A Broken Promise

After you have received your mission call you write a letter to the first presidency. In my letter I vividly remember promising to stay out 18 months. When I wrote that line "I will and promise to serve the lord the full 18 months" I felt the spirit overwhelm me. I knew it was right.
But I didn't, I couldn't keep my promise. I had broken a promise that I had made to myself, my stake president, and the first presidency. I had felt the spirit so strongly while writing the letter and when I was to go home early. These two events seem to conflict but I was sure with both of them.
So why then did I feel the spirit so strongly in two conflicting instances? I think that 18 months was a completed mission to me then. When I was writing the letter I was promising to complete my mission until the end. And I did, I completed it. It was just not 18 months as I had assumed completion meant.
Why am I telling you this? God keeps his promises and allows us to keep ours. And to illustrate that promptings are not always what we think

The Healers

      My last companion just got home from her mission. She was amazing and she meant so much to me. She was such a spiritual power house and a great missionary. But I wasn't. I didn't deserve her. This still haunts me to know that I could have caused her any form of pain. Because of her I am the person I am today. She helped me get through coming home early. She prayed with me and comforted me.  She gave me an example of the ultimate Christ like love. I owe her so much.
      We all have that person. The person that loved us even when we were being a jerk. The person that cared for us when we didn't deserve it. The lord gave us these people. When we hurt for what ever reason God puts loving people in our path. These people help God to heal the wounds that have been caused. Thank you healers. Let us try to be healers and in turn be more Christ like.

It still stings

    As I had said many times before coing home early was a very hard thing for me. And over time it got better. It was eaiser to do what I needed to and it was easier to talk about going on my mission and coming home early. I had learned to deal with any negative comments and I had learned to be proud of myself.

    But I still have those days. Those days were I am upset with myself. The days that something will come in the mail from my mission or something that is said will bring up a painful memory. I had a roommate that brought up her mission so much that I was reminded of my mission everyday, This happens and it stings, even after a year certain subjects still hurt. 

    Why am I telling you this? To give hope, and to let you know that things may hurt for awhile. It is not just for returned missionaries but everyone. Anyone who has suffered a lost, or who has repented from a major sin or has done something they are ashamed of.  You will heal but those little dashes of pain remind you how far you have come and how far you have yet to go. Be strong and of good courage you can do this. 

Finding peace

     When I first got home peace seemed like a hope that could not be realized. I was too upset, and too hurt. Of course I wanted peace but it did not seem like it was ever going to come. At first I tried to find peace from others. Usually friends, returned missionaries and family. Their wise words would help to ease the pain for a moment. The peace given by them lasted only  until I started to beat myself up again. I then started trying too look inside myself for peace, really try to forgive myself. That method gave me glimpses of peace. And then I gave up. 

    All this time, for months, I was looking for peace in the wrong places. It is only when I started to use the atonement and look to God that I felt lasting peace. I still found peace through inward glimpses and the wise words of others. But that was just supplemental. My real peace came from the recurring thought that Christ was with me. That everything was going to be okay. God had a plan for me and I was following that plan. I had suffered a few bumps and bruises but God always picked me up again. The atonement covered me like a blanket and finally I felt peace. Not to say that I never kicked off the blanket but it was always there waiting for me. 

    Peace can be found. You just have to look for it in the right places. Never give up peace will come. Stay strong and have courage

The Refiners Fire: A year home

     This time last year I was a mess, having just come home early.  I was so upset and anxiety ridden. I felt betrayed, hurt, lonely, misunderstood, and hopeless. I was mad at myself and I thought that all the people who told me I couldn't and shouldn't go on a mission were right. I felt as if I was a failure. I felt as though I had let God down, and that he couldn't love me anymore. I remember those first few days as a blur between crying and pretending that I was okay.
    Now it has been a year. It has been one of the hardest years of my life. I have been through more then I thought I ever could have survived. I have sobbed until I thought my heart would burst. I have been mad at God. I have been spiritually and emotionally numb. I have all but given up. BUT I have prayed and relied on others. I have found healing in the temple. I have learned not to listen to the negative comments of others. I have gained a stronger testimony of the atonement. I have given of myself when I didn't think I could. I have been an example and a hope to others. I have ultimately become one step closer to who God wants me to be. 
     If I could go back and change what happened I wouldn't, and couldn't. What happened to me a year ago made me the person I am today. I am closer to the daughter of God that he wants me to be. A mission would have made me better  too I am sure, but not in the way God intended.
    Life is hard and if you are going through a trial or hardship right now it is hard to see how it will be in a year. But I promise that if you just hold on and trust God you will become better because of it.

