Member Voices
“My Mission was Nothing like I Thought it Would be—and This Is What I Learned”
Christiana Ogunbote completed her mission during the pandemic. Through several unexpected events, she shares how she learned and grew.
Four months into her mission in Lusaka Zambia, Sister Christiana Ogunbote was told she would have to go home. The onset of the pandemic meant that many missionaries around the world would need to return to their home countries. So, Sister Ogunbote returned to her native United Kingdom. The changes continued: she was reassigned to the Scotland/Ireland Mission, and then recalled to Zambia in October 2020. When asked about life lessons she had learned while serving a mission during the pandemic, she shared the following in her own words:
“There’s been a lot of learning and life lessons. One big one is that when we are called to serve as missionaries, we don’t get to choose the circumstances of our call. We decide that we are going to serve the Lord with all that we have, no matter where it is or what language, whether it is inside missionary apartments or outside on the road. We don’t get to choose those circumstances.
“But we get to choose how we react. We get to choose if we want to serve with joy and with our whole hearts, or if we want to see the negative and be weighed down by the things that we can’t do. That was something that I was really able to learn and to be reminded that a mission experience is one of great joy. There is no greater joy than doing the work of the Lord.
“Being in Zambia was an incredible time of my life. Having my time in Scotland made my mission greater than I could have ever planned. Being able to be a missionary at home with my parents and trying to be a missionary in the middle of their day-to-day life was a very interesting scenario for me and for many other missionaries who did the same thing. I think it was the training we needed to understand why we wanted to be missionaries.
“Even if I went from one continent to the other and spent time in my home and time at home with my parents, throughout it all, I know that it was part of the experience that helped me to really understand that Heavenly Father is in the details of our lives. He knows each and every one of us and He wants for us to be able to do things according to His design.
“I have a better eternal perspective, knowing that not everything is going to be rosy. But having that eternal perspective is the way the Lord gives us the strength to endure the challenges and the trials that we face.”