But what about the missionary parents?

Mis-sion-ar-y (n.) Someone who leaves his family for two years so that others may be with their families for eternity.

 But what about the parents? The ones he leaves behind?

What do you get when you put nearly 20 missionary parents together at the same time in a relatively small space? We found out yesterday afternoon, as parents of missionaries serving in the Arkansas Little Rock Mission of the Church of Jesus Christ of Latter-day Saints gathered in Lehi, UT. We come from different families, different backgrounds, different traditions, even different states. But we have this one thing that unites us: Each of us has sent a child, a precious son or daughter, all the way to Arkansas for two years (18 months for girls) to volunteer their time, effort, strength and energy at their own expense to spread the Gospel of Jesus Christ. And that is enough. That is enough to bind us with a bond so strong and so intense that several of us found ourselves still there, five hours after we first arrived, wrapped in conversation, hanging on each other's every word, knowing we needed to leave, but not wanting to.

It was most incredible. A room full of people who, in most cases, had never met, were so engrossed in conversation that from the outside looking in, you'd swear it was a family reunion of folks who had known each other all their lives.

Now who's your son again?

Oh, Elder ___________! My son loves your son.

Where's your daughter serving currently?

Bartlett? My son's in Collierville!!! That's really close to Bartlett. I'm sure they know each other.

Who's your son's companion? Oh, my son served with him a few months ago. Awesome missionary!

 How long has your son been out?  Wow, 10 months already! Mine comes home in 6-1/2 months, but who's counting? Wait, I am!

So many questions. So many answers. So much love. Missionary parents "get" each other. We understand why Monday is the best day of the week. We know how it feels to wait for that P-day email and then to sit at our computers, feasting our eyes on every single word. We remember that MTC drop-off day. Some of us were stoic, at least until we drove away. Others of us left our kids, their very last memory of us sobbing uncontrollably.

We missionary parents love to talk about our missionaries. We love to tell their stories. I will never forget yesterday when one mom told us all about her elder's extreme fear of dogs. "Mom, I'd rather serve in inner-city Memphis where I might get shot than have to go to a house where there's a dog." But of course, there are dogs in the Arkansas Little Rock Mission. Lots of them. When this young elder encountered one such ferocious canine creature, he insisted that he and his companion climb up on top of their car and sit there for 45 minutes in order to stay safe. We all listened intently to this story, awaiting its outcome, when the mom mentioned her missionary's final comment: "Mom, if that dog hadn't been chained up, he would have eaten us for sure! He wanted to eat me!" By this point, we were all laughing so hard we could hardly contain ourselves.

We heard the story of one elder who loves to sing and how he sang the other elders to sleep every night in the MTC. We heard stories of hard days, hard weeks, hard transfers. We heard stories of grace and miracles and baptisms and personal conversion. I even snuck in my elder's spider bite story. We love to tell our missionaries' stories, and we love to hear them. We got to hear many stories from our guests of honor, a couple who very recently returned from serving six months in the Arkansas Mission. Technically "senior missionaries" (though these two are barely middle aged), they had met all our kids, or very close to all of them. They didn't necessarily serve with all of them, but they met them. That means they have seen our kids more recently than we have. Did we hang on their every word? Their every story? Ya think? Thank you, Tom and Linda, for your service to the mission and to our kids and to the Lord. And thank you for coming back to Utah to tell us about it. We are grateful.

We tell the stories because we can't bring ourselves to say what is actually in our hearts. That we miss them. We miss them so much. We are so very proud, and we wouldn't have them anywhere else doing anything else. But we still miss them. Two years is a long time to be away from one's child. But it's a sacrifice worth making.

Mis-sion-ar-y (n.) Someone who leaves his family for two years so that others may be with their families for eternity.

