Reconciliation with Coming Home Early: My Story and Miracles

                If I would have stayed out on my mission, I would have come home two days ago. Three days ago I was able to report to the high council (the people in charge of the whole area) and say that I completed a full mission.
                 I felt like I needed to share how I managed to make peace with my early homecoming, which was without doubt the hardest thing I’ve ever had to do. Ever since I was a little girl I always wanted to serve a mission. When the announcement was made I had just barely turned 19 and I started my papers that day and finished them within the week. I reported to the Missionary Training Center in January and everyone told me that missions were supposed to be ridiculously hard, but rewarding. For me it had brief hard moments, but about 90% of the time I found it the easiest, most natural thing to do. I LOVED my mission more than just about anything. Last September, after weeks of collapsing and being hospitalized without any progress made on what was causing the debilitating pain, my beloved mission president, President Bowen, spoke with me and my parents and we all decided that I should consider going home. He didn't leave much choice up to me because I had been irresponsible with past choices and had forced myself onward and refused to tell people about the pain so that I could stay out on my mission. One of the sisters that I respected most spoke to me and told me that I needed to address the little nagging voice in the back of my head and get healed up so that I could someday play with my future children.
                That hit me incredibly hard. I realized that I could be stupidly selfish and destroy my body by ignoring the pain, or I could figure it out and have more of a chance that I could be there fully for my children someday. I let down my wall of pride and prayed about it and knew that I was supposed to come home. I was sent home on my birthday and, at the airport where many are greeted by flowers and signs, I was greeted only by my beautiful mother and we cried and cried. I would continue to feel bad for myself, especially when it seemed like I was doing horrific medical test after horrific medical test without any significant results, until I received a call from my Stake Patriarch who told me that, if we are following God’s commandments, whatever happens is a step forward. That became my motto and I tried to be as happy as possible with God’s plan for me.

                I would continue through 8 months of agony and frustrating helplessness and mission trunkiness before the problem was diagnosed. The problem has since been fixed, but what I want to draw attention to is not the misery and the woe, but rather that God does not forget his children. I have seen countless miracles and I want to share some of them with you.

1. God opened up doors. During the tests I asked for a priesthood blessing from my father and during it, I felt impressed to have a particular test done that the doctor didn’t think was warranted. I insisted and the nurse was checking for openings. She told me that there wouldn’t be another opening for another two months. I politely insisted that she check again, and a spot had opened up in the next three days. This test did not tell us the main source of the problem, but we were able to identify a different medical complication that was contributing to the issue and that could have been disastrous to find out later.

2. The Lord provides a way for us to accomplish His commandments. I prayed and felt like I needed to go back to college even though I could barely walk. The Lord provides a way and I soon found an apartment right next to campus with incredibly supportive roommates. So many people chipped in to help me, which was difficult for me because I hardly ever accepted help. I realize now that it may have seemed like I couldn't do anything for myself, but it genuinely took great patience to allow others to help me at all. I am stubborn to a fault, but I am so grateful to all the miraculous people who helped me, especially my parents. I somehow managed to go a whole semester with a lot of limitations, but I still got the best grades that I have yet to get in college thus far. I know that it was impossible, but God made it a possibility.

3. He spared me. I had only been home for a short time when I found out that my old companions had been in a car accident and had been hit on the side where I normally sat. I cannot fully say that I know for sure that I would have been hurt, but the car was totaled, and I definitely think that there was a chance.

4. He put people in my path. A while after I had been diagnosed with a problem with the hip joint, my parents took a trip to Central America, and while searching for a church to attend they ran into another woman visiting. My mother talked to her and mentioned me. The woman told her that she had a daughter who had been a dancer when the same thing happened to her. Her first surgery had made the problem worse, so they visited a second surgeon and he completely fixed her up. She gave my mom the information of the better surgeon, and his office happened to be about an hour away from my house and, magically, he took my insurance. Because my parents took the time to go to church while on vacation, they were ready for the person that God placed there to help me get the care I needed.

5. He fulfilled his promise. I was given a blessing on the mission that I wouldn’t be healed until I understood the Atonement, or sacrifice, of Christ. I thought that that meant I needed to repent and really try my very hardest to study the Atonement. When I didn’t get better I decided that the blessing might have been too complicated for me to get. However, right when I had my surgery and my recovery I was still at the point when I would cry every time the mission was brought up and I felt sad and bitter at times. It was brought to my attention by a very wise person that it shouldn’t be that way. I realized that understanding the Atonement meant that we needed to put our will in line with God’s. It was at that point that I tried to start to do that, and I started healing not only physically, but also that gaping hole in my heart that formed when I was ripped away from what I loved has slowly started to heal. This has been a MAJOR turning point in my life.

