Ensign, March 2011
Preparing Emotionally for Missionary Service
Parents,
your influence in the lives of your children doesn’t stop after they
enter the Missionary Training Center. It does shift, however. Here are
some ways you can support your son or daughter in your new role as a
missionary parent:
1. Let your missionary be responsible for the success of his or her mission.
Parents who insist on being informed about every detail of their son or
daughter’s mission unintentionally place a great burden on the
missionary. Missionaries must take personal ownership of their own
missions. Every missionary fulfills his or her mission under the
direction of the mission president, not under the direction of parents.
2. Allow your son or daughter to live on the missionary budget.
Parents who send extra money so missionaries can eat fast food rather
than cook their own food not only detract from one of the great learning
experiences of the mission, but also encourage missionaries to break
mission rules. This “assistance” reduces the spiritual growth of the
missionary. It also prompts missionaries to criticize the missionary
program.
3. Communicate properly with your missionary.
This means sending a letter or e-mail no more than once a week. Your
communication should emphasize spiritual and faith-promoting
experiences. Details about family problems burden and discourage
missionaries. Likewise, it is inappropriate for the missionary to ask
parents for a solution to a missionary problem over which the parents
have no control. Parents who call their missionary at times other than
Christmas and Mother’s Day are encouraging him or her to break mission
rules.
If
a serious accident or a death should occur in a missionary’s family,
the family should notify the mission president by calling either the
Missionary Department in Salt Lake City.
This enables the mission president to personally notify the missionary
of the event. The mission president can then help the missionary with
any serious emotional concerns. If appropriate, the mission president
will authorize the missionary to call home. Such emotional care is
essential for the well being of the missionary.
4. Trust in the Lord to watch over and bless your missionary son or daughter. As President Thomas S. Monson
has explained, the Lord has promised His blessings on the missionaries.
“Each missionary who goes forth in response to a sacred call becomes a
servant of the Lord, whose work this truly is. Do not fear, young men,
for He will be with you. He never fails. He has promised: ‘I will go
before your face. I will be on your right hand and on your left, and my
Spirit shall be in your hearts, and mine angels round about you, to bear
you up.’”4
Just
as missionaries rely on the Spirit for guidance in the work, you can
also rely on the Spirit to guide you in the best ways to support your
missionary.
5. Pray in faith for your missionary daily.
President Gordon B. Hinckley also described the role of daily prayer in
a missionary’s life: “Every morning … missionaries should get on their
knees and plead with the Lord to loosen their tongues and speak through
them to the blessing of those they will be teaching. If they will do
this, a new light will come into their lives. There will be greater
enthusiasm for the work. They will come to know that in a very real
sense, they are servants of the Lord speaking in His behalf.”5
As missionary parents join their prayers each day with those of their
sons and daughters, they will share in the blessings of missionary
service.
