This is A Personal Touch, a chance to check in with ordinary people making an extraordinary difference in the world. I’m Rebecca Cressman and today I’m excited to introduce you to our guest Marie Ricks. She is a professional organizer whose books and workshops and private consulting have helped people better manage their homes, their work and their families. Now in your family, Marie, you have five sons and a daughter-in-law; congratulations on adding a girl to your family!
Oh it has been a wonderful experience for our family to have another female close by.
Q: And I’m thinking during the holidays that must have been even more special for you. But it is the life of your youngest son Evan who motivated you to write your latest book called Organize for a Mission, a Guide for Parents and Missionaries. Now you dedicated the book to him and yet this must be a painful memory for you?
A: Well it’s an interesting thing for me, the experience of losing a son and yet gaining so much over the years as in his honor, myself and my family have reached out to the community, to our church, to other families in need. My latest project especially because he would have turned nineteen this year and he won’t go on a mission in this world, and I somehow wanted to send him on a mission through a book.
Q: Now Evan died of leukemia a long time ago, and you said he would have turned nineteen in November of 2008, yet your other four older sons have served missions. They went to Brazil, Paraguay and to Italy and so you have been through the experience of what it is like for a family to receive a mission call for their child and then have to be prepared. I have yet to be able to have that experience. We are preparing to send a son off, but as you were thinking, “Okay I’ve been there; I’ve done that; what do families need to know?” What were some of the areas that you felt were most important? And we’ll go to the shopping, but was there also some emotional preparation you wanted a family to be ready for?
A: Well absolutely because there are many, many facets of missionary work that I did not understand: the preparation of the missionary himself; the preparing of myself to send a missionary off. Of course there are all the physical things that need to be done which takes a lot of time and energy, but growing up a missionary in and of itself takes a lot of time and trouble and thought more than anything else. I did it wrong a few times and so by the time I had done it four times it became clearer and clearer in my mind the kinds of things that helped, those things that hindered, and some things I could just discard altogether because they were peripheral and really didn’t make a difference.
Q: And for those who haven’t been through the experience, the mission call arrives. There is a location assigned to that missionary and an invitation for them to go and serve for the Church of Jesus Christ of Latter-day Saints. And there is also information as to whether they will be learning a language. Now you would think that would be right off the start, that the Church would want a missionary to begin studying language but that’s not it. They actually want the missionary to prepare himself for two years away from home. Now you have some helpful charts and helpful steps. As you walk that through are you trying to prevent families from feeling like they have to do all of this in the first five days of receiving a mission call?
A: Absolutely. And as a matter of fact the book is really written so that parents can start far earlier than when that actual mission call comes; to focus on skills that the missionary will need to be independent; to be able to cook and to budget and to mend clothes and to make wise purchases. Skills that normally will serve them during the two years they are away, but will ease the mind, especially of the mother, that the son or daughter can in fact function at a very high competent level in addition to the pressures that serving a mission will bring.
Q: Hmm and everyone starts thinking as you listed some of those off: financial abilities, the abilities to cook and to provide for him or herself. What about the type of clothing? You have a section that addresses smart clothes shopping. Indeed they will be bringing most of their apparel that they will wear for the entire two years for men and eighteen months for women. What lessons have you learned after sending four boys off and then returning home as well?
A: More than anything else I have learned that the extra cost to buy high quality is well worth the investment because in fact it is an investment. Of course, shoes are always an issue. People worry about blisters and those kinds of challenges and that is one place where you spend high and you shop long to make sure that the shoes fit well and are comfortable from the very beginning. Luggage is really important because when those wheels drop off or the strap pulls right out of the luggage you are thinking, “Oh, what an extra twenty dollars would have bought for convenience.”
Q: So shop long. Take the time necessary to make sure that they are a comfortable fit before you make that purchase.
A: Well the book details: okay if you’re shopping for an overcoat, here are the fifteen things to look for. And while you might not find the perfect overcoat at least when you shop for an overcoat you’re not shopping blind. You can look for the things like a zippered inside that can be taken out when it is a little warmer. For the length that is right, for the buttons that are secure, and for the little strap that allows the coat to be hung when it is sopping wet from a rainstorm. These are just little things that make the difference between a well-purchased tool that the missionary can take versus a trinket that looks really nice but really doesn’t function well during the missionary’s tenure in the mission field.
Q: Now as you mentioned this book would be shared with individuals preparing to go on a mission and it might be something that they follow a year or two ahead of time so that they are more independent. Are you hoping then that the missionary reads this book or that the family reads this book together?
A: Well the sections are addressed to different members of the family that will be a part of the mission experience. There are sections for the parents; the kinds of things they should be thinking about and preparing for. There is a section specifically for the missionary, not only his preparations physically with regards to budget and cooking but wrapping up his life before he leaves on his mission or she leaves. How are you going to handle your packing? What will you save; what will you give away? What should you be thinking about? Then of course, there is a section written to both the missionaries and the family about how will you preserve missionary letters and pictures? What will you say and how will you keep track of records and take care of taxes. There are just a lot of little details and I tried in the book to list everything that my experience has exposed should be addressed in a systematic manner. It’s not a lot of work but it’s nice to know what work needs to be done so it can be done in a way that allows the pacing not to become frantic—especially at the end.
