My Journey in Letting Go

I had the blessing of writing my mission sorry for an Early Return Missionary who is compiling mission stories and making a book. It was such a blessing to finally write out my story after the two and a half years. I know it's long but the journey had been long. My Journey in Letting Go By Kelsey Jo Webster My mission story starts back in May 2012. I was attending school at Utah State University (USU). The semester was almost over and I was trying to decide if I wanted to stay in Utah for the summer or move home. Shortly before I was to decide my grandma fell and broke her hip, and was in the hospital. This made my decision easier because I have always been close to my grandma. We shared many wonderful memories, one of which was sitting in the rocking chair and singing the Primary song, “Tell Me the Stories of Jesus”. After a month she passed away and I truly started to think about serving a mission so that I could tell others the stories of Jesus that I love to hear. During that same summer I met some wonderful friends, some of whom were return missionaries, and they all inspired me to serve a mission. They shared stories of their missions and we talked about life and the future in general over the course of the next few months. On August 4, 2012 I took some much needed solo time, in a beautiful location down by a creek, and prayed to know if I was to serve a mission. As I was praying I truly felt Heavenly Father’s arms around me and His love for me and that He was pleased with my decision to serve His children. The very next day, which happened to be a Sunday, I met with my branch president , who had only been the branch president for about three weeks, and after we had talked about the reasons that I wanted to serve a mission, to tell others about eternal families and to bring them closer to Christ, we started my papers. I was moving back to USU at the end of August so not much was done with my papers. On September 6th I truly started to work on my papers. All through the month of September I worked on my papers and all the medical stuff that needed to be done so that they could be submitted. I met with not only my bishop but also my stake president down in Logan and my mission papers were submitted on September 30th. A week later was General Conference and it was in that General Conference that President Monson announced the change of age for missionaries. I was a little discouraged when I heard this because I feared that it would affect the amount of time that it would take for my mission call to come, and boy was I right. It took a month and a week for my call to come. On November 7th, the long awaited white envelope arrived in the mail. Since I was at USU and my family was three and a half hours away I knew that I would have to wait until the weekend to open it so that my family and my closest friends could be there. I finished out the week and then traveled those three and a half hours with that white envelope on the seat next to me, talk about torture. On Saturday, November 9th, during a snow storm I opened my mission call with part of my family and some of my closest friends gathered around. When I started to read I was pretty speechless. I had been called to serve in the Zambia Lusaka Mission and I was to report to the Johannesburg, South Africa Missionary Training Center (SAMTC) on April 4, 2013. To be honest I wasn’t even sure where Zambia, Africa was, and would have never guessed that I was going to Africa. I headed back to USU on Sunday afternoon and finished off the semester and then moved home to prepare for my mission. I was set apart as a full-time missionary for The Church of Jesus Christ of Latter-day Saints on April 1, 2013. The next morning I boarded a plane in Idaho Falls, Idaho to start my adventures in Africa. After around thirty-seven hours of travel, and getting lost in the London, England Airport, I, along with ten other missionaries, six other sisters and four elders, entered the SAMTC. For the next twelve days we taught one another, learned from one another and shared the true gospel of Jesus Christ with one another and others, we also played some too. We had come from all different backgrounds; the six other sisters were from California, Utah, Texas, South Africa, Uganda, and Tanzania, and the four elders were from Utah, Illinois, and Cape Town, South Africa. We might have all been from different backgrounds but we all had the same goal in mind, to teach the true gospel of Jesus Christ and to bring His children back to Him. I had many wonderful experiences in the SAMTC, one that I will always remember. Someone had ask me why I had choose to come on a mission and I was talking about how my grandma has just passed away less than a year earlier and because of the amazing blessings that come from being sealed in the temple I knew that I would see her again. The Spirit was incredible strong and I knew that I was in the right place. After twelve days in the SAMTC five of us boarded a plane to embark on the next leg of our journey in the Zambia Lusaka Mission. At the mission home in Lusaka I met my mission president, MP, my companions, and was assigned my first area. My first area was Lusaka and my first companions were from Kenya, CM,(initials only) and Colorado, JO, yep I was in a threesome and we actually covered two different areas within Lusaka. After about three weeks my companion JO was transferred up to the Copperbelt, still in Lusaka, and so it was just myself and CM to cover both of the areas. It was a challenged but we made it work. Before JO was transferred I has a pretty scary experience that shook me and will definitely stay with me. We were walking home one day and we came upon three men who had been drinking and one of them reach out and grabbed me and gave me a hug. I had to physically push him off of me so that I could get away. That experience shook me to the point that I needed to receive a Priesthood Blessing to even sleep at night. CM and I didn’t really see eye to eye on a lot of things and so it was a challenge most days to get everything done that we needed to get done, companionship study was almost non existence and being trained as a new missionary was only taking place every now and again. We had some success and it was definitely a learning experience. During the time that I was in Lusaka I had three baptisms, which wasn’t many but numbers never mattered to me, especially as much as they did to my companion. After covering both areas