Ding Dong

Every time you move to a new community, you discover a unique culture. We were quite "at home" living in Washington, probably because Gerald grew up there and I grew up in Oregon, whose culture is much the same. Things made sense. We understood why people did what they did. Everything felt familiar. When we migrated to Montana in 2004, we found ourselves in a brand new culture. Lots of things were different. For one, it seemed as if everyone we met enjoyed outdoor recreational activities, especially hunting. This was new to us. That's not to say no one hunted in Washington. I'm sure some people did, but it was the exception, not the norm. Now let me be clear; I have nothing against hunting. Absolutely nothing. If people like to hunt for their food, that is totally fine with me. I happen to prefer to buy mine at the store....well, truth be told, I actually prefer to buy mine in restaurants and eat it there too, but either way, I don't hunt for my food, and neither does Gerald. In Montana, lots and lots of people hunt. In order to do that, they need guns. In their homes. This made me very nervous. When we moved there, I had three little boys, ages 13, 11, and 4. I didn't want them to go to homes with guns. The idea scared me beyond belief. But I also wanted them to have friends, and like I said, it seemed as if practically everyone we knew liked to hunt for their food.

In time, I eased up a little, but it wasn't easy for me. I had lengthy and repeated discussions with Isaiah and Eli about the danger of guns. "If you ever see a gun in someone's home, you leave immediately. You don't ask questions. You don't stop to look at the gun because you are curious. You don't ever, ever think of touching it. You leave the house. You walk right out the door. Then you find a phone and call me." Once I believed I had this sufficiently drilled into my boys' heads, I began to let them go to friends' houses where I knew there were guns. I didn't like it. I never liked it. But I did it.

Here in Utah, it is much the same with the hunting thing, so I've taken the same precautions with Seth. Lots of talking about this issue. Lots of warnings, repeated over and over. And thus far, my kids have stayed safe. There are other cultural surprises here, none as dangerous as the combination of guns and children, but new and different nonetheless. Most I find amusing, especially the linguistic differences. I am, by nature as well a by profession, interested in language. Here in Utah, they have several expressions and word usages that were new to me, and I've enjoyed finding out about them and even expanding my narrow experience in order to embrace some of them. For example, here in Utah they call "pop" (you know, carbonated beverages like Pepsi, Dr Pepper, Sprite, and my drug of choice - Diet Coke) "soda." They call it "soda." It's so weird. Because when I picture a soda, I see a large glass containing a specialty drink that includes ice cream and flavored syrup with carbonated soda water. I have the fondest memories of sodas. As a kid, every time I had an orthodontist appointment, on the way home, my dad would take me to our favorite soda fountain on Division Street, and we would sit on stools side by side and each get a chocolate soda. I miss him. I will always miss him.

But I digress. When they say "soda" here in Utah, they mean regular pop. Because I am a self-professed Diet Coke addict (Hi, my name is Terrianne, and I'm a Diet Coke addict), I order pop quite regularly, and I must admit that after two years here, I am gradually becoming converted. Maybe half the time now, I say "soda." Sorry, Gerald, I know you hate this, but I really do it. Then there's this other language difference. In Utah, they "tend" children. Where I come from, we do not tend children. We babysit them. We care for them. We watch them. But we don't tend them. We tend sheep. Well, actually most of us probably don't have any sheep, but if we had sheep, we would definitely tend them. But we don't tend children. I hear this expression all the time, probably several times a week, and every time I hear it, I visualize this vast field and a shepherd and hundreds of little kids running around. And it makes me smile. I am not converted to this one yet, but who knows? Maybe in time I, too, will tend children.

Perhaps the most surprising cultural shift that I've discovered living here in Utah, is the number of times my doorbell rings. I'm pretty sure I went weeks at a time in both Washington and Montana without ever hearing that sound, at least not unexpectedly. And yes, both houses had doorbells.  People here love to "drop by." They drop by just to tell me things, usually just one small thing. They could call. They could send a text. They could email. They could Facebook message. But they don't. They come over and ring the doorbell. And I startle every time it happens. I fear something terrible has happened to one of my children, and the police have come to tell me. Really, that's what I think because I am so unaccustomed to people just dropping by. (Okay, it's also because I'm a crazy, over-the-top, uber-anxious mom, but mostly it's because I'm just so not used to it.) It is definitely ingrained in the Utah culture.

