Day 14: Keep in Touch

Okay, so I played with titles for this post for way too long, but you’ll get the picture soon enough. The year I graduated from high school I had six cousins go on missions–three sets of siblings, all her sisters’ kids.

Mom was a very good correspondant.

One of the cousins even had a comp from the MTC whose family had essentially disowned him, so she wrote him too. Seriously, I have no idea how she kept up with everyone as I’m fairly certain most of them received letters nearly every week. I wrote one of them semi regularly–once a month or so, and then I added a few other friends as they left on their missions the next year, but I can’t imainge keeping up with that many letters going from South America, New Zealand, Europe, and here in the states. (I’m having a sudden brain lapse and can’t remember where David went–Rebecca, I know you read my blog all the time, even though you never comment. Where was it again?)

What’s funny is expectations. There was one person in particular she didn’t expect to hear from much, but she did. Often. He became a very close correspondant during his mission. I heard many stories through her, for example about his being paired with another Elder who had his same last name, which was rather confusing to the people in Brazil.

Since none of her own kids served missions (You know, if you don’t consider the fact that Laurel’s whole life is practically a mission) maybe this was her chance to do her part to support family who was serving. In any case, she was a great example to us all about supporting family and strangers alike.