Hello everyone! This is Garrett, posting for the first time directly to this blog. It's been a little while -- there were many other things I needed to handle -- but here it is!
Monday, July 2nd, 2018:
The morning was slow for me. I've determined that "resting for a few minutes" in the morning isn't going to get rid of my exhaustion.
We shopped. I purchased some sponges from Walmart for my last preparation day activity.
I already wrote my journal for the week in full, so typing it up for emailing was easy.
The water war activity might not have been as fun this time around (I wrote in my journal), but I still remember having some fun at it.
We were back at the apartment at 5:00 for dinner. We got out a little after six; it took 40 minutes for the water to boil. This is why I don't cook pasta on my mission.
We went out with Sage, a priest, this evening. The first thing we did was hold a planning session -- we failed to do it that morning -- before going to give a blessing in the Royal Ridge apartments.
By knocking on the wrong door (Royal Ridge is split into two main roads, but until today I thought every building number was distinct to one building), we found a family who might want to be taught. It was a cool moment for Sage to see how God directs us, often without us knowing.
We helped Laurinda after the blessing.
Tuesday, July 3rd, 2018:
We helped Elder Wilkins move Sisters Coleman and Olvera to another basement apartment in the stake. He took us all out to lunch afterwards.
After we got back, we made plans for the day. Together, we determined to firmly set a baptismal date with Daegon.
Mark was still occupied with his electric bill when we went by for our lesson at 3:30. After talking to him more about his situation, he discovered he needed to be somewhere at 4:30, not 5:00. If he did not handle this, he might not be able to secure the job opening he wanted. The only way he'd make it is if he took Trax, but he'd been caught free-riding enough times before that he would be permanently banned with another offense. I gave him $5, as it was not prohibited in the MHB (I know care is needed in that area). My feelings about it being the right thing to do were confirmed when Mark texted us later saying he got the job.
The family we helped move into Chad's Ford wanted to have us over for dinner tonight, but the husband became sick and forgot to cancel with us. We biked over to Itto's.
Ty and Kai weren't there for our lesson in the evening.
We promised Daegon we would play with him later, so we did. They (Hunter, Boston, and Daegon) didn't want to have a lesson after, but we confirmed a solid baptismal date of July 21st.
Finally, we tried to bring up HTBT with Eddie. He's a fascinating person to talk to. It also can be hard to get much of a word in, we discovered...
Wednesday, July 4th, 2018:
Nothing spectacular happened at either of the two 4th of July breakfasts in that no one brought a friend who wanted to meet with us and nobody attended who wanted to learn about the gospel, but it was still a good chance to see most all of the ward and stake leaders of the area.
Our dinner was with the UP 5th WML's family (kids and grandkids). Some of his children are not active in the church. We played a video on Joseph Smith, explained why we went on missions, and testified of the role of prophets. It was all good for bringing the Spirit.
Before dinner, we contacted some people. After dinner, we got various rejections or houses with no one home. We ended the evening by calling people and reporting at a church building.
Our landlord invited us to celebrate the Fourth with him. As some may know, Utah celebrates "Pioneer Day" on the 24th of July. One thing I came to know on my mission is that for the general month of July, Utah and many other western states enter a season of explosive-themed patriotism similar to how most all of us have a "holiday season" in December, with the main opening and closing ceremonies marked by the two major holidays. During this period -- and even before and after it -- fireworks can be heard every night. The Fourth itself was a collective release of everyone's inner pyrotechnic, with miniature firework displays ("miniature" meaning small versions of the ariels you or I might drive to a park to watch a show for, not the packs of glorified sparklers we would use at our own homes) visible on almost every residential street corner. At one point, I stood on the street corner and observed at least five distinct shows.
We, being unable to handle any explosives, watched as our landlord, landlady, and son set off flaming fountain after fountain with varying levels of excitement and childlike glee, sprinkling "ground blooms" into the mix (essentially a firework designed to spin once it's set off; after lighting it in your hand, you throw it away from you on the ground).
The smoke remaining from the festivities was strikingly similar to the inversion. I learned later that the smoke generally drifted to and collected over the West portion of the valley, where it was almost like a miniature dose of the inversion.
I'm convinced the residents of Utah have a problem. It was a fun thing to watch and an even more fun thing to write about, though I am a little confused why relatively uncontrolled flames would be most popular in areas of the country most prone to wildfire danger.
Thursday, July 5th, 2018:
I fell asleep this morning on my knees, waking up at 8:20 or so.
We didn't have much to plan for this weekly planning, but we still took our time. Preparing the area book for transfers was a contributing factor.
Patrica and another family both cancelled.
