Reason for limited contact with family while serving mission?

[megangreen]

I'm the only member in my family (1 yr a convert), and I am planning to serve a mission. My parents have a huge issue with not being able to contact me for 18 months. I'm having a hard time explaining to them why talking to them on the phone is considered distracting. I understand the reason behind the rule, but I'm having a hard time explaining to them and having it make sense to them. I explained it would make me more homesick, that it's distracting, etc., nothing is helping.

Anyone have any advice? Or reasons for that rule that I don't know of?

[Dravin]

1) They can contact you weekly via email, if available, or via letters. They may be focusing on the phone thing but saying they can't contact you is incorrect.

2) To my understanding you've nailed the reason behind the rules, fundamentally the concern is distraction. One thing to consider is that long distance phone calls are relatively expensive and not everyone's parents can afford them. If one companion is saying goodnight to their parents over the phone on a weekly basis or what have you and another's companion can't afford such phone calls it's not just distracting to one companion, it is a distraction to both. The same applies to visits.

That said I have heard of missionaries receiving exceptions where concerned non-member parents are involved. I don't know how common such exceptions are or how exactly one goes about getting them.

Edited January 31, 2014 by Dravin

[notquiteperfect]

Dravin mentioned what I would have. I will add though that I've known moms that actually have a hard time with the Christmas and Mother's Day calls because they miss them more and they go through that process all over again. Think of it like ripping a bandaid off - doing it quick and for good is actually less painful.

[Wingnut]

That said I have heard of missionaries receiving exceptions where concerned non-member parents are involved. I don't know how common such exceptions are or how exactly one goes about getting them.

I had a companion who was baptized when she was 18 (she had to wait two years because of lack of parental permission). She was raised Buddhist, and her family was Cambodian. They fled to the USA while her mom was pregnant with my companion, in 1980. They're fairly traditional still, and had a hard time with her Church membership at all, let alone her choice to serve a mission.

While this companion and I were serving together, her grandmother passed away. She received special permission to call her parents. Under the circumstances, our mission president sought (and received) approval from the local area authority Seventy for my companion to attend her grandmother's funeral. She went home for three days*, had to stay constantly with her mother or one of her sisters, and then came back into the field without missing a beat.

It was an extreme circumstance, and had she not been allowed to attend the funeral, there could have been irreparable damage in her relationship with her family. Fortunately, my mission president was an incredible man and understood this need. In fact, I don't think my companion even asked if she could go home for the funeral. She asked permission to call her parents, but that was it. They had called the mission home, and it was the mission president (or maybe his wife) who broke the news to my companion. He already knew enough of my companion's history and family circumstances that he took the initiative to make things happen for her to be able to go home briefly.

*One day really. It was a cross-country flight, so while she was away from me for three days, she was with her family far less time than that.