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The following comments have been edited to prevent internet crawlers from
harvesting names and email addresses and any other personal information that
could be used either to generate spam or aid in identity theft.
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Note 1: Edit First
| I edit my son's weekly e-mails to take out anything personal or private,
then send them on to our family. There are many friends at church who
have also asked to be on the distribution list. It keeps everyone
apprised of what's going on, plus it's a missionary tool for those
friends and family who are not church members. At the very beginning of
our son's mission, I sent the first e-mail, with a proviso that
people could opt out of the distribution if they didn't want to get a
weekly e-mail. Only 2 family members have asked not to receive the
e-mails!
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Note 2: Facebook.com 1
| I am using facebook to share my son’s mission news. He set up a
facebook group called “So I've been called on a mission.” He
set it up before he left and used it to invite friends to his mission
farewell. Before he left he made us, his parents, administrators. Anyone
can post on his wall. But as administrators we can update the “recent
news” section and address section. We post excerpts from his letters as
well as pictures.
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Note 3: Facebook.com 2
| My son had a Facebook account before he left on his mission, his
sister manages it now; posts pictures and publishes a teaser:
“Elder is gearing up for a baptism on Saturday. Read his blog to find
out the details.”
His other sister edits his emails, (cuts out personal
stuff) and posts them, and any pictures she likes best, on a blog she set up. Anyone
can access that without joining anything. It is working out very well and
the girls are doing a great job.
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Note 4: Idea For Moms
| Just thought I'd share an idea that we're doing in my stake. Once a
month all the moms of missionaries get together for a luncheon or a
dinner and share news of their kids. It's a great way to connect and a
terrific outlet for moms who never tire of talking about their
missionaries!
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Note 5: Interminable Questions
| I use an online site (missionsite.net) for posting
letters and pictures. Like any life changing event, sometimes we get
tired of answering the same question over and over again, like "she's due in
September and she's feeling fine!" and so referring people to the web
site gives them a chance to catch up on the missionary info without
having to "bug" us constantly.
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Note 6: Know Mission Rules
| Some missions do not want their missionaries to have Facebook accounts,
even if the missionary does not access it, so you should check before
setting one up or maintaining an existing one for your missionary. My
daughter's mission president told every missionary to delete their Facebook
accounts before arriving at the MTC.
[Editor: Each mission has specific guidelines and rules which are important
for the missionary to be willing to strictly obey. They will be blessed by
making that choice. The family at home, however, has their agency and must
prayerfully consider how they will proceed. On a very technical note, I
strongly advise that if you choose to put up a facebook or missionsite page
for your missionary, you be very, very certain you never divulge your
missionary's current apartment address. You never know who is accessing the page
and what their intentions might be towards your missionary. We had a photo
'hijacked' from our Pearsonals page and put up on a very vile, profane and
inappropriate website with a name like "Lucifer's Lair" that vilified us,
our websites, the LDS Church and our Savior. Be careful.]
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Note 7: MissionSite.net 1
| MissionSite.net is so easy to set up and make your own website. You
can post letters and pictures, and it's free!!!! I post everything
there and just tell family and friends to go there for the latest and
greatest!
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Note 8: MissionSite.net 2
| I have had a blast creating and updating websites for my 2 missionary
sons. A free place is available at www.missionsite.net
It is so easy. They provide a template
and you just fill it in. I am able to post pictures, letters, emails,
news, etc.
When the mission is over MissionSite has a program to create
a CD of the entire site for a fee.
I included the web site addresses for the boys' sites in our Christmas
newsletter so our family and friends would know where to find info
about the boys. I have given the site address to several of my boys'
non-member friends... I'm hoping it will be a good missionary tool.
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Note 9: MissionSite.net 3
| We started a web page on missionsite.net. It is
a lot like facebook. We really like how it works and family and friends
are able to read his letters and look at his pictures. My
husband updates it each week and our family and friends like it much
better then facebook.
