Dear Little Brother: Entering the Mission Field

ENTERING THE FIELD

oh maaaaan. I can't believe this is finally happening. You're leaving in less than a week! As you requested, here are some of my insights and memories about entering the mission field.

First off, you gotta remember that before the mission, I was scared of EVERYTHING. I hated travelling, flying, and change (that part is still true, but I'm getting better at that). So as sick as I was of the MTC by the time nine weeks were up, I was FREAKING TERRIFIED of leaving the 13 people who had become my family in those two months. I burst into tears when we were supposed to get on the bus. And on the train to the airport. I was basically having an anxiety attack the moment we left the MTC gates. So embarrassing. I was under a lot of stress though. Also, I'd never left the country before and all I could think about was everything that could go wrong (my dad always liked to tell me about how Thailand was like the number one country for sex trafficking or something?? thanks, dad. Really reassuring).

ANYWAYS. What I knew in my head but didn't quite understand in my heart at that point was that EVERYTHING WORKS OUT and GOD TAKES CARE OF HIS MISSIONARIES. It's harder to see those things in the MTC because you're surrounded by missionaries in probably the safest environment in the world, but it's true. In a weird way, it's like when you put on the nametag, you become someone else. You and everything you have/are belong to the Lord. Sometimes, that can be kind of difficult to come to terms with, especially because you're still you, with all your individual preferences and goals and ideas, but at the same time you are 100% THE LORD'S servant. As such, nothing that happens to you REALLY happens to you, because you're under the mantle of your calling. Does that make sense?

Think of the worst thing that could happen to you while you're travelling. You could get your stuff stolen, get lost, miss a flight, lose your passport...any number of things, right? Well that and many more things have already happened to TONS of other missionaries, sometimes through no fault of their own. So relax, stay with your companion/district, and roll with whatever happens. Don't be stupid, though. (I don't feel like you have problems with that...but you can never be too careful with Elders ;))

I don't know if I told you or not, but my first three months in country were by far the worst months of my life. I've never felt more spiritually blocked or been angrier at God or cried more tears than I did in a city in the middle of the jungle in Thailand. Seriously. Still not 100% sure why that happened, however, I will say this; living in a different country can be a huge emotional and psychological shock. This probably seems obvious, like of course it's going to be different from America! But it actually goes a lot deeper than that. Sometimes you won't perceive all the stresses involved with living and working in a new country but they'll still be taking a huge toll on you. Here's a quote from a doctor about that:

If you have been treated for [or ever experienced any kind of] mood, anxiety, or other psychological disorders, including panic attacks, bipolar disorder, clinical depression, eating disorders, substance abuse, etc. be prepared for a regression with many symptoms resurfacing after about a month in your host country.... This regression is due to the extra stress of living and working abroad.

It impacts everyone differently (and from personal experiences, I'd say it can have a stronger negative impact on women), and it might not impact you much or at all, but keep that in mind that there might be things happening in your head that make it hard to cope, and that's okay (as a side note, you should also keep that in mind when you train a new missionary or even with people from your MTC district: some of your companions/friends may have a harder time than others).

It's totally okay if this happens to you, it just means you need to be aware of your personal warning signs and SLOW THE FRICK DOWN, BUDDY. GOD DOES NOT WANT YOU TO WORK YOURSELF TO DEATH OUT THERE.

Let me say it again in case you weren't listening. GOD. DOES. NOT. WANT. YOU. TO. KILL. YOURSELF. IN. THIS. WORK. The mission is important and everything, but you've got an eternity of being a husband and father and those are ultimately going to be the most important things you ever do. Don't forget it. If you need to stop and get off your bike for a 5-minute breather, do it. You're not slowing your companion down, you're actually helping him because what good are you going to be to him in a lesson if you pass out or fall asleep?

So here are some pointers about taking care of yourself. I don't know exactly what the climate/mission is like there but I think most of these things are universal:

