Going Home

The President and His wife when I said good-bye in the airport.

So I finally felt like I knew what what I was meant to do as a missionary, both how to fill my day with activity and how to study and find things out for myself.  It was during this time that I did my search on how not to fear the people around me and try to feel love for them instead.  I knew what to say to the common complaints of the average person and how to answer an investigators concerns.  I still did not know how to deal with a companion and I did not understand the impression I gave to other people. But I still have a problem with those concepts.

 

Well, my new skills were put to the test.  I was called to Billings, Montana for my next area and I was upset.  Our mission is very large, not a lot of people in that area of the US.  I served at the bottom of the mission in Worland, Wyoming and I served at the tippy-top in Kalispell, Montana.  If I had tried to drive between those two points it would have taken 9 - 10 hours.  That is the same as driving from Los Angeles up to San Fransisco,  Plus the state is nearly as wide.  The President of the Mission could not patrol that expanse of land all the time, so the problem missionaries or the sick missionaries were sent to Billing so he could keep an eye on them.  I wondered what he had heard about me and I was not excited to be going there. I was even more upset to lose my friend and teacher, Sister G.

Transfers came and it turned out to be a mixed blessing.  My companion was sick and depressed.  She had been on her mission for 9 months and had been unable to leave Billings and the Presidents side.  I looked at our companionship and knew that I would have to be the one to take the reigns, if I wanted to continue my good momentum.

The President did not know what to do with me.  I didn't feel persecuted, but I felt like he looked at my name and had no idea what I wanted or what was best.  I wasn't comfortable with him, which meant that he passed me over.  I don't hold any resentment towards him.  I understand that there are people you click with and others you don't.  He was a good man who tried.  I had a better interaction with his wife.

I could not stand the lazing about of my  new comp.  It was killing me after what I learned with Sister G.  Sister S refused to leave the apartment, so I started to slowly figure out what I could do.  I read & studied the Pearl of Great Price, a piece of scripture I had ignored before.  I organized the church video's and the large collection of Church Magazines.  And then I found some paperwork I had never seen before.  Billings is one of the biggest cities in Montana and they were big enough to receive Media Referrals.  Oh, those were the best!  They were from people who had requested an item from the church commercials, either a video, Bible or Book of Mormon.  I don't know if they still have them.

That binder full of forgotten request kept me sane.  I despise talking on the phone.  I just don't like the pauses in conversations.  I can't tell what a person is thinking in that space of silence and I panic.  I also have an irrational belief that a person will hear it is me or my name and hang up.  I refuse to answer the phone now.  Back to topic, I would cold call people asking if they still wanted the item.  I had some crazy conversation, but it filled my time.  I set up appointments and if Sister S didn't want to go I would arrange for her to stay with a female member of the church and I would go with a female member of the church, in what is known as "splits".

I worked and the people I cared about noticed.  Sister S went out with me more and she began to gain some confidence.  She did so well she ended up leaving me, being transferred for the first time, the President believing she was ready.

Meanwhile, I was being sent home.  It was my fault.  In Billing there were good Dr's.  I happened to mention to the couple in charge of the health care that my feet were killing me.  In Worland, we had knocked on doors 5 times a day, which meant hours of walking.  We didn't want to but, we couldn't find anything else to do.  I knew that town better than the locals.  I hated knocking on doors just as much as the people disliked finding me standing on the other side.  It is the worst, most uncomfortable thing to do and we had a 0 percent success rate, but it proves you were willing to sacrifice.  My feet hurt so bad I was wearing my muck-lucks (snow shoes) in the middle of summer because they had more support in them.  Now in Billings, I could see if I could get some help for the pain.

What it looked like from the window of the plane.  First in barren Montana and then in the highly populated City of Los Angeles.  The Transition nearly killed me.

Yeah, they helped all right.  The x-ray came back to show 2 large heel spurs poking out of the bones in my heel. I was told I would have to have surgery and then spend six months in a cast for each foot.  Well, there was no way I was going to do that out on a mission and I said that to my Mission President and he agreed.  I had my new companion after Sister S, for 10 days when I found myself on a plane heading home to California.

That was a special kind of heartlessness.  But What could they have done?  Nothing.  The choice was to stay or go home and I said I would rather go home than stay in the mission field disabled.  I felt thrown into the jungle sitting in the Los Angeles airport waiting for my parents to pick me up. 

