Home Gets Mighty Quiet When Children Go on Missions

Published May 10, 1990. I know, I know. Last week I wrote about taking our daughter Tammy to the LDS Missionary Training Center in Provo. Well, we went there again this week and took our son Brian, now Elder Barlow, where he began his training for the Taiwan Taipei mission.

Having a son and a daughter leave home within seven days is a mixed blessing of both joy and sadness. Things are so quiet right now in our home. I think I am partially deaf. I’ve probably been that way for the past three years but have not known it because of all the noise and commotion in our home when Brian and Tammy were there.

People have asked us, “What is it like sending two LDS missionaries off within one week?” Susan and I understand in the early days that missionaries went out “two by two.” We decided it is time to get back to basics in religion. My wife and I also note with interest that when missionaries went out “two by two” in the olden times, it was without purse or scrip. We now know why. It was probably at the request and/or condition of the parents who sent them.

We are also asked, “How we are going to support two LDS missionaries?” It will be through a combination of faith and works. (Three of our children . . . and much of our money has gone to college.) But we will manage. Like most other families, we have had our financial ups and downs. And Susan and I have learned one important financial lesson in life: “It is always the darkest . . . right before the storm really hits.”

Just like the previous week, I became a bit misty eyed and nostalgic before we took soon-to-be Elder Brian Barlow to the MTC. I recalled some of the times while he was growing up. At first, we worried that he wouldn’t go on a mission. Midway through his teens we worried that he would. I recalled one occasion when he skipped Sunday School and went to worship at Winchell’s Donut House with two of his friends.

I also remembered the night when Brian and I were home alone, and I called on the intercom and invited him to come up from his room in the basement and join me in prayer. He responded (half-asleep) that he didn’t want to get out of bed.  He wondered if I could say the prayer over the intercom, so he wouldn’t have to get up. I was annoyed with his lack of religious fervor and asked him over the intercom if I should also try and get a little FM music for background effect while I prayed? Brian finally gave in, crawled up the stairs, and joined me in prayer.

I recalled sitting with him on our back porch the day of his high school graduation from Orem High. I was feeling philosophical and asked him what the most important thing he had learned thus far in life was. He paused only momentarily and said he had learned at Scout camp how to revive dead flies with salt. I was truly amazed. He asked if I wanted a demonstration, but I said there really wasn’t time before his commencement program began. After high school graduation, Brian spent a semester at the BYU-Hawaii campus and returned in January to prepare for his mission.

The time arrived for us to leave for the MTC on Wednesday morning. What do you say to your son during your last hour together, when you know you won’t see him again for two years? We told him we loved him, were honored to be his parents, and respected his decision to serve an LDS mission in Taiwan.