As a service missionary, I’ve had the opportunity of listening to quite a few departing missionaries testimonies. They expansively explained how great their experiences were, how glad they were to have been called to serve, and how difficult it had been to accept and adjust to a service mission.
To adjust to a service mission is more than managing your time wisely, more than setting rules and expectations for oneself as a missionary.
When we speak of missionary service, the first thought is, “Preach the Gospel”, the gathering of Israel, having a standard missionary life; all stories, marvelous conversion stories, or spiritual manifestations and guidance in teaching missionary service, that’s the first impression of what a missionary life is.
ADJUSTING TO A SERVICE MISSION
First, If I’m to use myself as a reference to how I adjusted to a service mission, I must disclose that I might not be even close to accomplishing it. If not doing anything would be 0[zero], then being a fully committed and adjusted missionary would be 100% perfection.
Second, a service mission lacks many restraints, rules and specific expectations, we, unlike missionaries who are catapulted away from home into a strict and controlled environment, where, adjusting to a missionary lifestyle is already set up and ready for them, and they have to hang up in there to a bar of expectations, and not fail the proselyting missionary badge they were given.
My service mission experience, though, has been one of leaving me inside my zone of comfort, and asking me to tear it all down and make it into a missionary environment. To adapt willingly and fully commit to a missionary lifestyle without any specific directions or structure, I had to build upon nothing, and make a stand, to own up to the weight of being given a missionary badge.
Neither mission is better or worse, easier or harder than the other. They are different experiences, sure. Does a service mission lack in certain ways, or does it mean a service missionary doesn’t experience as much of sharing the gospel like a proselyting missionary does? During my first 5 months, 29 days, 19 hours of my service mission, yeah, I thought that it did, from after 6 months to 7 ½, I learned and accepted that I still had great experiences and could learn a lot and still grow much as a missionary, from 7 ½ months until 7 months and 3 weeks, I learned and believed, that as missionaries called to help in the Lord’s work, we wouldn’t lack any needful thing that is imperative to our preparation and spiritual growth.
THIS WORK IS DONE, WHAT’S NEXT
As I’ve witnessed, departing service missionaries have a few different approaches to the end of their mission. In my own description, I’d categorize them as:
— I’ve finished my work, and it was nice, time to focus on myself now;
— I’ve done enough, now I’ll choose for myself what to do with my life;
— My mission is ending, but I don’t want to let go of it;
— My mission is ending, I’m excited for what’s next!;
— My mission is ending, I don’t know if I’ve done enough.
I wouldn’t judge one approach from the other, but there are some more concerning than others. But I think that being excited for what is the next chapter of your life, is by far the healthiest way to go about it. I’ve seen a returned missionary now struggling with living with his current roommates. How is that any different from having mission companions that you could come to hate, to love, to stress and fight with, maybe days without speaking to each other? If that experience was a necessity to the growth of said Elder, he is having the chance to experience it now, in college, it’s just a different environment.
I mentioned a few times to my Stake President, my Mission Leaders and other people that: “I was trained in life to prepare to fail in a teaching mission”, though I didn’t have trust in my own capacity to be a missionary, anything other than myself, was not going to shake my commitment to serve a mission.
For ex: People might mistreat, spit and hate on me for being a member of the church, say awful things about it, I was prepared for that mentally, it wouldn’t diminish my desire to serve. I could have a door slammed in my face and be cussed and cursed from people that I approached, I was prepared for that, it wouldn’t shake my desire to serve, forgive and love those people. And several others situations alike: companions I might dislike, or not be as committed; maybe lacking in finding people to teach; or not baptizing a single person on my mission; to be away from family, from comfort, from internet, phone, games, entertainment, and to serve for 2 years; etc. I imagined myself as mentally fully prepared to all possible circumstances to succeed spiritually in my upcoming teaching mission.
What I didn’t account for was being called to be a Service Missionary instead. I struggled, for months it had been hard to adjust, being home, having my comfort and my usual access to all my choice of entertainment, hobbies and activities I’d like to do. A member of my stake presidency, in one of our regular report interviews, asked me: “What are some things you do during your time after your service assignments, which of them brings you joy?”. I couldn’t answer, my usual entertainment, my time spent at home, my time spent in my assignments, hardly brought me joy if they even ever had. I had good experiences in the temple, serving as an ordinance worker, but it didn’t bring me joy.
JOY, what is it, how to find it, have I ever felt it, do I even know what it is to feel joy, can I ever find it in my life? The scriptures say: “Adam fell that men might be; and men are, that they might have joy.” From someone that has been through crippling depression, enough to debate their worth of living, I struggled for years with that verse. I struggled to see my own life as worth of living, or even less that it had been created with the purpose of finding joy.
But, as I’ve mentioned earlier, the Lord wouldn’t ever limit our growth, and He would provide us with all that we lack that are necessary for us to grow spiritually unto Christ. As a sister shared on April 2006, in her talk called, To Grow Up Unto The Lord, it says: “In short, Nephi looked for a resolution rather than at the roadblocks, because he knew—he knew—that in this process of growing up unto the Lord, God could and would help him fulfill every commandment he received.”
I’m fully convinced that my call to a service mission was what I lacked, and the place where I’d find joy, purpose and receive whatsoever need, that I lacked, in order to grow up unto the Lord. I wasn’t prepared for a Service Mission, but it showed me an opportunity to commit myself to my spiritual growth, and my closeness to my Savior.
I’m Elder Santos, a service missionary of The Church of Jesus Christ of Latter-day Saints. I’ve been called to serve my God and my Lord and Savior, and I chose to, and accepted that call, and I’m glad I did it. The Lord has paved the way so that I could accomplish and fulfill my responsibilities in this calling, from the Mission Leaders that I’d have, to fellow service missionaries, to my pains and sorrows during my adjusting, to overcoming and learning of the same, to my ecclesiastical leaders, the talks on sacramental meetings, to my family, and our uncertainty and struggles. I know my Savior lives, and that His work is progressing, that as I desired 8 years ago, he has made of me a tool in his hands, and slowly and although minimally I’m able to see better, how masterfully and carefully he moves me as He works. I’m far from being the exemplar and perfect image of a missionary; but I thank the knowledge received in this church, that He allows me time and space as well as no lack of opportunities to grow. I’m looking forward to what will be my next work and growth. And I hope this feeling persists once I come close to finish my missionary service.
I finish my words, in the name of Jesus Christ, Amen.
Kindly;
Elder Santos, Service Missionary;
North America Northeast Area, Boston Mission.