ON BEING AN AWESOME RM

Growing up, I listened to countless farewells and homecomings and was a firsthand witness of the changes that serving a mission causes. Thanks to a plenitude of homecoming talks and lack of real-life mission experiences, I grew up believing that an awesome missionary = someone who was exactly obedient, learned how to constantly commune with the Lord, memorized all scriptures, knew the doctrine perfectly, had this burning desire to climb every mountain and share their testimony with everyone they saw, baptized a lot, followed the spirit every moment of every day, and learned every other thing that a missionary is "supposed" to learn on their mission. These were only some of the things that I thought would qualify me as an awesome missionary. I bet that you were once or still are subject to some of these expectations as well. Don't lie. You know what I'm talking about.

When I left on my mission, I realized very quickly what a lie all of this was. But it was difficult to morph my expectations. 18 months later, I stood in front of hundreds of friends and family and spoke about my experiences as a missionary. I was still ashamed that I hadn't become a true "return missionary" because I wasn't in constant communion with God, or I still hadn't mastered scriptures or prayer or even developed a fiery desire to stop everyone I saw and drag them to a baptismal font. WHAT WAS WRONG WITH ME?!?!?!? Why wasn't I THE returned missionary that I had always admired growing up. I LEARNED ALL THE WRONG THINGS!!!!

Now, it's 8 months later and I am finally beginning to realize that I was an Awesome Missionary, and I am now an Awesome Returned Missionary (ARM). Maybe I didn't have picture perfect lessons, 10+ baptisms, and maybe I didn't learn how to receive answers to prayer. But that's not what matters. What matters is that I learned something - no matter how strange or unexpected. That's what makes me an ARM, and nobody can tell me otherwise.

Don't let yourself believe that you are not Awesome when your experiences are not the same as everyone else's. You are awesome. Period.