NOTE: This was written on 30 November, but M* was sick, so it wasn’t posted then. Thus, when you read “today” it is referring to 30 November.
I returned home from my mission (in Chicago) 10 years ago today. Ten years ago! I’m old! I was ready and eager to come home. I was looking forward to sleeping in (though I now consider 6:30 to be sleeping in), no longer wearing a dress, and no longer talking to people. After a year and a half of being social and outgoing, I was really ready to be alone.
I tried not to be too trunky, though. My trainer, when I was a greenie, was going home soon after we were put together (though she had another companion after me), and her trunkiness drove me nuts. My last companion was a greenie, so I tried to keep focused on the work and not be trunky. I think I mostly succeeded.
My last couple of days were a bit different than the normal last couple of days for my mission. Normally transfers were on Thursday and the home-bound missionaries flew out on Saturday morning. However, Thursday was Thanksgiving, so transfers were moved to Friday. My last area was a nice suburb (Naperville), and a family from the ward invited my companion and I over for Thanksgiving dinner. They had a huge gathering, a million relatives and tables and food everywhere. It was pretty fun.
Friday I bid my companion farewell and was dropped off at the mission home. I was the only sister going home. It was really, really weird being around elders without a companion. Once those of us who were meeting at the mission home had all arrived, we took the mission president’s minivan (just me and the elders – it was so weird) to the temple to spend the rest of the day there.
That night was our mission farewell at the local ward building. The departing missionaries all sat on the stand and we each had a couple minutes to share our testimonies. The mission president and his wife each spoke. We could invite whoever we wanted to this farewell – church members we’d grown close to and people we’d taught and baptized. I invited several people, but only two came: one of the stake missionaries in my last ward, and a lady we had just recently taught and baptized in that ward. Each of the departing missionaries could invite one of the newly baptized member to share their testimonies (we invited them to do so ahead of time, so they weren’t suddenly put on the spot). I asked that lady (I’d use her name if I could remember it, but I’m totally drawing a blank) if she would. She was clearly uncertain and awkward, not sure of the right words to say in this new culture, but it was beautiful.
After that meeting, we returned to the mission home for a final meeting with just us missionaries and the mission president and his wife. They presented each of us with a plaque with a picture of the Chicago skyline, our name, and our mission dates. We then had individual final interviews with the mission president. It was what you’d expect. “You were a good missionary. What are your plans now? That’s nice.”
We got to bed around 2 a.m. and were up at 5 a.m. to head to the airport. Ugh. So tired. It was Saturday, November 30th. Ten years ago today. We were handed our plane tickets, stuffed our stuff and ourselves in the mission van, and drove to the airport. There were seven of us, I think, heading to Utah, though for two of them Utah was just a layover as they continued on to other states. Me and six elders. It was still weird not having another sister to be with. We had a couple hours before our flight left. We said goodbye to the elders flying elsewhere (some had an earlier flight, which is why we were there so early) and headed to our gate. We had a couple-hour layover in Denver, and then we arrived in Salt Lake.
Home. I felt very anxious. I came out of the walkway and saw my parents and sister right away. We hugged and said hello, and it was great to see them. And then the weirdest thing happened. It was so sudden and strong, it was almost tangible. With a sudden whoosh (and I swear I heard a whoosh), it felt like the last year and a half was a dream. It wasn’t real. And I was mad! I worked hard that year and a half! I suffered! It was wonderful and it was miserable, and it was usually that way every 5 minutes! And now it felt like a dream?! So weird. As I adjusted back to real life, the mission became just another memory, but that sudden shift in perception and feeling was bizarre.
The luggage for about half of the people on the flight wasn’t there. I was in that half. It ended up on another plane. I don’t know how that happened. We had a couple hours in Denver, so it isn’t as though there wasn’t time for the luggage to get to the plane. They said they’d deliver it to our house by that evening. They did.
So we went home. I went upstairs to my bedroom and took off the dress (yay!) and nametag, and threw on some sweats and a t-shirt. I didn’t know what to do with myself the rest of the day. It was only noon.
The next day, Sunday, I met with the stake president and was released. I’ve heard that some people actually feel the mantle of the calling lifted from them when they are released. I felt nothing like that. I was still just feeling weird being home. At church that day it sort of felt like the first day in a new ward after transfers. I had seven areas, so I was used to the new-ward thing. And yet… I knew these people. But the kids had grown! It was just (yes, I’m going to use that word again) weird.
But I returned to college and I adjusted to the real world again. Ten years ago.
Tanya, I wrote about this somewhere in our archives, but my cousin finished her mission to Romania about six months ago and I saw her just a few days after she came back, and she had the post-mission glow about her, but she was very, very sad. She desperately wanted to go back to Romania. She felt like her life was incomplete because she had been so happy on her mission. When I lived in Brazil, the missionaries would just cry and cry at the idea of going home. Missionaries in Miami generally are not as sad to go home. I wonder if it’s an overseas thing.
Anyway, did anybody comment on your post-mission glow?
Geoff!
I am Romanian and went back on my mission to Romania. š
and fittingly with this post, I was on my mission ten years ago.
Tanya, it’s fascinating to read about those feelings just after getting home. A mission is a wholly different world, completely apart from your former life, and truly a wonderful world. It’s too bad we can’t all be prophets working daily long and hard on missions.
