One Year

It has been 365 days sine I left my home in Utah and came on my mission to Oregon. Some of those days have been very long. Others have passed quickly and I can hardly remember them. Some days contain great memories that I never want to lose and yet other days I wish could be forgotten.

A mission I have found is the greatest preparation for life that I have ever had. Up until the point I left on my mission I had not really experienced what the real world was like. Sure before I had left I had had a job, I had gone off to college for a year, and I had even had a small group of friends. But until I left I had no idea what real life was like.

I can remember being trained to be a missionary and realizing that I had to be working every hour of everyday for two years. There was no break from preaching the Gospel. There would be no naps or any rest from 6:30 in the morning until 10:30 at night. This realization was scary to me because I loved just doing nothing, but now that wasn't an option.

Then when I got to Oregon my first companion handed me the cellphone that we shared and told me to call a local church member. This made me super scared because I have always hated calling people. At home I did everything I could to avoid getting on the phone. I would pickup calls, I would text, or I would find some way to work around dialing that phone. And now here I was making a call to someone that I had never met before. It was terrifying.

The mission contained even more challenges than making phone calls and constantly working. Every single one of these challenges took me out of my comfort zone. I can remember how each time I talked to a person on a doorstep or on the street that I was nervous and how I was always drenched in sweat when we were done talking. At times I wondered if I could make it through.

But so far I have made it. The reason being that even though the work is hard and I always feel tired at the end of the day I have been able to witness miracles. I have met with people who have lived hard lives that have been plagued by all kinds of problems. People who have hit rock bottom and thought they couldn't change. But as these people learned about the Gospel they began to be happy and their lives began to be changed. They were filled with a light that could only come from Christ.

The fact that I have been able to see people change has been the greatest blessing, but the person that I have noticed change the most is me. Because when I came out here on my mission I didn't have the strongest testimony of the Gospel. Out here my testimony has taken a beating as I've been faced with problems that made me question whether any of this was real and whether there was really a God above who loved me. But every time it felt like my testimony was about to break and my faith lost I got the reassurance that can only come from God that the Gospel is true and I am loved. Every time this has happened my testimony has grown and I have become stronger.

As I start the second year of my mission I realize that I still have a long way to go. But I know that things will be for my best no matter what happens and there will be a day when I will be home. It's up to me to just make the best of the time I have and to enjoy the short time I have on my mission. It'll be a lesson I can take into the rest of my life because life is to be enjoyed not just endured. In the end we will return to our Heavenly Home where we will be stronger than we ever dreamed of and our Father will say welcome home. But until then enjoy the journey

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