We had dinner with a man in the stake leadership; his 20/30-something son agreed to host us by the WML's request, a surprise to the WML and his parents, as he fell far off the gospel path relatively soon after his mission. Elder Vandehei connected much better with him, as predicted by the WML.
We had a basic lesson with Trey.
We ended the evening at the UP HCoMW's house. It was hard for me to pay attention.
Friday, July 6th, 2018:
Hey! 2 years!
Our multi-district counsel discussed what our focus is. In some ways, it stung because I know I'm not perfect in my motives for serving a mission.
Nothing really "hit" me in giving my departing testimony -- it wasn't very emotional. It was still heartfelt, more or less.
We had apartment inspections, dinner at home, and two lessons (Jeremy and Vanessa; Kimberly) cancel on us. The family who joined us for Kimberly's had us over for dinner a while ago; Elder Vandehei asked the wife to paint a picture of us, which she gave us today.
Saturday, July 7th, 2018:
We planned, studied, and called people to confirm/arrange some things. The rest of our day consisted just of lessons.
Only one family was able to come to Dawnette's stop smoking lesson, but I realized it was more in line with the program.
We had a chapel tour with Dasha, accompanied by a family in the ward. We never set expectations with her (got on the same page with her about meeting with us), so we toured the chapel and informed her of the church, but didn't teach repentance. It was also weird to set a return appointment...
Arash and Marzi were right after. They asked miscellaneous questions, one big one being what they could do to better prepare for baptism. We talked about ordering scriptures for them.
We updated the area book after that.
Soon after, we joined a missionary-minded family for dinner. It was awesome to hear about their efforts in sharing the gospel, especially how they had a good attitude about their efforts when things didn't work out how they wanted them to.
We talked about the pre-Earth life as a simple, short lesson with Trey. For the most part, we used the Book of Mormon Stories video(s).
We met David, a neighbor of Ty. Ty, who basically slipped out of the hospital because he didn't like the side effects of the drugs he was getting, wasn't doing that well. We talked to David, playing basketball at the nearby church building while the Spanish sisters traveled over. We hoped they could start teaching him and invite him to church, but he was moving soon. We couldn't leave while the sisters were there (due to mission rules -- there was no other woman there; our leaving would make it just the sisters and two guys), so we talked to Ty. He definitely was under the weather.
Transfer calls: Sister Coleman, Sister Mendoza, and I are all leaving (each companionship lost the missionary with more time in the area). I made the calls quick, around a minute each.
Sunday, July 8th, 2018:
We did not go to ward councils this morning, as we never planned for today. We set out for the UP 4th ward sacrament meeting; while Ty and Kai didn't make it, Trey did. A family offered to fellowship Trey -- to stay with him during church, walk him back, and even continuously pick him up/stay with him/walk him home in the future -- the little girl in the family was Trey's age. We were both grateful.
We met Arash, Marzi, Dasha, and Patricia at the UP 5th ward next. Well, we didn't see Patricia; someone told us after the meeting that they saw her there. We sat with Dasha; with a warm welcome from the ward, she stayed for gospel principles and relief society.
We then attended the UP 1st ward.
After, we changed at our apartment, finished setting monthly goals (how we did not do that already I do not know -- we remembered to do it many times before...), and biked to a house where we left our water bottles.
While there, we talked to a neighbor named Mary again. The first time, Mary asked us how to tell missionaries she wasn't interested (we met her on the street in a way that wasn't "we were sent here and want to offer you the gospel" -- this wasn't her being passive aggressive); she didn't want to be rude to them, but some would not take "no" for an answer. She asked if there was there a term she needed to say, as she sometimes was rude of necessity and didn't like it.
This time, Mary was outside. We asked how she was; her dog Francis -- basically her child, to her -- had a salivary gland infection. She couldn't afford the surgery, so she just asked if we could pray for the small chance that the antibiotics could take care of everything.
We already knew, based on what the WML told us, that the husband of the family having us over for dinner that evening was unable to go to church most Sundays due to work. Yet, the WML added, the wife could see the husband descending in the gospel... we shared about "the sting of the scorpion" to them and their three little kids. Things seemed well, but I felt troubled. I told them [after praying] that it was the last dinner appointment of my mission, then explained what we knew [to some degree -- not everything], then discussed how they were doing. I offered a priesthood blessing -- opting over the option to just make a promise through the priesthood -- and he accepted. I wished I had paused to gather myself before the blessing, but the idea only came after we laid our hands on his head. Still, I think the main effect of our visit -- that he should try to read, pray, go to church, and otherwise preside over his family as he could; and that God would magnify ["magnifying" being from the mission tour] his time, efforts, love, relationships, and joy -- was successful.
