Growing up I never thought I would serve a mission. I am not a naturally outgoing person. Imposing upon and talking to others (especially one-on-one) has always made me uncomfortable. And lastly but definitely not least I did not wear dresses. But when the Lord gives you instructions, I have always found it best not to argue. Luckily I had the benefit of being in the Missionary Training Center (MTC) with my younger brother and my best friend. What a blessing it was to have the both of them close by and accessible in those first challenging weeks of my mission.
I was so scared to leave the MTC and go out into the field. I had just started to get into the swing of things at the MTC and was quite comfortable where I was at, when it was time to leave. I felt I didn’t know what I was doing. True I knew the basic principles and had learned how to start teaching others in the MTC, but I still felt very inadequate. I was so nervous about talking to people and teaching them, I hadn’t even thought about the language barrier that could possible exist. I quickly learned that while I might have been called to an English speaking mission, it was not the kind of English that I grew up hearing and speaking on the West Coast.
I distinctly remember having my trainer hand me the phone after picking me up from the mission home and instructing me to call Brother Warren while she drove back to our area. That seemed like a simple enough task right? Wrong! While I had heard southern accents before, I was not prepared to hear the deep rural Georgia African American southern accent that came rolling out of Bro. Warren’s mouth. I could not understand a lick that that man said to me on the phone. After asking him to repeat himself two times and still not understanding what was said, I knew I was in a whole host of trouble. In the end I had to put the phone on speaker phone so that my trainer could “translate” what was being said. Later I learned that Bro. Warren couldn’t understand anything I was saying either, I talked too fast! There is no point in trying to talk to or teach people if you can’t understand one another. This just confirmed my worst fear that I would be a horrible missionary.
After expressing my fears to my trainer I calmed down. I determined that there were two options in front of me. I could either dwell and get stuck on my bad experience or I could make it a learning opportunity. I chose the latter. I determined that I would have to work really hard on training my ear and slowing down my own speech. It took me a good minute but by the end of my mission I could understand the deepest of southern accents. I knew I had learned to slow down my speech when in my last area my companion couldn’t understand me!
Making that decision to learn set the tone for the rest of my mission. I had many very difficult situations that I had to face. Along with the hard things many missionaries face with teaching people and getting them baptized, I also had family situations including the death of my grandfather and my mother’s hospitalization to deal with. There were many times when it would have been easier to just give up, sit down, walk away, or just not get out of bed in the morning. But I had learned that if I could just push forward a little bit longer; try to have patience, and to push myself beyond what I thought I was capable of doing I would see success. I believe that’s part of the reason I loved my mission so much and have struggled to be home. I was doing things I never thought I was capable of doing before. Because of those experiences I now look forward to difficult situations. I know that they make me a stronger and better person. I just have to push ahead.
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