I Don't Believe in Early Release Missionaries

"Sister Mayne, you're going home on Wednesday," my mission president told me, without preamble, over the phone that my senior companion had just passed me. I finally understood in that moment what it meant to be struck dumb, to have a stupor of thought. I had no words to say. I felt suddenly hot and it wasn't from the sweltering Arizona August day. It wasn't supposed to go this way. I wasn't supposed to fail.

It took a lot of time to come to terms with the fact my mission was not a failure. That I was not a failure. And though, I eventually accepted that fact it was finished, I could not stop feeling like I left it incomplete. I knew my mission "counted", and that I was able to help people come unto Christ while I served for the first 8 months of 2013. But somehow I still felt ashamed. I still felt like I only gave part of my heart, might, mind and strength. I felt like if I had done something different, I could have completed my mission, not just ended it.

I found peace through the Spirit in the years following my mission. The peace didn't come all at once, but like many things it came little by little. I had an investigator who found me on social media who loved to remind me that I helped her find God again, and that for her, it didn't matter how long I served, just that I was there when I was. A companion I struggled with wrote me a heartfelt letter. I began to find it easier to share mission experiences in Church. I met my mission president and his wife for dinner.

I accepted that I could not change the past, so I might as well move forward. But there was still a part of me that wished I could have had a more "typical" mission. And little things still got to me as recent as just last year, when I found a missionary journal at a Church bookstore that had a President Monson quote in the front:

"Shall I falter or shall I finish?" it read.

I got so angry, four and a half years after boarding that plane alone, I snapped a picture right there in the store and posted it to my social media. I wrote:

"Can we end the negative stigma associated with early release missionaries, please? ... [How would you feel]...if you went home early and the front of your journal had this quote in it[?] I'm sure it was meant to be encouraging, and the creator of the journal probably didn't think about early release missionaries. Few people do. (Except on some level they must have, because what's the opposite of "finishing"? Oh, right. Coming home early...)"

Just last month, nearly 6 years later, I finally realized that I finally believe, really truly believe, that I did not come home "early." It doesn't hurt anymore; the bitterness is gone replaced with understanding. My mission wasn't the traditional eighteen months, but that doesn't mean I took the wrong path, just the one less traveled. (Forgive me for the shades of Robert Frost and now Gandolf here..) I didn't come home early. I came home precisely when He meant me to.

And so did you.You came home precisely when He meant you to. Whether that was after two years or two weeks!

Listen, God's timing is perfect. And that includes His timing for you.

Someone (likely just myself ) told me that I had "wasted the Lord's time" by going on a mission when I was unprepared, struggling with my faith, my depression, and my new found anxiety.

This is absolutely ridiculous, and not how the Lord operates at all. He is omnipresent. It's not possible to waste His time, because He literally has all the time in the universe. He has all the time in the world just for you. He is fully invested in you, even when you might feel like you're a lost cause; even when you feel like you haven't been doing "your part".

Remember that scripture you read over and over before and during your mission..Doctrine and Covenants Section 4? Yes, you know the one. Let's take a look at verse 3:

"Therefore, if ye have desires to serve God ye are called to the work." (Emphasis added)

So was your mission a failure? Was it a waste of time? Was it a mistake? Maybe things would be better if you had never gone in the first place. Right? WRONG!

Could you have prepared more? Sure, I don't think there is such a thing as too much preparation. Did you take advantage of the resources that could have helped you cope? Maybe, maybe not. Maybe they helped, maybe they didn't. But, did you have the desire to serve? If you answered yes, then you were not called to the work by mistake!

Once more for those of you who still don't believe it: You were not called to the work by mistake!

Here's another classic missionary quote for you:

"No unhallowed hand can stop the work from progressing; persecutions may rage, mobs may combine, armies may assemble, calumny may defame, but the truth of God will go forth boldly, nobly, and independent, till it has penetrated every continent, visited every clime, swept every country, and sounded in every ear, till the purposes of God shall be accomplished and the Great Jehovah shall say the work is done." (History of the Church, 4:540)

Let's liken that to your life: No unhallowed hand can stop [your] work from progressing til the purposes of God [for you] shall be accomplished and the Great Jehovah shall say [your] work is done.

Please don't let anyone, especially yourself, tell you that your mission was less than exactly what Heavenly Father planned for you.

I do not believe in early release missionaries. Just missionaries whose work at that time and in that place was done.