There's a lot of "me" or "I" in that last paragraph, partially because the Spirit was more or less working through me rather than our companionship and partially because I focused too much on myself when reflecting on the "selfless" service.
We left there at 7:00. I realized I should say goodbye to Daegon, Hunter, and Dawnette, which Elder Vandehei recognized. I told them I was going, but that I would keep in touch.
We were far behind schedule, but the Fergusons picked us up after we dropped our bikes off and picked up a few things from our apartment. We met with the family who was going with us to Abe, Renee, and Elijah's; we only had time to introduce the two families before we left to my departing interview.
I met with President Hillier in the mission home. [They are moving to the other mission home soon, among all the other chaos!] As I had heard from others, he did not ask about things one might expect in a departing interview.
Call-ins were brief, as our mission's (missions'?) merged standards put half of call-ins on Tuesday nights.
Monday, July 9th, 2018:
~Habluahmleahluhluhhuh~
"Going home" hit me over and over while packing -- "this is so weird!"
I ensured we planned and studied this morning -- I'm at least doing that! [I made a resolve a while ago to never give up on my mission until it was over. I would not do as well because I might not be able to focus, but I would never let myself give up. Thus, I never succumbed to being "trunky."]
I didn't go about packing well, resulting in well-packed papers, study materials, and other documents; an hour left; and all my clothes still unpacked.
The departing dinner was nice -- our mission chef, Sister U, has never made a bad meal! -- but I wasn't quite prepared when I heard my parents were waiting for me in the foyer lobby. I poked my head out from behind a corner, being spotted by my dad before pulling back. I went over, hugged my dad, hugged my mom, and was caught completely off guard for when my sister Chelsea hugged me from the side. I hadn't noticed her when I walked over to hug my parents, taking the figure in the corner of my eye to be a sister missionary instead. I also didn't notice Josh (my brother-in-law) until after Chelsea hugged me, but I gave him a hug as well.
I asked Sister Hillier if I could go first to ensure my mom could be present for my testimony. After the opening of the departing testimony meeting, I sang "Be Still My Soul" as a musical number before bearing my testimony. I hadn't noticed that my mom was so moved when I looked at her while singing or during my testimony. My dad noted during the car ride home that she showed the most emotion ever since her decline during my musical number. Chelsea seconded this later in the week, adding that the only time she showed a comparable level of emotion was when she tried dark-chocolate-covered-coconut-covered-almonds.
It was clear in my first few moments with my mom that she definitely wasn't in full force, even given how she made recent improvements before then. Interacting with her more (over the course of days) showed to me that she was still "in" there -- little things she did like feeling a little uncomfortable with my dad's driving at times, fixing her hair, trying to ensure everything planned was captured on her calendar, and trying to clean her grandkid's sticky hands or otherwise messy byproducts of mealtime betrayed it -- but it was too many twists diluted to get to any deep level of interaction with her.
I do not know how I feel about it. Having been so far removed from her gave me space to accept how she was. It having been so long since I was able to be with her, my memories of my mom were disconnected from how she now was. While I hadn't experienced how "gone" my mom was, I was able to frame a guess at it from the updates my dad sent to me.
I've lost sight of where I was headed with that. Re-take:
I of course do not fully understand, but through a combination of the same impartiality about myself or emotional removal that helped me through my mission, the distance and time by which I was removed from my mom, and other things, I found I wasn't really slammed, swept over, or otherwise "hit" by emotion regarding how my mom was doing.
A good way to put it is that I received more of emotional support through my mom. Because my temporal needs were more supported by my dad (longer term things, like guidance on how to apply to high school or college, going through life, etc -- my mom cooked meals, so I looked to her for that part of temporal needs), I didn't realize or experience any grief from that perspective. The type of support my mom offered was of an emotional support, but being removed from her for two years I learned how to be more self-sufficient. When I came back and no longer had the same relationship with my mom, it wasn't as collapsing for me because our relationship was already bound to be different.
I'll add more later.
My mom went back with Chelsea and Josh part of the way through my meeting, as she was too worn out.
I met with my stake president after the meeting -- he was in town already, so we made the arrangements -- and he released me. My dad and I drove to Midvale to pick up all my stuff before driving up to my sister's house in Huntsville. We got McDonald's on the way up. At least some things didn't change over two years, I thought as I reconfirmed that I always regretted choosing to eat at McDonald's.
ONE WEEK LATER -- a letter written to Elder Vandehei, who stayed in the area with Elder Mbambu, covering an additional set of wards:
Hi Elder Vandehei!
