Remember other people.  Updates about what is going on at home in the ward and neighborhood can be good.  They might be serving missions, but they will come home and they don’t want to be alienated.

*College help.  Some missionaries don’t even want to think about what they are going to do when they get home.  They are here to serve for 18 to 24 months and that’s all they focus on.  Some missionaries are just grateful when mom or dad just handles everything and they don’t have to worry about it until their mission is complete.

*Financial needs.  Most missionaries understand the financial contribution mom and dad make every month.  They may not have understood it or appreciated it when they first came to the mission field, but they do after they have been here a while.

*Hardcopy pictures.  This one kind of surprised me as I listened to them say how much it meant to get real pictures instead of e-mailed copies.  Pictures they can hold in their hand and show other people have more meaning because it takes more thought and effort to have them printed and sent and even more importantly because they know the hands of a loving mother or father have touched it.