Why Write About My Experiences

My laptop may be dying, but still I cannot suppress the urge to write. The Spirit and my own emotions have been on my case every day since I walked off that plane bringing me home from my mission and back to my family, and I can no longer keep the words inside from spilling out.

I need to write about my experiences on the mission. Why, I’m not so sure. For my sake, for the sake of others, for my own attempt to make sense of a year-and-a-half packed full of events, people, emotions, life.

Missions are hard. Mine was unique. Here on BYU campus, being a recently returned sister missionary makes me a stereotype, and I am finding it difficult to find my own voice in the Mormon Bubble, especially at this university, and even in my own ward. I often feel like I blend in, like I’m background, like there’s nothing to make me stand out, and if there is, it’s probably apostate. For the record, here is how I feel about my mission: I’m relieved to be home and beyond grateful that I went. It was stressful, it was emotionally draining, and through the whole thing God was shaping my experience to meet my specific needs, to fulfill certain promises made to me years and years ago, to help me become someone I have been trying to become all along. I learned hope, I learned peace, I learned to rely on my Savior and the Plan of Salvation in a way I had never learned to before. I learned to trust others to love me even when I’m weak – and not just love me, but to respect me as a strong individual as well, as paradoxical as that sounds (it still seems like a paradox to me). I learned to be miserable day after day after day – and to still keep on going anyway. I learned to work when there seemed no point. I learned to recognize when people were lying, or undiagnosed schizophrenics, or had just been on drugs for way too many years. I learned, through how others treated us (both good and bad), how to graciously turn down an invitation to learn more about someone else’s religion.

I’m not entirely sure what this next string of posts will bring. I write what flows and hope that it’s enough. I have a lot of thoughts about a lot of topics, a lot of stories that I may share or may in the end label as “too personal” and merely allude to. Whatever comes out, know that it was my mission, this is my life, and God knows we’re all unique. I write because God told me to, and in the hope that the Spirit will translate whatever I have to say into whatever you need to hear. Overall, I guess my posts can be summed up with what one of my English professors recently said, “It’s not a brag. I’m just telling you what God has helped me to accomplish.”