Please
let people know how I'm doing if they ask. Other missionaries, people
in the area, etc. And please forward this to elders like Elder Shaffer,
Elder Evans, etc.
Hello everyone!
My
first week home has been different than I anticipated. First, one of
the bigger challenges has been doing regular scripture study. I'm
currently staying at my sister's. She has three (almost four) young
children. As such, there are few safe areas where study materials can
remain in the same place between study times. With us sharing a more
limited space (my father, brother, and sister were all visiting with me
for most of the week), study was more difficult.
But
those would only really be excuses. I have to acknowledge that it's my
own fault for not studying well this week. I studied every day, but it
was a shallow reflection of the hour missionaries get (and even of what anyone should be doing). It took a few
days for me to wake up to the principle that if I was going to do
scripture study, there would be no indicator to guide me into doing it.
There is no particular part of a day that lends itself to scripture
study (at least for me right now, as my three nieces/nephew are up and
running at 6:00). Because of this, the first lesson I had to learn as a
returned missionary was that if I was going to keep studying the
scriptures, I would have to consciously stop in the middle of precious
unscheduled time and seek out a quiet space to study.
The
next thing that surprised me was that I still miss video games.
Rather, there's still a possibility of me getting back into video
games. I wasted time on Saturday looking into details of a game that
released during my mission. I didn't have a lot of guilt over it. On
the other hand, I'm preparing to commit myself to schooling as I sort
through what classes to take. It's more of a mental fork in the road
than a mental battle right now: I could either commit to school quite
closely, or I could not. Meaning a choice to take a heavier courseload or not;
either way, I would never skimp on putting in effort to school. As of yet, I have
neither access to video games nor the time to play them for a while, so
there's a good chance I'll finish moving on from video games as an RM
before I could fall back into things.
At
church on Sunday, I joined my mom and dad at my maternal grandfather's
ward. As everyone else only stayed the first hour, it became another
test of my returned missionary life. I could reasonably enough have
excused myself with them, being only a visitor to the ward; yet -- as
the Elder's Quorum lesson, "small and simple things," laid out -- we are
always making choices. Fortunately, my brain made a big enough deal
out of the choice I had that I felt staying was the only option I could
happily take.
Keeping the Sabbath day holy has
been easy enough so far. I made the choice already to avoid worldly
entertainment in addition to other ways of observing the Sabbath, which
is easy enough when the Sabbath becomes basically your day of respite
from all the things you have to do.
Tomorrow
evening will end my first week as an RM. I was released after the
departing testimony dinner, as my stake president happened to be in Salt
Lake at the time. After I walked out of the mission office with my
dad, Elder Wilkins called out goodbye from the mission van, addressing
me as "Elder Brothers." It was funny to see his face when I told him I
was Brother Brothers and had already been released.
By
the way, as some of you might know, all a stake president does when
releasing a full-time missionary is to extend a release verbally.
That's all. *poof*
The single most useful
thing I've found the safeguards for using technology has helped me with
on my mission is to not use my device unless I have a clear purpose in
mind. Granted, I haven't been perfect with it so far (Saturday), I have
been highly aware of what I do as I use technology. By keeping myself
off technology when I'm idly doing things, I've maintained that
feeling. It's helped a lot. If nothing else, it's taught me to think
more about what things I could do when I feel I have nothing to do.
Next
week I'm going to get a phone and computer for college. It will be
nice to get everything set up and sorted out, but I'm also glad I had
the chance to learn what it's like to not be a missionary again before I
re-gain ready access to the internet.
A third
thing to add to what I said in the beginning of this journal is about
how on my mission, I ran into many things I did not want to do. At some
points, I couldn't wait to get home because sometimes I really just did
not want to do missionary work. I thought, correctly, that the high
difficulty of the task and sometimes the discomfort (I don't love
talking to people all day) were parts of the reason.
Well,
that feeling continues to exist at home. There will still be things
that aren't as fun to do. But at home, there's not as much of a sense
of duty and total divine responsibility. Long story short, to any
missionary in the field who feels they at times don't want to do
missionary work, it's okay to not want to do missionary work, but don't
think it goes away once you get home. So try to love where you're at
and what you're doing, even if you -- like me -- aren't one of those
people that seems naturally inclined to do missionary work.
One
other part of being a missionary that I could only see after returning
from a mission is how missionaries are raised to a state of acting on
things. Most of the time, pursuing a goal (like me doing scripture
study) requires carving out time. The time has to come from somewhere.
As a missionary, there is nothing to carve through. Missionaries can
do so much valuable work because there's nothing else they do!
Everything else has been minimized as much as possible!
