This is the view of Snoqualmie Valley in Duvall, Washington. I spent 3 months here. Most of my mission. I'm still trying to process exactly how my mission affected me and what I want to take from the whole experience. Some days I wake up and think, "I should still be in Washington wearing a black name tag and knocking on doors." I still can't shake the ever-present sense of failure that came complimentary with my plane ticket home. But that's not how I want to see my mission. I want to remember the good memories and the people I helped and the things I learned. I'm hoping that eventually I will get to a place where I can do that. I hope my 4 months in Washington will follow me gently through the rest of my life as a learning experience instead of a giant what-if and should-have.
2 comments:
I like this post a lot.
-sarah
Dear Shelley,
Be nice to Shelley. She'll make it worth your while, I promise.
Yours in Christ,
Me
Dear Mormon Culture,
The problem with our treating missions the way we do is they are really not one-size-fits-all experiences. To use a technical term, they are full of Different Stuff. Some people have health problems. Some people realize they weren't meant to do it. Some people get assigned to the area where no one ever, ever answers their door. Some people get assigned to the country that denies them a visa, and get a whole other call. Our extremely facile and totalized vision of God's purposes in the missionary program needs a serious dose of Isaiah 55:8, with a chaser of Shut Up.
Yours reluctantly,
Me
Dear Google,
My word verification task here appears to read, "cerberry." I am now helplessly visualizing a U-Pick farm in the trans-Stygian realm, where the souls of the departed pluck from thorny bushes a curiously three-lobed fruit. Thanks a bunch!
There is no Goog but Goog, and Larry and Sergei are Its Prophets,
Me
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