8: From Helicopter Mom to Mission with Guest Erika Johnson

In this podcast episode, have a heart-to-heart with Erika, a guest who stumbled upon me through a missionary mom's Facebook group and decided to join my coaching program. Erika opens up about the rollercoaster of emotions she went through when her eldest son embarked on his mission to Brazil. She candidly shares her astonishment at the sparse communication of her son's challenging encounters with cultural clashes and a mission president who seemed more preoccupied with quotas than spiritual nourishment. Erika confesses that she had braced herself for a continual spiritual euphoria and found it hard to accept the stark reality of her son's mission life. She explains how my program helped her learn to step back and encourage her children to navigate challenges, temper her expectations, and distinguish between burned toast and the house burning down. Erika also highlights the incredible value of the supportive community she found and the vital insights she gained for when her next son would set out on his mission.

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Transcript

Michelle: 0:29

Welcome to the podcast. I have a guest with me today who has been through my program and I am excited for her to be able to introduce herself and tell you about how she found me and kind of the benefits. So welcome Erica.

Erika: 0:44

Thank you, Michelle. Thanks for having me on. Yeah, my name is Erica. And I live in Virginia and I found Michelle on the missionary mom's Facebook page. She posted that she was going to start doing some coaching and I was lucky enough to be chosen to be part of her pilot program. And my oldest son just came home from his mission in October, but I definitely had some issues that I needed to work through there and I have another son that is planning on leaving this summer. So I was hoping to learn some skills that would help me be more prepared for him.

Michelle: 1:22

Awesome. So first of all, where did your son serve? Just out of curiosity.

Erika: 1:26

Yeah, he served in Brazil in the South Curitiba. So yeah.

Michelle: 1:32

Awesome. Cool. So he was your first missionary.

Erika: 1:36

Yep. Yep. He's my oldest and my first missionary to go out. So it was a lot of, a lot of new, a lot of

Michelle: 1:42

learning. Okay. So what was surprising when you first sent him out? Well,

Erika: 1:49

at the very start, I was just so surprised that he actually was not. Not, he didn't bring a phone with him. So even like from the very beginning take him to the airport and he was 18 when he left. So. You know, I guess I still felt like pretty young and just putting him on a plane and not knowing, you know, how he, how he was going to get there. And if he was going to get there safely we actually had bought him a burner phone just like one of those pay as you go phones so that we could sort of stay in touch with him. But once he got to Brazil, he could email us but he couldn't, He couldn't text or call us so, and the last thing that I heard from him in Brazil was that he had missed a flight and that he was getting on a bus and he didn't know where he was going, but to some other airport, like, it just seemed like I was just feeding him to the, to the wolves and hoping he would make it out. Okay. And then we never, we didn't ever hear, didn't ever get a picture or any sort of email or anything from the mission president that he got there safely. So it was, it was hard. And the mission after that, like, it was a hard mission. I mean, he had a native mission president who I think had a different just a different philosophy about, I guess, how to keep or not keep parents in the loop about things. And it was just really, really hard for me to just kind of like swallow that and just. with it, like without asking any questions or having any information or it just really hard. Really hard. His whole mission was really hard, but especially with that mission, president was very difficult for me and for him.

Michelle: 3:36

So were the expectations like what you thought was going to happen? Like Yeah. Or were you just completely blind or how, how did that unfold? Yeah,

Erika: 3:48

I think my expectations for how it would be is that it would just be a spiritual high for him and for us like that. We would just have all these blessings spilling out that there wouldn't be any room for questions or any negative feelings because it would just be amazing all the time. Like, I don't know how I felt like I was set up. To expect that, but for some reason, I just thought, well, Heavenly Father is just gonna Protect us and, and keep him safe. And he's going to have this amazingly spiritual experience. That's going to last him the rest of his life that he's, you know, going to want to tell all his posterity about forever. And it's just going to be amazing because we chose to send him away. And he chose to put his life on hold that it was just going to be blessing. Like, I just felt like there's no room for any negative. Like, it's just going to be amazing. And