1. Some doctor person I think said that however many hours different your destination is from your origin, is how many days it will take your to get over jet-lag (I don't have a medical source on that, I've just heard it). You're looking at 10-11 hours of difference, right? So plan on being suuuper tired for the first couple weeks, and be patient. I remember we would finish daily planning at 930 and I'd be asleep minutes later. Sometimes we would go home for lunch break and I'd sleep for an hour. I'd also fall asleep in church and sometimes in lessons. I felt so bad, but looking back it was honestly just jet lag. It's okay.
2. WATER WATER WATER. Make that the first response to any ailments you experience. Headache? drink water. Diarrhea? drink water. Joint pain? drink water. Sounds silly, but honestly you can get dehydrated so fast without even realizing it and the symptoms of dehydration are super broad. You'll need more water anyways just with the increased physical activity of being in the field, and it's easy to forget about it but it's honestly so, so important. I just got in the habit of sucking on my water bottle anytime I was stationary (on a bus, waiting for an investigator, eating, etc.).
3. Take breaks. I mentioned this earlier, but it's totally okay to take breaks for snacks/water/breathing. Every missionary works at a different pace and it's okay if you work at a slower pace than your companion. This is also expected when you're a greenie. In the future, you may have a kid/companion who can't work at your pace. No matter how frustrating it may seem or how much faster it would be if you just did the work alone, slow down. Be patient, with others and with yourself when you can't quite work at the speed you feel you should be able to. Because that's literally the point of missionary work, is to invite EVERYONE to come unto Christ, and it starts with you and your companion.

When you reach your limit and feel like giving up, take a minute to say a silent prayer pleading for strength from on high, then work for 30 more minutes (or 20, or 15) and watch the hand of the Lord work in everything you do.

Okay so I feel like the letter so far seems a little bit negative. I had a reallyyyyyy negative experience getting into the country and being a greenie. It's okay. I will say that my saving grace in the field were the members and the people we taught. I felt like they were truly my family. Even when I was super isolated from my trainer and having a hard time with EVERYTHING, the members loved me and as I searched for the little ways that I could serve them, they loved me even more. It definitely got me through that period.

So I really don't know how it will be in your mission, but there were a few big problems in my mission. One was that there was this conception that the more intense you could work, the better a missionary you were. NOT. TRUE. It's not about who can stand out in the sun contacting the longest or who can teach the most lessons after church. It's about doing YOUR BEST. And I know I've mentioned this before, but sometimes your best is not punching your companion in the face or not swearing out loud, haha. Seriously though. It's okay. There was another problem in my mission where everyone just took everything wayyyy too seriously. And certainly being serious is good, but my favorite missionaries were the ones who weren't stiff as a board and could crack a smile and laugh and have fun. Play games with the members. Get involved. Earning their trust is far more effective than contacting the streets for 8 hours a day. I think you have enough personal examples of that to understand how important that is (I'm thinking of that one Elder who served in our ward when we were younger...maybe he was a little too immature or goofy at inappropriate times, but he had my trust at a time that was crucial in my life and conversion and I think yours, too).

Now about your trainer: I don't know who will have the great pleasure of calling you their son out in your mission. I'm sure he will be wonderful and try his best to train you and do the work. But being a trainer is hard. Trainers feel a huge amount of responsibility towards their children and also to their area, and sometimes they feel like they have to do it alone. It's a balance trying to keep your kid involved but also do what needs to be done. Be open about what your needs are -- if you want him to translate certain conversations or maybe just when your investigators ask questions...and be willing to adjust that system as often as you need it. Be patient and loving, with yourself as well as your companion. You are your most important investigator, and are as deserving of God's love just as much as the people of Armenia!

Being a trainer is a lot like being a parent (hence all the slang with calling people family terms). Being a parent is really hard, and your trainer is gonna do some stupid things. Guaranteed. They might not even realize they’re doing stupid things. Somehow, the mission is intense enough that everyone suffers from memory loss and forgets how awful being a greenie can be (which is probably a blessing, frankly).

I hope this helps. It's actually been really healing for me to write you these letters and reflect on my mission experience, so I have to thank you for giving me the opportunity to get my thoughts out on paper. I hope this didn't come across as negative; I believe you will be a healthy, happy, successful missionary in every way and you will see and work miracles out there. Everyone's mission serves a different but vital purpose in God's plan -- it's possible that you might not fully know or understand what your mission's purpose is until much later, and that's okay. Patience in God's timing is really the key.

Best of luck, little bro. You're gonna rock it out there :)

Dear Little Brother: the in-field orientation day letter

[note: because of how honest and cynical this letter sounds, I considered not publishing it. I shouldn't have to say that this is my opinion and reflects my feelings at the time that these events occurred, with some additional lessons I've learned since then.]

Dear Little Brother,

You asked me in your last email about in-field orientation day and what to expect...I remember that day very clearly because it was one of the longest in my life. I know you've heard rumors and ideas about what this day is like, so I'll try to break it down for you a little more based on my experience.

This letter is gonna be long. Buckle up.

