JD Phone Home!!

Missionaries in our church aren't allowed to call home except for Mother's Day, Christmas, and when they are in the airport on their way out of the country. Well, there might be a few other exceptions, and certainly if there was any kind of emergency they would be allowed. It's not so much that the Church is trying to separate them from their families, but they have found that it can be a huge distraction, especially to missionaries who might already be homesick. So that's the rule, and it wasn't a hard one for me to follow when I was a missionary. My family wrote me letters, and that was good enough for me.

Last night my missionary son was able to call us from the airport. He actually called from both airports. :D We listened to him on speaker phone so that the whole family could be in on the call. He first called about 5:30. Then he flew to Los Angeles and called us about 11:00 at night. He was due to fly out at midnight, and was scheduled to get to San Salvador about 5:30 in the morning.

While we were talking on the phone, the cat came by, so the kids tried to get the cat to meow for him. My son adores the cat, and always says he misses him more than he misses the family. ;) I laughed so hard watching my kids try to get the cat to meow. They were jostling him near the phone, and turning him upside down; anything to try to get him to meow. I really thought they would pull his tail, but I think they love him too much to do that. But what really made me laugh was that this mellow, easy going cat of ours never did meow, but started purring! How does a cat purr while kids are jostling him and turning him upside down? We shoved the phone up next to his throat and let my son listen to the purr. lol

My son just celebrated his 20th birthday. We sent him some cupcakes, candles, matches, and balloons. I thought he would go outside and light the candles, but he didn't light them at all. We also sent him an MP3 player. He is allowed to listen to classical and religious music as long as it is conducive to the spirit. He couldn't listen to music at all in the MTC, but will be able to in his mission. We loaded it with Mormon Tabernacle choir, and BYU Men's chorus music. My daughter used her Mac to record some "special" arrangements of her own for him. One of them was our family singing Happy birthday. I think there might also have been a missionary "rap" in there somewhere too. We also told him some "clean" jokes. The nice thing is that in the future we can send him more music on an SD card.

My son told us that his suitcases were EXACTLY 50 pounds! Any more and he would have had to pay a fee. He didn't even have to give anything away that he needed, and he took some extra things that he didn't have to take.

I'm really excited for the opportunity he has to serve a mission in El Salvador. I think there will definitely be some culture shock at first, and a few language barriers to overcome, but his spanish is coming along nicely, and I think he will have a GREAT experience!