The Parts of Missionary Work We Don’t Talk About And Why We Need to Talk About it More

“Nobody told me my mission would be hard.”

My ears perked at this as I sat in a chapel filled with members. It was full to the point that there must be a baby blessing, homecoming, or farewell.

In this case, it was a farewell.

The speaker wasn’t the missionary-to-be. He was a member in my ward who had completed his mission some time ago.

As the speaker continued, relating the difficult parts of his mission—companions he didn’t get along with, people who were rude to him because his was a missionary—I wondered where he was going with this, especially during a farewell.

Then I understood. He wasn’t just sharing some of the difficulties he encountered on his mission; he was sharing how these experiences later strengthened his testimony or benefitted him in some way.

As I thought more about this, I decided to ask a few returned missionaries how they overcame difficulties on their mission and how it benefitted them later on.

Learning to Trust in the Lord

“Different things become hard at different times depending on where you are in your mission,” returned missionary Garrett Myers says.

READ FULL ARTICLE at LDS LIVING.