I have to wonder if it has to do with the Mormon tradition here and missionaries. I have a missionary serving now. I know he spends countless hours, far more than he would like (because actual appointments are so much more effective than tracting), walking the streets of Collierville, Tennessee, ringing doorbells. Or perhaps it is just the tradition of person-to-person, face-to-face contact in our church. I'm not sure. But it is very new to me. In Washington and Montana, people rarely just drop by. If they want to come visit, they always call first. It's almost considered rude not to do so. But that is not the case here. I'm trying to adjust. Along with the initial heart attack when I hear the doorbell (Oh no! What is wrong?), I don't love greeting people unexpectedly. Why? Well, let's just say that I don't always exactly look my best when I'm at home. Especially right now when I'm in my semester break, deep cleaning mode. I get started right away after waking up, before I've showered or done my hair and makeup. I wear the oldest, rattiest clothing I own because many of my cleaning products contain bleach. I look like the Wrath of God, and then somebody comes to my door. It literally happened four times yesterday within just a few hours.

My choices are to ignore the doorbell (feels rude, PLUS what if it really is the police informing me of an accident with one of my children?!?) or to answer the door, humiliated by my pathetically disheveled appearance. Neither is a good option, but I tend to choose the latter. This is most certainly a cultural difference that I will need to adjust to if I am to live here. I'm not there yet. I am working on it.

Meanwhile, I need to go answer the door.

And they're off...

Backpacking.

It is a legend in our family. For over 20 years, Gerald has been taking our kids, just as soon as they're old enough to be safe, on overnight backpacking trips. In Washington, they hiked the Cascades; in Montana, it was the Beartooth Mountains; and now in Utah, there are a crazy number of choices right close to home.

Me? No. I don't backpack. I love a good day hike, not so much because I enjoy hiking, but because it's a super good calorie burn, so I feel like I can eat whatever I want on hiking days. But overnight backpacking? No. I did it once. It was back when we were very newly married, newly enough that I wasn't even pregnant yet, so it had to be within a few months of our wedding. I tried my best. I really did. But the problem is that I am a woman, and a curvy one that that. I really don't think women were ever intended to sleep on the ground. We have too many curves. My hip bones dug right into the hard earth, and I barely slept at all. Then, on the way out, I was eaten alive by mosquitoes. They just love me so much! Yeah, that was the one and only time I went backpacking.

But Gerald loves it. He loves it so much that he is willing to do whatever it takes to make sure our kids have positive experiences and great memories, and they all do, every one of them. Countless stories have come home from the dozens of backpacking trips he has taken with one or more of the kids. I'll never forget the time he came home from a trip with Luke and Shulamith. Isaiah and Eli were still tiny, and Seth was not yet with us. Luke had severe asthma as a baby and young child. Most times that asthma was triggered by viruses, but occasionally his allergies would cause a reaction. Gerald walked in the door, followed by Shulamith, followed by Luke, who honestly looked like an alien. Oh how I wish I had a picture to show you, but imagine this: his ears were swollen to about twice their size, and his eyes were nearly swollen shut. His entire face was red and itchy. I was FRANTIC! We got him some Benedryl right quick, and he improved immediately, but it was scary.

But my favorite story of all Erichsen-Webster backpacking history is one told to me by Luke, NOT Gerald. The two oldest kids were young; it might have even been their first trip. I'm guessing they were maybe 7 and 6, or there about. Now keep in mind that when they were that young, Gerald didn't make them carry anything. Like not a single thing. He would carry the tent, all three sleeping bags and pads, all the food and cooking equipment, absolutely everything. So his pack was heavy. Very heavy. Apparently, Shulamith was having a "moment," and she no longer wanted to hike. She was tired. She was hot. She was done. But there was still plenty of mountain to climb before they would reach their campsite. So what did Gerald do? He left Shulamith sitting in some shade and carried his pack up the trail 100 feet or so. Then he went back, picked up Shulamith, and carried her up to his pack. Then he did it again. Over and over and over, until she was feeling better and able to walk herself. But when I asked him how the trip went, he didn't mention this story at all. I wouldn't know about it if it weren't for Luke. Gerald told me it was an amazing trip and that everyone did well. That's how much he loves to hike. That's how much he loves his children.

And the legend continues. Pictured above are Gerald and Seth at the trail head where I dropped them off this afternoon. They will spend the next two days up in the mountains together. They took cards and a cribbage board. They took lots of yummy snacks and plenty of sports drink. And this time, Seth even carried his own pack. I hope they have an incredible experience as they add to the memories that will never fade.

