You can be the captain
I will draw the chart
Sailing into destiny
Closer to the heart
A month or so ago I drove up to Wellsville, Utah for the homecoming of my nephew, who had just returned from the Bangkok Thailand mission. As we were having refreshments at his house after the meeting, the bishop stopped by, claiming that he forgot to present my nephew with his missionary plaque. It turned out, however, that this was a ruse, for the bishop produced an envelope for my niece from the missionary department. My niece started to cry as she opened the envelope and read that she had been called to the Hong Kong mission. The bishop had conspired with my niece to surprise her parents.
This prank was recorded and my niece posted the video on YouTube:
This experience of watching my nephew return and my niece receive her call, got me thinking about coming and going -- leaving on a mission and returning home.
When I returned home my father told me about something he saw on the day I left for the MTC in Provo. He had stopped at the door to my room just as I was getting ready to leave. He watched as I picked up a model airplane and looked at it for a few moments. Then I put it down and walked out of the room. I did not remember doing this, but I suppose that I was thinking about what I was leaving behind.
A few weeks later, after getting off the plane in San Jose, California, I read a poem that dealt with the idea of leaving things behind. The poem begins with a missionary, while flying out, thinking of his family and friends and asking himself if he wanted the life ahead or the one he was leaving behind. The poem then jumps two years ahead to this missionary's flight home. Now he is thinking of his companions, his mission president, and the people he taught and baptized. Once again he asks if he wants the life ahead or the one he is leaving behind.
For me, leaving on a mission was like starting out on a great adventure. I knew what I was leaving behind, but I could not wait to "let the journey begin." The only hard moment I had was after boarding the plane to fly out, for it was then that it hit me that I would not see my family and friends for two years, and I had a hard time holding back the tears.
I found coming home to be much more difficult. I loved my mission and I did not want to leave it. Had they asked me to stay for another six months I would have leaped at the chance. I first asked my mission president for an extension when I had been out only nine or ten months. At the same time, the last few months were difficult as I often felt that I was being pulled in two different directions. The end of my mission was fast approaching, and I was looking for the brake pedal. Yet at the same time, I had thoughts of home, of seeing family and friends again.
One of the fundamental facts of life is that time marches on; we can neither stop it, nor slow it down. The only thing we can do is make the most of every moment. You may not realize it, on that hot day, as you tract that long street, that the time will come when you will miss doing this very thing, when you would give almost anything to do it again. The times I look back on now with nostalgia were those times when my companions and I were working hard, even as appointments canceled on us left and right.
Returning home meant another new beginning, the start of the next adventure. It meant finding a job and picking a college to attend. It meant entering the dating scene and looking for the girl I would marry.
I can remember the day I flew home, how I looked out the window and watched the Monterey Peninsula recede into the distance -- Monterey, where I had my first two baptisms, and where my companion and I worked so hard, yet experienced so much adversity as so many appointments stood us up. The next thing I knew I was looking out the window at the snow covered Wasatch mountains.
After the plane landed, I waited with another missionary until we were the last to get off. We paused to shake hands and then turned to find our families in the terminal. I hugged my famiy and said hello, they took me to lunch, and then home where I opened a few Christmas presents, even though it was mid Jaunary. And then, for the first time in two years, I was alone. Instead of thinking about what streets in Watsonville my companion and I were going to tract the next day, I had to think of other things to do. I am sure I started reading my first non-church related book in two years.
But there was one last challenge from my mission to face: my homecoming meeting. I looked forward to seeing my friends, and I wanted them to see how I had changed, but only one friend was able to attend. I had my talk all prepared, and I had a lot to say, but the two youth speakers and the ward choir took the first 25 minutes, leaving me but 13. I thought about getting up, bearing a short testimony and sitting down, but it occured to me that this was the only homecoming meeting I was going to get. So I started praying for inspiration and, as a result, I probably gave the best talk I have ever given -- going 4 minutes over time.
Some return missionaries may be surprised to find that there is still much to learn, that there is still a strait and narrow path to walk and much more yet to be endured. There will be challenges in college, at work, in marriage, and in other endeavors in life.
No matter how much adversity one has experienced, or how much one has learned, they are still human and will continue to fall short of perfection because of their weaknesses and inadequacies. The good news is that the Atonement is there for them, even if their failings are not great sins. There will always be the the opportunity to humble ourselves and have faith in Christ and to be lifted by His grace.
"Wherefore, ye must press forward with a steadfastness in Christ, having a perfect brightness of hope, and a love of God and of all men. Wherefore, if ye shall press forward, feasting upon the word of Christ, and endure to the end, behold, thus saith the Father: Ye shall have eternal life" (2 Nephi 31:20).
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