Returning thoughts of a Returned Missionary

So I spent last week in Portugal. It felt like a dream at first and then slowly became my reality again as if I was waking up from being a normal person and slowly becoming that 19 year old missionary who used to live in there. I went through the same thing again as my reality changed when I flew home (it was about 24 hours of travel, I am still messed up) and sat down at dinner with my family. Once again I had to wake up from my other dream to the reality of being in America again. My week felt like a year. A year of an emotional roller coaster. 

It made me realize that loving someone is such a risk. And in this case I am not talking at all about romantic love though there is certainly risk in that. No I am just talking about getting to know someone and just loving them as a person. It was such a roller coaster because I had been gone and out of contact with so many of these people for three years and some of their lives had gone in a good direction and some of them hadn't. When someone that you love makes bad choices, or just has bad luck, you really feel their pain, literally. Of course on the other hand when good things happen to people that you love and they make good choices (a lot of the time these two things go hand in hand) you are so happy for them!


When you go away from people that you are close to for awhile and then come back the change is so obvious that it is either a cause for joy or a huge slap in the face. These same changes and decisions are made in the lives of those we love all the time but they are so gradual sometimes they don't hit us with as much effect.

But hey life is hard sometimes. I know that. I have my ups and downs as well and forgiveness and peace through Christ is always there. Wrong choices aren't the end of the road. Sometimes they are the way people find the road in the first place. I think that the lord expects us to fall down and that that is just part of life. My dad always says "The only real tragedy is unrepented sin." So if we repent it is not a tragedy at all right?

The thing that bothers me is when people seem to bar the way back to the lord because the road is to hard. There are a few reasons that people leave the church. As I listened to stories of people I knew I noticed a couple of reoccuring patterns: they were offended, or they sinned and repentance is a process that is too hard to begin.  The thing that really bugged me maybe more than anything else was when people experienced these things and then tried to figure out a way to deny their testimonies of the truth so they didn't have to live it any more. These people have had spiritual experiences, confirmations, and have read and understood by the spirit the truthfulness of The Book of Mormon. They can't live with themselves knowing that they are willfully rebelling against god. So instead of humbling themselves and repenting they look for reasons to discredit the prophet Joseph Smith, The Book of Mormon, or their church leaders so they can so they don't have to feel guilty about continuing to do what they are doing. When someone I love gets to this point, it is truly breaks my heart. Yet even these were good learning experiences of how to keep myself into falling into satans traps and I hope I can use it to help others avoid the same pitfalls.

And yet on the other end of the spectrum, loving someone can be so rewarding. A man I baptized named Alvaro has gone to the temple, helped his friends to accept the gospel, visits less active, and prays humbly for the day when his wife will join the church so he can be sealed. It was such a wonderful experience seeing the change in him. Two years ago he looked to me for help and advice on how to live his life, when we met three years later as brothers in Christ I felt like it was who should look to him.

All in all Portugal hasn't changed much. It's hot in the summer time, the pastries are wonderful, and there are some of the best and most faithful people I have ever known. Despite the heartache one experiences because of really loving someone, the joy that one can experience is certainly worth the risk. I hope that in 3 years if I went back I would find my friends that are happy, still happy. I also hope I would find those that have strayed from the path returned. Most of you will not read or understand this, (cause its in english) but I love you. And continuing to love you is a risk I am willing to take.