6. My favourite miracle of all. When I came home I had no intention of dating. I was going to go right back on my mission and no silly boy was going to stand in the way. However, my zone leader from the mission started visiting me and after A FEW WEEKS (I didn’t even think he liked me in the mission) we decided that we would start dating even though we knew that I was planning on going back. He patiently encouraged me to make the decision that God wanted me to make whatever it might have been, but I mostly needed to focus on getting better before I could make any decisions. He was there for me when I broke down and when I couldn't do things myself. He helped me more than I can possibly say and I can never thank him enough for that. I began to realize that this might be the path that God wanted me to go down: being with this wonderful man. This was confirmed over and over again, and when we visited Anaheim, President Bowen looked me in the eye and told me “He is the reason you served a mission.” If I had come home at this time, we would only have had a few days before his family moved to Wyoming and who knows if it would ever have worked out. Instead, I got to probably be one of the very first girls to report their mission to High Council with an engagement ring on their finger and I can honestly say that I’m with God on this one, and I would never have it any other way for me.

Now, not all people are as lucky as I am when they come home early from their missions. I realize that I am incredibly blessed, but the point that I want to make is that there IS LIFE after hard things and even during hard things. There is life during and after coming home from a mission early. There is life during and after pain. There is life during and after when everything you know changes. As I read in a pretty awesome kitchen, “It will all be okay in the end. If it’s not okay, it’s not the end.” God loves you. He knows your difficulties and knows exactly what you need if you can bring yourself to align your will to His and ask for help. This is not the end and there is nothing you can’t do without your Heavenly Father backing you up. Never give up hope and never stop smiling, because He knows EXACTLY what He’s doing. I can testify of miracles and the love of God for each of His children, and I say this in the name of Jesus Christ. Amen.

7 Ways to Deal With Coming Home Early from Your Mission

Ways to deal with coming home early from your mission

I don’t profess to be an expert on dealing with coming home from a mission even though I did it, but I have talked to a lot of people like me, and prayed about it a lot. I am combining the awesome knowledge of God, Jesus, other amazing returned missionaries, so anything that seems stupid or incorrect should be blamed on me, not on them. Here are some of the things that these stellar people have come up with to help those coming home early from their missions:

1.  Come unto Christ – No matter what reason caused you to come home, Christ can help you solve it. The Atonement allows us to heal in ways that we never even knew we were broken. It is not just for repentance. It is for solace and understanding. No matter what reason you came home, Christ has suffered for it so that you don’t have to feel nearly as much pain if you just let him in to heal your heart.

2. Remember that it is always a step forward – Sin is the only way we can step backward, and if we are trying our best to avoid sin and do good things, we will be going forward in God’s plan for us. Remember the words of “Lead, Kindly Light” -- “Keep thou my feet; I do not ask to see the distant scene – one step enough for me.”  As long as we are living worthy of the Spirit and are doing our best to be our best, anything that might seem a setback or a stumbling block is just a platform to climb to somewhere higher that God has in store for you.

3. Keep up your scripture habits – Recently one of the people I visit teach told me that she highlighted everything in her scriptures that brought her comfort. God speaks to us through the Holy Ghost, which can be accessed through the sincere study and application of the scriptures. God loves you and He has whole chapters written just to bring you comfort at this very time, no matter what state you are in. He wants to help you, so keep reading!

4. Keep busy! – You have just been coming from one of the most tasking jobs on all levels that have ever been created. If you attempt to transition from a super busy lifestyle to doing nothing, you will probably find yourself with a lot of downtime to mope and feel down. Satan is the being that is in charge of making us feel inadequate or sad. God wants us to smile and be happy. Tell the devil to go to hell, and do your very best to find productive things to do.

5. Pray – We learn from President Thomas Monson that God’s love is there whether we deserve it or not. He is waiting with innumerable blessings of comfort and guidance, and all we have to do is ask. This is not something you can get through without heavy, intense relying on the Lord.

6. Give people the doubt – I have found that if I am looking to be offended, I am very persuasive and often end up offended. Chances are that people really do care about you, but they don’t know how to handle themselves or are very far from sensitive. There will always be some haters, but luckily their salvation is not dependent on you, so just try to keep the attitude that no one is judging you, and those that don’t are awesome, true friends and those that do are going to have their own kind of judging reserved for them after this life.

7. Never be ashamed – God loves you and He is the only one who matters. If God has given you a concrete answer to your prayers, you trust in that relationship without being “ashamed of the gospel of Jesus Christ,” and NO ONE ELSE’S OPINION MATTERS! You are a child of God, no matter what illnesses (spiritual, mental, physical) that you may go through and nothing will ever change that. Never be ashamed of who you are.

To be quite honest, coming home early from my mission is one of the most bitter-sweet, horrible, amazing blessings that has ever happened to me. There is nothing else that has been able to test my mission skills and help me to apply my faith so much. It was also the hardest time of my entire life, which is how most of us feel. You feel abandoned, worthless, weak, and you constantly have people probing and prying at open wounds. Good! So many times we have to be humbled in order for God to have easy access to our hearts. So many times we cannot see more than one step ahead of us, but we trust in God's promises and keep His commandments, we will end up happy. God loves you! You are a powerful child of God! There IS hope! Keep up the good work and don't you dare give up on yourself. He would never give up on you.

