5 Things I Wish Someone Told Me When I Returned From My Mission.

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When I got home from my mission everyone wanted to help me ‘adjust’ back to the ‘real world.’ I got so much advice on how and what I should be doing, but looking back on most of the advice I got — I really wish I had ignored it. What I wish someone had told me are these five things.

1st. Don’t Stop Sharing The Gospel.

Almost everyone told me that I needed to make sure I “came home” from my mission. They warned me against wanting to live in the mission still. My first Sunday back I noticed a man in gospel doctrine with his missionary name tags still on his scriptures. I thought to myself “Ahhh a man who never came home, I don’t want to be like him.” Then he made a comment on a comment and it had such a force that I realized I actually did want to be like him.

The man? Zac Huish. He was the Bishop of my family ward when I got off my mission. He encouraged me to go to the YSA ward, and shortly after I started going he was released as the homeward Bishop and called as the Bishop of the YSA ward! As I watched this man share the gospel, live the gospel, serve in the church, and have an amazing family, I realized, I wanted to be like him. He was a true disciple and everyday missionary.

“Returned missionaries, find your old missionary tag. Don’t wear it, but put it where you can see it. The Lord needs you now more than ever to be an instrument in His hands.”
Neil L. Andersen

2nd. It Is Normal To Miss Your Mission.

When I got home from my mission, I went from structure to nothingness. I felt like I was not doing anything of value. I returned mid-January, so there was nothing for me to do except work. I drifted. I longed for the days when I felt I was making a difference in the lives of people. I longed for the purpose of being a missionary. I missed my mission.

It is normal and natural for one to love their mission. After all, if you truly gave your whole heart and soul to the Lord and dwelt among the people you learned to love them,  and you felt their love. Returning home is extremely hard, as all the people you have spent the last 18-24 months learning to love you now you have to leave. You still worry about them, pray for them, and wish you could continue helping them.

I wish someone had told me this was normal. Not only that, I wish someone had explained that you should harness this to still help those on your mission. For example, a brother who has struggled with activity in one of my areas in Vermont I call on a monthly basis, letting him know that I miss him;  sometimes we even read the scriptures together over the phone. Recently he told me that he looks forward to my calls. I realized I could still help my loved one in New England even if I were 2,000 miles away.

3rd. Regular Temple Attendance Will Help.

During my mission, I was unable to attend the temple for two years. When I got back from my mission I ended up installing security systems, and I was busy and working 50-70 hours a week. But right before I renewed my temple recommend. In the interview, my Stake President looked at me and said, “We lose 70% of the guys we send out to do summer sales. They come home and have gone inactive and broken their covenants; don’t be one of them.”

So I made the goal to go to the temple once a week. What first started as a goal to keep myself from falling away turned into something more; I learned that when life has gotten me down, when I miss the mission, or when dating has triggered depressive thoughts I could turn to the temple and feel reassured of my value; I could find help from on high. Whereas yes, I’ve missed a few weeks, in the five years since I have gotten home from my mission I have gone to the temple almost 500 times and to over 70 different temples.

“As you and I go to the holy houses of God, as we remember the covenants we make within, we will be more able to bear every trial and to overcome each temptation. In this sacred sanctuary we will find peace; we will be renewed and fortified.”
Thomas S. Monson

4th. Don’t Let Others Enforce Timetables for Marriage or School.

I remember the last transfer of my mission. Everyone was telling me they gave me 8 weeks before I would be engaged. I knew not to listen to their timetables, but I expected maybe a year being home and I would be married. Here I sit 5 years later. Still single. For years I was trying to abide by some arbitrary timetable: “Go home, go to school, find a girl, marry her in the temple, and start a family.” But year after year and date after date, I saw no success.

I remember last year on my birthday when it finally clicked. The only timetable that matters is God’s. See, one of my converts from South Carolina that I had taught with the Elders there called me. She wished me a happy birthday and told me that she wished I was married,  She told me that she wished that I did not have to wait so long. She then paused and said, “but I am thankful you are not.” She then explained that had I not been single and going out with the Elders (I would go out for 10 hours at a time on Sundays with them) she never would’ve joined the church. She explained that the lesson where I committed her to baptism she was actually planning on dropping the Elders. But when I committed her it changed everything. She then told me, “If you were not single, I would not even know that I am a child of God.”

It hit me like a ton of bricks. If I had my way and timetables it would’ve come at the cost of Jessica’s salvation. That cost was too high. I made the determination that I would seek the Lord’s will, timetables, and to build His Kingdom trusting that when the time is right He will build mine.

“The issue for us is trusting God enough to trust also His timing. If we can truly believe He has our welfare at heart, may we not let His plans unfold as He thinks best?”
Neal A. Maxwell

5th. Keep Doing The Basics.

I know so many less active returned missionaries. It always starts because they fail to keep doing the basics. Typically the first thing to go is morning prayer, then scripture study, then church, and finally evening prayer. These basics may sound inconsequential, but it is in doing the basics that we feed our spirit, and keep the Spirit in our lives. When we fail to do these basic faith building commandments our faith diminishes, the Spirit ceases to strive with us, and soon we experience the “RM Drop off” that’s where you no longer feel the Spirit or see miracles as often.

Instead, as we continue to pray for those we love by name and need, study the scriptures with a desire to learn and help others, truly worship in the temple, and renew our covenants by partaking of the sacrament every week, we will learn that discipleship is built through small everyday acts.

“Praying for others with all of the energy of our souls increases our capacity to hear and to heed the voice of the Lord.”
David A Bednar

Not Going Back.

Just like Peter of old, the hardest part of being a faithful missionary is learning this lesson: God wants us as lifelong disciples, not just for 18-24 months. It is very easy to go back to life the way it was before your mission. Suddenly you have fallen into bad habits, and out of good habits. The single most powerful quote that all returned missionaries need to understand comes from Elder Holland’s Feed My Sheep MTC address:

“You need to decide tonight whether you’re on a course that’s committed to the idea that you really do love God. You really do love the Savior. And if you do, and I know you do, and I pray you do, and we’ll all do this together, we’ll all march into the future together, but when you do, and when you say that, and when you believe that, then your call is to feed His sheep, forever.

Now, can you understand why you must never and may never and can never come back? It will never be the same again. Peter, you can’t go home. You can’t go back to fish. You can’t go back to Galilee. You can’t go back to boats. It’s over. It is a new life, a new day, a new time. This Mission marks that hour in your life. You cannot go back. And if you do, you will break my heart, and you will break the heart of God himself. If you turn your back on the gospel of Jesus Christ, which you have pledged your life, or at least these next two years or eighteen months, to teach. But my point is that it isn’t just eighteen months, and it isn’t just two years. And I stand here at 49 years and counting, and say, I pray that it’s never ever ever over for me. And I pray that it’s never ever over for you.

And if you are ever tempted on your Mission, or after, to leave this faith, or commit a transgression, or to walk away from the covenants you’ve made, and the honesty of your heart – not assuming that you’re going to be perfect, and knowing that we’re all going to have to repent every day of our lives about something – but your course needs to be true. You need to stay the course. You need to see it through. You can’t go back. You’ve left your nets, and you’re going to feed sheep. You’re going to be disciples of the Lord Jesus Christ, for time and eternity.

Boy, that’s weighty to put on the shoulders of a 19-year-old sitting in Provo, Utah. Or a 21-year-old, or whatever you are. But that’s about what this adds up to be. ‘Do you love me? Well then, feed my sheep. And do it forever.'”
Jeffrey R. Holland