Messages from a Missionary Daughter

by Susan Savage

Dear New Era Readers:

Driving home from Salt Lake City where we had left our daughter Susan at the Missionary Home, we wondered where we would find her little “love note” saying the things so hard to put into spoken words at the time of parting.

All during high school and her years away at college we had found these treasured bits, written in the quiet of night for last-minute pinning to her pillow, or to ours, or for slipping quietly under a dinner plate to be found after she’d gone. So we had come to expect and look forward to them and their blessing of comfort and the assurance that, indeed, all was well.

We were not disappointed. Hardly had I entered the house when, putting our soiled clothes into the laundry hamper, there it was, taped inside the lid. Removing it carefully, I thought, “How strange to put it here,” until I read the words, “You are the soap and water of my soul.”

Reading and rereading I stood shaken and tearful, until, hearing the door open quietly, I turned to face Susan’s dad. He was holding a note found taped to the steering wheel of the pick-up. We exchanged papers and I read, “Roads—red roads and brown roads, and wonderful roads you have brought me along …”

These were the beginning. Through almost two years we have continued to find them, as she had planned, each written to fit its chosen hiding place. We hope that by sharing them with you, you can come to feel a greater closeness to your families.

Sincerely,

Susan Savage’s Mother

Found taped inside the laundry hamper lid

You are the soap and water of my soul.
With you the shades and textures of my heart
Are sorted out of the great pile of confusion and perplexity
And brought back clean again!
Fragrant with the good air of your love,
And freshened by your sun!

Susan

Found taped to the pick-up steering wheel

Roads—
Red roads and brown roads,
And wonderful roads
You have brought me along,
To the old places, the familiar places, the new places;
To the quiet, green places,
To the high places,
And the “seeing-far” places,
And the fields.

To so many good hours
And many people;
Over the dusty roads,
And the misted roads,
And the wet, slidey roads,
And—best of all—With you.

Susan

Found taped to her upstairs bedroom window

Oh windows—
Be open
To the world, wide and free,
With colors not muted
Between you and me;
For the blue of my heart
Is the blue of the sky
With still and white garlands of clouds passing by.
And may I be green as you trees,
And as growing,
In a country of out-stretched becoming and knowing.

Susan

Found much later inside the lid of her cedar chest

Oh, dreams of yesterday,
Hopes of tomorrow,
From you—and those who make you—
Let me borrow
And give to time
What time has given me—
Smiles in the doorways of eternity.

Susan

Found inside the lid of our huge sewing material bin

I love to see—with fascination—
The materials you have brought to me.
What shall I make
As from the generous store I dearly take?
Oh, Father, watch with me
That these may turn again to see
A thing of beauty—and be content—
Finding with all,
Their all, well spent.

Susan

Found taped inside the Christmas decorations trunk lid

It’s Christmastime, I know
It must be true.
There are so many things we always do!
In Argentina are there china bells?
And manger scenes like ours,
And Raphaels?
And midget carolers in wooly shawls?
And poinsettias for the Christmas walls?
And dark-faced angel singers?
And snow spray?
And Savage people? And the Savage way?
Oh, maybe then, there is a place forlorn,
Maybe a place where He has not been born.

Susan

Found in one of her father’s favorite books

This is the house
 of books!
This is the house
 of endless things
 to learn
 and do
 and make.
Happy—so—
 to find my home
 in this house!

Susan

Found in the box holding her gold-framed mirror

Daddy and Mama

Mirrors of you!
Oh, mirrors of you!
Oh, may I have starshine
Of lovely review,
Of the goodness
And gentleness,
Life full and true,
And those dear
Shining moments
Of which one asks few,
Which, through
All of my days,
Are the mirrors
Of you.

Susan

Found in the pocket of my temple suitcase

Thank you,
Thank you!
For you are
temples to me,
pure and sturdy,
white and erect,
into whose lovely
peaceful rooms
I have been allowed
to step.

Susan

Illustrated by Peggy Proctor