Meanwhile, I will sleep comfortably in my bed.  :-)

See. I Really Do Have Friends - Road Trip to Oregon - Part 3 of 3

I have lived here in the Salt Lake Valley for two years now. I like most everything about it. I like the size of the city. I like the mountains all around. I like the TWO shopping malls just short distances from my house. Oh, and I really like my house. I like my very part time job. I like the variety of restaurants nearby. Most especially, I like that Shulamith lives right downstairs. I know that can't last forever, but while it lasts, I will enjoy every second. Yes, for the most part, I like it here in Utah.

One challenging part, however, is that after two years, I haven't really had any luck making friends. Okay, I guess you could say I have made two friends here: Jane and Jennilyn. So if either of you is reading, I am not forgetting you. I love you both, and I am grateful for you. But only two in two years??  It's weird, especially because I have never struggled with this before. I have made amazing  friends every other place we have lived. I have all sorts of ideas (all purely speculative) about why it's so much harder here, the social culture, etc., but I won't go into all that. Mostly, we just laugh at the situation. A while ago, a person from my ward "unfriended" me from Facebook. Yep, for reals. So not only can't I make friends; I can't keep the ones I have. This gave us further opportunity to laugh because laughing is clearly better than the alternative. Shulamith will just out of the blue say, "Remember that time you got unfriended from Facebook?" Hahahaha!

More often, though, she says, "You have friends. Many. They just don't live here in Utah." And that is the absolute truth. Which brings me to this third installment of my blog about our recent road trip. On Friday, I left Shulamith, Seth, and Swen with my mom and escaped by myself for a night of socializing. It was awesome! First, I stopped at Lloyd Center to meet up with my friend Lisa. It was pure serendipity that I would get to see her because she lives not in Portland but in Billings, Montana. She works for Horizon Airlines and was in Portland for the week training new employees. I wrote about her once before here, so I won't say a lot. Except that with Lisa, it doesn't matter how long it's been since we last saw each other or even had any contact (in this case, a full two years), we pick up right where we left off. We are instant BFFs again. It's as if we were never apart. We spent two full hours immersed in conversation, and it was lovely.

My intent was to ask strangers to take pictures of me with each friend I saw that night, but I got way too wrapped up in conversation to remember to do that, so I had to go with Plan B and steal photos from Facebook in order to prove to you that these people actually exist. Here is Lisa with her daughter:

From Lloyd Center, I made my way over to Chicago Pizza to have an appetizer and a soda with my friend Janice. She is a friend from the distant past, when we lived in a house whose backyard was adjacent to hers. We lived there when I was in 5th - 8th grades, the longest we ever lived anywhere. Our moms were "over the backyard fence" friends, and Janice and I played together almost daily. Her sweet mom, who passed away just a year ago, was my 4-H leader. My culinary skills were no better then than they are now, but Jeanette showed me such kindness and patience, regardless. I will always remember her. Janice and I lost contact for many years but reunited through Facebook to discover that among other similarities, we both married and had five children. Here is Janice with her son's little boy:

All too soon, that visit ended, and I headed across the parking lot to meet my friend Lorrie for dinner at a Mexican restaurant. Now unlike with Lisa and Janice, Lorrie and I remain in close contact almost daily, through the technology of email. Though we see each other rarely, those frequent emails which discuss the ins and outs of both our lives keep us intimately connected. Lorrie and I go back almost as far as Janice and I (though not quite). I met her when I was 13 and joined a service organization called Rainbow Girls. We remained friends through my high school and her college years and ever after, and we were each other's honor attendant at our respective weddings. Lorrie doesn't use Facebook, so I had to resort to stealing a picture off her daughter's wall. I am resourceful indeed!

So ended my socializing for that evening, but there was even  more to come the following day. On our drive to Boise on Saturday, we once again stopped at McDonald's in The Dalles, but this time my friend Diane met us for a short visit. I knew Diane when we lived in The Dalles between 1985 and 1991. She had four "big kids," while I had only two tiny ones. In fact, her daughter Anne-Marie was Luke and Shulamith's first babysitter, and a wonderful one she was! I looked to Diane as the ideal mom, and I wanted to be just like her. All these years later, I hope I at least partly succeeded. Here is Diane at her son's wedding:

The only unfortunate part to all my socializing is that I barely got to see my brother while I was in Portland. Ironically, his vacation week was the exact same week we were there. Thankfully, we got to stop by his work for a brief visit the night we arrived, but he seriously needs to come to Utah. Soon. Are you reading this, Tom? Here is a picture of him with his three cute daughters:

So there ya have it. See. I really do have friends.