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Note 10: MissionSite.net 4
| My son and I began a missionsite page before he left.
He never had a Myspace or Facebook account so it seemed the best way to
keep friends and family informed. I ordered business cards for him to give
to friends and teachers--most of whom were not LDS. I also sent them to
family and friends in other states. I occasionally have run into some of
his friends and teachers and they tell me how wonderful it is to check in
and see how he is doing. My son doesn't have access, so if people put
messages on it that I think he would like to see, I just print them and
send them to him.
I have found this to be a great opportunity for non-member friends and
family to read his testimony in their own homes and feel his love for what
he is doing and the Spirit that accompanies it.
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Note 11: MissionSite.net 5
| I set up a www.missionsite.net website. I
copy/paste the content of my son's weekly emails into the letter section
and add photos as we receive them. I delete any personal content or
anything that might be seen as "negative" about a companion or anyone else, things like that. In the "links" section, I have manually added
links to his friends' sites who are serving elsewhere.
Missionsite.net site automatically adds links
to anyone who is serving in the same mission.
I email my friends and family, who are set up as a group in my
email account (I use gmail because they use groups in an easy way for me).
I give them a very brief description of how he
is doing, any major things that have happened, perhaps a milestone of
how long he has been serving, and then provide the link to the website
so they can read the actual letter and see pictures if they would like to.
Everyone is very happy with this and I get emails from various people
telling me they are glad I keep them in mind; sometimes they
look at the site if they have time, other times they just read my quick
update but everyone feels like they know how he is doing.
We've been very happy with this site.
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Note 12: MissionSite.net 6
| Sharing my missionary's news and pictures was a big concern to me since
he has 28 aunts and uncles and 64 cousins, and he is very social so
there are also a lot of friends to keep updated.
My answer was to use missionsite.net.
There I could build a semi-customized webpage in only about
1 hour. The things I enjoy about this site are the easy set up, links
to all other missionaries from his mission who use missionsite.net,
great photo display page, great letter index and easy to read letters
format, an event listing and a front page with complete information on
how to write him, his current area, his scripture and a picture. I am
able to keep his webpage current with about 15-30 minutes per week
depending on whether he sent pictures that need to be uploaded. It is
easy for people to find if they know about it, because it pops up if they
google Elder B*** W****.
The next step then is how to get all those who would love to visit his
webpage to know it is there and to go there. I invited them all to
visit when I initiallly set it up by sending the email notification.
After that I used his first few MTC emails as bait - forwarding them on
to friends and family and then adding the link to his webpage and
inviting them to go there to see pictures or read other letters. I also
encouraged them to add the link to their "favorites" list so they could
return easily in the future. For the first 6 months of his mission, I
occasionally send out a great email to share or a great picture and
include his webpage link. It must be working - he has been in the field
for 54 weeks and his site has about 25,000 hits, so someone is looking
at his letters and pictures. I love visiting there too, especially on
days when I miss him.
A word about privacy in this very public forum for sharing. Some
experiences are too sacred to share here. Some experiences reflect
poorly on others involved. Most information about investigators is too
personal to post. Be sure to edit letters prior to posting them in
order to preserve privacy and keep sacred events sacred. To do this I
copy and paste his emails into a word document format,
edit them to ensure privacy, etc and post the edited
version on his webpage.
Lastly, in this digital age if you keep your site complete and
well-maintained it will serve well as their missionary scrapbook when
they return. At that point in time if you want a hard copy, you can
print out all the letters and pictures, etc and assemble them in a
binder. Voila': mission accomplished!
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Note 13: Mom Group
| There are 7 moms whose sons were friends in high school and are all
serving missions now. We get together once a month for dinner and we
bring a newsletter - enough copies for all the moms and a couple extra
for some other friends. We exchange the newsletters and each mom mails copies
of the newsletters to their own son.
