Week 74: Have I Done Enough? With Wakeboard and Elder Holland
Dear Loved Ones,
I've reached this point where I'm only happy when I'm outside. That's starting to happen more and they're granting us new leniencies, but each one calls into question why we're not allowed more. After district council in person this week, our first time doing that in ten weeks, the two of us went out to pizza with eight other missionaries. If we can do that, why not go out to lunch with the kind old lady in our ward who keeps asking if we're allowed? And if we can dine out, why not eat dinner at her house? And why not teach in a house?
We can do outdoor lessons now, which is glorious, but indoor is still forbidden. People actually move around outdoors than they do when they walk in, sit down in a chair, and stay there until the lessons over. The only objects you really have to touch during a lesson are the doorknob and the chair you're sitting in, and the doorknob's optional. I've always been irritated when missionaries prioritized other missionaries over the people they teach or ward members they could be serving, and while I'm definitely grateful for all the missionary interactions we get (last week we took over a ghost town college campus and played volleyball in the rain and I ran a lap around their track barefoot) I do want to be doing more with and more for the people I want to serve.
When I tell people my mission is ending soon, they ask, "How do you feel?" as if they can bait me into saying, "It was a wonderful experience and I wish it could last just six months more." But I tell them, "It's time."
I don't have any idea what the rest of my life will be like once this no longer defines it, but I'm oh so ready. And quarantine can't possibly be so bad once you have family and TV and unlimited virtual communication with all your friends.
Earlier this week I just woke up to a hard day. It's been a hard four and a half years. I went out to our balcony, which gets two hours of sunlight between 6:30 and 8:30 before the angle of our building puts it in shadow for the rest of the day. I spend a lot of time there while it's light. I exercised for a while and then just sank down to my knees and prayed. My mission and being barred from it have defined my entire adult life almost and I'm so weary and ready to be done.
It's so hard to be ending like this. When I was first barred from serving back in 2016, I wondered if maybe God was saving me from a hard situation. If going on a mission put me in the right place at the wrong time I got in a car crash or raped or something, it would be worth the wait to go later and avoid that. But after three hard years, I had a car crash (though not a crippling one) and I'm left finishing in the worst time to be a missionary in the history of the modern church. The beginning of my mission was so hard, living with bated breath to see if I'd be sent home, and then the events I wrote about a few emails ago kicked in and I had to fear that again. If I could change one thing about my mission, it would be to take away all the time I wasted in fear.
I thought about the less than two weeks I had left and prayed, "God, can it somehow be enough?" I just want to go home satisfied, not just relieved that it's over.
And then the thought came to me, instead of it BEING enough, "Have I done enough?"
I really think I have. I could have been a better teacher, but I used the best words and ideas I could come up with in any given teaching situation. I think I went the extra mile to show love to everyone important to me in every area for as long as I was able to get in contact with them. I biked to the very edge of our area when the feels-like was 111 degrees last summer because Sophie was out of town and needed someone to water her plants and feed her cats. I held toddlers when their drug-addicted mom didn't really take care of them. I kept contacting people over and over again when I thought they needed love, even when they never answered the door or returned our calls. I'd like to think I gave good tours at the visitors' center. And there was a woman earlier this week, Crystal, who's been going through a rough time. She got baptized back in 2015 but dropped out of activity. I first met her back in March and she's been hard to get a hold of, but now that we can do in-person doorstep contacts, I went back over to see her. She lives alone and she said I've been the only person outside her family who's really checked up on her in quarantine. I don't think I've interacted with her more than eight times, and eight is pretty thin spread out over the course of three months, but she seemed really touched.
I think I can honestly say I've done enough. I think a lot about how my life would have been different if I'd gone on a mission at age 19. I have more resiliency now, but I also have a lot more paranoia. 2016 and 2017 (the time I would've originally spent on a mission) were harder than anything that could have happened to me on a mission. Overall, I know I would have been happier, both during and before my mission, if it hadn't happened like this. But I am grateful to finally have the opportunity God has given me and for the work I've been able to do here.
