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!