From the Mission Field
How My Mission Strengthened My Testimony—Even during Quarantine
When most of the experiences I thought I would have on my mission vanished with COVID-19, I had to really ask myself why I was staying.
Photograph posed by model
My missionary service for The Church of Jesus Christ of Latter-day Saints is something that I will forever be grateful for. But it certainly didn’t go how I planned.
On September 10, 2019, I received my mission call to the Fiji Suva Mission. I was beyond excited—it felt like all my dreams were coming true! I entered the missionary training center (MTC) on February 5, 2020, dreaming about preaching the gospel to a wonderful people on a beautiful tropical island in just a few short weeks.
I spent six weeks learning Fijian and then got packed and ready to go. On the day we were scheduled to fly out to Fiji, just four hours before we were to leave the MTC, I got an email saying that my flight was canceled because of the COVID-19 pandemic. I was devastated.
A week and a half later, I was reassigned to the Arkansas Bentonville Mission. But the day before I was scheduled to fly to Arkansas, I got another email: my flight had been canceled again. I had no idea what to think at that point.
Then a few hours later, I got an email telling me to come immediately to the MTC travel office. I rushed there and was handed a piece of paper with flight plans for the next day to Phoenix, Arizona. When the mission president came to the airport to pick up me and some other missionaries, I had to ask him which mission he was over, because I didn’t know. He told me, “The Arizona Gilbert Mission.”
Finding Comfort in the Scriptures
Like many other missionaries, we were under strict quarantine rules for about six months. My companion and I could not find a single person to teach. I felt lost and useless as a missionary, wondering what good could possibly come from me being stuck inside without anyone to share the gospel with.
During this time, I cried a lot. I prayed for any sense of peace. On a particularly rough day, a thought suddenly came to me so clearly. I saw the words “Doctrine and Covenants 79” in my head, and I immediately opened to it:
“And I will send upon him the Comforter, which shall teach him the truth and the way whither he shall go;
“And inasmuch as he is faithful, I will crown him again with sheaves.
“Wherefore, let your heart be glad, my servant … , and fear not, saith your Lord, even Jesus Christ” (Doctrine and Covenants 79:2–4).
When I read the word Comforter, my entire being was filled with an overwhelming sense of peace and love from Heavenly Father and Jesus Christ. I knew in that moment that despite all the plans that had changed and all the challenges I had faced, They were aware of me, They loved me, and everything was going to be OK, even if it wasn’t necessarily going to be easy.
Why I Chose to Stay
Missionaries are often asked why they decided to serve a mission. I wanted to go to a new place, experience a new culture, and be an instrument in changing people’s lives. Even more, I wanted to serve because of my love for Heavenly Father and the Savior.
When it became clear that many of the things that had motivated me to serve in the first place weren’t really an option with the pandemic, a more relevant question for me was “Why did you stay on a mission?”
And I concluded that my answer was ultimately the same—I stayed on a mission because of my love for Heavenly Father and the Savior. It was my faith in Them—the same faith that initially made me want to serve—that kept me going as a missionary every day. I trusted that if I kept going, these things would give me experience and be for my good (see Doctrine and Covenants 122:7).
As I pressed forward, I saw myself change. I felt my testimony grow. My desire to follow Jesus Christ increased. My conviction that Jesus is the Christ and that Heavenly Father really does hear and answer our prayers was strengthened. It was the circumstances that I was in that really stretched my faith. And this stretching, no matter how uncomfortable, led to growth.
Everything That Happened Was for My Good
I am so, so grateful for the experiences I had on my mission, even though I never made it to Fiji and was instead reassigned to finish my mission in Arizona. My mission changed me. It changed my heart. I learned that challenges will come because they are a part of our mortal experience, but the beautiful thing is that we get to choose how to respond to them. The experiences I had on my mission taught me to love and trust God.
Knowing that God is continually present in our lives, no matter what, is life changing. It can help us get through every challenge we face.
On my mission, I learned that we don’t have to trudge through our challenges alone and that our faith can be strengthened through them. Things happen in our lives that we can’t control. But if we trust and have faith in God, our trials really can be for our gain. That is the beauty of God’s grace.