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Note 14: Online Sites 1
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Note 15: Online Sites 2
| I maintain three different websites for my son's mission info, one on
DearElder.com to make it easy for people to write to him, one on
Shutterfly.com to share the majority of his pictures and other info,
and one on MissionSite.net for his weather and time info plus general
sharing of some pictures and letters.
Each of these services offers a
way to create and personalize an individual page for your missionary,
each with its own unique website address. I keep all three sites updated
with his current info, including current companion, area, some letters,
etc. Also, I have added links on the pages (other than the DearElder
one, which at this time does not allow for it) where people can click on
questions like "Want to know what Mormons believe?" (linked to
mormon.org). I have links to the Church's website, pouch mail info, a
BYU site explaining what LDS missionaries do, etc., and also links to
each of the other pages, too. In this way, these mission sites also work
as missionary tools themselves. The websites have counters on them to
show how many times they have been viewed, and it is interesting/amazing
how fast the numbers grow. I would say that the Shutterfly site is
probably my favorite, as it is the most customizable and does not
include things I have no control over (advertising or links). I know
that there are other services available online to host individual pages,
also.
I have used my home computer and made business cards with my son's
three mission website addresses on them. We give them out to friends,
family, ward members, etc.: anyone who asks about how he is doing. We
try to keep some with us at all times, because you never know when or
where we may have the opportunity to share one.
My son also had a Facebook account before his mission which his older
sister now maintains for him, plus she created a Facebook "group" just
for him as a missionary. She invites people to join the group to show
their support for him (we periodically write him and tell him how many members
it has), and on the group page there are links to the
aforementioned websites, plus his mailing address.
Anyone with a computer and Internet access can easily keep up with our
missionary :)
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Note 16: Online Sites 3
| I started a blog for my daughter. I have never blogged before. It is
free, easy and fun! My daughter sends a main e-mail each week that I
post to her blog. It tells us what has gone on the past week. She also
includes a picture or two. Then she sends us a shorter e-mail directed
to just our family. It has requests for things she needs, answers to
questions, etc.
It is a great way to share her e-mails. If someone wants to, they can go
to older posts on the links for "blog archive" and read every e-mail she
has sent. I can keep her current address where everyone knows where to
find it. We have also maintained her facebook account for her. I
occasionally update her photo and status so her friends don’t forget
her, and I also include a link to her blog on facebook.
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Note 17: Scrapbooking Online
| A mother of one of the boys in my son's graduating class started a blog
about those who serve missions. She began with the first member of the
class to leave by posting his picture, mission and MTC date. She would
update the blog each time another boy received his call. When the
missionaries returned she would put their homecoming information for
everyone. Each missionary has a link in the blog for parents to log in
and share news, stories, pictures, etc. It's a great way to keep track
of all the misisonaries that my son went to school with.
This same mother also does a missionary newsletter each month.
Parents/missionaries are invited to email a short message/info to her
and each month she compiles the responses and sends it out to all the
parents. The parents then can forward it to their missionary (if
the rulles allow them to do so) or print it off for their scrapbook. It is very
interesting to hear all of the stories from missionaries all around the
world.
[Editor: If we'd done that in my graduating class, it would have been a full-time
job. We had over 750 graduates of which around 300 served missions. Good Old Orem
High School class of 1973.]
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Note 18: Ward Newsletter
| For a while I did our ward newsletter which was sent to the missionaries.
Then I adapted it to include an entry from each of them, and removed the
non-essential information in the newsletter, like whose turn to clean the
church and things like that.
I was released from doing the newsletter, but still do
a compilation every month for the missionaries. I have each Mom forward me their emails or
letters or whatever they want to submit, then I compile and format them and print the
newsletter
and mail it to the missionaries. We have 11 out right now from our
ward, all over the globe. Sometimes the newsletter will include pictures, sometimes not -
it's really up to the Moms as to what they want to give me.