Michelle: 4:44

then,

Erika: 4:46

and then, and then it wasn't, and then it wasn't, it was hard. And he was like, in one of the first set of American missionaries to go back after COVID. So the mission was very small and it was comprised of pretty much exclusively just, just Brazilians. So they all had a different culture and he didn't speak the language, you know, he. He was kind of all by himself, isolated, and it was really hard for him, and it was really hard for me to see him struggle so much, and not be able to do anything, like, I couldn't, I couldn't help, you know, I just had to kind of try to be positive about it, try to put a positive spin on the things he was telling me, and just try to be a cheerleader from the other side while secretly freaking out, you know, and just like, is this a mistake, you Did we, you know, I honestly thought like the first mission president was so numbers. Everything was numbers and getting them baptized. And half of those people that were getting baptized, number one, barely knew the gospel. Number two, the percentage of the ones that, that stayed in the church was very minimal. My son was telling me that the bishop really didn't love the missionaries because they were just putting more on their plate. You know, they were baptizing. The numbers were amazing, but. My son was saying, I feel like a hypocrite because this is not the gospel that I learned. You know, we're just trying to get them wet and pass them on and get, go on to the next one. And that was hard for me to hear because I'm thinking this is actually hurting his testimony. It's not helping him. And it's not really helping these people and it was kind of hard for me to to trust that this was a part of his plan that he was meant to be there and I kept trying to hold on to that, that, you know, you're called where you need to go and experiences that you have there are going to be what you need to have and we did see some of that come full circle, especially when he got his new mission president, but Cause the new mission president, I mean, didn't have much, didn't have to do much to improve upon the first one, honestly. Yeah, so yeah, it just, it wasn't at all like either one of us thought it would be.

Michelle: 7:10

So when you found my program, tell me what you were looking for. I mean you were obviously searching cause you were kind of in your own personal upheaval a little bit about it cause he was coming home or he, he came home right before. He had.

Erika: 7:24

Yeah, right before, I think like when I signed up to do your program, he had not come home yet, but he was coming home, but I just knew that his mission was sort of traumatic for me and that I had two more boys that, I mean, I know one will be going on a mission, probably the other one too, and that I needed coping skills to, to handle that. I mean, yeah, it was crazy to me because probably everybody knows people in their ward who send their kids off to Timbuktu and they're just have, I don't know that it's that they have more faith. Maybe they just have more blind faith. I don't know what it is, but they're just able to be like, The Lord is protecting them and I don't need to worry. And for two years, I don't have to worry about this kid, you know? And I just have to trust that, you know, everything's going to be great. And they're having the experience that they were meant to have., I feel like I have a lot of faith, but I don't have that kind of faith. But I just knew that I needed, I needed to talk to somebody about. About how I was feeling and not feel so abnormal, you know, and just kind of try to figure out like how I can do this better the next time.

Michelle: 8:46

Yeah. So what, what do you think were some of the things that you learned that were helpful for this next missionary? And how have you been able to like kind of integrate them?

Erika: 8:59

Yeah. So I think a couple of things. One, like, I think, especially maybe with my first, I was a bit of a helicopter mom, from the beginning, because he was my oldest. And, you know, I was protective. He has some, learning disabilities. So I always felt like I needed to of advocate for him and, and help him along in life. And I loved that in your program, you talk a lot about, you know, Like putting it back on the kid, like when they tell you something that is happening in their mission that they're not happy about, like, well, what do you want to do about that? Instead of my natural reaction is, how can I make this better? What can I do? Like what, who can I contact? What letter can I write, you know, like what can I do, like just empowering them to try to take care of it on their own, which is totally a life skill that everybody needs to learn right how to how to speak up for themselves and do it on their own. And like I feel like that's something that I can implement. Now, with all my kids, I just need to help them be able to figure things out on their own without mom coming to the rescue. So, I felt like that was great. Something else is I love that you talked about how nobody has read the manual that you have kind of In your brain made up for them, you know, like people don't know, like you talked about that with companions, like kids have in their mind what a companion is supposed to be like and how they're supposed to act and how it's supposed to be, but that companion hasn't read the manual that you've made up for them. And and again, I feel like this is something that is just like something that will help me myself with everybody with my husband with my children, you know, with everybody that I meet is something. You know, I can't fault them for not doing something that they don't know that I think they're supposed to be doing, or, for a way that I think that they're supposed to be, and they don't even know. And just because it's my manual doesn't mean it's right that maybe I need to change my, my manuals for people, or throw them out altogether and just kind of not have expectations for people and just take it how it comes. And then the last thing that, it's like a quote, I need to put it on a t shirt now, you need to put on a t shirt, is it burnt toast or is the house burning down? And that, to me, like the things that keep me up in the middle of the night, sometimes are just burnt toast, but in my head, I feel like the house is burning down. And I just sometimes need to take a breath and step back and be like, no, this is just burnt toast. This is not the end of the world. It's just a little thing. And if I can kind of, like, minimize it that way, then I can more clearly put it into perspective. So those were all very helpful takeaways that that I, I use now all the time and I don't have a missionary out, but I just feel like they are life, life lessons that, that I needed to learn.

