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Off the Beaten Path: Phone call all one mother wants
By Patrick KinahanSalt Lake Tribune Columnist

Chocolate-covered strawberries? A dozen roses? Romantic, candlelight dinner for two? For this lady, the answers are no, no and no. All she wants for Mother's Day is one phone call. That's all. No, Nikki Collie is not in urgent need of a lawyer. Flowers, candy and whatever else can't substitute for the phone call she'll get this afternoon. For the first time since Christmas Day, and for only the third time in 15 months, this mom will speak with her son. Mother and child aren't estranged or anything like that. The two probably haven't
loved each other any more than they do right now. Her son has a title in front of his name, which means they speak only four times over a two-year period. To the people of Argentina, he's known as Elder Collie. For us college football freaks, he's Austin Collie, formerly Brigham Young's star freshman football receiver. Like many of them do down in Provo, he put the pads in storage to serve an LDS Church mission. Per church rules, he can phone home twice a year. Today at 5 p.m., at home in El Dorado Hills, Calif., Nikki will get her best Mother's Day gift. "It's definitely a highly anticipated thing, one I'm sure every mom of a missionary would clearly feel," she said. "It's definitely going to be a highlight." Her son's mission rules - there's quite a few of them on these things - limit phone calls to one hour. For about 15 minutes, Nikki and Austin will reconnect. The whole time she promises not to cry. Good luck. She then will follow the mother's code - put her family before herself. Dad -
and Austin's three younger siblings each will get a few minutes on the phone. During weekly e-mail exchanges, Austin informs the family on all his missionary work. As with football, the former freshman All-American is pretty good at this church stuff. "He tells us about his baptisms and things like that," she said. "That's really what we care about hearing." This time, on her day, Nikki wants to know about her baby. "How he's feeling, if he's wearing sunscreen like he should - those motherly things," she said. By 6 o'clock, it's back to the computer for several months. Collie comes home Jan. 3, just in time for BYU to break in a new quarterback. Until then, Nikki has to hope he pulls no more stunts like he did several months ago when some fool tried to steal his camera. It seems the elder put a hurtin' (to borrow Collie's much-publicized phrase before the 2004 Utah game) on the criminal until the police came. The kid's still got some football in him. "He said he never got off the line that quickly," Nikki said.

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