The months following Eric's death and funeral provided time for healing. We learned to understand the heartbreak and pain faced by many others who have also lost loved ones. Many thoughtful and caring individuals comforted us as we dealt with our great loss. Eric had many friends from his mission who wrote kind words of condolences and support. We especially enjoyed the sharing of stories involving Eric that helped us understand the man he had become. For our family, there were the lingering, wishful thoughts of "if only" and "why didn't we?"

We had his mission journals and photographs that were very special and comforting, but in all of the confusion during the short time he was with us after his mission, we had failed to capture any videos or voice recordings.

Our 1999 Christmas holiday was not the cheerful celebration we had so eagerly anticipated. Instead, our Christmas season was subdued and filled with tears. Eric's personalized stocking was hung with the other family stockings, but this year his was empty.

Christmas Day dawned with traditional present-opening and family visiting. After the midday meal, everyone settled down for some quiet time. I took the opportunity to take a short walk. Passing our mailbox, the thought came to me to look inside. I realized there would be no mail because of the Christmas Holiday, but I looked in anyway, and to my surprise, found a stack of letters and an express package. The mail must have been delivered on Christmas Eve and had not been retrieved. The package caught my immediate interest. It was addressed to the family from someone in Arizona. Inside the package I found a short note along with an audiotape. The note read:

"Dear Johnson Family

My name is Nelson Phelps. Eric was my third companion on my mission in the area of La Pastora (Venezuela) where he was Zone Leader. He and I were together for only about five weeks before he was transferred to San Cristobal.

Anyway, to make a kind of long story short, one P-day Eric gave me this tape to tape over to send to my family because I didn't have one to send. However, I never used it and forgot all about it until I was packing up to go home about two months ago, I decided that I would send this for Christmas so that you could have a Christmas present from myself and Eric. I hope you enjoy this.

Love,

Nelson Phelps"

I immediately returned home and gathered the family together to listen to our son Eric's Christmas message to his family taped 23 months earlier. This tape was Eric's first and only attempt to record a message to us. Following the taping he didn't feel it was done well enough to send and eventually offered it to his companion to tape over.