XinXin (Faith)

Dear everyone,

Have you noticed how your whole vision of reality changes depending on the current state of your moral character? 

Every day as a missionary is full of that stab in your feet from standing on the fence between inwardness and outwardness, between selfishness and love. But I don't know if love describes it well enough--the love that our schedule, expectations, and responsibilities requires us to have is not some passive feeling. It's an active, living, sacrificial kind of love. It's a love that requires you to constantly be moving, if not from sleep's stumbly arms each morning at 6:30 or on your bike each afternoon, then from resentment to forgiveness towards your companion, despair towards hope in your attitude about getting wet and cold in the rain in order to go and visit some] ward member who very well may not be home. 

These are the kinds of activities and expectations that fill each day. When I choose inwardness, selfishness, and focus on all the things I am being denied--social interaction with family and friends, personal time, books, sleep, warmth, facebook, etc.--missionary work is absolutely miserable. It traps you in a world of things you don't want to do or feel spiritually, physically, and intellectually inadequate to do. Everything from your companion's subtle actions to the missionary handbook to the mission president's weekly emails and your schedule each day constantly reminds you of all these "moral" responsibilities you have towards people. I feel uncomfortable, overwhelmed, stressed, bitter. One of the first things I do, when I get in selfish mode, is I start attacking that word, "Moral". I start saying to myself, "This is completely unrealistic, what they expect me to do. None of them are perfect, who are they to require me to do this?" Basically, "I don't think I really have these moral responsibilities at all." Interestingly, I don't even know who "them" is--my mission leaders, the general authorities, my family? My blame often targets itself at specific persons, but mainly just in a general direction of "other people". If I go deep and long enough in this kind of thinking, my blame will start to target itself at God, and I start to doubt his goodness and thus his existence. I think this is the source of a lot of depression some missionaries feel all the time, but certainly all missionaries feel some of the time. 

Sometimes I think the problem is in missionary life--as if this isn't real life. It's definition of what life is, explanations for why things are they way they are, and moral mandates for how to act in life, are certainly very different from what most of the world thinks. It is very tempting and easy, then, to say that there must be a fault in the thinking. Then I try to really think about what I know about life, and what other people know about life. Which is really nothing. I don't think anyone has reality nailed down, from the scientists to the philosophers to the politicians to the celebrities to me. We often feel the most comfortable with saying, "this is real; this is how life works; this is what is right" if everyone agrees on the same thing, but that is no legitimate reason. What we DO know about life, though, is that fighting with our families brings unhappiness, that stealing breeds mistrust, that that bird on the ground over there looks hungry and that the old people at the rest home love to have just anyone sit with them and hold their hand. We know that our sister hates when we leave hair in the sink and that she loves cute notes and brownies. We know that even though We know that based on our actions, we are able to bring about good and avoid bad in our life. I think the reality most of know best and yet not well enough is not some scientific, tangible reality--but moral reality. 

Put in that way, the pressure to be morally good that missionaries feel constantly aware of is actually the reality of all of us.   I think Moms and Dads and school teachers and teenagers and everyone else feel the pressure of the needs of people around them and the responsibilities consequently put on their backs. So what is the difference? I would probably say that in missionary work, there is no escape. They cut you off from your family, friends, your facebook, your music, your favorite hobbies. All these things that are not bad but are often distracting from moral responsibility and often driven by personal interest. They redefine all your social interaction with others as interaction with a moral purpose--"To invite others to come unto Christ by helping them receive the restored gospel through faith in Jesus Christ and his atonement, repentance, baptism, receiving the Holy Ghost, and enduring to the end." This is our response to the needs of the world, and there is no escape in missionary life from the responsibility to meet these needs. 

One of the things I have been thinking about lately, is that missionary work, strange as it might be, may perhaps be more real than real life, because it never lets us forget about our moral reality. No wonder it is so controversial and so difficult. 

Anyway. The cool thing about missionary work is when you decide to jump into the part of the yard that embodies sacrifical love, compassion, openness, outwardness, is that things fall into place. You find yourself having strength and energy to do things you never thought you would be able to do. You find yourself saying things you never thought you would say, and believing them sincerely. You find that your doubts sort of resolve themselves into an ever-present but comfortable spot in the back of your mind. You keep them there as you ought, because they teach us to constantly be searching for God, constantly be searching for more truth and more enlightenment, but they don't trap you in despair the way they once did. And you find you appreciate life much more. You love people for who they are, instead of who they might introduce you to or because they are attractive. You love them and you really, honestly desire for their happiness. I have never felt so much sincere love for people as I have, here. There is so much you can criticize about the missionary program, the way they choose to do things, but I don't think I can ever deny that through this I have felt more love and more close to God and more enlightened about my moral reality than I ever have before. 

Hope you found something interesting to think about in that. I love you all! 

Sister Brown