When Laney left for her church mission to Chile she was leaving behind a vast universe of internet life. While she is serving she is not able to check her email accounts, facebook, instagram, her blog ... anything. She is only given a limited amount of time to email friends and family each week. Other than that she stays away from her internet connections. That leaves the potential for Laney to return home to a million back emails and facebook posts and messages. Laney gave me access to those accounts so that I could keep things a little cleaner for her and pass on important messages as they came up. I also update her blog and her facebook account with her letters home so that those who are interested can read about her missionary adventures. Also, one of the great advantages that this generation of missionaries has that was not around when Herman served in the early 1990s is the ability social media gives her to stay in contact with the wonderful friends she makes in Chile. I try to friend any of her companions who are on facebook, and several people in Chile have reached out and friended Laney as well.
I don't think that everyone realizes that I am running her facebook account right now. In fact, there was a time a few months ago when Laney was getting friend requests from Chile at the pace of about five a day for a bit. As soon as I could tell that there was an actual connection between these people and her I would accept the friendship. Sometimes this would happen only moments after the person had requested Laney as a friend. Since Laney only had internet access on Mondays, and she wasn't even supposed to be on facebook, it was surprising to the members in Chile that she could accept their friend request so quickly. They joked that she must be a bad, bad missionary to break the rules like that. Laney had to explain that it was me running the show up here. I wish that there was a way that I could attach some sort of note to let them know that I'm the one posting things and passing along messages, but I guess it isn't really common for twenty year-old young women to turn over their facebook account to their mom for 18 months, is it? Odd though it may be, it has been a great joy to do this. My favorite moment as a Laney facebook usurper was when Laney left Frutillares, a branch where she had served for over seven months. I was able to see so many expressions of love for her from the members of that branch in Chile. It was so wonderful to see them recognize Laney's inner beauty and love. It just filled my heart to overflowing. Those are things I might not have seen if I had not been monitoring her account so often.
Well, today I got one of the best perks of monitoring her facebook account. The best. Every once in a while someone will send a private message to Laney. I'll usually pass it along in my email to her, but a few times I have to respond to let them know that it is actually me on her account, not Laney. I had one of those messages today. It was from a 17 year-old young man from Chile. He just said hello and left a brief message. Then he basically said, "Wait. Are you home yet? How are you on facebook?" I knew I needed to respond so that he didn't think Laney was just breaking her mission rules right and left. I don't know Spanish very well, but I needed to respond in Spanish, so I pulled out my trusty google translate and created a message letting this young man know that it was actually me that had accepted the friend request and was monitoring her account. But, since google translate is really a terrible translation tool half the time, I showed it to my fluent Spanish speaking husband to see if it would be okay. He crinkled his nose and said that it wouldn't embarrass me ... too much. That was good enough for me, so I sent the brief message to this young man. Several hours later he responded and it was the best response ever. So, so sweet and innocent and in a strange way, courageous. He congratulated me on having a beautiful, humble, and nice daughter. Totally agree with him there. Then (here's the courageous part) he told me that he really, really likes Laney a lot, but since it's against the mission rules, he can't pursue her. He finished by putting a little frowny face icon at the end of the message.
So sweet. So, so sweet.
It was such an innocent and honest message, and its one that young men don't usually send to the moms of their crushes. Maybe it is because I'm all the way here in the US. What am I going to do about his declaration from all the way up here? I just thought that it was absolutely adorable.
It really means a lot to me that Laney is having the opportunity to share so much of herself with the people of Chile. I love that they love her, and I love that she loves them right back. This experience has been such a powerful instrument of growth in her life, and it is a great perk for me to be able to see immediate examples of how she is touching the lives of others in Chile. In all of her letters home she expresses so much love for the people of Chile, and it is good to see that they recognize that love. Unfortunately, the outcome looks a little bleak for this young man who is quietly pining for Laney in Chile. Nevertheless, I am grateful to him for his sweet message letting me know that he sees the good in Laney. It made my week.
I love being a missionary mom!
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