for a month another set of sister missionaries came to Lusaka, SN and KO, so now we had four of us in the flat and we were down to one area. It was pretty different that is for sure but it was a relief at times. After only being in Lusaka for seven and a half weeks I got word that I was being transferred to Lilongwe, Malawi. This was a relief for me because in the last few days my companion CM was sure that she was being transferred and had already started to pack. Also in the time we had gained another companion CR, so yep back to a threesome. I was starting to wonder if I would ever get out of threesomes, I had been in one in the SAMTC and for almost the entire time that I had been in Lusaka. Also while I was in Lusaka I had started to lose weight pretty fast but everyone in the mission, including myself, just attributed it to a new environment, new food, new routine, and just everything new. I got word that I was being transferred on June 7th and I boarded a bus with four elders on June 11th for about a twelve hour bus ride to Lilongwe. Now onto the third leg of my adventures in Africa. When I got to Lilongwe I was hoping for a new start but boy was I wrong. My companion, LK, had heard about me from others and so she had already formed her opinion about me before I even got off the bus, probably before I had even gotten on the bus. I was truly blessed to have two other sisters in the same flat, JC and NN, who had also been with me in the SAMTC, who blessed my life in so many ways. It was a challenge in Lilongwe to teach because the Chichewa language was one I definitely didn’t know, and my companion struggled with it too, so whenever we went to teach we had to have a branch missionary with us to translate what everyone was saying. The message of the Restored gospel was still the same and I pray that the message got across in one way or another. Companionship study was again almost nonexistent and so I got a lot of personal study in, sometimes at times of the day that I was supposed to be doing something else, like sleeping. I was still losing weight so that was a concern but nothing I couldn’t control, except that I wasn’t sure why I was losing weight. During the time that I was in Lilongwe the mission received a new mission president, LE. I was sad to see my first mission president leave, I had truly learned to love him even though I had only been around him for the first seven and a half weeks of my mission. I believe that the reason he will always have a special place in my heart is because he thought with not only his head but more importantly his heart. You knew he cared about you. After being in Lilongwe for only four weeks I got a phone call from the new mission president and I was being transferred, again. This time I was being transferred to Blantyre. My second transfer and I had only been out around twelve weeks. I got the call on July 8th and I boarded a bus, with three elders, some of whom I‘d traveled with from Lusaka, for Blantyre on the 11th. The fourth leg, and final leg, was beginning. Blantyre, Malawi where I would spend the last four months of my mission. When I got to Blantyre my companion, AN, was on the down hill slope of her mission, she had less time left than I had been out. She had also heard things about me before I had gotten there but the difference was that she waited to meet me before she formed her opinions about me. At first we didn’t get along the greatest, but then we had a few heart to heart conversations and it definitely helped, not only our companionship but also the way that we taught and interacted with those around us. July 27th will always be a day that I will remember, because it is the day that three of our investigators got baptized. These three investigators walked around two hours just to get to the church because they knew how important it was to be baptized into the true church. My companion had been teaching this family for a while and so it was such a testimony builder to me to see them come to church each week, because they lived so far away, and then to see most of the family get baptized, even though water was a fear for most of them. About a week after they were baptized we got a call from the father of the family to let us know that his wife has just had a baby, which was a complete surprise to all of us because we had no clue that she was even expecting another child. My companion and I had the great privilege of picking out a name for this little girl, we settled on Charity because it means love in the purest form. A month later on August 25th, the father of this family, along with another young man, was baptized and became a member of The Church of Jesus Christ of Latter-day Saints. I was still losing weight and by this point it was getting pretty scary because I had lost almost forty pounds in the four and a half months that I had been on my mission, by the end of my mission I had lost seventy pounds, and that was in seven and a half months. The scary part was that I was also experiencing pains whenever I would eat. Around the middle of August I was awaken by a sharp pain in my digestive tract and I just thought that I had burnt my esophagus with my Malaria medication and so I didn’t think too much about it. I still wasn’t feeling very good by the end of August so I ended up going to the Seventh Day Adventist Hospital and was told that I had Heartburn and was given some medication. This medication had a crazy effect on me and would completely knock me out when I took the two medications together so I knew that I couldn’t continue to do that. I continue to go out each day and be a missionary, there are some days that I cannot account for because I definitely did not do them on my own, each day was actually like that, because we are never alone. I went back to the hospital around the end of September, more tests were run but still no answers. More medications, more weird side effects, and deciding on my own not to continue with the medication. Now comes October 11th, my companion and I are just getting back to our flat when the phone rings and it is the mission president’s wife, LE. The news she tells me rocks my world. My stake president’s son who was serving his mission in Mexico had come in contact with an electric wire and had been killed. I had babysat this kid and had known his family for his entire life, and they had known me for mine. It was a tough thing to hear and it really made me miss home. Also by this point I was eating only apples, two