10 Awesome Ideas for Welcoming Home a Missionary

10 Awesome Ideas for Welcoming Home a Missionary!

My sister is home!!! It was so fun going to the airport and seeing her come down with the group of missionaries she went out with. I loved seeing all the anxious parents (not to mention my own) with balloons, signs, banners, and flowers.

After welcoming home my friends and family members from their two years of service, I’ve heard some pretty cool ideas people have done to make their missionaries feel loved, not to mention help them transition back into every day life so I thought I’d share a few!

10 Awesome Ideas for Welcoming Home a Missionary

1. Neighborhood Welcome Home Sign: For my sister’s arrival, my mom of course put up a million signs and balloons all over our yard, but the one that was the coolest was the one she let the neighborhood sign. As we left for the airport she texted and emailed anyone she thought might be interested and they came and grabbed a marker off the porch and wrote a little message on the sign.

2. What You’ve Missed Magazine: Create a “magazine” that catches them up on what happened in the “world” while they were away. This can be anything from politics to celebrities to sports! Whatever you think they’d want to hear about most.

3.  Texts: Have a cell phone set up and ready for them, and let all their friends and family know the number so that they can open it to find some welcome home text messages.

4. Letters in a Book: Gather all the emails and letters they’ve sent you and put them in a binder for safe keeping. They will love reading through all the memories!

5. Picture Sign: On your sign for the airport put on a few photos of companions so that you can ask all the other parents if your kids knew each other because you’ve all arrived an hour early 😉 (Yeah this literally happened… )

6. Glow Sticks Sign: If your missionary is getting home at night, make a sign out of glow sticks so they can actually see it when you pull up to your house!

7. CD/Playlist: Create a CD or playlist of all the [decent] music they missed while they were away.

9. New Movies: Have a movie they missed ready for them to watch! (AKA Frozen… My sister says all of the missionaries are soooo sick of hearing “You HAVE to watch Frozen!”)

10. Prepare Their Room: I didn’t serve a mission, but I know the first thing I’d want to do is crawl into my bed and sleep for a few days!

10 Awesome Ideas for Welcoming Home a Missionary