SAGE'S BIRTHDAY

It has kind of been a hard week.

Everything about the mission is great - truly.  It is a blessing to work with the missionaries as they are so earnest and sincere.  The only hard thing about this week was that I found myself thinking about my children and grandchildren a lot.   I kept seeing pictures posted of all the things they were doing and I found myself thinking about them all the time.  Then on September 2nd, I knew it was my oldest grand-daughter, Sage's, 3rd birthday.  Oooh, I was sad to be missing her birthday.

On this day, the President and I went out on "team-ups" with the missionaries:  he went with a set of elders and I went with a set of sisters for the afternoon and evening to do missionary work.  The set of sisters I worked with spoke very little English.  One of our first appointments was with an older gentlemen, who is investigating the church.   At one point, he and his wife showed us a picture of their daughter and two young grandchildren.   I complimented them on what a lovely family they had and started to explain that I had 3 grandchildren, the oldest of which was celebrating her birthday, "today".  And at that point...completely spontaneously, I burst out into tears right there in front of the whole group!  The gentlemen was very sympathetic, but all he could say in English to me was "Take it easy".  Oh my, I was so embarrassed.

 We finished our visit, left and started walking down the street, where I started crying again and told the sister missionaries that I missed my children and grandchildren.  Even though they couldn't understand exactly what I was saying, they understood what I was feeling.  They hugged me and said something about "familias eternas" and that missing our loved ones is a good thing.

Unbeknownst to me, the gentlemen investigator had come out and was following us.  When he saw that I was still crying, he again came up, patted me on the shoulder and said again with a very compassionate look on his face, "Take it easy".   It was really so, so sweet of him!

I managed to sort of focus on our missionary work the rest of the day.  It is tough though, when everyone else is speaking Spanish and at this point I only understand about 25% of what is being said, it takes really dedicated focusing not to let your mind wander.  Anyway, I managed!

So, yes, I have been homesick, and as the sister missionaries told me, it is natural and probably good to miss our loved ones when we are away.  After all, that is what life is about - loving each other, wanting to be together - forever.  It is God's Beautiful Plan of Happiness!