HOMECOMING

When it was time for me to return home from my mission, my heart was truly rent with the bittersweetness of seeing my earthly family again, but saying good bye to my mission family, the new loved ones I had found, and the beautiful land of Eastern North Carolina, which had become my ‘Waters of Mormon’ (“How beautiful are they [the waters of Mormon] to the eyes of them who there came to the knowledge of their Redeemer!” –Mosiah 18:30). To add insult to injury, I was the last missionary to leave the airport. We hugged and said tearful goodbyes as the other Elders and Sisters boarded their planes heading to parts west. My President and his assistants had work to do, so when my flight to Akron, Ohio (where my mom had moved during my mission) was delayed, they walked me to my gate and said good bye. As I watched President Hickman walk away, I began to weep. I was surprised by the depth of my grief. I did not want to leave my mission. I did not want to lose the Spirit and structure and sense of purpose I felt as a missionary. Although it is possible to have those things outside of the mission, I hadn’t experienced them before. I was terrified that if I left my mission, those things would disappear from my life and I wanted them more than anything. Even more than being with my loved ones again or resuming my hobbies—more than ANYTHING.

As I regained my composure, I began to examine my feelings. Why was I so sad? What was I going to miss? I recognized this experience as a parable, as the Spirit trying to teach me, but didn’t my heart have it backward? Isn’t leaving on a mission and heading home again a similitude of our mortal probation—leaving parents to learn and grow and serve, and then returning back to where we belong as an improved being? The going home is supposed to be the happy part. Then I recognized what was happening:  this was not a similitude, it was a re-run! The truth is I had never felt at home in the world, and in reality I didn’t even really have a home to return to—my parents had split up, my mom had moved across the country,  and I was flying to a place I had never been. Sure, it would be nice to be with my mom, siblings, and extended family again, but then what? Couldn’t I come back? Why couldn’t I be a Mormon nun? Nope, the truth was I felt much more “at home” being a missionary than I’d ever felt in my “regular life,” and once again I was having the experience of leaving where I belonged and going to a place where I always felt like a fish out of water, a little bit lost and struggling for breath. I was comforted in that moment and told I’d go home and find my path, but my ministry would never end. I was also warned that it wouldn’t be easy to find my next companion and investigators, but to hold on anyway.

So I walked down the ramp to board the plane with a heavy but hopeful heart. I’ve found a way to breathe and to be in the world and have joy. I’ve found ways to minister to the people around me without the super powers of a name tag. I even found my new companion—the forever one— and we made ourselves some awesome little investigators. But deep in my heart, I still miss my real home and look forward to returning there when my work is done.

These words from Elder Maxwell capture my experience and my hopes so well:

“We are not now ready for all things the Lord has prepared in the City of God for them that love Him. (See 1 Cor. 2:9.) Our present eyes are unready for things which they have not yet seen, and our ears are not prepared for the transcending sounds and music of that city.

“The trek will be proving and trying. Faith, patience, and obedience are essential (see Mosiah 23:21; Abr. 3:25), but he who completes the journey successfully will be immeasurably added upon. (see Abr. 3:26.) And he who does not will have subtracted from the sum of his possibilities.

“When we arrive home, we shall be weary and bruised. But at last our aching homesicknesses will cease. Meanwhile, our mortal homecomings are but faint foreshadowings of that Homecoming.” (Neal A. Maxwell, “Called and Prepared from the Foundations of the World,” 1986). 

Seriously can't wait.

Tucson Airport, May 1994