It all started the day before our orientation, during gym time. I was running that track upstairs in the big gym building (I mean idk if you can really call it running, but I was making an attempt) and I saw some of the sisters from my district doing a lunge walk. I decided to join them, and we did a lunge walk/race around the track to see how many lunges we could do and how fast we could go.

If you don't have thighs of steel already, this is a stupid thing to do. I didn't realize that until that night when I noticed that I was already feeling sore. But I assumed that the pain was a side effect of an amazing workout, and I brushed it off and went to bed.

I felt fine the next morning, until I moved my legs to slide out of bed. I was always the one to turn the alarm off because I was closest to it, and when I got up I think my legs actually buckled under me. My thigh muscles were so sore that I felt like I was crippled. The other sisters in my district were also feeling it (though to this day I'm pretty sure it affected me the worst haha). Seriously. I could barely move without gasping in pain. I remember limping to breakfast and then to our orientation. I seriously could not walk without help, either from a wall, a railing or my companion. And she was feeling it, too. We looked like a couple of old ladies (I'm not bashing on old ladies, of course -- we just looked horribly out of shape for our age).

In-field orientation is a round-robin style of hands on, participation activities designed to help missionaries prepare for real-world missionary experiences. You'll be separated from your companion probably as you are assigned to walk around the room talking to "strangers" or the other missionaries. You'll practice street contacting, talk about how important unity with your companion is, etc...

There's only one fatal flaw in it. It's designed for AMERICAN MISSIONARIES IN ENGLISH SPEAKING MISSIONS. AND IT'S COMPLETELY IRRELEVANT ANYWAYS BECAUSE EVERY SINGLE MISSION DOES THINGS DIFFERENTLY.

I get now that we were probably just supposed to care about the principles of what we were going over. Maybe it was just because we'd been in the MTC for eight weeks by that point, or maybe because I'm just a really cynical person, but I did not appreciate anything about in-field orientation day. And the whole sore killer thighs thing really didn't help. All the sitting around definitely made the soreness worse, and by the end of the day I was popping pain meds and leaning on absolutely anyone for support to keep from bending my legs and extending my thigh muscles haha.

So if I remember correctly, we had several hours of the round-robin workshops talking about different elements of missionary work (again, all for English-speaking missions in America), and then a lunch (but not in the cafeteria, so we were stuck with whatever they gave us -- I think it was pulled pork sandwiches and a bag of chips and a cookie? I remember it wasn't nearly enough to get me through till dinner, haha). After that, I think we all came back together in the big room and they did a play.

Yes, you heard me right. They put on a play for us to illustrate how to work effectively with ward leaders. Which is really great...unless you're going to a country where the majority of the active church membership are still recent converts themselves, and the words "church" and "organization" never occur in the same sentence. It was the corniest, cheesiest production I've ever seen, maybe in my life. It's worse than the Testaments, if you've seen that movie ("Jacob...Jacob"). And my entire district of 14 missionaries were laughing our heads off the entire time. I think we were just really jaded with MTC life at that point and we were a little irked at how scripted and fake the whole play was.

But NOBODY ELSE THOUGHT IT WAS FUNNY. It's like when you make a joke at the pulpit and only your family laughs in the back row. Our whole district was IN TEARS we were laughing so hard, almost peeing ourselves...and everyone else was being reverent and spiritual and taking it seriously. We got so many stern looks and passive-aggressive "can you be quiet? I'm trying to feel the SPIRIT LIKE YOU SHOULD BE" hushes.

People take the MTC waaay too seriously. There's a time and place for everything, and I fondly recall the special spirit within those walls and the audible, personal answers to sincere prayers whispered as I knelt outside my bedroom after 1030pm. But it just isn't reasonable to expect a bunch of 18-21-year-olds to stay on a spiritual high 24/7 when they're all in close, confined quarters. We all have our breaking points. Some people stress-eat, some stress starve, some freak out and start working 200% more than they did before, some make themselves physically sick from the stress, some get overly competitive...we had all types in our district. But one thing we were all really good at was laughing it off together. I did so much laughing in the MTC; frankly, I wish I'd done that more. After all...the immortality and eternal life of man is a pretty joyous work, wouldn't you agree?