Geoff, I never thought about it before, but it could be an overseas thing. Now that you mention it, my friends who served in other countries were generally sad to be home and wanted to go back, but my friends her served in the U.S. like I did felt much the same way – ready to go home. I wonder why that is? Fewer necessary cultural readjustments leading to less attachment to the mission? Less of a separation between mission life and non-mission life (though I thought the worlds were quite different, but maybe the degree wasn’t as great for me)?
Well, I’m only one guy, but I served overseas, and I was ready to come home. My mission was great, but I was glad when it was over.
I just hit the 20th anniversary of arriving in Tokyo to start my mission there. In so many ways it does indeed seems like it was all a dream. I have plenty of opportunities to use my Japanese at my son’s school so fortunately I have something concrete to remind me it was real.
I also remember very well my last night there. I was so ready to go home and move on from an experience that had more ups than downs but I was tired of the downs. I put my junior companion to bed and sat at our little kitchen table staring out at Mount Fuji perfectly framed by our window and perfectly illuminated by autumn moonlight (interestingly enough in my first area on my mission I also had a fantastic view of Mt. Fuji, just from the southeast rather than the southwest). I must have stared and sobbed at that iconic sight for hours because the next thing I remember my alarm was going off and I had to get showered and dressed to head to the mission home. A big, deep, breath and I was out the door.
My understanding is that later that afternoon, someone was there to replace me. Which is as it should be.
but she was very, very sad. She desperately wanted to go back to Romania. She felt like her life was incomplete because she had been so happy on her mission. When I lived in Brazil, the missionaries would just cry and cry at the idea of going home. Missionaries in Miami generally are not as sad to go home. I wonder if it’s an overseas thing.
I served an overseas mission, one which I will always remember fondly. But another thing I will always remember fondly was a wise piece of advice from my Mission President. He said during my exit interview that while it would always be well to look back on the growing time of my mission with a certain sense of nostalgia, it would not do to pine away wishing them back. His opinion was that if I found myself so pining (more than a sense of nostalgia and satisfaction), it would be because I was not doing something right in my present life and would be feeling unfulfilled as a result. His philosophy was that the mission probably was the best two years of my life up to that point, but that more than two years later it should not have remained the “best two years” since even better things should be ahead. And they were!
I returned home from my mission 10 years ago this year as well. I definitely missed being abroad in Germany (still do!) and I missed the people I had come to love. But at the same time I felt like I had done what the Lord wanted me to do (for the most part- there are always some lingering doubts, I think), and I felt ready to move on to whatever the Lord had in store next for me in my life. And what he has had in store has really been great.
Ten years later, as I reflect nostalgically back on my mission and returning home, I can honestly say that life has been very good. I have been blessed to complete my academic education (though I have a lifetime of practical education still ahead of me), I met and married a wonderful woman, and we have two sons and two daughters. The best years of my life are happening right now!
Thanks for that opportunity to reflect on my mission and the feelings that accompany a returning missionary.
I wish we knew who the 4 or 5 missionaries were who befriended us over the skies in CA, as they were returning from missions in Texas.. we were flying into Sacramento to see my dad, dying from cancer, in a small airplane, that we had boarded in San francisco.. we had been searching for a church to join, and the spirit was so strong during the time we shared talking with these young men.. this was in november, 1977. We would love to identify these guys and thank them for teaching us the Gospel.. we met with missionaries in our east coast home within a week of getting back..
Reminds me of my last day, but it was more than ten years ago.
We went to the temple as well, but when we were there, my MTC companion and I (who served together a year previously) ran into a convert we taught and baptised the year before getting ready to go through the temple for the first time. We couldn’t go with him, but it was cool to see him there.
I wasn’t sad to go home, but I was sad after I got home. I really wanted to be back. Being released was very hard for me. I had a lot of regrets for the longest time. even now, occasionally I will think about what I could have done differently.
Tanya,
I always appreciate your experiences and how you relate them. Like a dream after five minutes! I’ve heard people say that after a period. Mine still seems so real to me.
I was the only sister going home when a group of elders too. I remember being in my second area where I reached my nine month mark and already worrying about when the day came to go home how I would get lost at the airport. One of the elders in my district was going home with me and he promised to take me where I needed to catch the flight to my home when we were on layover in Atlanta. He made good on his promise.
One of the Elders who had been my Zone leader in my last area did not specifically say goodbye to me at the airport. We were fairly good friends so I did not think it would be totally out of line for me to call him at his home. He stammered in shock that I called him. He did calm down and had a nice talk.
I do remember how strange it was going down the roads of my city to be released as a missionary. I was released the same day I came home. My mom, sister, my future brother-in-law were with me. I expected my Stake President to talk to me alone. Instead, he met with the group of us. I was the only member in the group. He had me share an experience from my mission. He seemed impressed that my mom wrote me every week on my mission. She was super! I had a companion from India whose mom wrote her a mean letter about how she should be in school then or married and also another companion whose mom whose mom would send her anti material so I knew I was fortunate. My mom sent vey uplifting letters.
Well, I know I am skipping around per usual for me.
I do recall my final interview with my Mission President. I liked his advice that it is better to be single than to marry the wrong man. š
I was remembering a little more today about my coming home experience. As a missionary, we would show a video where a missionary is talking to someone on the plane on his trip home about his missionary experience and that person watches him reunite with his family. I thought that was so neat and wanted such an experience. There was a man and a young woman who sat by me. The man seemed anti-message. But I saw him watching me as I saw my family who I had not seen for about 18 months.
It was not nearly dramatic as when I left though. My sister who is about three years younger than me was just balling when we were at the airport. I can’t imagine why she likes her older nerdy sister so well. But lucky for me she does.