apples in three or four days, yogurt, and occasionally some soup and hard boiled eggs. I would get sick to my stomach every time that I ate anything, even those things that I could eat. Each day was a challenge but I kept pressing forward and being the disciple of Jesus Christ that I knew I was. A couple weeks after the phone call was Zone Conference and after Zone Conference I got a Priesthood Blessing from the Assistants to the President. The elder, JS, who was the mouthpiece had given me a blessing before I left Lusaka and I had truly grown to trust this elder very much and he will always have a special place in my life. In the blessing he blessed me that I would get better…eventually…, he definitely paused after he said that. About a week after the blessing I truly wasn’t doing very well and I knew something needed to be done. I had been back to the hospital again and still the same answers, which were nothing was wrong. Well, I knew that something was wrong and I knew that even though my spirit was strong my body was truly weak and I couldn’t be the missionary that I needed to be. I emailed my dad and he got in contact with my stake president and then my mission president was contacted and things were set in motion. My mission president didn’t truly believe me, I think that he thought it was all in my head and I was just homesick. I had many discussions with his wife and with a regional doctor on the phone. It was a tough decision but on November 11th the decision was made for me to return home to get better. I left Blantyre on November 14th after having been in Africa for seven months and ten days. The journey home was thirty-six hours. What I thought was the fourth and final leg of my adventure was truly just the beginning. After I got home I wasn’t sure what to think and taking off my name tag was one of the hardest things I’d ever done, or so I thought. Going back to church that first Sunday back was tough but I knew I needed to go back because if I didn’t I probably would struggle from there on out with going to church. I had the opportunity to give a homecoming talk, which I believe answered a lot of questions, for those around me, but I’m sure there were many more that remained unanswered, and there still could be some still. I ward hopped for the next about six months because I wasn’t sure what to do. It was a difficult six months. I had been to doctors and still the only answer I was getting was that I had Acid Reflex and I knew in my heart that wasn’t the only problem. In February of 2014 I met with my stake president, I had been meeting with him on and off since I got home, and he ask me if I would like to be an ordinance worker in the Rexburg Temple. I totally jumped at the chance and was soon an ordinance worker. I started working in the Rexburg Temple on March 5th. Even though I was working at the temple I was truly struggling with my testimony and with not feeling like I was a return missionary. My heart had been hurt and I was still in pain whenever I would eat anything. The list of things I couldn’t eat was definitely longer than the things I could eat. I just wanted some answers but none were coming my way from anywhere, or so I thought. Over the next few months I came to truly know that I had served the time that Heavenly Father needed me to and I was truly a return missionary. I was still physically sick but mentally, emotionally, and spiritually I was doing better. Over the next two years I had many experiences that shook my small amount of faith but I held on and I kept building that faith. I met some amazing people who have become eternal friends during those two years, one a week after I got home. I knew that I was a return missionary but I still had set backs every now and again that made me question if I would every truly be considered a return missionary by those who I loved, and the world around me. I know that that shouldn’t of even been an issue but for some crazy reason it was. The only one that I needed confirmation from was Heavenly Father and I had already received that confirmation, many times. On November 9, 2015, six days short of being home two years, I finally went to a Bio Energy Doctor who I had heard about from a couple of my close friends and I figured I would try anything. When I went to him and he ran his tests he was truly surprised that I was still alive. Not only did I have a parasite that had taken up residency in my small intestines but my digestive and gastric enzymes were extremely low. They are supposed to be at fifteen hundred a piece and my digestive enzymes were at an eight and my gastric enzymes were at a forty-five, and I had a few other things wrong with me but those were the main problems. Besides the medication that he gave me to kill the parasite and raise my enzymes he gave me something that I hadn’t had in awhile, he gave me hope. Over the last five and a half months my health, in all areas, has improved. Even though I still have my bad days I have truly let go of the things that were holding me hostage and I have learned to, like Elder Holland said, “cherish the time that you wore the name badge… and know that you are loved by your Heavenly Father and that He is pleased with you…”. I know that my journey of letting go isn’t over but I do know deep in my heart that I truly am a return missionary and that my Heavenly Father is pleased with the time that I spent serving His children, and telling them the stories of Jesus, in the Zambia Lusaka Mission. I know that Jesus Christ is my Savior and that His Atonement is not only for sins but for so much more; my sorrows, my grieves, my pains, and many more things. He is with me when I fall and He is with me as I climb back up the mountain. Life is not always fair, or easy, but it is all worth it. I know that my prayers to feel God’s love have been answered and that He is there for me every step of the way. I know without a doubt that because of the sealing power in the temple that families can be together forever and that is such a great blessing in my life, for I know that I will see those that I have loved and lost again. I know that prayers are not only heard but they are answered, some times not in the way that I want or in the time but in Heavenly Father’s time and the way that He knows will bring me the greatest happiness. My mission might not have been eighteen months but it was the time that I needed to wear the name tag and over the last two and a half years I have served a mission in letting go.