Michelle: 12:13

Okay. So when you're talking about manuals so let me just expand a little bit on that for the audience, just so that they have a context. So subconsciously in our brains, we all the time are writing manuals. For how we expect people to show up. Our husbands, our kids, we expect them to show up a certain way, and sometimes we share that with them. And then there's people that we don't share and then we get annoyed, right? Like, mission presidents should be acting like a certain way and they should be informing us. And they should be notifying parents about things that are happening, right? We have these ideas and we write these manuals and then we have these unsuspecting mission presidents or unsuspecting companions that have no idea that there's a manual written for them and they're not following it, but it's just a natural way. It's just naturally what our brain does. And there's nothing wrong with that. It's just having the awareness to be able to see like, okay, wait a second here. I have written a manual for this person and they honestly don't even know.

Erika: 13:15

Right. Yeah. I like that. And I liked the thought that. You know, even if somebody else does know the manual you have for them, they don't have to, they don't have to do it. They don't have to live up to those expectations that you have for them. And that doesn't mean that they're a bad person or that they're not worth your time or your respect. It's just people are different. You know, we learned that with the love languages too. Everybody feels love differently and expects to receive love in different ways. But there isn't one right way. Right? They're all, they're all good. Yeah,

Michelle: 13:53

and everybody's stories that they're spinning in their brain is they're all different because everybody has a different perspective. But one thing that I do find very helpful is context because you know, if you're like at work and your boss sends you an email that says I want to meet with you at 4 p. m. Today, And there's no context about the meeting, then all of a sudden our brain, right, gets all crazy. We're like, Oh my gosh, am I in trouble? Did I do something wrong? Because we have that natural, negative bias that our brain. And so it is helpful to have context with admission. It is helpful to know going in that. Our kids are going to struggle and we're probably going to struggle, right? And we're not always going to get along with their mission president or their mission companion, even though we probably never meet them.

Erika: 14:50

Yeah, so totally true.

Michelle: 14:51

Yeah. It's helpful to have that context that missions aren't just this outpouring of blessings that never

Erika: 14:59

stops. No. And it's not to say that. There aren't those blessings and that you don't see them and I honestly think back like that first mission president was really hard and we kind of just told my son, hold your breath, just, you know, work on the language, we knew that there was another one coming. We prayed so hard and just, you know, focus, focus on learning. The language right now and just, you know, grin and bear it until this new mission president comes and things will probably be different. And you know what, they were different. And I don't know that if he hadn't had that difficult experience with his first mission president, that he wouldn't have appreciated his next mission president as much as he did. You know, I think he just was kind of like, Oh, could like finally exhale and be like, okay. This is what I thought a mission should

Michelle: 15:48

be. Yeah. Yeah. And and the first mission president that he had, he probably was serving for a reason for sounds like somebody else probably loved him. Just, it just didn't work with your son because we're not made to like, there's humans out there that don't love us and we don't love them and it's okay.

Erika: 16:08

Yeah. And I think that's true. And maybe even the Brazilians super loved him because culturally he kind of matched with that, you know? Oh, and, and. It's just different. People are raised differently and it doesn't make it wrong or right, but it doesn't mean that it's not difficult to work with them when you have a different perspective.

Michelle: 16:28

Right. Yeah. It's so fascinating. So is there anything else that you want to add that you want to share?

