Sacred

Six months have come and gone. Six months away from home. Six months of bed at 10:30 and an all too early 6:30 wake up call. Six months worth of memorized Castellano. Six months of being accompanied by another human being for 24 hours a day 7 days a week.

The last six months have been.... I´m looking for the word I need. The last six months have been......

I reflect on what my MTC teacher Hmno Gato told us. When he got off the plane someone asked him to describe the last two years of his life. The only word that came to mind was "sacred."

As I look back on six months, I´m hard pressed to find a different word. The mission really is a sacred experience.

Today, was transfer meeting. Elder Valerin is staying in Avellaneda another round, so we´re going to get real cozy. I haven´t been with the same comp for more than six weeks now to date, so we´ll see how I hold up for 12.

It´s nice to know that I have at least two more transfers to look forward to here. Barring a whitewash. I´m growing quite content here in Avellaneda. 2 Wal-Mart’s and an unlimited supply of microwave popcorn. Can it get any better than that?

Being already in an introspective and reflective mood, having lived a fourth of my mission already, I was especially stricken by the missionaries who bore their testimonies today in transfer meetings. The missionaries heading home.

Elder Bednar gave a well known talk some years back on the difference between becoming and doing. That just because someone goes on a mission does not mean that they become a missionary. As I sat and watched each one of the Elders getting up and give their last goodbyes, I wondered what they were thinking. If they could see the last two years of their lives, the two years they thought would never end coming to a close, and honestly say that they had no regrets?

I realized, about then, that you only get one shot in your life. Yes, you can serve a mission again when you’re older, but as Brother Bott emphasized it´s never the same. This is the time. This is the place. This is the hour of our lives that we have been waiting for our entire lives, and perhaps from an eternal perspective, a lot longer than that. As those missionaries left, they had passed through the proverbial day of this life into the night of darkness. The end of their mission where no labor could be performed.

Once again, I´m not suggesting that we can´t do missionary work once we get off a mission, that is our duty as members of the church. What I am suggesting is as young men these two years are the only years in our life to completely consecrate ourselves to God. No reservations.

As I looked into the eyes of those missionaries, I wondered if they had regrets. And then, I wondered if perhaps I did too. It´s so easy to think of the mission like an eternity, but one day, it will come to an end. I knew I wasn´t the missionary I wanted to be yet.

The fact is, we all know what we should be doing, but as Elder Bednar continually emphasizes, what we think and know isn´t always reflected in what we do. I would submit that the greatest trial of this life is to align our actions with our conscience.

So with the New Year we have the opportunity to have a new start ourselves. What we have in front of us is a lifelong task. To, as President Hinckley emphasized, "Try a little harder, to be a little better." It´s never where we start that matters, it´s how we finish. And if we really try with all our hearts to do the little things, the little things will become us.

What we think determines what we do, and what we do determines what we become. Will we have regrets when the night of darkness comes?

I watched those Elders give their testimonies not as persons wobbling on their spiritual crutches, rather as converts. And I sat and wondered at what the Lord had done with them. Regardless of their effectiveness or personal disposition, they had endured faithfully to the end. Maybe once the end comes that´s all we can say for ourselves, but it says a lot. We didn´t throw in the towel when the times got tough.

You see, the mission has a lot of parallels to our life. I´ll tell anyone to live the perfect mission the same way I´ll say be perfect. It´s impossible. But we can be perfect in some ways. And once we really are facing toward the Lord, and doing the little things, as I said before, those little things will become us, and we´ll become something more than we thought we could be.

Six months down and a new year to look forward to. I haven´t lived the perfect mission so far, not even close. But I have learned so many things. And I thank the Lord for giving me the experiences that I´ve needed so much. I know this is the true church. The harvest is exceedingly great and the laborers are few. It may seem hopeless at times, but when we think who is laboring with us, it changes our perspective. This is the Lord´s vineyard, and He is working by our side.

What have I learned in six months?

I can´t exactly say it in words. I guess the email above is a good start. But it´s something more than that. It´s a testimony. It´s a conversion. It´s a sacred mission.