And yes, sleep feels great, but you're just as awake in the middle of the day as a missionary as you are as an RM.
Yours,
Brother Garrett Brothers
ONE MONTH LATER -- written August 5th, the same day I typed the rest of my journal
About my mom:
We met with a social worker (or some qualified professional) about caring for my mom. She talked about many different strategies to effectively communicate with her. It was right into the thick of things for me. The thing that made it almost overwhelming for me was I didn't understand what our goal was in our relationships with mom. I had to discuss it more with my dad to set things out.
I can already feel that it's more or less going to be an effort for me to fulfill what I view as my responsibility toward my mom. Like my other family members, it's hard to maintain a relationship where most all validation is nonexistent. Despite being a relationship, I've noted that I still approach it from the logical side -- it's not so much emotionally frustrating for me (at least on the surface level) as it is logically frustrating for me to interact with mom at times, as I can't tell very well if my efforts have much of an effect or not. The logical approach I noticed is in how I try to figure out what's best to do.
At a month out, I'm passed any initial stages in my journey with my mom, but I'm sure if I took care of her for longer stretches of time (or even was with her for longer periods of time) I would unearth more details about it, but I think my thoughts are good enough for now.
Do I miss my mom? Yes, I want to be able to really talk to her again. But also no, because of the things I mentioned earlier and also a general assurance which comes from the perspective of the gospel. I don't mean to testify or boast of the blessings of the gospel so much as to note that spiritual stability brings a generally calmer feeling to life. I'm sure experts have already discussed it in a host of ways and instances.
About video games:
As I mentioned earlier, one of the biggest things that caught me off guard after my mission was how I missed video games. Due to how the excitement I felt in hearing about a Smash Bros trailer on my mission felt like it was only echoing my past love of video games, I thought I wouldn't be attracted to them. While I have noticed a distance from video games, I still like them. I haven't played much since I was released -- the situation, lack of access to them, and other, more pressing matters all account for parts of that -- I have watched a lot of YouTube videos of others playing them. I found my self-made video game limits from My Plan (an hour a week alone, two hours a week with friends max) to help. I correctly anticipated that there would be other "zero-effort-instant-gratification" things besides video games (like watching video games) and thus setting limits isn't going to cover everything, but I have been pleasantly surprised to find I still have a work ethic and still have the ability to sit down and hammer out 6-hour blocks of solid academic work without disabling myself for the rest of the day. As long as I have something I know I need to do, I can get pretty directly to doing it.
Noting three reasons video games are so lovable helped me: 1) it takes very little effort to be entertained, versus more rewarding hobbies 2) video games depict a world that is, in many ways, idealized fantasy; conflict occurs, but it's in a way that usually can be enjoyed, even while being frustrating at times (YOU are the hero who can do so many amazing things, etc) 3) I know I have learned to love video games, which makes them easier to love again than something less familiar.
Enough of that.
About college:
Noted above, I can hammer out long sessions of studying without disabling myself for the day. Progressively, I find I am more and more excited to face academic challenges that fascinate and engage me.
Carnegie Mellon requires (among other things) that I do two mini-courses over the Summer. One is on discrete math, which -- due to the pace and unfamiliar material -- reawakened me to why I love math. The other is on everything related to computing at CMU (called C@CM), which spares little in introducing future students to all the resources CMU has.
My dad has been a lifesaver in helping me get everything sorted for college. In addition to returning every college task that came my way during my mission (within reason), he laid many foundations for my college preparation. His continued guidance for everything from what type of laptop or backpack should I get to how I should talk to my academic advisor has been helpful, to understate it.
About missionary work:
I wanted to note that today, I wasn't able to view an annotation from PMG because it wasn't downloaded on my phone. I don't think I have read it since I finished my mission.
I made a commitment to myself to keep the Sabbath Day holy during My Plan -- which I've been doing well at -- and I've found that's probably going to be the outlet that saves many of the other self-commitments I made in My Plan or otherwise. Forcing my own removal from everything else during Sunday affords me self-care of many aspects of my life that I wouldn't otherwise accept or get around to. Through Sundays, I'll remember to do missionary work.
Anything else?:
I went to the temple with my family this week. I realized that I could close my eyes during the endowment session without having to fight falling asleep, even a little.
I've learned a lot more about parenting by watching/helping care for my nieces and nephew, adding to what I learned by eating with families during my mission.
I wasn't able to go to Daegon and Boston's baptism; the airline cancelled our flight because of local thunderstorms. By the time we tried to reserve it, the similarly-timed option was unavailable. I also missed what was going to be my first date ever (my sister lined me up with Lexi), as she returned to school Saturday afternoon and couldn't reschedule.
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