Two Anecdotes Re: Most Foreign Missionaries Coming Home

[Rain]

I don't know rongo. I just know it was the answer to prayers for some. I'm trying to share things like this because I hope it can help others. I don't have all the answers, but I don't want to hold back something that actually might help.

I get that it has been incredibly tough. I can see how there are no choices that seem pleasant to many of the missionaries. I can see that maybe mistakes were made.  

With my experiences this far in life I would just need to grieve with her if I were her mom.

Then when the time was right I would have her pray again over it all, being willing to accept that maybe she understood the answer right in the first place and being willing to accept that or being willing to accept what she understood originally was wrong and do whatever needs to be done to correct it.

Either way it will be a big learning experience for her. If she can let this process help her draw closer to the Lord then she won't regret it.

If she still feels she understood wrong originally, then I would have her counsel with the Lord of what she should do next.  Maybe wait till this has settled. Maybe talk to the bishop/SP about getting her call again. Who knows.

Over and over again with everything going on in my life now I know that being irritated with all that is going on now would just tear me apart.  I feel a deep pain inside me and I'm finding it is ok to let myself feel that. I'm finding forgiveness is so important for me to give and accept. I just need to be still, patient and wait and little by little I am finding peace through it all.  

I hope the best for her and all those struggling.

Edited April 1, 2020 by Rain

[Hamba Tuhan]

5 hours ago, rongo said:

She only had a week and a half in the MTC ...

Many aren't going to be able to put life on hold for that long. Some could do a year of school and then go (since most boys go at 18), but the year and a half wait would be a little wonky. 

One of the legends in my mission was an Elder who, whilst learning Italian in the MTC, woke up one morning with impaired vision. The cause, it was discovered, was a brain tumour. He left the MTC after only a few weeks and spent the next year-plus going through surgeries to remove the tumour and then recovering from them. In the end, the tumour came back, but it was growing very slowly, so it was determined that this young man, who had been forced to put his entire life 'on hold', could finish his mission somewhere local. He was sent to our mission specifically because we had a local member who was a neurological specialist and neurosurgeon at one of our universities, and he had agreed to oversee Elder B----'s health.

At one point, this Elder was assigned to work in a decaying industrial city that had become home to a large refugee population. Frustrated that they couldn't really speak with these people, he and his companion started studying the language on their own. Soon, they were led to a young man who could speak both his native language and English ... and was looking for missionaries. He arranged a meeting in his family's humble and crowded flat and invited all his neighbours. About 20 people showed up for that first lesson, and soon we had a flood of converts that eventually turned into a branch of 100s. It was my privilege at one point to serve as zone leader over what had become a language district, and the faithfulness of these converts was legendary. So was the reputation of the two humble Elders who had been inspired to make it all happen.

At the end of Elder B----'s service, he returned home to his family, and a few months later, they rang to tell my mission president that their son had just passed away. I was serving as an assistant at the time, and it was literally the only time I ever saw my otherwise stoic mission president weep.

I am deeply grateful that Elder B---- wasn't put out by his short stint in the MTC or his much-later reassignment. I would hope we've raised up young men and young women who are equally resilient in their own ways.

ETA: Just to provide some context from the rest of the world, our young people here begin their apprenticeships at age 15 or 16. For these youth, serving a mission at age 18 or 19 always requires walking away from an apprenticeship that may or may not take them back. It's not like deferring university.

Edited April 2, 2020 by Hamba Tuhan

[Tacenda]

Here's a video that was shared on my former neighborhood's FB group that I thought was touching.