Life doesn't often treat us like we wish it would. I remember as I sat in my chair in the family history center inside my church building in Valparaiso, Chile, astonished, reading a letter from my Mission President telling us that we'd be sent home within the week.
I'd been a missionary for 9 months. I'd worked so hard to learn Spanish, to adapt to Chilean culture, and to learn how to be a missionary, and now all my efforts were going to be rewarded with a plane ticket home, 15 months early.
I couldn't understand. I was so sure I was meant to be in Chile. I WANTED to be in Chile. I didn't want to be at home, I wanted to serve God in my full capacity as a missionary for the time I signed up for. As we packed up, I was miserable. I loved Chile. I still love Chile.
The trip home was a 2-hour bus ride, a sleepless night in a hotel full of sad missionaries, a 12-hour flight to Salt Lake City, and another hour to Boise Idaho where my family picked me up to take me home. Except I wasn't home. Home was back there in Chile where I'd left so much of my heart. It took a long time for me to accept that I was back in the states, released from missionary service, and that wasn't going to change for a while.
I prayed a lot. I felt lonely. I missed my companions and my missionary friends. I felt far from all the people I'd come home to. My younger friends seemed younger than I remembered, and my older friends weren't around much because they'd all gone to college. I just wanted to go back to the place where I felt like I belonged. But I couldn't.
After a lot of waiting, I got the news. I'd been reassigned to Wichita, Kansas. I tried to be excited. Kansas wasn't Chile. There would be no empanadas, no view of the Valparaiso port from my window, no hiking up the steep, crowded hills of Forestal, no streetball with the kids from the top of the hill, and no more stopping by to visit the Rojas family on the way to our next lesson.
Despite the fact that I wasn't going back to Chile, getting on that plane was one of the easiest things I've ever done. The first time, I didn't want to look back because i was afraid I'd cry. But the second time, I was just happy to be going SOMEWHERE to be a missionary again. Putting my name tag back on was one of the happiest moments I'd felt in the whole 3 months I'd been home.
It didn't take long for me to fall back into the missionary routine. I made some friends. I studied the scriptures. And I felt the Spirit in my heart. I've now been in Kansas for 3 months. I've met people who've changed me. I've felt God's love for me, and for them. And time and time again, the Spirit has told me that it's a GOOD thing I'm here. Chile will forever hold a special place in my heart. So will Mountain Home, Idaho. And so will Kansas. There's always room for more people to love.
My mission-all the good, and all the hard, the time in Chile, the time at home, and the time here in Kansas- has been the hardest thing I've ever done. My heart has been broken over and over. For the families I saw working 14 hour days, every single day, to buy windows and doors for their house, and for the people who's homes burned down in a wildfire on Christmas eve. For the people I met who were consumed by anger, and pride, and spite. For myself, and the chances I felt like I was losing.
But my faith has been strengthened by my trials, more than any other trial I've had before has helped me to grow. I've seen miracles. I've seen people with so much less than I have show more faith than I could muster. I've seen people suffer with smiles on their faces, as they held out an extra banana to me because they didn't want me to be hungry on the way home.
I am a better person than I was before I became a missionary. I understand so much more about God's love for us, and His plan. I've felt it for others. I wouldn't trade my mission for the world.
Suffering does not last forever. Trials are temporary. And if we hold on tight, and have enough faith to just take another step, and another, the blessings we'll find are more than I can describe.
Please keep going. Love others. Don't judge them. Pray. Pray so much. It's never going to be easy. But it's possible. Because with God, all things are possible. Have faith, have hope, and never give up. Your trials will change you for the better.
I've seen this in my own life, and I know it's true. I promise these things in the name of Jesus Christ. Amen.
