Communicating with family and friends

Email and letters

Highlighting the instructions in their Mission Handbooks, a missionary is to

• Write to his/her family each week on preparation day.
• Limit correspondence with others.
• Use email only to communicate weekly with his/her family and the mission president (the Mission President's Handbook defines family as "immediate family")
• "Do not become preoccupied with communicating with family and friends."
• UPDATE: As of March 2013, the Missionary Department has amended its email policy allowing expanded email privileges for missionaries. They can now email friends, priesthood leaders and recent converts - the latter with permission from the mission president.
• Missionaries are allowed sufficient time to write emails and letters — sometimes the public entity where some missionaries go to use computers only allows an hour of access time. That is the entity's policy, not the mission's restriction.

If missionaries misuse email or computers, they may lose the privilege of using email.

Schedule for receiving email

Missionaries are to email parents and family on preparation day, which is normally on Mondays. A couple of exceptions include:

• If missionaries use public libraries to do their email and the public library is closed for a Monday holiday, the missionaries may write their emails the following day.
• In certain locations (such as Camp Verde), the public library is closed all day Monday, forcing the missionaries to do their emails on Tuesday morning.
• Every sixth week in the Arizona Phoenix Mission is "transfer week," when departing missionaries return home and new missionaries arrive. On transfer week, the Arizona Phoenix Mission moves preparation day to Tuesday to better fit our mission transfer schedule.

Writing and emailing your missionary

When you write your missionary, don't write too much news and information about events and circumstances back home. Too much news and tidbits from home can be distracting. Keep information about family/individual challenges or concerns to a minimum — it can create worries and concerns with the missionary, resulting in excessive thoughts about home and consideration about returning home to help correct the circumstances.

Phoning home

The missionaries are following this directive from their Missionary Handbook:

"Telephone parents on Christmas and one other time during the year — usually Mother's Day — according to guidelines from the mission president. Take care the calls do not pull your thoughts away from your service or create a financial problem for your family. Keep them short — preferably no longer than 30 or 40 minutes). Other than these calls — do not telephone family members or friends unless you have permission from your mission president."

Following are additional instructions and directions the missionaries are given:

• In addition to the Christmas phone call, Arizona Phoenix Mission missionaries make their second call for Mother's Day in May.
• Missionaries in North America are asked to use the Church-issued cell phones to make the calls. Missionaries hailing from international areas are allowed to make their calls from either the mission home or mission office.  (Permission to use Skype was added December 2013 after receiving permission from the Missionary Department.)
• If missionaries have parents who are divorced or separated, they can divide that 30- to 40-minute allowance between calls to each parent. They are not to make additional calls to other family members or relatives.

Visits from family, friends or acquaintances

The metro Phoenix area is a popular travel destination — for vacations, for work assignments, for conferences and conventions or simply for just passing through en route to somewhere else. And the Arizona Phoenix Mission is located in a large metro area and state where family members, relatives and friends of our missionaries may reside.

So, common questions are — can we visit our missionary, can we take our missionary and his/her companion out to lunch, can we meet up with our missionary to drop off a package or much-needed items, or can so-and-so who lives nearby in the valley (or elsewhere in the state) do the same?

Your missionary is following this directive in the Missionary Handbook:

"Visits from family members, friends and acquaintances are against Church policy. The impact of such visits may extend far beyond the visit itself, both before and after the visit and among other missionaries. It can often take some time for missionaries to refocus on their callings and their work. While expressing your love and your desire to share your experiences with them after you have been released, help those who may want to visit you to understand the importance of maintaining singleness of heart and mind on the work of the Lord."

Now, while that is the policy for the missionaries, please understand that President & Sister Griffin welcome any visits from parents and family members at the mission home, provided we're available and don't have other events, meetings or assignments. Please let us know in advance so we can try to make ourselves available. If you have items to drop off, you can leave them with us at the mission home and we'll forward them along. We love to tell the missionaries of the visits of their family members and how wonderful it was to spend time with them.

If you are in the area and want to drop things off at the Arizona Phoenix Mission Office, you're welcome to do that.
Address: 6833 W Bell Rd. Glendale, AZ 85308 
Call ahead — 623-334-3823 — to confirm someone will be there.
Our office staff are always DELIGHTED to meet you as well!

Planning for Christmas 2016

    Greetings from the Arizona Phoenix Mission. As we approach the holidays, we're mindful that every one of our missionaries needs to be remembered at Christmas. We're hoping each missionary receives something from home for the holidays.

