Missionaries used to only get to call home twice a year - Christmas and Mother’s Day. It sounds mean and overly strict to the modern mind, but you have to remember that it used to cost a lot of money to call long distance. I couldn’t even call my cousins that lived 30 minutes away without paying long distance fees, so missionaries calling home from all over the world would be pretty expensive. Also, our culture wasn’t so attached as it is now. We spent significant amounts of time every day being unreachable to each other, so while twice a year seems cruel now, it wasn’t always so.
I experienced the twice a year rule and hand-written letter era while Scotty was on his mission (email became more common and available for missionaries shortly after he came home - we barely missed it). I survived. But now I am a victim of 2025 and the technology available to us, and I need to talk to my son every week. I just gotta. So I am very thankful that we have the resources to make that happen and that the Church has adapted its policies to allow us to do so. Not only do I get to see my son on video chat weekly, I feel like we are more active participants in his mission. We get to be a part of it and be more involved in the experience.
1 comment:
That's such a great picture!
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