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Beauty for Ashes
In early 2019, Sister Setaita Ata began her mission in the Joao Pessoa Mission in Northeast Brazil. Some months later, she suffered a complex knee injury and had to return to Australia for protracted medical treatment.
Still keen to complete her mission, Sister Ata was cleared for missionary service a year later and was transferred to the Melbourne Australia Mission. Then in October 2020, she suffered yet another health challenge: a series of debilitating migraines.
Along with her physical pain, she also felt responsible for hindering her companions from working to their full capacity. With this burden heavy on her mind, Sister Ata reluctantly spoke to her mission president, fearing that she would have to leave the mission field early.
Imagine her delight to learn that she could continue to serve the Lord—that her medical needs could be managed while she completed the rest of her mission. When President Houghton explained that she could be transferred to a service mission, Sister Ata accepted immediately, even before she knew how it would work. The very same day Elder and Sister Nicholls, service mission leaders overseeing Australia, met with her via Zoom to interview her and to explain the process.
As a service missionary, Sister Ata would move back home to continue with medical treatments, but she would have to keep up her regular missionary schedule of daily prayer, scripture study, and exercise. Elder and Sister Nicholls would prayerfully consider Sister Ata’s unique strengths to determine the best way for her to contribute to the gathering of Israel.
When they met again to work out the new terms of her missionary service, the Nicholls’ noted that Sister Ata is blessed with a beautiful talent for the visual arts, that she has a great sense of compassion and a gentle strength of character. Sister Ata expressed her desire to serve in the temple, and after some discussion, with prayer in their hearts, they sculpted a unique new assignment for her:
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District leadership: Sister Ata would serve as a leader for all the service missionaries in her district.
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Artistic service: She would create visual art pieces that inspire faith in Jesus Christ and in His gospel.
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Temple service: She would work in the office at the Australia Melbourne Temple for an agreed amount of time every week.
First trialed in the USA and Canada in 2018, service missions are a way for young people who are unable to serve full-time proselyting missions to “serve in an environment uniquely tailored to his or her talents, skills, and gifts.”1 Service missions were piloted in Australia in 2020, when Elder and Sister Nicholls completed their leadership training.
“All the moulds have been broken!” Elder Nicholls explains, “Service missionaries do not live with a companion; they do not live in a designated area with specific boundaries; they wear their badge only when fulfilling their missionary assignments.”
Like the service missionaries they lead, Elder and Sister Nicholl’s mission is also out of the ordinary. They live in their own home on the Gold Coast in Queensland and care for missionaries who live thousands of kilometres from each other. They research service opportunities—in the Church and the community—and actively think outside the box to marry the strengths and talents of each missionary with a specific need.
“I knew I had a talent with art” Sister Ata says, “but I hadn’t used it for a long time. I now realise that Heavenly Father wants me to use art to serve others.”
Thinking about the health struggles that hindered her mission in the beginning, Sister Ata would not have chosen those challenges for herself, but she knows that she is now receiving abundant beauty for ashes.2
“If anything, my transfer into a service mission helped me [to] realise what Heavenly Father has given me,” she says. “A big part of my service mission is doing the Lord’s will and just enquiring of Him. It goes back to a lesson in Come, Follow Me: if you have a desire to serve, then enquire of the Lord and He will direct you to know what to do and how to serve.”