Elder Holland's grandson got reassigned to my mission so he did a zoom call with all of us on Sunday (see screenshot at the bottom). Someone asked him what it's liked to serve with President Nelson and he said, "He may be the kindest man I've ever worked with and I've worked with a lot of kind men." That devotional was a sunny spot in my week. Everything that day just seemed peaceful. My other happy thing I Keep looking forward to is a Lake Powell trip my family's planning after I get home.
I'm a wakeboarder. My brothers like to do go big or go home runs and try these big mumps that knock them down. But I just glide. Wakeboarding puts your body in this weird, crooked posture-one foot forward and shoulders angled weird as you play tug of war with the boat. I stay up in the position for as much as an hour at a time. When I finally drop the rope or get knocked down, my fingers are so achy from gripping the tow rope that I have to cup them around my kneecaps underwater to get them to make different shapes again. It hurts more to stretch them above water. My family's always impressed with how long I can endure that. Sometimes they have to stop the boat to get me down. I thought a lot about wakeboarding analogous to a mission before I came here. I knew I'd never quit, no matter how hard it was, unless someone stopped the boat on me.
I guess I'm an endurer. Whenever I want to throw down the rope, I think, "Just a little bit longer," and then I run into good water. Or people to serve who need me. It hasn't been a good-water mission, but I am glad I've stayed on for the full run.
Sincerely,
Sister Smith
P.S.: And now to prove I'm not completely miserable, here's a list i've been compiling for a while of 100 happy things that happened during my mission. A lot probably won't make sense out of context, but here you go.
