Missionary Phone Calls!

There are few things greater on Christmas Day than the phone calls that parents get from their missionaries.

As I have said before we only get to talk to Kira and Derek on Christmas and Mother's Day.

Our first call came at 8:03am from Derek...

Because I have not seen a picture of him nor spoke to him since he left in March there is no way to tell you how calming it was to hear his voice. He sounded so good and very happy. We only got 1 hour to visit with him...so passing the phone around made all of our conversations really short. His favorite thing was telling us HOW he killed the chicken in Angola...to detailed for me. That he had got hit by a car...yep...slidding on the sidewalk his comp slipped bumping him into the road. He said, "it was my good foot that got ran over" WHAT!!!! but, he was "lucky" and was not hurt. I told him he was blessed! One of the great protections that come to missionaries. It was so hard to tell him good-bye. I let Kirk have to hang up...it about broke his heart.

At 10:10 our sweet little spanish accented daughter yelled Feliz Navidad!!

she quickly added I only get to talk for 45 mins!

WHAT...I can not even begin to tell her all I want to in that short of time!

Kira first asked me to grab a piece of paper so I could write down a couple of things she needed.

* black & white scrapbook paper *iron ons to make some t-shirts

No somethings never change! She is still as funny as ever.

She told us she is planning on going back to Argentina or Chile when she gets home...

WE WILL HAVE A LONG TALK

I had sent her the Nov. 2008 Ensign with conference addresses. She said she had been "eating it up" She had love the talk by L. Tom Perry. She felt as if he was talking to her. Especially the part of his talk when me mentioned Thoureau,

"When the two years ended, he left his cabin behind without regret. He considered the time he had spent there a proper amount of time to accomplish his purpose—to experience the spiritual benefits of a simplified lifestyle. He also felt he had other life experiences ahead of him. It was time to move on and explore other opportunities."

They have a special family, the Sergio Andrés Rivadeneira family that takes very good care of them. Christmas morning they arrived at the Sisters' Apartment with a chicken and potatoes. Kira was so grateful for their kindness and wonderful meal.

Christmas Morning all of the missionaries had gone to a childern's hospital and sang songs and shared little gifts with the childern there. She said it was very humbling.

Again the time was way to short...this time I was the one that had to hang up ...

only 100 days and Kira will be home and only 5 months and I will get to talk to Derek again!

The simple joys of a missionary mom.