Erika: 16:36

I think it's really important to have a community of other moms that also have missionaries out that have similar feelings that you do. We actually, we live in a ward right now where at one point there was like 10 missionaries out in our ward, which is kind of crazy big for Virginia. It's the biggest, actually, we've lived here for a long, long time. And just to have the support. From other moms that are going through similar situation. And now some of those moms were like, like what I said, that just, we're happy to send their kids off and just. Trust and didn't really have any issues with their mission, their missionaries mission. Just to have other people that do kind of, I don't know, have a more realistic view of like, This is tough and it's nice to be able to talk to somebody else who thinks it's hard to, you know, and I think that. That Facebook page is helpful for that, although sometimes I can go down a rabbit hole on that page and but just to have someone you can talk to is really nice. Because I know my husband kind of was Raised in a more orthodox Mormon home is what I like to call it is pretty strict home and, you know, missions are expected and this is just it's just part of part of the process and you just, you know, they go and it's hard and whatever it is, you know, it's gonna be good. So he wasn't necessarily the greatest person to talk to in fact multiple times he had to hold me back from sending an email or making a phone call, but it's just nice to know you're not alone, and that you're not. An outlier in thinking that, that things maybe aren't the greatest and you know, it just, it takes a lot, it takes a lot of trust and and just, it's okay to feel like things aren't okay. You know, and it's okay to have those feelings and it doesn't mean that you don't have faith. It doesn't mean that your testimony is in peril. It's just normal, natural feelings. And that's okay. So I just feel like it's helpful to have someone to talk to. Yeah.

Michelle: 18:40

Yeah. I think that like we have a big group of missionaries out. My son and his friends all kind of went out together. And so the moms have. We go to lunch like every every other month and some of them are having like they're like everything's great and some of them are like this is so hard. Right. And the experiences are different and, but they're all valid. And I think that's the key is that even if it's a struggle and there's some things that come up that you're like, this is not what I anticipated. It's still game. It's still being able to know that your experience as a mom is valid.

Erika: 19:17

Yeah. Yeah. Totally agree. And the other thing too, I would say is to not compare missions. And that's tough too, because I'll hear about how those other kids, they're doing great. And they have this amazing mission president that, you know, got these gifts for everybody for Christmas or organized this amazing activity for the missionaries, or they went sightseeing all together or whatever it is. And it's hard. It's so hard to not be like, my kid got like the short end of the stick. Like how come their mission isn't doing any of these amazing things? How come he doesn't have this amazing leader that's going to inspire him? His whole life, you know, it's hard to not compare, but I think there is some trust in thinking, you know, they are sent where they are supposed to go, and it's where the Lord needs them, and it's where they're sent. They're meant to be. I think I do have faith in that, that I do feel like each kid is sent where there's somebody waiting for them to, to teach them or somebody's life that they will transform, even if it's their own life. And yeah, I do trust that. So even though maybe they don't have these amazing activities or whatever it is, it doesn't mean that their mission wasn't still meant for them and that it's going to give them a gift in a different way. Yeah.

Michelle: 20:45

So do you feel like you're more prepared going into this next mission?

Erika: 20:50

For sure. Like, I mean, I, yeah, I feel like I'm definitely more prepared that it will be a struggle and I feel like I can help to prepare my son now for some of those struggles, which I wish I had known for my first, I wish that I had kind of had the forethought to kind of do some of the prep work for, you know, talking to other parents that had missionaries that went out. But That would be honest and tell me that the hard things and not just all the, the wonderful things. So now that I know, I feel like I can, I can help in a different way and I can be more prepared when he does call with problems. To help him work through those differently and that probably I won't be freaking out as much. hopefully

Michelle: 21:39

I mean, we're moms like, it's okay, right? Yeah. We can, we can have those moments and I don't think any of those ever, they don't go away and they, we don't have to totally avoid'em, but it is nice to be able to have some tools so that it's not all hard.

Erika: 21:57

Yeah. Definitely. And sometimes it's just burnt toast and that's okay. Yeah.

Michelle: 22:04

Well, that's great. Well, thank you so much, Erica. This has been a great conversation. I know that there are so many moms out there that can totally relate with this. And I think that it's really important that, you know, they hear from other moms. So I appreciate your vulnerability.

Erika: 22:19

it was great being on your podcast. I'm excited for this and for you and I'm excited that you've started this podcast. It'll be, it'll help a lot of

Michelle: 22:27

people. Yeah, that's, that's my hope. All right, everybody. Thanks for tuning in this week and we will see you next time. Bye bye.