While preparing for our second mission to Peru, our family sat down and started a list of pros and cons a family might find in considering a family mission. A teenager pointed out that most things on the list weren’t truly “pro” or “con,” but rather just observations that became a “pro” or “con” depending on the perspective of the individual. So this is a list of thoughts to take into consideration as you ponder on the possibility of serving a family mission; you get to decide for yourself what is a pro or con. We also found that this list could go on and on, so we tried not to!
- Serve the Lord together
- Have opportunities to strengthen testimonies, our own and those of others
- Strengthen family ties
- Make memories
- Open eyes to another culture in a way a short trip can’t
- Risk the resentment of children
- Escape commercialism
- Safer than home (in ways)
- Enjoy things we couldn’t afford at home!
- Pollo a la brasa w/ papas fritas and a salad for under $2! (that was in 2013–and better quality and taste than we can find at any price in the U.S.)
- Help their economy
- Declutter without actually moving
- Make new friends
- Improve foreign language skills
- Miss events, people, school, special field trips
- Time of braces
- Manage financial cost
- Manage the logistics of leaving your home: renters? pack up the house?
- Manage the logistics of work and school (internet is a must)
- Access medical care
- Deal with our peanut allergy
- Have educational experiences
- Our home ward also needs us
- Pay for insurance in the U.S. that we aren’t even using
- Kids can’t earn money as well
- Can return to where you serve at a later date, maintain relationships, and perhaps serve there again!
- Difficulty in communicating (one complaint some of our kids had was how boring three hours of church was in a foreign language they didn’t understand very well).
- Cooking is challenging, tools and ingredients are different
- Beautify your feet! (Mosiah 15:14-17)
- Increase appreciation for blessings.
- If renting out home below market value, rental income is tax free
- Cool and unique family vacations
- Bragging rights
- internet is slow
- increased confidence
- leaving undesirable influences behind
- It’s a chance to edit your life and live with less
- Unforeseen opportunities (for example, some of our kids can now say they competed in swimming internationally–who knew there would be a swim team near our town?)
- Miss sports and music or other activities
- missionary opportunities
- special diets may be difficult
- Save significant time and money on remodeling your home–we came home to find we didn’t really need to upgrade after all!
- Many things take longer or are inconvenient. Like getting places–waiting for a combi/bus and figuring out public transportation. Mail wasn’t really a thing…
- Develop resilience
- Llamas! Or lack of llamas. Or alpacas. We saw very few, and those were in zoos or tourist sites. (I was told the Spaniards brought disease that killed them off in Cajamarca.) Do you know the scientific name for “llama”? Llama glama. No kidding.
Do other “pros” or “cons” come to your mind? If so, add a comment below.