We tried to have the missionaries write an entry to their fellow Elders,
but that didn't work very well because in some missions they are asked not to take time
away from writing their family, or they just didn't do it often enough, or enough of them didn't do it, so now we just do it the other way.
It's been fun! My son has loved hearing about all his friends. Plus it gives
them ideas of different ways for contacting, teaching, etc., from different missions.
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Note 19: Web-Log or Blogging 1
| We have a blog about our family. This includes my sisters family as
well. We can post short films, and pictures. I also include our
missionaries address so if other's want to write him they can. If our
missionary sends us films, I modify them shorter and post them as well.
We set it up at blogger.com.
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Note 20: Web-Log or Blogging 2
| Yes, it really is easy! I was a little intimidated at first but before
long it's like breathing.
All you need to do to get started is go to
www.blogger.com and follow the prompts. There's even a link to a training video.
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Note 21: Web-Log or Blogging 3
| You can go to www.blogger.com and follow the
instructions. Just use your email account as your login and choose a password.
We have Picassa on our computer too. At the bottom of the Picassa page it will
say "Blog This", and some other options. So you just highlight the pics you want to add and
hit the BlogThis button.
I'm still learning myself. My
daughter helped me set it up and we have made it possible for all of our
family members to be authors so that we can all add stuff.
It's kind of fun because you can add a sitemeter to it and then you
can follow the world map and see all the places that people are looking
at it. There are also sites where you can go to add cute backgrounds.
This is how I am going to keep track of his photos. I will get photo
books made up when I have enough pages and it will be a good history
of his mission. I also keep a hard copy of all of his letters and
emails in a binder and then keep mine to him in another one. That way we
both have journal entries during the two years of the mission.
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Note 22: Web-Log or Blogging 4
| My husband started a blog that is only our daughters letters and the
pictures she sends. We have loved this and friends and family can
subscribe to it so they are notified when her weekly letter and
pictures are added to the blog. It has every letter she has emailed to
us since the day she entered the MTC.
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Note 23: Web-Log or Blogging 5
| Two of our daughters helped set up a blog for our missionaries. That way
family and friends can get on and see what they are doing. Our
missionaries do not access it, but when they come home, I have heard
that you can get your blog made into a book. So that is what I am
hoping to do. It is fun to post their photos and letters for their
friends and family to read.
One thing good about blogger.com is that when pictures are posted out of order, because they are posted
them when they come, I can go back and date them accordingly and then they will be in
order by just changing the date for the post.
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Note 24: Web-Log or Blogging 6
| I started out with a dearelder.com site, but found it was too
limiting. You can only have so many characters in a section. I wanted
to have a place that someone who only checked in on him once a month
could see all of his letters and pictures. Plus uploading pictures on
it was a pain.
So I started a BLOG on blogger.
I have loved it. Each week, I post his letter
(excluding any personal stuff that the whole world doesn't need to
read.) I can put a wish list, a link to a slideshow of his pictures,
etc. Plus I can add my own thoughts and feelings about having a son
serve a mission. It has worked out real well for me.
I do not put his current address on it so the weird creepy people
couldn't have his address. I just put a note to email me for his
current address, then put my email on it for a contact.
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Note 25: Web-Log or Blogging 7
| I have started a blog, which I was sure I wouldn't have time to do.
But, I have found that it is actually fun to write about the
things our family is doing. It isn't specifically devoted to my
missionary, but I put things up as I feel appropriate and
it is so fun to read other's blogs as well. I also forward letters
and pictures that I get from my son on to family and friends so that
they are kept updated weekly.
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Note 26: Web-Log or Blogging 8
| We have a family blog at blogger.com.
I post our family news as well as newsy, non-personal parts of my son's emails.
Family and friends check the site regularly. If we have big
news or a concern, we email and call the family. We like it and so do
our friends and family - they may not comment much, but people do know
how our son is doing on his mission and how we're doing as well.
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