Mother's Day is one of just two days a year when Mormon missionaries are allowed 45-minute phone calls from back home. The other is Christmas Day. Missionaries are allowed to call home for a brief chat of a couple minutes before those two days to set up a time and to give a phone number for the parent to call.

Several days ago, Elledge and her son made their arrangement. She says she'll use a speaker phone so six other family members can join in the call.

"We'll come out of church service, then call after Sunday dinner," says Elledge, an office worker in the graduate studies department at California State University, Fresno. "Everyone will be there."

Mostly young men

Elledge is one of 175 mothers in the central San Joaquin Valley arranging Mother's Day phone calls with their missionary sons or daughters. More than 35,000 missionaries from the United States are currently serving overseas or in the United States and Canada.

The Church of Jesus Christ of Latter-day Saints has been sending out missionaries as early as the 1830s, soon after the church was founded. The early missionaries were mainly men with families. Now they are mainly young unmarried men. There also are young unmarried women missionaries.

The Church requires males to become missionaries at age 19. It gives women the option to become missionaries at age 21. Missions range from 18 months to slightly more than two years.

Stake presidents oversee the missionaries — and encourage them to write weekly letters to family or via e-mail through public computers such as at Internet cafes. (A stake is a group composed of several Mormon congregations.)

However, stake presidents place restrictions on the number of phone calls. Families are on their honor to adhere to the requirements. They want missionaries to remain focused on the task at hand. Typically, missionaries visit homes to share their faith with others and take active roles with local churches helping others.

Special occasions

Mother's Day and Christmas Day are designated the phone-call days because they are holidays that are important to The Church of Jesus Christ of Latter-day Saints — and they are spaced at least nearly five months apart.

Jon Parker, president of the Fresno North Stake, says the Mother's Day phone call, in particular, means a great deal to mothers and their missionary sons or daughters.

"What a great thing for a mother to receive a call from her child," says Parker, who has had two children serve missions.

Of the missionaries, Parker says, "They all deal with homesickness in one way or another. So the call is very much appreciated and looked forward to."

Even though Reiko Elledge is looking forward to this Mother's Day phone conversation with Christopher Elledge, 21, she already has been through the experience of having a son far away on a Mormon mission.

Oldest son Nathan Elledge, 23, was on a mission in Fukuoka, Japan, from June 2003 to August 2005. Christopher Elledge began his mission the month after his brother completed his mission.

Reiko Elledge says mothers typically are concerned with their child's safety regardless of the locale.

Born and raised in Tokyo, she gained some comfort knowing Nathan Elledge was serving in Fukuoka, which includes southern islands such as Okinawa and Ishigaki, areas she was familiar with. Nonetheless, she still worried.

"You're hoping people would treat them as they would want to be treated," she says.

Initially, she worried also for Christopher Elledge, after hearing residents of Belo Horizante had thrown rocks at some Mormon missionaries.

"That is a sad thing," she says. "I was worried bad people would attack him."