100 Happy Things
1. The time we walked to Taco Bell with Faith
2. Scraping cars with Emma
3. July 4, 2019-contacting with little flags on the golf course
4. The Royals game!
5. Bringing Sophie ice cream, painting her nails, and teaching her about the pre existence
6. Sister Moritz stealing temple lot dirt
7. August 4, 2019-Miracle at Liberty Jail and Sophie put on date.
8. Giving Henry Eyring a tour of the VC
9. Seeing Jennifer Neilsen at the VC.
10. Editing Dee Nicholson's fighter pilot book
11. Saydi playing with the mouse nutcracker
12. Finding the Robinsons at home
13. March 11, 2019-Getting my call
14. Meeting the Limkadres and being told "Victory!"
15. Doing the chicken dance with those little girls on exchanges in Idaho.
16. Listening to Invincible at the car wash.
17. Biking all the way up the hill in front of our apartment in Boise for the first time
18. My confidence in the MTC
19. My MTC district being tight and looking up to me.
20. The time Sister Holdeman pushed the cat off Eveyln's doorstep with a broom.
21. Tracting into Evelyn in the dark.
22. Evelyn clapping and saying, "Only God!"
23. Our little New Year's party when I tried to remember the Charleston.
24. Seeing all of the Kansas City skyline from the Liberty Memorial.
25. Sister Holland and I doing the escape room.
26. Faith's baptism
27. Getting to see the Nelson-Atkins Impressionists paintings.
28. Driving past the Chiefs and Royals stadiums.
29. Anne Frank statue
30. Teaching Evelyn by flashlight.
31. Taking a picture next to the Neighbor tombstone to text Ace.
32. How beautiful the poinsettias looked in front of the Christus with the light blue sky in the background.
33. Sister Christopher's funny coorelation stories.
34. When we all went to the back of the VC and danced along to Campana Sobre Campana.
35. Ghetto trash photo shoot.
36. Making rag dolls at Santa Caligon.
37. Finding that random little pioneer cemetery in the middle of a residential street.
38. Learning to appreciate Taco Bell (soft potato tacos).
39. Sending dog memes to Ace while tracting.
40. Sending random memes to Sophie during a thunderstorm.
41. Making fun of the Raytown rock memorial.
42. Going to Clinton's soda fountain.
43. The time Sister Nackos's dad ordered us pizza while we were snowed in.
44. Cardinals and blue jays from our balcony.
45. Crying at the picture of the Salt Lake Temple under construction because I was happy and grateful.
46. Learning Mary Rollins's story and reading her biography.
47. Finishing Cameron's Tarek book.
48. Wearing black and braids for Wednesday Wednesday.
49. And when we all dressed up as Disney princesses.
50. Filming that Christmas carpool karaoke video.
51. Teaching Sister Romero stupid English words.
52. The time we took down chairs at the stake center and then Sister Cannon took us on a spontaneous tour of the CoC.
53. Waffle Wednesdays!
54. Yoga and interpretive dance with Emma.
55. Telling jokes to the Robertson kids and getting them to play the quiet game for an entire hour.
56. Seeing Eva.
57. Finding Sunflowers.
58. Sister McCracken's Valentine.
59. CHIEFS WON THE SUPER BOWL!
60. My overall Taco Taj apartment chemistry with Emma, Sister Nackos, and Sister Holdeman.
61. The time that guy working on his car (Tez) messed with us because I didnt know who Joel Olstein was and, apparently, live under a rock.
62. When we read the story of Christ blessing the Nephite children to Kim and T and Xiolee and Mariah.
63. Country houses in the middle of nowhere with their own personal ponds out front.
64. When the Sherwoods fed me bibimbop!
65. Jae's cobblers.
66. Ordering tortas huevo from El Chavo's.
67. Hearing Saydi giggling when we came by to see her one last time at the last possible second and then she came out looking like an angel in that light blue sweater with Carter wrapped up in a towel.
68. The time we got Peruvian food with the Kaw River hermanas after waiting around for the locksmith forever to let us into our car.
69. Getting introduced to Nashville Tribute Band by Sister Holdeman.
70. Sister Nackos saying "yiggity-yeet" and "fleep."
71. Redbud trees
72. Gorgeous fiery orange sunrise.
73. Elder Sickler being ridiculous (ham sandwich) and purposefully messing up roleplays in district council.
74. Holding coronavirus church at the Stowes' house with the Coneys and Brooke.
75. Hosanna shout for commemoration of the First Vision
76. Doing that outdoor jail tour with the men who had come out from California and needed us.
77. Pretty Liberty houses on walks.
78. Kaylie Coney playing her marimba.
79. Hunting for shells and hammocking along the Fishing River.
80. Runs in the square in the morning when no one else is out.
81. My study room in the jailhouse.
82. The time Sister Nackos and I chased a flock of geese across the field.
83. Teaching the restoration to that lady fishing at the park.
84. Planting corn, feeding cows, and collecting eggs with the Scott family!
85. Messing with Elder Broberg by approaching them at a distance on the dark and pretending to be someone they had tracted into.
86. Getting Sister Dochterman to go to a Sikh worship service after my Idaho mission president had all but told me not to. (Wear a head scarf! Eat free Indian food!)
87. The time Sister Holland never taught me that you still have to wear missionary clothes outdoors on P-day and we all walked around downtown Boise in jeans and T-shirts.
88. Syncing up calls with my brother Brandon.
89. Watching my brother Jacob open his call to Colombia.
90. Fireflies.
91. Hiding a Pokeball and other random treasures in the Phelps press.
92. that day Sister Nackos and I had a lot of funny and fun experiences while tracting.
93. When I finished writing an ENTIRE NOVEL on my mission.
94. Telling bedtime stories to Sister Nabhan.
95. Milking a goat with Brooke Sherwood!
96. L'ren sending me my victory necklace.
97. My ballerina, umbrella lady, space lady, and Alice in Wonderland watercolors I made during quarantine.
98. Giving my departing testimony at Far West
99. When we took over UCM campus on Memorial Day and had their whole football field to ourselves before a flash flood started and I played sand volleyball in the rain.
