On the other side of the badge
Early Tuesday morning, Sister Dimick, Sister Lewis, and I woke up for the last time in the comfortable bedroom of the mission home. It was quite fitting that we had begun our journey as missionaries together 18 months before, and now were ending it together. It seemed to us that we had just barely flown into country, and now President was driving us to the airport to get on the plane that would take us away. It was a very surreal feeling as we went through security, said our goodbyes, and boarded the plane to Kyiv. My heart was full of emotion as we flew away and I watched the Dnepr river and the streets and buildings I love pass from underneath me.
After an exciting layover in Kyiv where we all managed to make it to our planes on time, I had a wonderful conversation on the plane to Amsterdam with a man from Kyiv. He quickly became like a grandpa to me and he shared with me his wisdom from many years of travel (not to mention he taught me the word 'vestibular' in Russian). We had a wonderful discussion about prayer and the gospel and even read together from the Book of Mormon. It made me happy near the end of the flight to see how touched he was when I gave him a copy of the Book of Mormon. I pray that he will remember what he felt as we talked and that he will be touched again as he reads the Book of Mormon.
As we entered the Amsterdam airport, we the six of us missionaries realized that we were no longer in Ukraine. I think that's where the culture-shock began for me, as well as the incredible homesickness for my beloved Ukraine. For one thing, Russian was gone and we were instead surrounded by English written on all the signs and spoken in every accent under the sun. I felt that a very important part of me had suddenly been boxed up and shoved away, at high risk to be lost completely and only available to be taken out occasionally. It was (and still is) a very strange feeling.
The ten hour flight from Amsterdam to Seattle was just that - ten hours. I enjoyed talking to the teenage boy next to me who had just been at a skateboarding competition in Sweden. And as we talked I remembered what an American accent sounds like and how American kids act. It was good practice for landing in America. Which we did. And when we saw Добро пожаловать written on the big wall behind passport control, we did indeed feel welcomed, albeit strangely out-of-place and yet at home. As we boarded our plane to Salt Lake City, we felt a bit like celebrities - so many people knew who missionaries were and were excited to see us. It gave me warm fuzzies. Not to mention we were able to talk to a returned missionary who had also served Russian speaking and had been home for a couple years.
Around 9:30 P.M. Utah time, after over 24 hours of traveling, I walked to the top of the escalator that would take me down to my family. As those electronic stairs carried the four of us returning missionaries downward, I saw my family for the first time in 18 months. For anybody who has never experienced that before, it's quite the feeling - there is nothing like seeing those you love after being separated from them for a year and a half. It was a joyous - albeit surreal - reunion.
The next few days passed in a blur of emotion, reunions, and sleep. And mostly feeling - feeling my mission, feeling the joy of the changes in my life and in the lives of other, feeling the joy of reunion with loved ones; feeling the pain of separation from the people and places I'd grown to love so dearly. When I expressed some of these feelings to my mission president's wife, she responded with words of wisdom that I think every returned missionary ought to hear. Regarding the period of time immediately following full-time service as a missionary, she wrote,
"This is a special time when you FEEL things about this past 18 months that really need to be felt, pondered, cried over, and carved into a special place in your mind. [These things will then] be very easily called up to remind you of the tremendous experience it was to come away from your mission feeling so lost to be without it. It is a sanctifying time, very much like every time you come away from the temple endowment. The time will come - the right time - when these feelings will be appropriately replaced with desire to move forward, to make plans, to carry on - except now with a firmer foundation and a desire to be a consecrated daughter of God."
That's about what I've been doing lately - all of that feeling, pondering, and crying about the incredible experience that was my full-time mission. Those 18 months changed my life. They changed me completely. They changed the people I loved in Ukraine. So of course it takes some time to process before that appropriate desire to move on comes in. I am grateful to the God of heaven who called me to be His missionary for 18 months. My mission means everything to me, and I don't know enough words in either Russian or English to express that. So I will leave it all unsaid. And just feel it. And be grateful.
After an exciting layover in Kyiv where we all managed to make it to our planes on time, I had a wonderful conversation on the plane to Amsterdam with a man from Kyiv. He quickly became like a grandpa to me and he shared with me his wisdom from many years of travel (not to mention he taught me the word 'vestibular' in Russian). We had a wonderful discussion about prayer and the gospel and even read together from the Book of Mormon. It made me happy near the end of the flight to see how touched he was when I gave him a copy of the Book of Mormon. I pray that he will remember what he felt as we talked and that he will be touched again as he reads the Book of Mormon.
As we entered the Amsterdam airport, we the six of us missionaries realized that we were no longer in Ukraine. I think that's where the culture-shock began for me, as well as the incredible homesickness for my beloved Ukraine. For one thing, Russian was gone and we were instead surrounded by English written on all the signs and spoken in every accent under the sun. I felt that a very important part of me had suddenly been boxed up and shoved away, at high risk to be lost completely and only available to be taken out occasionally. It was (and still is) a very strange feeling.
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| Returning missionaries in Amsterdam |
Around 9:30 P.M. Utah time, after over 24 hours of traveling, I walked to the top of the escalator that would take me down to my family. As those electronic stairs carried the four of us returning missionaries downward, I saw my family for the first time in 18 months. For anybody who has never experienced that before, it's quite the feeling - there is nothing like seeing those you love after being separated from them for a year and a half. It was a joyous - albeit surreal - reunion.
The next few days passed in a blur of emotion, reunions, and sleep. And mostly feeling - feeling my mission, feeling the joy of the changes in my life and in the lives of other, feeling the joy of reunion with loved ones; feeling the pain of separation from the people and places I'd grown to love so dearly. When I expressed some of these feelings to my mission president's wife, she responded with words of wisdom that I think every returned missionary ought to hear. Regarding the period of time immediately following full-time service as a missionary, she wrote,
"This is a special time when you FEEL things about this past 18 months that really need to be felt, pondered, cried over, and carved into a special place in your mind. [These things will then] be very easily called up to remind you of the tremendous experience it was to come away from your mission feeling so lost to be without it. It is a sanctifying time, very much like every time you come away from the temple endowment. The time will come - the right time - when these feelings will be appropriately replaced with desire to move forward, to make plans, to carry on - except now with a firmer foundation and a desire to be a consecrated daughter of God."
That's about what I've been doing lately - all of that feeling, pondering, and crying about the incredible experience that was my full-time mission. Those 18 months changed my life. They changed me completely. They changed the people I loved in Ukraine. So of course it takes some time to process before that appropriate desire to move on comes in. I am grateful to the God of heaven who called me to be His missionary for 18 months. My mission means everything to me, and I don't know enough words in either Russian or English to express that. So I will leave it all unsaid. And just feel it. And be grateful.
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