      Items can be sent to the mission office - Arizona Phoenix Mission: 6833 W Bell Rd Glendale, AZ 85308. (phone 623-334-3823). Items arriving before Dec. 5th can be delivered at several special mission Christmas conferences. Items arriving after that can be delivered through zone leaders.   The closer an item arrives to Dec. 25, the less likely it can be delivered by Christmas Day.  We will make every effort to get packages out to your missionaries!

   We have office staff receiving deliveries on weekdays during business hours. This is a safe location to send items of importance and value. Some items sent directly to missionary apartments or residences in the past have been lost, misplaced or stolen when merely delivered and left outside a front door or dropped off at an apartment office.

   With more than 170 missionaries receiving packages from multiple family members and friends, please understand we can't track or confirm receipt of any one specific mailing or shipment.
AND PLEASE PUT THEIR FULL NAME ON THE PACKAGES!!! We always have duplicate last names!!

   In the past, some missionary families have asked how they can be helpful to other missionaries serving in the Arizona Phoenix Mission. Please feel free to contact Sister Griffin — through the mission office — for specific ideas or opportunities.  We can ALWAYS use gift cards to places like Penneys or Target or WalMart to purchase basic items that missionaries need!  Those can be sent to President and Sister Griffin c/o the Mission Office. We thank you for remembering missionaries at Christmas!

   Sometimes our missionaries' parents are nonmembers and we're asked to not directly contact them. If you are in communication with such parents and think they might welcome this opportunity to send something, please forward them this information.

Arizona Phoenix Mission office - CORRECT ADDRESS

In the past, we have had packages and mail not delivered to the Arizona Phoenix Mission office because Google has the wrong suite number listed. The correct address for the Arizona Phoenix Mission office is:

6833 W Bell Rd. Glendale, AZ 85308

When sending packages and mail, please use the above address when mailing or sending items to the Arizona Phoenix Mission office.

Here's the background on the address problem: Whenever someone does a Google search for the Arizona Phoenix Mission office address, Google brings up a Web site with an incorrect address. The Web site has been incorrect for several years, and the wrong Arizona Phoenix Mission office has been perpetuated to other online listings or services. As a result, we hear stories of packages and packages that never make it to their destination, while others being returned home to the sender.

Our missionaries love to receive mail from loved ones, and as the Christmas season approaches, we want to ensure the correct address is available. If you or someone you know has a missionary in the Arizona Phoenix Mission, please refer them to this correct address.

In our efforts to try and fix the problem, we have written this post with the hopes that it will soon rank higher on the various search engines and there won't be as much confusion when trying to locate the Arizona Phoenix Mission office for LDS Church missionaries serving here.

If you get the chance, we would appreciate it if you and others would come and visit this blog post a time or two. And if you feel so inclined, leave us a comment - and if possible, use the words Arizona Phoenix Mission office in your comment. We will pass along any shout-out you give to your missionary in your comment.

You can also try to search for use using the LDS Building Locator tool on lds.org

Another suggestion - if you are concerned for the safe arrival of packages and mail to your missionary, rather than sending it directly to their residence or apartment, consider sending the package or sensitive mail to the office. Sometimes packages are simply left outside the door of an apartment or residence and may be taken by others during the day. Mail and packages sent to the Arizona Phoenix Mission office are received by our office staff during business hours on weekdays - the office is always open and staffed during those times.

Current President/Wife Griffins (2014-2017) maintain a private Arizona Phoenix Mission blog available to parents and family of missionaries currently serving or who have returned. Access to this photo blog is available by contacting your missionary via email. 

Former President/Wife Taylors (2011-2014) continue to maintain a private Arizona Phoenix Mission blog (and continued activities with this group of missionaries)- one that can be accessed by parents and family of currently serving missionaries in the Arizona Phoenix Mission and returned missionaries who have served in this mission. Family and friends and returned missionaries can find updates and photos of RETURNED missionaries in the Arizona Phoenix Mission there. (Message her through Facebook CHERYL JAMES TAYLOR if you are interested in returned missionary activities.

As always, please let us know if we can help you in any way — but hopefully finding the Arizona Phoenix Mission office address will not be just a little bit easier.

P.S. — Isn't SEO (search-engine optimization) a great thing — finding ways to repeatedly insert phrases like "Arizona Phoenix Mission office" into the text?