100. Driving up to a joy trip at Adam-ondi-ahman as soon as I send this.
I've reached this point where I'm only happy when I'm outside. That's starting to happen more and they're granting us new leniencies, but each one calls into question why we're not allowed more. After district council in person this week, our first time doing that in ten weeks, the two of us went out to pizza with eight other missionaries. If we can do that, why not go out to lunch with the kind old lady in our ward who keeps asking if we're allowed? And if we can dine out, why not eat dinner at her house? And why not teach in a house?
We can do outdoor lessons now, which is glorious, but indoor is still forbidden. People actually move around outdoors than they do when they walk in, sit down in a chair, and stay there until the lessons over. The only objects you really have to touch during a lesson are the doorknob and the chair you're sitting in, and the doorknob's optional. I've always been irritated when missionaries prioritized other missionaries over the people they teach or ward members they could be serving, and while I'm definitely grateful for all the missionary interactions we get (last week we took over a ghost town college campus and played volleyball in the rain and I ran a lap around their track barefoot) I do want to be doing more with and more for the people I want to serve.
When I tell people my mission is ending soon, they ask, "How do you feel?" as if they can bait me into saying, "It was a wonderful experience and I wish it could last just six months more." But I tell them, "It's time."
I don't have any idea what the rest of my life will be like once this no longer defines it, but I'm oh so ready. And quarantine can't possibly be so bad once you have family and TV and unlimited virtual communication with all your friends.
Earlier this week I just woke up to a hard day. It's been a hard four and a half years. I went out to our balcony, which gets two hours of sunlight between 6:30 and 8:30 before the angle of our building puts it in shadow for the rest of the day. I spend a lot of time there while it's light. I exercised for a while and then just sank down to my knees and prayed. My mission and being barred from it have defined my entire adult life almost and I'm so weary and ready to be done.
It's so hard to be ending like this. When I was first barred from serving back in 2016, I wondered if maybe God was saving me from a hard situation. If going on a mission put me in the right place at the wrong time I got in a car crash or raped or something, it would be worth the wait to go later and avoid that. But after three hard years, I had a car crash (though not a crippling one) and I'm left finishing in the worst time to be a missionary in the history of the modern church. The beginning of my mission was so hard, living with bated breath to see if I'd be sent home, and then the events I wrote about a few emails ago kicked in and I had to fear that again. If I could change one thing about my mission, it would be to take away all the time I wasted in fear.
I thought about the less than two weeks I had left and prayed, "God, can it somehow be enough?" I just want to go home satisfied, not just relieved that it's over.
And then the thought came to me, instead of it BEING enough, "Have I done enough?"
I really think I have. I could have been a better teacher, but I used the best words and ideas I could come up with in any given teaching situation. I think I went the extra mile to show love to everyone important to me in every area for as long as I was able to get in contact with them. I biked to the very edge of our area when the feels-like was 111 degrees last summer because Sophie was out of town and needed someone to water her plants and feed her cats. I held toddlers when their drug-addicted mom didn't really take care of them. I kept contacting people over and over again when I thought they needed love, even when they never answered the door or returned our calls. I'd like to think I gave good tours at the visitors' center. And there was a woman earlier this week, Crystal, who's been going through a rough time. She got baptized back in 2015 but dropped out of activity. I first met her back in March and she's been hard to get a hold of, but now that we can do in-person doorstep contacts, I went back over to see her. She lives alone and she said I've been the only person outside her family who's really checked up on her in quarantine. I don't think I've interacted with her more than eight times, and eight is pretty thin spread out over the course of three months, but she seemed really touched.
I think I can honestly say I've done enough. I think a lot about how my life would have been different if I'd gone on a mission at age 19. I have more resiliency now, but I also have a lot more paranoia. 2016 and 2017 (the time I would've originally spent on a mission) were harder than anything that could have happened to me on a mission. Overall, I know I would have been happier, both during and before my mission, if it hadn't happened like this. But I am grateful to finally have the opportunity God has given me and for the work I've been able to do here.
