Now don't get me wrong, they're not bad stories. It's just . . . they don't really tell the whole truth. True, for months after I got home I still had urges to contact people in the street and talk to them about faith and happiness and their hopes and dreams in this life. I still wanted to study my scriptures for an hour every day, and I often keep an eye out for missionaries so I can offer them any help they may need.
But what those stories don't tell you is the emotional battle a missionary experiences when he or she returns home. The stories don't ever mention the spiritual attacks we have, or the emotional stress that comes from having nothing to do for long periods of time. They never tell about how a return missionary will think of her mission every day, and feel a small ache in her heart that really never goes away.
I say "her" because I'm describing what happens to me. I feel such an ache and a longing to be back; I want to serve those people again; I want to feel like I'm doing something to help someone, every day. I want to take away the heartache and the pain that exists in the world and proclaim that because of the restored church of Christ on the earth, they can find true and lasting happiness. Families are eternal. God is real. Christ did die for all of us. And we really will live again. These are the timeless truths my soul longs to study.
There are days where a return missionary may think she is useless, and there are days she may feel completely alone because she can't see her "companion" next to her at all times. The pain I feel when I can't physically see someone by my side is difficult to describe. But it's as tangible as anything.
A return missionary has just spent a long time understanding what it truly means to have a broken heart and a contrite spirit. You don't have to be a return missionary to feel this, but because of what I went through, it's a part of my life now. I can't bear the thought of one of my siblings rejecting the truths I try so hard to defend; my heart breaks when I hear of others who have gone astray, or experienced trials I would never dream of having.
And then there are days where I feel like I have not progressed at all; like somehow my new life is so dramatically different than the one I lived for a year and a half that I have reached a spiritual plateau. How do I ever get out of the plateau and start continuing upward again?
While we all experience times like these in our lives, I know that it's especially more difficult for me now; not that my new life seems so self centered and so filled with meaningless tasks.
I have to learn how to put meaning back into the routine of college and work. I have to relearn how to wear jeans and enjoy doing nothing. I have to teach myself how to walk alone to and from class, with no one by my side. I have to relearn what it's like to cry over my homework and a failed exam. It's not a bad thing to be a return missionary. It's just not like it was before.
It's just a new life. New in the sense that I've learned so much in the past 18 months . . . now what do I do with that knowledge?
Don't get me wrong - I love being home. But there is definitely still a part of me that wonders where I am going, and who I really am, and why do I feel so deeply the pain and anguish of having left something so dear to my heart behind? I do not wish to say that I'm having a more difficult time than others who may not have served a mission and are feeling the same thing, but I do wish to say that there are many trials we go through in life. And if anything, that's what makes it new. Every day we can have a new life because of the trials we experience.
And I guess this is just one of them. One of the many "new life"'s that I will live.
