The Best Kept Secret

In the last months of my mission, my companion’s brother was travelling through Europe on business and got permission to take my companion and me to lunch. As we visited over pizza, he observed that one of the church’s best kept secrets is what a mission is really like.

I’ve reflected on that reality over the three-plus decades since my mission. This week, my niece, whose brother is leaving the MTC this week for his own mission, pointed me to an article that captures some of the secrets beautifully. You can read it here.  Betsy VanDenBerge gets it just right as she contrasts real mission life with the caricatures we sometimes encounter. She busts a few popular myths, including:

1. It’s all about converting

2. It’s an insular bubble protected from the world

3. Missions foster intolerance

Indeed, she points out what missionaries learn, including the fact that they don’t convert anyone.

Of course there are other mysteries of mission life, including how hard it really is. And one reason it’s an unspoken secret is not that anyone is trying to hide the truth, but rather that experience is the only way to learn it. I will never know the pain of childbirth, even though I’ve observed my wife give birth seven times. Why? I’ve not experienced it. Similarly, I would never have known the pain of mission growth had I not lived through it.

That’s not to say missions are miserable. Quite the contrary, I still speak of my mission with almost a romantic enthusiasm, highlighting the miracles I witnessed (including real live miracles of healing), the conversions I saw (including my own), and the growth I felt in myself over those two years. To say the experience was transformational for me is to master the obvious.

To say I left a boy and came home a man is far too simple, however accurate the description may be from 50,000 feet up. The growth was in the day-to-day journey, negotiating my relationship with companions, mission leaders, church members and non-members, both interested in the church and not. And it was in my negotiating with my own sense of who I was and what I was doing – a vision that was in constant flux during my term of service.

I did not come home an expert in the country where I served, nor was I fully fluent in my mission language (though I’m sure I told myself I was; in truth I was pretty good at church German and had shed most of the most offensive parts of my American accent by the time I came home). I was not a gospel scholar nor a master of the scriptures, though I had developed a pretty clear sense of testimony and could teach the missionary lessons with confidence. I was not the hardest working or highest baptizing missionary in my mission. (Actually I have no idea if I was; my mission didn’t publish any kind of statistics, but I assume I wasn’t.) I was probably a pretty average missionary – far more effective at the end than at the beginning. By the time I came home I had a pretty clear sense of what I was doing as a missionary and how to do it. I felt comfortable in my nametag and my missionary suit, and I knew that I loved the gospel and the church, and I loved teaching.

My mission president taught us that the first soul we’d bring to God (see D&C 18:15) would be our own.  I think that was true for me, and I think my mission experience had a great deal to do with that process.

As I write now to young friends and relatives who are serving missions, I often reflect on my own experiences. I share probably more than these young missionaries want to read – after all, the learning is in the doing – but I hope that by sharing my experiences I can offer some perspective on theirs. Their feedback tells me sometimes I get it right. (And they’re kind enough to say nothing when I don’t.)

How I know the number of missionaries is increasing

In last October’s conference came the announcement of reduced eligibility ages for full time missionary service for young men and young women. And it’s clear that the number of applications and calls are increasing. I don’t need the news reports to tell me that. And I don’t even need my daughter’s reports of increasing numbers in her mission. I just need to look at my own blog’s statistics.

My top post in the last two months is this one, which I published last year in July when my daughter entered the mission field. For quite some time, one of the top Google searches that brings people to my blog is the phrase “missionary letters” or the question “What should I write to missionaries?”

It’s awesome to me that so many are choosing to serve. And it’s awesome to me that so many are choosing to write to those who serve.

I’m hopeful that these new missionaries are as prepared as they are eager to serve, and I have no reason to doubt that they are prepared. Certainly the fine elders we see in our ward each Sunday are well prepared. They are working hard, and their efforts are showing in the success in the work in our ward. They were in our home last night and did all the things you hope good missionaries will do.

Our missionary daughter has nothing but excellent things to report about the missionaries in her mission, as well. (In fairness, our daughter is exceptionally positive, so I’m not sure we’d hear about it even if the missionaries she knew were total slugs. But still I want to believe her that the missionaries she knows are as awesome as she says they are.)

Personally I do have some concerns about the lower ages for service. For me, my year away from home between high school and my mission was really helpful in my maturing process, and in helping me to make the decision to serve. (I was at BYU and was surrounded by other young men who were also making that decision and preparing to serve.) I recognize, however, that not every young man goes to BYU, and we likely lose some (maybe many) who have that post high school year to become more distracted from serving.

Of more concern to me is if 18 becomes the new 19 for young men. My understanding is that young men may serve at 18, but so far there is no official push to have them serve at that age. I’m not a big fan of social pressure to serve, and I believe the best missionaries are those who serve when they are ready, not when they are socially pressured to go. I doubt anyone sets out to apply social pressure, either, but we know that happens at church.

I’m less worried about sisters. In fact, I think it’s awesome that sisters can serve earlier, making a mission service more likely (or so the surge in sisters would suggest). As many have written, sister missionaries bring a lot to the missionary effort, and mission service is likely to bring a lot to the sisters, as well.

I welcome the expanding ranks of missionaries. I welcome the creative solutions to deal with increased needs for training, increased numbers of missions, and increased numbers of letters to missionaries (including those who seek advice from my blog!).


BTW: You can read my latest post at Real Intent, "God's Greatest Hits: Moses v. Satan," here.