Elder Holland's grandson got reassigned to my mission so he did a zoom call with all of us on Sunday (see screenshot at the bottom). Someone asked him what it's liked to serve with President Nelson and he said, "He may be the kindest man I've ever worked with and I've worked with a lot of kind men." That devotional was a sunny spot in my week. Everything that day just seemed peaceful. My other happy thing I Keep looking forward to is a Lake Powell trip my family's planning after I get home.
I'm a wakeboarder. My brothers like to do go big or go home runs and try these big mumps that knock them down. But I just glide. Wakeboarding puts your body in this weird, crooked posture-one foot forward and shoulders angled weird as you play tug of war with the boat. I stay up in the position for as much as an hour at a time. When I finally drop the rope or get knocked down, my fingers are so achy from gripping the tow rope that I have to cup them around my kneecaps underwater to get them to make different shapes again. It hurts more to stretch them above water. My family's always impressed with how long I can endure that. Sometimes they have to stop the boat to get me down. I thought a lot about wakeboarding analogous to a mission before I came here. I knew I'd never quit, no matter how hard it was, unless someone stopped the boat on me.
I guess I'm an endurer. Whenever I want to throw down the rope, I think, "Just a little bit longer," and then I run into good water. Or people to serve who need me. It hasn't been a good-water mission, but I am glad I've stayed on for the full run.
Sincerely,
Sister Smith
P.S.: And now to prove I'm not completely miserable, here's a list i've been compiling for a while of 100 happy things that happened during my mission. A lot probably won't make sense out of context, but here you go.