Aligning My Will With God's

    Part of my problem when I came home is that it was the first time where my plans did not match up with God's. My plan was to stay out 18 months that is how long I promised to stay out there and that was what I was going to do. This is directly connected with pride. I knew better therefore I should be where I thought I should be right? WRONG. I knew nothing, and still don't actually. But God does. He had a differnet plan. And I had to learn to live with it.
    Why am I telling you this? Because everything is in the Lord's timing. He knows so much more then we do and sometimes we have to take the leap of faith and let him take control. I am thankful to my mission president who listened to God's will instead of mine. I would have stayed out and done my best but God needed me home. I am still learning to align my will with God's but I know that he knows better then me. He will never guide me to something that isn't going to make me better in the long run.

The change from: Secretly inactive to God searching

    When I came home early, one of the hardest things was that first Sunday. I did not want to go at all, I was ashamed of myself and I felt like a disappointment to my ward. My mom told me that if I did not go this week that it would be easier and easier not to go. So I went and it wasn't too bad. I had worked in the primary before I went so I just helped out there. Kids are a lot less judgey then adults. But church was no longer edifying I went because it was right. But I didn't like to.
    The same thing happened with the temple I went once maybe twice when I got home but I didn't like to go anymore. I did not really want to talk to God or feel his spirit as strongly as I felt it in the temple. I actively avoided going to the temple. I also stopped really studying my scriptures. On my mission 5 pages could take me an hour, When I got home I maybe read a few verses. I also stopped praying sincerely. It was rehearsed prayers without a lot of meaning.
    I was spiritually inactive. I was still going to church every Sunday and I had a calling in the primary. But everything I did was because it was a habit, I didn't get much out of it. But no one ever knew, I was physically there, just not spiritually. I was a secret inactive.
   This went on for many months. I had noticed that I was not as spiritual as I had been before.  But I was so spiritually numb that I didn't really care. I can remember the exact moment when my heart changed. I had moved and was going to school. A friend of mine who was also a medically released missionary asked me to go to the temple with her. I didn't want her to think I had fallen away so I said yes. Something changed in my heart at the moment I decided to go back to the temple and while I was there. God was just waiting for me to make the first move in coming closer to him. He wasn't going to make me or persuade me. He was always there helping me and loving me. I had just refused to notice. But when I made the first step I felt it. I had started to become active again.
    God is there. He loves us and he will wait for us. He wants us to come to him. I love Him so much and am honored to be his daughter. Let us try to reach out for God. He is waiting.

Comparing.

    One of the things that has been really hard for me lately is all the missionaries coming home. Especially people from my mission and then they add me as a facebook friend. This is one of the hardest things because I have spent about 8 months trying to forget my mission. I have been trying to only focus on the positive. These missionaries come from serving the entire time. I feel less then them. They are better then me and they were able to stay the entire time out. I wasn't. They have all of these experiences that I have missed they impacted more lives then I did. Helped more people. When these RMs come home it can make the MRRMs feel horrible.
    I have now fallen into a classic pitfall. Comparing. This is one of the worse things anyone can do and it is totally natrual. We compare ourselves to others. They are smarter, more beautiful, and so on.  As I said in "failure" success is personal. If we compare ourselves to others we only set ourselves up for failure. I do not think that God has a chart of us and another person comparing us. God will always look at were we have come. He will not compare us to the Whole Time Return missionaries. (WTRM). Or to the mom who looks like the supper hero. Or the dad that seems to provide everything for his family.
It is important for us to do our best regardless of others. We each have strengths and we each have weaknesses. It is so important for us to stop comparing ourselves to others. It will make us so much happier.

