A while back I was talking to a young friend of mine when out of the blue he asked, “Do you think I should serve a mission?”
I was a little shell shocked for a second, wondering how best to respond. I couldn’t find the words to describe what I wanted to say because my own journey to becoming a missionary was filled with regret, happiness, despair, hope, confusion, and every emotion that a human being could experience--and that was just while putting in my papers.
I was a little shell shocked for a second, wondering how best to respond. I couldn’t find the words to describe what I wanted to say because my own journey to becoming a missionary was filled with regret, happiness, despair, hope, confusion, and every emotion that a human being could experience--and that was just while putting in my papers.
I grew up with the rhetoric that Men serve missions, girls will only date an RM, and you are a disgrace if you don't serve a mission--but I had one big problem with those ideas.
I didn't want to serve a mission.
Now please don’t get me wrong. I was an active member of the LDS church. I loved and defended it through thick and thin, from apostates and antagonists alike. However, I could never picture myself as a missionary. I was terrified. I thought I was a disgrace to the Church for not wanting to serve. The words “I hope they call me on a mission,” that I had sung at least once a month when I was in Primary really never meant anything to me. By the time I was was 18, I was in college and living a very comfortable life. I didn't think I needed to serve a mission. There was only one person who could change my mind:
God.
God has a way of encouraging us to follow His will. For me that way happened to be my parents who never pressured me to go on a mission. In fact, they told me point blank, “If you don’t want to serve, don’t serve. Don’t waste the Lord’s time if you don’t want to go. And don’t you dare serve a mission to make anyone else happy but yourself.” I was confused and didn't know what to do. It came to the point that I had to ask God what that same friend asked me.
“Do You think I should serve a mission?”
My answer came as, still reeling with many different emotions and still with much trepidation, I knocked on my bishop’s door. I knew that He needed me to go. I began my papers. I got my call. I served halfway across the world doing the hardest thing I have ever done.
And I loved every minute of it.
It really was “the best two years” of my life. It’s been a year since I returned and not a day goes by that I am not reminded of something I learned, people I met, or the feelings I had. To be able to see the Gospel changing lives helped to cement my own testimony and love of the Savior. It was physically, psychologically, and linguistically challenging. I loved my mission because it was my mission. I didn’t serve for my parents. I didn’t serve to impress girls. I didn’t serve to make my ward and leaders happy.
I served because I knew it was what my Father wanted me to do.
While in the field I became associated with many missionaries who only went on the mission to get a car, a girl, or make their parents happy, and many of them were miserable. Some of them went home and are now inactive.
The reason they went was because Mormon culture pressures men and women to serve missions at the first possible moment. We give them incentives to serve, such as dates or cars or other worldly rewards. The fact is, missions have an inherent spiritual reward that no earthly reward can match, but that reward can only go to willing servants. We as returned missionaries and adults in the Church should encourage everyone who is able to serve missions, but there is a difference between encouragement and obligation, between reassurance and coercion, between acceptance and exclusion. We should never let anyone think for one minute that their worth or spirituality is determined by whether they served a mission or not. Each person has a different set of circumstances that determine their ability to serve, and if they go out despite not being ready and come home early, they become social pariahs. We set up men for failure if they don't serve a mission, and misery if they serve against their will. Remember that men and women can serve missions at a later age than 18 or 19. A mission can be the most incredible and formative event to take place in ones life, but only as the missionaries serving them are serving because they love God and the Gospel, not because they want girls and glory.
So here is my message for my pre-mission friend, and to anyone with this big decision to make: Serve. You are needed. You are wanted--but serve because you want to, because the Lord wants you to serve.