Q: And you also have some kind of shortcuts to our (I don’t want to say cuts) but things that you’ve learned are essential kits that will help that missionary in many different situations. Was it based on some of your own sons’ experiences?
A: Actually it was. My first two sons I sent out and I didn’t know everything that I knew until they came home. With my third and fourth son I actually prepared different kinds of kits which are basically small zippered containers that confine like things together so that there is a first aid kit or an office kit or a cooking kit. For instance, my sons went to foreign missions. They know and understand cups and teaspoons and tablespoons. The recipes I sent with them were those measures but they couldn’t find those things in the countries they were at. I had a repair kit and a sewing kit and even a vital documents kit which was a copy of all the important papers they would need so until I could send them another certified copy, they could at least prove that they existed; that they were born; they had a driver’s license, etc.
Q: And when you think about for young men nineteen years old and for women twenty-one, they are trying to live their whole lives out of a suitcase.
A: Out of a suitcase, right!
Q: So you are saying that these kits help them organize, because even though it is a small amount of things there are a lot of… the list goes on and on of what they should be bringing with them. And you could envision them opening up a suitcase and two hundred things spilling out all over the floor not knowing really how to organize themselves that way.
A: And having these little kits relieves some stress from the parent’s point of view and empowers the missionary. He pulls out a kit and yes right there in that kit there are band-aids and antiseptic and other things he will need to take care of an ingrown toenail. Another kit there’s a little stapler and staples and a paper punch all ready for his use so that he can spend more time and energy being a missionary. I say ‘he’ mostly because I didn’t have any ‘she’s.’ [Laughs]
Q: Well, I’m curious because you talked about how you are addressing a section for parents and you are addressing a section for the missionary—his or herself—both of them have to let go when a missionary goes and yet we’re letting go of different things aren’t we? What as a parent were you trying to help other parents understand in terms of the process of letting go?
A: Well it’s really important to understand, and this was a new experience for me, that you will get lonely for your missionary long before he or she leaves your home. There will be this aching and this longing and it’s a natural part of the process of saying goodbye, especially for me because we have actually lost a son to death. For me when my missionaries left it felt like they were dying and I now realize that it is important to understand that these are agonizing emotions. They do let up over a period of time and they are best handled by doing something positive both for the missionary and for others that live closer in your proximity. So I can’t send loaves of bread to my missionary in Paraguay, but I could bake loaves of bread for say a senior missionary couple that are serving in my own ward. In other words, by me serving here maybe someone in Paraguay will serve my son.
Q: You brought tears to my eyes when you talked about that loss, because parenting is so much investment and then letting go—letting them become, and move, and become independent individuals. For the missionary did you interview your sons about what they felt like they were letting go when they stepped out of the house and into the Missionary Training Center and said goodbye to their family and friends?
A: I really did Rebecca. For about two months before our missionaries left, I would take our sons on walks all by myself and just let them talk about what they were feeling so that it could be verbalized and brought to the forefront. I asked them if there was anything special they wanted to do one last time. If there was something we needed to wrap up or prepare food-wise or an activity they wanted to be involved in. Surprisingly they would often choose the simplest things. One son wanted to have a snowball fight with the family one more time. Another son really wanted to buy a certain kind of ice cream and sit on the floor in our family room around the fire and talk about memories. Doing this helped them close this life even as they began and anticipated their new life which would be a life very different from what they had known and a little bit frightening quite frankly just because it would be so far away, whether it’s another state in the United States or another country in the world.
Q: Now even as you mention that and in the book dedicated to Evan that is called, Organize for a Mission, a Guide for Parents and Missionaries, ironically you indicated that when you are missing a son or missing a daughter who is out serving a mission one way to alleviate some of that is to serve others around you. You right now don’t have missionaries out per se, but you are right in the middle of—I guess I could call it—Mission Center. You are at and serving in the Missionary Training Center. You must feel like you have an opportunity to rub shoulders and rub arms and see the sons and daughters of other families first hand every day.
A: You know I do, Rebecca, and it has been a great blessing in my life. It is sort of like I am the foster parent to 2,000 missionaries instead of to a single one. And it has been a wonderful blessing in my life to shake hands with the Elders and to hug the Sisters. To look for that lonely Elder or Sister at the Missionary Training Center that just needs a tiny bit of attention or a friendly hello. It’s kind of allowed me to keep parenting and loving my own missionary even though it is through other missionaries that I do that.
Q: Well, Marie, thank you not only for your service to your family but your service to us as an extended family, helping all of us not only organize our homes and our families but now organize ourselves and our children for their missions.
This is Marie Ricks. Thank you so much for joining us today, we sure appreciate it.
Thank you so much, Rebecca, for the opportunity to share my heart.
And I’m Rebecca Cressman. We want to thank you for joining us for this week’s edition of A Personal Touch. Be sure to check your email next Saturday to find out who else like Marie Ricks is making a difference in our world with ‘A Personal Touch.’
End of interview.
