Why every young man should serve a mission - Last email from a missionary

My brother finishes his mission today. I'm excited to see him again, and I'm very excited to hear what he's learned. I think he's now so much more grown up than he used to be.

He wrote us his last email on Monday, and it was tremendous. What he conveys helps explain why we send young men on missions. Obviously I haven't asked him if I could post this, but here it is:

Hey Family,

This is a sad e-mail to write. Yesterday, we had two appointments that went relatively well, but once we got home I was very sad. I taught someone in their home for the last time on my mission. I tried to share my testimony with as much clarity and passion as I could over the last week. Now, an wonderful, tiring, challenging and rewarding part of my life is about to end. I am extremely grateful that I served a mission and had the opportunity to do so. Thank you so much for your prayers and letters.

I'll try to share a few thoughts I haven't before about my mission. When I received my call to serve as an English speaking mission in North Carolina, I was not happy. I thought I should've had something "better". I hope that I have completely repented of that embarrassing, prideful thought. I think part of that process is making clear to those that saw disappointment in my face when I opened my call that I love North Carolina, the missionaries and ward members I worked with, and the people I taught.

Some things LaDon shared with me about his mission experience were amazingly true during mine, even if I still took time to learn them. One is that Jesus Christ lives, is the only way we can be cleansed from sin and is involved in our lives. I said that before my mission and my testimony won't sound particularly more powerful or impressive afterward but I know it now in a different way.

The last lesson I taught as a missionary was an interesting parallel to the first time I taught with my trainer. We taught a family that I love. We taught them the Restoration and shared our testimonies and made clear what people were rejecting if they didn't at least read and pray about the Book of Mormon. And they kindly rejected the invitation. As much I wanted them to embrace modern apostles, a complete view of repentance, eternal families, etc., they used their God-given free will to reject it. It made me sad but I was very comfortable with what we shared and the effort we made. I don't have regrets about the lessons we taught this week. There was a diffferent excitment and love in our work. I was happy to feel the same way about the work last night as I did two years ago.

A few hours before that lesson I just referenced we met with a less-active young man. We talked for a while about his faith and where he was at but little progress was made. He made a lot of excuses for why he isn't keeping commandments but they all had a common thing: someone else did something they shouldn't have and that's why I'm not going to repent. Please don't use other faults a crutch or cover for your own shortcomings. I've seen it a lot over these two years and it makes me sad. These things have often been a church leader/member who committed some trangression, a family environment that wasn't ideal or something as ridiculous as a another person teaching false doctrine that you know isn't true. Who cares what it is but it doesn't help you at all. In almost all cases I've seen, people that withdraw from fellowship with Christ's church will also stop living commandments, having the same quality of prayers and certainly will feel the Spirit less in their life. And then some think: Wow, it just doesn't feel the same, this isn't what I need and turn to a world full of ways to mask our problems. Read the scriptures and identify how you can repent. Its such a simple plan. It's not always easy to do but it is laid out pretty plainly for us in scripture. All the things we need to understand and should spend our time worrying about has been laid out by God's prophets.

I loved serving. Every young man needs to serve a mission. Not the church's sake but for his own. There is nothing you can do more important or valuable at this point in your life. And accomplishing the things you think are equally or more important, will be much easier to handle after learning a bit about how to learn and lead as the Lord intends.

On a similar subject a young man from Australia is a Mormon and also a Rubgy League star. He has decided to give up $2M per year to go on a mission. He's literally giving up $3-4M. Now that I work hard and am an adult, I'm beginning to understand how much money that is. It's a true act of faith. Also, having gone on a mission, I can confidently say that he's making the right decision and the right investment. I admire him greatly.

Here's a link to an article about it:

http://sports.yahoo.com/top/news?slug=ap-hopoate-missionary

Here's an excerpt:

SYDNEY (AP)—One of the biggest stars in Australian rugby league has turned his back on million-dollar contract offers to instead go on a two-year religious mission with the Mormon church from 2012.

The 19-year-old Will Hopoate—son of prominent former player John Hopoate— is off-contract with the Manly Sea Eagles next year. He had been offered up to $2 million a year from two other National Rugby League teams.

If he comes to know Jesus lives as a result of this decision and comes to learn about how much Jesus loves all people and learns about revelation and how to pray better, it's a very good investment. Besides, God doesn't forget things like this.

Sacrifice

Back to sacrifice:

First let's define sacrifice. I think it's investing in something that requires taking time, or talents, or money away from something else you could be doing.

If we think about sacrifice in spiritual matters, there are generally two types of sacrifices: sacrifices we decide to make on our own and sacrifices leaders ask us to make.

Sacrifices have always existed in the world since the time of Adam. Moses:5

4And Adam and Eve, his wife, ^acalled upon the name of the Lord, and they heard the voice of the Lord from the way toward the Garden of ^bEden, speaking unto them, and they saw him not; for they were shut out from his ^cpresence.

5And he gave unto them commandments, that they should^aworship the Lord their God, and should offer the ^bfirstlings of their ^cflocks, for an offering unto the Lord. And Adam was^dobedient unto the commandments of the Lord.

6And after many days an ^aangel of the Lord appeared unto Adam, saying: Why dost thou offer ^bsacrifices unto the Lord? And Adam said unto him: I know not, save the Lord commanded me.

7And then the angel spake, saying: This thing is a ^asimilitude of the ^bsacrifice of the Only Begotten of the Father, which is full of^cgrace and ^dtruth.

8Wherefore, thou shalt do all that thou doest in the ^aname of the Son, and thou shalt ^brepent and ^ccall upon God in the name of the Son forevermore.

The purpose of sacrifices that are asked for by the Lord or his servants seem to fall into one of two categories: 1) help us think about the Savior and come closer to him 2) help us build up his church. In both of these cases, there is generally some involvement by the church in order to help this happen (e.g., a program is established by the church and we are asked to participate such as Sunday School or Home Teaching, priesthood holders are involved in the ordinances of the gospel - we can't just do these ordinances on our own as there needs to be oversight to ensure they're done properly). Therefore, generally church leaders will ask us to sacrifice either to build up the church or to help us or others come closer to the Savior. In both instances, we should probably trust their vision (and almost always their inspiration) and accept the sacrifice they ask us to make. How else will the church grow without this? Someone needs to help guide the sacrifices.

Which sacrifices does the Lord count or appreciate? He appreciates it most when we repent of our sins: Alma 22-

17And it came to pass that when Aaron had said these words, the king did ^abow down before the Lord, upon his knees; yea, even he did prostrate himself upon the earth, and cried ^bmightily, saying:

18O God, Aaron hath told me that there is a God; and if there is a God, and if thou art God, wilt thou make thyself known unto me, and I will give away all my sins to know thee, and that I may be raised from the dead, and be saved at the last day. And now when the king had said these words, he was struck ^aas if he were dead.

He appreciates sacrifices we make that bring us closer to the Savior or that helps others come closer to Him.

However, we can also make sacrifices that are accepted by the Lord without being asked by God's servants. For instance, the missionary in the above scripture decided to go on their own without being asked by anyone. It should be possible for us all to do things to come closer to the Savior and build up the church without being asked. The Lord is just as willing to "accept" those sacrifices as any other. In fact, I think the Lord would prefer it if he asked less and we did more.

Really, almost all sacrifices are just investments. We sacrifice certain items for others all the time (e.g., sacrifice sleep for work, sacrifice our own time to be with our kids, etc.). The Lord accepts the sacrifices we make that our leaders ask of us, but I think he also wants us to consider which sacrifices we should make (i.e., how we should invest our time), and he'll accept those as well.