Down by the Sea - Road Trip to Oregon - Part 2 of 3

It goes without saying I'm not a sun worshiper. I like rain. Anyone who knows me, knows this. Close friends sometimes even refer to rain as "Terrianne weather," as in "We are having some excellent Terrianne weather today." It would follow, then, that I would not be a "beach" kind of girl. We associate the ocean with sunshine, warmth, and blue sky, certainly not with rain. But then we all know I'm often a walking paradox: a smart phone addict technophobe, an animal-loving ophidiophobe, a liberal Democrat Mormon (which is actually a perceived paradox, not a real one), just to cite a few examples. Ha! Anyway, I do love the ocean, sunshine and all. Okay, yes, I'd prefer a rainy, overcast day at the beach, but I'll take it however I can get it. Growing up in the Pacific Northwest, I became accustomed to going to the beach whenever I wanted, a situation I definitely took for granted. Landlocked here in Utah, I miss it.

So last week, when we visited Portland, we spent one day in Seaside, on the beautiful Oregon Coast. I have memories of going there as a child. My family took very few vacations, but we did visit Seaside for a weekend at least once a year. My four older children (before Seth's time) share those same memories because my mom took them to Seaside each year to celebrate the 4th of July. We all remember riding bikes along the prom, feeding the seals at the aquarium, eating copious amounts of food at the Pig 'N Pancake, playing Fascination, riding the Tilt-A-Whirl and Bumper Cars, and watching fireworks from out on the beach.

Because Seth never had this opportunity, it was fun to take him last week. Not much changes in Seaside. It looked pretty much the same as I remember. Initially, thick fog made the actual ocean impossible to see. "Is there really water out there?" Seth wanted to know. "Yep, you will just have to trust me." We wandered the town, ate some ice cream and fudge, rode the Tilt-A-Whirl (Seth and I), and browsed shops. After lunch, Shulamith noticed a bit of blue sky to the west. Maybe Seth wouldn't have to take my word for it after all. Sure enough! We wandered back to the beach, and the fog had lifted, allowing a majestic view of the Pacific Ocean. It was fairly warm, too, warm enough to go wading and wave-jumping. Here are some pictures of our fun:

Seth and I jumping waves!

Swen with his grandma

Our two boys playing in the sand

Swen and Mommy

Buried alive!

Mom, Seth, and Shulamith

Swen and I

I would say this was the best day of our trip, but I'd be lying. Sort of. Instead, I will say that it is tied with the following day. But that will be Part 3, written and posted tomorrow!

Mostly Happy Trails - Road Trip to Oregon, Part 1 of 3

As I explained here, we had some trepidation about traveling 1,600 miles round trip in a car with a one-year-old. But we faced our fears and did it anyway, and although we wouldn't want to do it again any time soon, the trails were mostly happy. It was far better than either of us expected. We divided the trip into two travel days to get there and two more to get home. We we stayed in Ontario, OR on the way over and in Boise on the way back. Each of the four travel days was around six hours of driving, give or take, and of the four days, three were amazingly easy. We timed it so Swen would be napping during the morning drive, and then we stopped for long lunch breaks and let him play. That meant way too many meals at McDonald's, which has the best play areas, but it was worth it. All three of us actually love McDonald's food, but one day we ate all three meals there, and yes, that was a bit much.

My favorite McDonald's stop was in Hermiston, Oregon, the second day en route to Portland. How do YOU spell "nostalgia"? For those of you who don't know, 30 years ago today (!), Gerald and I were married in Hermiston. I only lived there under two years (he lived there longer), but still there are memories that never fade about that little town in the middle of Nowhere, Oregon. I was freshly graduated from college when I moved there for my first teaching job at Armand Larive Junior High School. Gerald had been there a few years already, working for the newspaper. A city girl, I had never lived in a place so small. I figured I would die there, single, among the tumbleweed, dust, cowboys, and girls with tattoos (no judgment here; this was before girls got tattoos). I was wrong. I met Gerald just four months after moving to Hermiston, and we were married six months later. Luke was born about a year after that, and we lived in Hermiston until he was six months old.

