The Horne Family Blog: Sayonara Open House

One of the great dilemmas in the life of a Mormon is "how do you appropriately celebrate with family and friends the fact that your child is going on a mission?" Most families open their homes on the Sunday after the missionary speaks in church so that loved ones can gather and say their good-byes. Bummer though, because in recent years, this practice has been frowned upon by Church leaders. President Gordon B. Hinckley in October, 2002, stated, "We hope also that holding elaborate open houses after the sacrament meeting at which the missionary speaks will not prevail. Members of the family may wish to get together. We have no objection to this. However, we ask that there be no public reception to which large numbers are invited." We are a slow-learning people apparently because we considered this very thing even though the Prophet said "please don't," knowing that many family members had to drive a ways to come listen to Sydney talk in church. However, we also considered doing it the Saturday night before her talk in church, knowing that some people would not want to do both.

As it turned out, Sydney's best friend, Kasandra Rasmussen, helped us "do the right thing" by arranging to speak in her Sacrament Meeting the same day that Sydney was to speak, and her Sacrament Meeting started 50 minutes after ours ended. Which, of course, meant that a gathering at our house right after church was out. (Kasandra is going to be serving her mission in Berlin, Germany.) So a Saturday night open house was planned and informal invitations were sent to family and friends.

We purchased and prepared fun Japanese foods to serve at the Open House: rice-crispy sushi, yaki-soba, gyoza, rice crackers, jellies, and other yummy things! It was a hit!