The horrible noise!  The awful smells!  I knew I would be faced with this again, but not so soon.  You are granted an insulation for the short time of your mission.  A bubble, where your goals and concerns don't match the rest of the world.  All I can compare it to is being a nun in a convent or entering the military.  You are surrounded by others who share your same thinking.  It isn't forever.  And for many the bubble bursts.  I wasn't ready for my protection to be gone.  I had finally clawed my way to some kind of respect and now I was at home.  The worst it turned out to be for nothing.

Now at home I did not have any kind of Health care because I was too old to be on my parents insurance, so we had to try and find someone we could afford.  I couldn't afford a surgery, but we found out I could survive with orthopedics.  I had to wait for them to be made, so I got to fool around at home.  But to be honest I think it was just resting my feet for a time that made it bearable to walk again.

I could have been a lot worst then I was.  I wasn't suppose to break the rules since I was technically still a missionary, but I didn't wear the tag at home and that for me was the real indication of what I could do.  I am a straight arrow anyway.  The worst I did was laze about watching TV all day.  I did get to be in the house alone for a week, since my parents had to go to Utah to take care of my grandparents home.  It also was pretty bad that I went to a club, The Whiskey a go-go, on Sunset Boulevard in Downtown LA, but my brother's band was playing and I thought I should support them in such a cool gig. 

I did do some good things during this time.  I was put in charge of getting quilts done to give away to the Church Welfare program.  Most people get two pieces of fabric some batting and tie them together with some yarn.  I am a snob when it comes to quilts and I decided to set up one-on-one classes to make fully pieced quilts.  I used fabrics from our stash and said I would teach a person how to make a pieced quilt top in 4 hours, if they gave them away.  One of my childhood friends took me up on the offer and it was how we reconnected after a number of years.  Side note:  I was told that my quilts would go to a local welfare center and the little ladies in charge of picking up goods for their people would fight over them because they were so well done compared to the rest.  I thought that was rather funny and quite heartwarming, since those were the sweetest women you would ever meet.

So I had started a life at home and when the boys from my mission would call I would push them off.  I told the truth, just a little exaggerated about the time frame.  I didn't want to go back, but I also didn't want to say that out loud.  I still felt the pressure of my promise.  I still felt the the stigma that came with leaving my mission early.  I wanted to be finished and stay home for no good reason at all.

Finally a phone call came that I did not answer first.  My father bursts into my room yelling with happiness, "They just called. You're going back!"  I burst into tears.

It was time to make my choice.  Would I go back to finish my remaining months in Montana? Or Would I say No and continue my life at home?

I felt I had to ask God, but I did it on my terms this time.  While at a Sister's conference on my mission the leaders made a claim that any question a person had in their life could be answered with The Book of Mormon.  Now I did not believe this statement.  The leaders had us ask a question and then randomly open the book and point to a piece of scripture.  They were right in the fact that you can make any scripture sound good by taking it out of context.  I heard people reaching to make the scripture they picked fit.

So I was pretty sure if I asked God with this method it would fail and I could stay home with out the guilt.  I even got a new, unused Book of Mormon, so it wouldn't fall open in a certain spot because of the binding.  I set the book in front of me and I prayed with the utmost sincerity.  That is the key.  You have to really mean what you say and you have to be willing to follow through even if the answer is not what you want.  I asked if I should be a missionary again and then let the book fall open.

I started reading.  I wish I wrote the exact verses, but my eyes hit "Feed my sheep."  I thought, "No, that was a mistake.  There is no way that really just happened."  So I turned the page and again my eye caught "Feed my sheep."  My mind started to babble.  I didn't want to go back to the injustices.  I didn't want to go back to the persecution or the struggles.  But my eye caught that sentence again. "Feed my sheep."  I knew I couldn't say no.  I never thought something so concrete would happen to me.  Everything before had been feelings and thoughts, but reading that line was as real as hearing a voice.  I had asked and I had received an answer and I had to follow through.  I shouldn't have gone back according to the statistics.  No one at the mission thought I would return, but I tend to be in that small percent that does the unexpected.

After three months of a lazy kind of freedom I found myself once again on a plane to Billings.  And once again I was stuck right smack into a disasters.