On a semi-related note, MTC district sisters finally came home this Friday. It's caused me to wax philosophical and reflective (even more so than usual, haha). I had an incredible experience going to TRC this weekend. I met with two Elders who, rather than teaching the lesson they had prepared, asked me question after question about my mission, and about Thailand. It's a tender subject for me, still. They asked me about the people I taught, how I saw their lives change. And then they asked me about the changes I saw in MY life in Thailand. And I don't think I really started to understand the gospel of Jesus Christ until I went to Thailand. It was only after days, weeks and months of disappointment and failure that I really began to understand that because of the Atonement of Jesus Christ, I always had someone who understood perfectly how I was feeling.

Christ is always reaching out to us; we only have to pray to reach out to Him. There have been so many days in the last month when I didn't think I could even get out of bed -- I managed only to kneel and just beg Heavenly Father to help me make it through the day, to give me enough strength to be okay just until I was done with class. And on those days I have seen miracles and felt strength and support. When you feel like no one else understands how you feel...well, you're probably right. But Jesus Christ does.

Please don't ever forget that "doing your best" on some days just means you don't deck your companion/investigator/people cursing at you on the street. Some days, your best is holding back the tears just until you turn off the lights and then you cry yourself to sleep. God cares infinitely more that you keep trying, that you keep getting out of bed every morning, than whether you are perfect at the language or always know exactly what to do or say.

Like I said, this was a long one. I have a lot of thoughts and emotions about the mission, haha. I hope that you are little bit more positive than I was about in-field orientation -- I did enjoy it, but mostly because I knew I was leaving in less than a week after that. ;) I hope you're not getting bored of the MTC food yet and you haven't gone crazy!

I love you! Live it up!

Dear Little Brother: Surviving the MTC

[note: I had the great pleasure of sending off my dear (non-biological) little brother to the MTC a few months ago. He spent two months in the MTC learning the language and then flew out to his mission. I sent him this and a few other letters per his request with some personal sibling advice about some different elements of the MTC and the mission and decided to publish these as blog posts because of how much they helped me with some of the mental and emotional recovery from returning home early. This first letter is compilation of a few letters sent over his first few weeks in the MTC]

Dear Little Brother,
I can't believe you're actually old enough (or tall enough) to be doing this. You've already gotten worlds of advice from your parents, from friends and mentors...why you keep asking me for advice, from someone who didn't even finish a "complete" mission, is sometimes a mystery to me. I'm honored, more than anything else.

So first things first, there's the last-minute tips about surviving the MTC. I'll put these in a bullet list so we can get them out of the way.

• write up your weeklies beforehand during personal study in the journal/notes section of your regular LDS account, and then paste it into your email and send it. It'll save you soooo much time.
• take pictures of your name tag at the temple, take district pictures, take companion pictures, take pictures with people in your zone and with your mission country's flag, if you can. Those pictures will become more valuable to you as you go on in your mission, even if it seems silly or unnecessary at the time.
• if you struggle with low blood sugar on fast sundays, buy a candy bar or something from a vending machine before fast Sunday to have at some point during the day, because you won't get anything at all until dinner and if you have a late dinner time then you won't be feeling good at all that day.
• take the role-playing seriously. It may seem weird to pray for investigators who are actually just actors but God wants you to be learning the principles of missionary work in the MTC and if you take the experience seriously He will make the experience real and you will receive real promptings to help your "investifakers" and there won't be anything weird or fake about it. God understands the point of the MTC.
• remember that you are actually your most important convert, and second most important is your companion. It's because your conversion is so important that God has called you to serve where you're going at the time you are and with the people you'll serve with.

I'm so proud of you. You're on fire about this work, and frankly it's inspiring. I remember that feeling on the mission...I didn't always have it. It came and went, and some weeks/months/transfers were better than others. But you have it already and it's so strong! I think you had it long before your mission. You went in prepared, not just in the language but in spirit, and ultimately that matters worlds more than anything else. I am genuinely so proud of you and so excited for the work you will do and the people you will serve. There are less than 60 missionaries in your mission? That's incredible. For reference, my mission had about 120-150, and I remember thinking WE were small in numbers...but as long as the Lord's servants truly seek to do His will, then it really doesn't matter whether you have two missionaries or two thousand!

Have I ever shared my mission scripture with you? I feel like I probably have...sorry to be repetitive, then. It's 3 Nephi 5:13.

"Behold, I am a disciple of Jesus Christ, the Son of God. I have been called of him to declare his word among his people, that they might have everlasting life."

I still get goosebumps reading it. It always sounds like it's in all-caps when I read it in my head. There is so much power in your calling and the work that you will do wherever you are, in the MTC or in the field.

Godspeed, little brother!