my mission.

Today marks four years since I returned home from my mission in Northern California.

As I've been thinking about that experience and my life since being home I've thought about what I gained from serving a mission, and how those things still affect me today.

If you're thinking about serving a mission, I have just a few things to say. It's between you and God when and if you serve - but you will never regret taking that time out of your life to serve others, grow closer to God, get to know yourself better, and have invaluable, life changing experiences. If a mission is not for you or you cannot serve, know that God can give you those experiences through other means.



The things I learned or gained from my mission:

• Learned what it's like to be an immigrant in the US - the culture and issues that those people face on a day to day basis.
• There are so many new and awesome things you can experience if you step out of your comfort zone - food, culture, schools of thought, people, skills, etc.
• How God communicates with me and some of the ways that I receive personal revelation.
• Establishing patterns in my life - scripture study, prayer, temple attendance.
• How to live the gospel as me - if God wanted robots to preach the gospel, we'd have an army of robot missionaries - instead he calls young individuals to teach. I learned that there were strengths (and weaknesses) that I had that others didn't - which was a good thing. We strengthened and complimented each other, and reached people who couldn't have been reached by others.
• Patience, diligence, and faith.
• God keeps promises.
• The gift of agency. 
• The Atonement not only allows us to be forgiven of sin, but to overcome our weaknesses, and be enabled to do hard things. 
• God's plan is much better than mine.
• Spanish. 

Those are just some of the things. 

I'm grateful for those two years, the companions I had, the people I taught, the experiences I had, and for the things I gained from serving a mission. 

agency.

I've always thought Agency and the Fall would make a fantastic hardcore band name.


Agency is one of my favorite facets of the gospel - and perhaps one that causes me the most personal frustration.

In D&C 58:26-29 the Lord is pretty straightforward when he says, ". . . it is not meet that I should command in all things; for he that is compelled in all things . . . is a slothful and not a wise servant . . . men should be anxiously engaged in a good cause, and do many things of their own free will . . . the power is in them, wherein they are agents unto themselves . . . he that doeth not anything until he is commanded, and receiveth a commandment with doubtful heart, and keepeth it with slothfulness, the same is damned."

Agency is sacred to our Father in Heaven - it's why he "lets bad things happen." He cannot and will not step in every time someone chooses to use their agency unwisely, including when it hurts his children whom he loves.

This is not to say that he is not a God of miracles whose will cannot be thwarted - but he loves us enough to let us make decisions ourselves.

I'm pretty opinionated about certain aspects of agency, but I'll treat one of them briefly.


It is my personal opinion that each of us has a specific mission to fulfill in this life. And that mission is best fulfilled if certain things happen in our lives. For some it's where and if they serve a mission, for others it is a specific career, or a certain place they should raise their family, or how many kids they should bring into the world, and for others it is who they should marry, etc. I think for each of us it's usually only one or two these things - not all of them. And this is where the agency thing comes into play.

We can choose to not fulfill our earthly mission. God will not force us to do any of these things, though he may spiritually slap us around until we realize how foolish we're being - again that's a choice we make - to act on that realization or not.

But then there's the every day decisions, small and big, where God just wants us to do what will make us happy, and then he works with us to make that decision right for us. I felt that God approved of what I chose to study and since then has blessed me with incredible opportunities in my professional life. But I think it was largely my decision to pursue industrial design. I could have been a graphic designer, or a photographer, or an accountant. But I'm happiest where I am and God has blessed me and advanced me in it.

There are other things in my life that have been much different. God is most definitely guiding me to a specific result, and when it comes, I will exercise my agency and choose this thing that God has prepared for me.


Agency is great. And sometimes frustrating when we want to be guided in every single thing and God says, "you're a big boy, you're smart, you have the Holy Ghost to help you reason - use it." But I'm grateful that he trusts us enough to make our own decisions, learn from the poor ones, and be blessed in the good ones.