We didn't drive around the town as much as we would have were it not for Swen needing to GET OUT OF THE CAR, but we did go by the apartment complex Gerald and I lived in and the Shari's restaurant where we ate the night we met. Next time (distant future, but still...) I will definitely spend more time there and explore further.

I mentioned that three of our four travel days were easy. That is true. The only sketchy day was the second one driving from Ontario to Portland. Swen slept in the morning, but by the afternoon, he was pretty much "over" his car seat. Shulamith has taught him to say "up," when he wants to be picked up. Poor baby did his legit best to say "up" as clearly and as sweetly as possible, over and over, but sadly, no one could pick him up. We were in the middle of ridiculous traffic on Portland's Banfield Freeway during rush hour, trying to get from the east side of Portland over to Hillsboro, where my mother lives. It sucked, and Swen thought so too.

Our only salvation was Seth, the most awesome helper ever. The last child in the family, he never had the opportunity to be a big brother, but he'd have been a rock star at it, given the chance. He sat in the back with Swen, read him books, fed him snacks, played him Baby Einstein videos, gave him toys, sang him his favorite songs (The Itsy-Bitsy Spider, and Twinkle Twinkle Little Star), and did all he could to make him happy. Honestly, we could not have done this trip without Seth. Here he is duct taping the DVD player so Swen could see it from his car seat. Thank you, Seth. You are amazing!

Not gonna lie. It was a long drive. Very long. But we are glad we went and glad the trails were mostly happy.

On the Road Again

Though I live with people who pretty much detest country music, in my heart, down deep, where it really counts, I am always longing to "go to Luckenbach, Texas with Waylon and Willie and the boys." I explained about that here, so I won't go into details, but as we prepare for what, for us, is a very long road trip, I can't help but sing

On the road again -
Just can't wait to get on the road again.
The life I love is making music with my friends
And I can't wait to get on the road again.

Okay, maybe we are wimps, Shulamith and I. I mean Celeste puts her four little kids in her van and drives all by herself from San Antonio to Salt Lake City in two days and thinks nothing of it! But for us, this road trip from here to Portland with Seth and Swen is just slightly foreboding. Keep in mind that Swen didn't always love the car. He does fine now, but six hours two days in a row and then the same thing a week later? A total of 24 hours of driving in one week? I don't know. We rented him several "Baby Einstein" DVDs from the library; no, he doesn't watch TV normally, but perhaps when he is strapped in a car seat, he will? And we got bubbles that Seth can blow for him. And we got lots of his favorite snacks.

Which brings me to my next point. Road snacks. My children believe one cannot go on a car trip longer than 30 minutes without snacks. Lots of them. I have no idea where they would get such an idea. Shopping for road snacks is an "event" in our family. So I took Shulamith and Seth to pick out their favorites, and this was the result:

Gerald said that with all these snacks, we wouldn't need to stop for meals, but that's the most ridiculous idea ever. We will stop. Probably several times. At fast food restaurants that have play areas for children. Depending on how Swen feels about this whole "road trip" deal, we could spend several hours in these restaurants.

Along with road food, we have gathered all our electronic equipment in order to keep ourselves sufficiently connected to the world. We have a power source in the car, so we can plug in the DVD players and also charge our cell phones and e-readers. We have a speaker system, so we can listen to Pandora (my personal radio station, which includes plenty of country. Sorry, Shulamith!).

Thank you very much, scientists, who developed the technology which makes possible everything in the paragraph above. Thank you very much, Gerald, who made us a list of all the exits between here and Portland and which ones have food, gas, etc, and which are designated rest areas. If Swen becomes fussy, at least we will know what is up ahead. Thank you very much, "Pioneer Day," a state holiday in Utah, which makes it possible for me to take a week off in the middle of summer semester. Wow, I feel just like Jimmy Fallon!

So we are set. By tonight we should be safely in our motel in Ontario, OR, our halfway point. Please wish us luck (lots of it) as we embark on this adventure, as we are

On the road again!