Hello for the last time
from the mission field! I want to share with you some of my thoughts before I
get on the plane and head home. Thanks for everything, your support, love, and
prayers. For those of you still out, keep doing work, it's the greatest work
we'll ever do.
Coming down to the last
few days of my mission, I've been thinking a lot about my feelings and a good
way to describe the mission experience. What I've realized is that it's
impossible to describe a mission, but rather, it's the moments.
It's preparing for your whole life to serve.
It's finally sending in your papers. It's anticipating your call for a few
weeks. It's opening that call signed by the prophet with your family and
friends, and having that confirmation that this is the place you need to go.
It's the time before the MTC that feels like it will never end. Then all at
once, it's hugging your parents, they go one way, and you go the other- into
the biggest unknown of your life up to that point.
It's the MTC: the
firesides and devotionals, the food, teaching in a new language, the
testimonies, the cabin fever. It's then flight plans and goodbyes, wondering
how people you've known for only 6 weeks have become some of your best friends
ever. It's the airport- heading off into the field, an ocean of uncertainty.
It's walking through the gates and seeing your mission president jumping and
waving because he is so excited to finally meet you.
Its then all of a sudden
trainers and district members. It's realizing you learned almost nothing in the
MTC and loving it all the same. It's new food, new people, new culture, new
language, new forms of transportation, new routine, new everything.
It's a world of firsts that change everything:
first street contact, first lesson, first district meeting, first phone
conversation in German (this one can be scary!), first email home, first
encounter with a drunk man, first hole in pants, first Sunday at church, first
day of total homesickness, first conversation where you realize you didn't
really actually learn German in the MTC, first First Vision, first promising
investigator, first baptism. It's all unforgettable, no matter how disorganized
it all seems, or how fast it flies over your head.
More changes come and it
turns into a blur. It's being anxious for your companion to leave and then, to
your surprise, missing him when he's gone. It's 99 slammed doors, shaking
fingers, 'Keine Zeit's', lying children (my mom says she's not home), angry old
people, and barking dogs. But it's the hope that the 100th will be the one.
The one who wants to
change. The one who has been crying for help to a God that he or she wants to
follow, but doesn't know where to find Him. It's that one who seems perfect:
perfect questions, perfect kids who don't scream during lessons, and most
importantly, a desire to make it work, even if everything isn't perfect. It's
the hope of finding that one that gets you out of the apartment in the morning
in 100 degree weather, when half the city is still sleeping. It's the hope of
that one that gets you to open your mouth and speak, even if you don't speak
well and don't like leaving your comfort zone.
It's finding the one,
one covert, one future priesthood holder, or one future Relief Society
president. It's making plans, working with members, and lots of prayers. It's
realizing many are found, but few choose to be chosen.
It's a thousand disappointments when things don't work out and they can find
any excuse on Saturday night (weather,
gossip, sport, doubts). It's finally bringing them to church and showing them
the church. It's them meeting the members, and it's you chewing your
fingernails GONE as the first testimony talks about baptisms for the dead. It's
hoping they will feel the Spirit in spite of the bishop’s 2 year old running
around on the stand, the old lady who yells out comments from the congregation,
and the lame jokes the speakers tell.
It's when that person
gets baptized that the reality of what you're giving them hits you. It's the
hope of an eternal family. It's the hope of a better life. It's the hope of
their pain and suffering being taken away all at once. It's giving others that
hope that brings you the greatest satisfaction you have ever experienced.
It's testing the water,
(or often times boiling water on the stove and throwing it into the font), and
hoping the person won't freak out and get cold feet. It's then leaving that
person or that area, and realizing that they affected you much more than you
affected them. It's crying until you reach that new area and realize the work
moves right on.
It's going back in
memories and appreciating what you had at home. It's the firm declaration that
you'll never complain about having to get up off the couch to go get something
out of the food storage for mom (hear that Mom?). It's the same people you see
everyday who smile and wave because one time, you brightened their day.
It's coming home soaked
75% of the time, either from rain or sweat. It's also sitting in front of all
the fans in your apartment and wondering if you can last another day in the
oven you're living in. It's bed bugs, spiders, and cockroaches that live in
your apartment. It's that rainstorm that soaks you and your comp to the bone.
It's walking through that rainstorm with no umbrella and having nothing to do
but laugh as people look at you as if you're totally crazy (which isn't at all
a misconception). It's going out into that weather because you convince each
other that your wives will be hotter for going through the storm. (I've been
through a lot of bad weather... just saying).
It's P-Day, Transfer
Day, Mother’s Day, Christmas Day, Birthday,
Hump Day, and National Holidays. It's packages and letters from home. It's
wedding announcements, dear Johns, pictures, friends leaving on missions, which
confirms your realization that life does actually move on without you. It's
good days, bad days, homesick days, days where you laugh so hard your stomach
hurts, days where you just can't wait to write in your journal, days where you
want to laugh, cry, smile, and sleep at the same time, and it's days you don't
want to end. Those are the good old days. Days that can't be enjoyed unless
they are bought with a price-- hard work, sweat, discouragement, frustration,
and faith.
It's discovering that
God hears and answers prayers. Sometimes He takes everyone else away just so
you can really get to know Him. It’s coming to know in a small degree that the
Atonement applies not only to vile sinners, but to each individual as well,
including you. It's feeling that power and love and knowing you'll never be the
same. It's knowing you have a testimony and nobody can shake it or take it from
you. It's building it piece by piece and it's sharing that testimony dozens of
times every day until it roots deeply into your soul.
It's watching missionary
after missionary give their final 'dying' testimony, while you are pretty
certain the day will never arrive for you to give yours... and then it does.
It's learning to live IN the moment and not FOR the moment because all too
soon, it's gone.
It's the projects, the
finding days, the study, the old historical streets, the little kids who you
play soccer with, the tiny apartments, the poor people, and the love of all of
them that you didn't know was possible.
It's soaking that all
in, catching every single detail, because you won't get it back. It's looking
up into the sky on your last night in the mission
field and wondering about the effect of one mission. Does one mission really
have eternal consequences? Does planting one seed, teaching one lesson, finding
one person actually really matter at all? Then you feel your answer. Did the
mission of The One make a difference? Did His ministry, His teaching, His seed
planting have an effect on the eternities? Did His one infinite Atonement pay
the price of justice and give mercy her claim?
As you fly back to a
former life, you're convinced it was all a dream. It's then realizing that
while you have been in the service of your fellow beings, you have only been in
the service of your God. It's feeling your heart and soul overflow with
gratitude for the once chance you had to show your worth, give your all, and
return with honor.
It's becoming like the
One, the Only Begotten, the Son of Man, the Prince of Peace, the Savior and
Redeemer of all mankind, even Jesus Christ. It's those two years for which you
will eternally praise the Lord, as the life that was converted more than any
other was only one--yours.
It's establishing those
characteristics and setting goals for your life, because you never want your
service to end. It's then turning to the passenger next to you and starting a
conversation, because you NEVER know what difference one moment could make.
Elder Sam Hadfield
Alpine German Speaking
Mission
September 2014-2016
