Growing up, it was never a question in my mind that I would serve a mission. The prophet made it clear that every worthy young man should serve, and my parents led the way and set the example. I know that by the age of 10 I had a bank in my dresser divided into three compartments: tithing, mission and spending. Half of every dollar I earned went into my mission fund. My parents even paid my allowance in dimes to make it easier for me to assign monies to the various compartments.
Consequently, I never really felt I needed to pray to go. I quietly went about living as if the question was already decided. I attended early morning seminary faithfully. I have fond memories of being in class at the chapel while my father slept in the foyer waiting to take me to school on his way to work after I finished. Although back then the age of service was 21, I went to university and continued to save 50% of what I earned, which was now invested, and attended institute. By the time I received my mission call, with help from my parents in home study, from church religion classes, and my own determination, I had read the Book of Mormon cover to cover seven times and the entire Bible twice. My bishop refused to ordain me an elder until I had my mission call, so I did the sacrament in my student ward at university, since I was not eligible to serve in anything requiring the Melchizedek priesthood.
I received my mission call about three weeks before my 21st birthday but did not report for many weeks after that. After my first year at university, I chose to receive my endowments in St George (to be different from everyone else) and went to the MTC on 1 July. It was a stuffy environment, but I gave myself to study in the now absent buildings in our basement classroom and in my dorm as instructed while some of my district mates talked of home and sports and women and their futures. I had “put aside all other wordly concerns to focus on serving the lord” as instructed.
My maternal grandfather was upset when my mother told him that they didn’t need him to pay towards my mission. He wanted the blessings. But when my mother informed him that I was paying half of my own mission, he put aside his pride and shifted to being pleased with me. While serving my mission, the $9000 I had saved up for my mission was replenished by investment success and when I returned home, despite having paid half of my mission myself, my investments were still worth $9000.
However, I served what by the metrics measured by men would be an unremarkable mission. I served in nine different areas with 14 companions in the 22 months I spent in country. Although I trained three times, none of the missionaries I trained were trainers. Although I taught people who later made covenants with the Lord and joined His restored church, I never baptized anyone. The mission in which I served was closed, divided up and merged into other missions. The church sold the mission home. I came home feeling like a failure.
Years later, on a trip through Europe, I visited one of the congregations in which I had only briefly served. None of the members remembered me. Some who might have were dead. They knew I had been there because of people I knew and what the ward had been called when I served there, and they were very warm and welcoming, but it was clear that I had done nothing to stand out in their minds.
I spoke with my second of three mission presidents at his home east of Foothill Drive in Sugarhouse, UT who clued me in to two things I didn’t know. First, he told me that I was the most prepared missionary he had ever seen and second that he felt when I first arrived in country that I was there for the missionaries more than for the members. I worked very hard. They saw me do it. They did not see my prayers for them on their behalf or the things that I did.
It took me many years to realize that the Lord had sent me there because there were things for me to do there that nobody else could do as well as I. It took many years to see that the Lord had done things to me that could only be done there. It took many years to see that I didn’t need to see the gospel change lives because I already knew it had changed mine. I knew it, and I knew that God knew it, and the people I met and with whom I served, whether they liked me or not, could not deny that I was truly “recommended as one worthy”.
Even headed home, I didn’t quit. I spoke to people on the plane and didn’t stop until I exited the jetway in the Salt Lake City airport where I was met by my family. One of the Swiss Elders with whom I spent my last day in country thanked me for helping him keep working until the last minute trying to bring people to Christ. We didn’t find anyone who welcomed us, but we were late to the mission home because I was determined to do all I could until I couldn’t actually do any more.
For many people, a mission changes them. For me, it solidified to everyone who I was and what I really valued. I already believed in God; I saw His hand in my life. I already tried to follow God; I saw the chance to be His hands, His voice, His eyes, and His servant as I reached out to those kept from the truth because they knew not where to find it. There was no voice, no shaking earth, no wondrous light or even a rebirth, only a sign that showed that I truly desired to be one of His disciples and had disciplined myself to be such. The denials and rejections and disappointments didn’t deter me. They proved that I was who I claimed to be.
Over the years, I have told stories about the strange and outlier experiences I endured as a missionary. Some leaders worry that my stories will deter others from going. But the real moral to the story is also something the aforementioned mission president said to me: “Your success is that you continue in the absence of success”. And I still do to this day. I’m still here. No baptisms, no wife, no children, no worldly success, and I am still there teaching the gospel in Sunday School to those who are willing to listen.
All too often, we define our discipleship based on outcomes, and all too often that’s inaccurate because the outcomes involve the agency of others. In the end, every part of our life, success or struggle, happiness or sadness, victory or sin, is an invitation to grow closer to God. Maybe for Him it was never about the ends that we think it was about but for the process through which we go as we experience life. And if as a consequence we draw nearer to God, in better AND in worse, maybe He considers that a win. We can either break down or we can break through.
