His answer? Very often it was a hotel room, someone's basement, or a prophet's chamber (a room in a church where missionaries/evangelists can stay overnight).
When it was a hotel, we often stayed in one room.
Now, you have to understand, I have a family of six. There's my Mom, Dad, two older sisters, and an 11 year old brother.
Most hotel rooms only have two double or queen sized beds, which means mom and dad take one, Sharon and Lydia (my sisters) the other, I usually take a cot, and Jason (my brother) sleeps on the floor.
However, a few pastor's were kind enough to put us in two rooms, which was very much a blessing!!
When we stay in people's basements, ussually the bedding arrangements are the same, but sometimes they'll have an air mattress or bunkbeds.
This is a blessing. However, it's a very very rare occasion that there are bathrooms in the basement, which of course means that we have to traipse up the stairs in the middle of the night every time we have to go. And of course, showers in the morning are quite a trial. We stayed with good friends of ours very recently that had 8 people in their family, in addition to our 6, which means that 14 people had to cycle through one shower every morning! Sundays were very hectic, as you can imagine!
Prophet's chambers were often easier, depending how many beds there were.
We were at a place not long ago that had one double bed, and a twin bed. That was it.
Dad and Mom took the double bed, my sister Sharon took the twin, and we bought a twin air mattress that Lydia and I shared. Jason ended up with a blanket on the floor.
When it was all said and done there was literally NO room on the floor to walk around. Needless to say, none of us slept much that night.
There was one bathroom, which was across the hall, right in front of the auditoriam.
However not all places are too small, or not very nice.
We stayed in a suite once with a full size kitchen, living room, two bedrooms and a bathroom! What a blessing!
Needless to say, all this has made my family very flexible. We've grown very close in the past three months, and staying in the same 15 square feet has become quite the norm!
What you can do to make missionaries stays very enjoyable is to:
(1) Be friendly.
Let them know that they can be themselves around you, and let their hair down. Missionairies lead very stressful lives, and it's such a blessing to be able to "Let their hair down" so to speak.
(2) Provide enough beds and bedding.
One of the worst things is having to sleep on the floor. We usually don't get very much sleep as it is, much less when you're sleeping on concrete! Air mattresses do the trick very nicely.
(3) Provide food and toiletries.
Because we're driving a lot, we can't keep many (if any) perishables. We carry a small cooler, but very few missionary/evangelists do. Milk and cereal is very helpful, and healthy food (ie. fruit) is great, seeing as everyone else bestows upon us twinkies and little debbie cakes. ;P
Some essential toiletry items would be:
*Toothbrushes & Toothpaste (I'm always losing mine)
*Shampoo
*Razers & Shaving cream
*Safety Pins
*Soap
As missionaries, we really appreciate any accomodations and thank you so much for your help!! :)
Have a great week, peeps! <3
xo,
Johanna