5 Ways to Help Missionaries Who Come Home Early

5 Ways to Help Missionaries Who Come Home Early

I have found that since the lowering of the age requirements to serve a mission, that many, many missionaries have had to come home early from their missions for some reason or another. I am one of these early-returned missionaries and I have found that many people have a hard time adjusting to coming home after making a great decision to serve the Lord. Not only do you have to deal with the reason that you came home alongside with the normal, awkward, barely returned missionary stage, but you also have to deal with people who might not complete understand your situation. I have noticed that a lot of returned missionaries that feel like they are going to be judged for coming home early, do in fact focus on the negative reactions to their homecoming.  I’m sure that the amount of judgment varies from place to place and from situation to situation; but, at least for me, the main problem wasn’t being judged, but rather having good, caring people try to make things better and somehow make them worse. 

To those of you who know me, this is not a critique of your behaviour, but I thought that it would be a fantastic thing if people knew how to help early-returned missionaries. So here you go! From the perspective of a recently early-returning missionary - the guide to how to deal with us.

1. Judge not lest ye be judged– “Medical release” in Mormon culture today seems to signify that it is “acceptable” for the missionary to be released in such circumstances. I’m going to let you in on a secret - every missionary that comes home early, comes home for “medical reasons.” There is more than one way to be sick. Some come home due to physical illness, some because of mental illness, some because of spiritual illness, some due to emotional illness, some due to a family illness, and some due to illnesses of other sorts. It is a common, and frankly quite stupid, fault with our society that physical illness is considered to be so much more “normal” than any other kind. If someone tears their meniscus, people feel bad for them and when they’re on crutches, no one judges. On the other hand, if they have been diagnosed with a mental disorder or if they have committed a sin, you should treat them with the same amount of care and kindness. Leave the judgment to God and be kind. To those who have a problem with this, consider Christ’s words, but I will change the word “sin” so that it fits the rest of the categories here. He said, “he who is without [illness] among you, let him be the first to throw a stone.”

2. Ditch the interviews – While it is genuinely nice to have people show that they care by inquiring after you, probing questions rope a person back into thinking about what they’ve been trying not to think about. Do your best to treat the returned missionary like they are a person. Ask to help them, but a room full of people asking how you are doing when you’re in physical, mental, or emotional pain simply reminds you of said pain. Show your love, but not by interrogating them, even if it is done out of kindness.

3. Keep them busy – One of the most difficult things is adjusting from a lifestyle where every detail is planned and you are constantly moving, to just sitting there. Help them find productive, fun, and wholesome things to do. Study the scriptures with them, pray with them, and help them to heal in everyway possible.

4. Let them consult the Lord – Occasionally there are speedy recoveries and the early-returned missionary has a second chance to head out to the mission field. Whether or not they choose to go back is entirely between them and the Lord. It is not your place to tell them what their Heavenly Father has in store for them. Encourage them to seek heavenly counsel, but you cannot receive revelation in place of them. If they choose to return and serve, more power to them. If they choose to follow the Lord’s path for them in a different way, an equal amount of respect is required. If they choose to start falling away from the Church, then is the time to pull them into the rescue boat. But it still up to them to receive their own answers.

5. Be a friend – More often than not, this time in a person’s life will be one of the most difficult things they have come across in their twenty or so years of living. Most likely they will break down. Most likely they will at one point become bitter and frustrated and have their faith severely challenged. That doesn't mean that they cannot be happy or progress, but they need a friend who is willing to encourage them to be better at their best, and mourn with them (and also encourage them to be better… that should be a pretty much constant thing) when they are at their worst.

People who come home early are in the process of healing or fixing something, whether it is their foot, or their heart, or their spirit, or their family, or their mind. There is one more optional step that I would like to throw in there… If they want to, allow them to ramble about their missions. I don’t know if you’ve ever hung out with a freshly returned missionary, but all they seem to want to talk about is that one time when they went tracting and a wild pack of raccoons (animal may change based on section of the world) chased them away from the door of a golden investigator and they had to outrun them while carrying a broken bike and twenty copies of the Book of Mormon. This makes perfect sense because the mission was their whole life for a long time. If this makes them feel better, sit and listen. Listen and learn so that you can love even more fully.

I’m going to step off my soap box and let you all return to your busy lives, but before I go I wanted to give a shout out to all those who are struggling with coming home early from their missions. You are children of God and He and I love you very much. I’m here if you need anyone to talk to. I’m also going to be posting one of these with steps for my fellow ERMs, so keep an eye out and hopefully it will help. I’m not claiming to cure anything, but I do know that Christ took upon himself all of our infirmities of every kind and through Him we can get over anything. Chin up and keep smiling!