I
know you are excited to be able to visit with you missionary on Mother’s Day on
the phone. The Missionary Handbook states:
“You may telephone your parents on
Christmas and one other time
during the year (usually Mother’s Day),
according to the guidelines from
your mission president. Take care that these
calls do not pull your thoughts
away from your service…Keep them short (preferably
no longer than 30
to 40 minutes). Other than these calls, do not
telephone family members
or friends unless you have permission from
your mission president.”
I
would like to emphasize who the missionaries are to phone—parents. Sometimes everyone (brothers, sisters,
grandparents, aunts, uncles, friends etc.) want to talk on the phone as well.
Parents of course want to visit last and often they will only have a few
minutes left. After some rationalizing and justifying, the missionary standard of
30 to 40 minutes is exceeded which causes the missionary to be disobedient. Please
help your missionary be obedient. Receiving the Lord’s help in this
work is so very important. As the scriptures say “And when we obtain any
blessing from God, it is by obedience to that law upon which it is predicated.”
(D&C 130:21)
I
would also ask that you erase and not write down their phone number after they
call. You may be tempted just to keep the number for some reason or another. I
assure you it will not be necessary and in fact may be detrimental to the
success of the missionary. I am aware that some parents have kept this phone
number and later phoned or texted their missionary with some news they just
felt was needed immediately. I assure you that this is a major distraction to
missionary work and indeed does much more harm than good. If there is an urgent
need to get information to your missionary, please contact your stake president
and he will contact me. I will do likewise if there is urgent information we
need to get to parents. Sister Sagers and I certainly understand your
excitement as we too will receive a call from our missionary son on Mother’s
Day. We have committed to follow the same guidelines we have given you.
We
do all we can to see missionaries are successful. Please know of our love and
appreciation for the sacrifice you make to keep your missionary on a mission.
Helping them be obedient will be a great blessing for all. Your missionary
should let you know in their email on May 6th of the time they will be calling. It is not necessary to call the mission
office and correlate this. If you have a preference of time or if you
are not going to be home, you can let them know in your email. Please be
mindful of their need to attend to their meetings and other missionary work on
Sunday. Also, if parents are in a foreign country, the Missionary Department
has asked us to not use mission cell phones for the calls to parents.
Missionaries have been asked to coordinate the use of other phones to call you
if such is the case.
Thank you,
Joseph M. Sagers
Texas
Fort Worth Mission President
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