100 Happy Things
1. The time we walked to Taco Bell with Faith
2. Scraping cars with Emma
3. July 4, 2019-contacting with little flags on the golf course
4. The Royals game!
5. Bringing Sophie ice cream, painting her nails, and teaching her about the pre existence
6. Sister Moritz stealing temple lot dirt
7. August 4, 2019-Miracle at Liberty Jail and Sophie put on date.
8. Giving Henry Eyring a tour of the VC
9. Seeing Jennifer Neilsen at the VC.
10. Editing Dee Nicholson's fighter pilot book
11. Saydi playing with the mouse nutcracker
12. Finding the Robinsons at home
13. March 11, 2019-Getting my call
14. Meeting the Limkadres and being told "Victory!"
15. Doing the chicken dance with those little girls on exchanges in Idaho.
16. Listening to Invincible at the car wash.
17. Biking all the way up the hill in front of our apartment in Boise for the first time
18. My confidence in the MTC
19. My MTC district being tight and looking up to me.
20. The time Sister Holdeman pushed the cat off Eveyln's doorstep with a broom.
21. Tracting into Evelyn in the dark.
22. Evelyn clapping and saying, "Only God!"
23. Our little New Year's party when I tried to remember the Charleston.
24. Seeing all of the Kansas City skyline from the Liberty Memorial.
25. Sister Holland and I doing the escape room.
26. Faith's baptism
27. Getting to see the Nelson-Atkins Impressionists paintings.
28. Driving past the Chiefs and Royals stadiums.
29. Anne Frank statue
30. Teaching Evelyn by flashlight.
31. Taking a picture next to the Neighbor tombstone to text Ace.
32. How beautiful the poinsettias looked in front of the Christus with the light blue sky in the background.
33. Sister Christopher's funny coorelation stories.
34. When we all went to the back of the VC and danced along to Campana Sobre Campana.
35. Ghetto trash photo shoot.
36. Making rag dolls at Santa Caligon.
37. Finding that random little pioneer cemetery in the middle of a residential street.
38. Learning to appreciate Taco Bell (soft potato tacos).
39. Sending dog memes to Ace while tracting.
40. Sending random memes to Sophie during a thunderstorm.
41. Making fun of the Raytown rock memorial.
42. Going to Clinton's soda fountain.
43. The time Sister Nackos's dad ordered us pizza while we were snowed in.
44. Cardinals and blue jays from our balcony.
45. Crying at the picture of the Salt Lake Temple under construction because I was happy and grateful.
46. Learning Mary Rollins's story and reading her biography.
47. Finishing Cameron's Tarek book.
48. Wearing black and braids for Wednesday Wednesday.
49. And when we all dressed up as Disney princesses.
50. Filming that Christmas carpool karaoke video.
51. Teaching Sister Romero stupid English words.
52. The time we took down chairs at the stake center and then Sister Cannon took us on a spontaneous tour of the CoC.
53. Waffle Wednesdays!
54. Yoga and interpretive dance with Emma.
55. Telling jokes to the Robertson kids and getting them to play the quiet game for an entire hour.
56. Seeing Eva.
57. Finding Sunflowers.
58. Sister McCracken's Valentine.
59. CHIEFS WON THE SUPER BOWL!
60. My overall Taco Taj apartment chemistry with Emma, Sister Nackos, and Sister Holdeman.
61. The time that guy working on his car (Tez) messed with us because I didnt know who Joel Olstein was and, apparently, live under a rock.
62. When we read the story of Christ blessing the Nephite children to Kim and T and Xiolee and Mariah.
63. Country houses in the middle of nowhere with their own personal ponds out front.
64. When the Sherwoods fed me bibimbop!
65. Jae's cobblers.
66. Ordering tortas huevo from El Chavo's.
67. Hearing Saydi giggling when we came by to see her one last time at the last possible second and then she came out looking like an angel in that light blue sweater with Carter wrapped up in a towel.
68. The time we got Peruvian food with the Kaw River hermanas after waiting around for the locksmith forever to let us into our car.
69. Getting introduced to Nashville Tribute Band by Sister Holdeman.
70. Sister Nackos saying "yiggity-yeet" and "fleep."
71. Redbud trees
72. Gorgeous fiery orange sunrise.
73. Elder Sickler being ridiculous (ham sandwich) and purposefully messing up roleplays in district council.
74. Holding coronavirus church at the Stowes' house with the Coneys and Brooke.
75. Hosanna shout for commemoration of the First Vision
76. Doing that outdoor jail tour with the men who had come out from California and needed us.
77. Pretty Liberty houses on walks.
78. Kaylie Coney playing her marimba.
79. Hunting for shells and hammocking along the Fishing River.
80. Runs in the square in the morning when no one else is out.
81. My study room in the jailhouse.
82. The time Sister Nackos and I chased a flock of geese across the field.
83. Teaching the restoration to that lady fishing at the park.
84. Planting corn, feeding cows, and collecting eggs with the Scott family!
85. Messing with Elder Broberg by approaching them at a distance on the dark and pretending to be someone they had tracted into.
86. Getting Sister Dochterman to go to a Sikh worship service after my Idaho mission president had all but told me not to. (Wear a head scarf! Eat free Indian food!)
87. The time Sister Holland never taught me that you still have to wear missionary clothes outdoors on P-day and we all walked around downtown Boise in jeans and T-shirts.
88. Syncing up calls with my brother Brandon.
89. Watching my brother Jacob open his call to Colombia.
90. Fireflies.
91. Hiding a Pokeball and other random treasures in the Phelps press.
92. that day Sister Nackos and I had a lot of funny and fun experiences while tracting.
93. When I finished writing an ENTIRE NOVEL on my mission.
94. Telling bedtime stories to Sister Nabhan.
95. Milking a goat with Brooke Sherwood!
96. L'ren sending me my victory necklace.
97. My ballerina, umbrella lady, space lady, and Alice in Wonderland watercolors I made during quarantine.
98. Giving my departing testimony at Far West
99. When we took over UCM campus on Memorial Day and had their whole football field to ourselves before a flash flood started and I played sand volleyball in the rain.
100. Driving up to a joy trip at Adam-ondi-ahman as soon as I send this.
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