FAILURE

     When you come home early you feel like a failure. At least I did. It was horrible it was just one more emotion that made its way into my heart. I had not been strong enough or good enough to stay out the entire timed. It was all my fault and I had not accomplished my goal. I was a disappointment to my friends, my family, myself, and God.  As you can Imagine this was a horrible way to feel.
     I had technically failed, I had a not achieved what I wanted.  I saw it as black and white. You go the whole time you succeed you don't you fail. But this was not right at all. We do not all have the same measure of success as any other person. Success for me was even going. It was getting up everyday even though I just wanted to lie in bed. It was pretending to be happy when I wasn't. It was going a whole appointment without saying something stupid. That was what success for me was. For others it was going the whole time, or baptizing a hundred people, or going into a leadership position. But not me, my success looked different then anyone else's. It was mine.
    We all have different abilities and we all succeed in different ways. The only way we can fail is by not trying. Any MRRM did not fail we succeeded to the best of our ability.
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Feeling Betrayed by God

The feeling that overwhelmed me when I came home was betrayal.  I felt like God had betrayed me.  Let me explain this. I was 100 percent sure that I went on my mission when God wanted me to.  But I also knew that God sent me home. When I came home as I have explained it was the worse thing in my life. It hurt so bad and I thought that my heart would explode. There are really no words to describe how upset I was. 

    If I had done what Good wanted me to why did he lead me to this pain. I did everything I was supposed to do but I still got hurt. I felt that God had betrayed me that he had lead me down a road of hurt and if he had  really loved me then he wouldn't have allowed this pain to happen. 

    There was a little while when I was really mad at God for this. I  would barely talk to him. I didn't go to the temple to feel him. I read my scriptures a little but I didn't study them.  But God always waited for me. And Jesus Christ was always there for me.  I realized that I was not seeing the whole picture. Yes, it was horrible but after awhile I began to know that God did not want to hurt me. It pained him to see me upset but he knew what was best for me. He knew that this event would have the opportunity to change my life for the better. 

    Why am I telling you this? Because I felt that God caused me pain and many people feel that way. We have to learn to trust God. And allow him to show us what we can become. We can get hurt because of other's agency or because we made a bad choose or because God had a different plan for us. Just be strong and know that He is God and He loves you. Thought pain we become who God wants us to be.

What do I say?

I have a dilemma that I face everyday and I think that most MRRM (medically released return missionary) have. What do I say when I talk about my mission. Do I mention I came home early or do I not. If I don't mention it and talk like I served 18 months does that make me a liar? When I don't mention it am I devising people. I don't know but this is what I do know. I served a full time mission and successfully completed it.  That's what classifies a RM. Also I know that it is no ones business that I came home early or why. I can voluntarily give the information but I don't have to.
So what have I decided to do. I am not going to hide it because I am not ashamed but I am not going to broadcast it because it is not important to whatever story I am telling or what ever conversation I am in. Long story short. Any Medically released missionary is without a doubt an returned missionary. So don't be ashamed.
As a matter of fact, no one be ashamed. No matter what your weaknesses are it is not important. As long as god is proud of what you are doing what others think doesn't matter.

A Worker In the Vineyard

When my mission president called me into his office to tell me I was going home he reminded me of the story of the workers in the vineyard. By the time he was done I was sobbing but he still had a good point. The worker that had been there the longest got paid what they agreed on. But they were unhappy because the ones that worked the least still got paid the same.
My whole life I had been the worker that worked the longest and the hardest. I always went to church and did what I was suppose to. But when my mission was cut short I was no longer the longest worker I was the shortest worker. The one that didn't get to work as long as the others. I believe/ trying to believe that I will get the same blessings in heaven for the short time I worked as I would have gotten if I had been able to stay the entire time. This is not meant to be unfair to the longer workers but merciful to the ones that didn't have the ability, chance, or health to work the entire day.
What I learned is that all God wants is your best and your willingness. Everyone's best is different and God knows what that is. Some people's best is to go for a 24 month or 18 month mission. Others 5. Some have 5 kids, some people's best is adopting 1.
Do your best and God will do the rest

It's good to be home again?

True story, going home early from your mission is horrible. To me it was devastating. When my mission president said I had to go home it was the worse day of my life. It blind sided me. My biggest fear was going home early. I cried and I was so upset. I  even got accused of using my tears to manipulate people. It felt like I was a child not trusted with my own life. Everything went on around me but no one would talk to me. My companion was the one in charge. No one asked for my opinion or told me what was going on. I just did what I was told. Everyone seemed to have known I was going home but me. I was treated like I was on the death sentence by the other missionaries and that is how it felt. I was embarrassed and upset and disappointed in myself. I came home and spent most of the night crying, more like sobbing.
Why am I telling you this because it is what happened. Because not every missionary has the same experience but it can be really bad. But I think it is mainly because I need to get it out. This day (almost a year ago) still haunts my mind and still causes a little bit of pain.
What I learned from this experience. It is okay to be devastated or upset. It is okay to cry until your eyes fall out as long as when you are done you keep going.