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Transitioning After a Mission

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Alpine Stake

Purposes:

Missions are intense, personalized, and life changing experiences. For 18 or 24 months missionaries live in a cocoon existence which magnifies every thought and action. Transitioning this passionate event into lifetime patterns requires reflection and effort. The Mission Transition Center (MTC, II) workshop is designed to help returning missionaries transition from mission life to real life through reflecting on the mission and adapting those lessons to the next step in life’s journey. The mission is the MTC for life. Most feel that their missions are the best 18-24 months of their life, but we believe that “next best” 18 or 24 months are the next, then the next, then the next. This seminar is designed to help make that happen.

Letting Go:

Principle: When we leave any experience, we take with us knowledge and relationships.

Quickly answer the following questions about your mission to help you reflect on and review your mission experience and synthesis the knowledge and relationships from it.

What top of mind words describe my mission? My mission was ….

What about my mission did I like the best? Worst? Why?

Who was my favorite companion? Why? Who was my least favorite companion? Why?

What did I not do on my mission that I thought I would?

What was the best 15 minutes of my mission? Why?

What did I learn on my mission? What did I not learn?

If I had 30 seconds to describe my mission, what would I say?

Takeaways:

• Missions mean different things to different people. Meaning comes from expectations and experiences. The meaning of the mission is the knowledge we take forward.

• Missions cause us to understand and form relationships with others, ourselves, and God. Lesson about and from these relationships go forward.

• We need to look back to move forward. We should reflect on and learn from the mission so we can move ahead

Moving Forward

We move forward by letting go of the past and by figuring out what we have to do (content) and how we decide about how to do it (processes).

Moving forward: overall model

		Content of Choices
		Emotional	Physical	Intellectual	Social	Spiritual
Process of Making Choices	Vision
	Goal
	Action
	Follow up

Moving forward (the process);

We can describe and improve how we make choices using a 4 step process (Vision – Goal – Action -- Follow up). Visions (what we aspire to become) without actions are fantasies. Actions (what we do) without visions are random behaviors. Goals (what we focus on) without follow up won’t be sustained (“we get what we inspect, not expect). Follow up (what we monitor and measure) without goals become abstractions.

Steps	Question	Principle
Vision	What do I want	Principle of priorities: Learn that not everything worth doing is worth doing well; somethings are so important to do they are worth doing poorly. Don’t try to be all things to all people. Don’t let the urgent drive out the important (Covey); focus on what matters most Realize that not making a decision is making a decision (not going to school, not dating, not taking a job are decisions) Manage time. Some decisions should be made now; others need time. Use mission lessons to help focus on things that matter most. Explore and understand why you want something? What does it provide me? What is the price I am willing to pay to get it? Why is it a priority? Principle of ownership: Claim the choice by making it yours Find your voice, your path Learn to rely on your instincts Come to your conclusion after searching it out in your mind Declare your desires and intentions: this is what I want! Go public with your commitment
Goals	What should I focus on?	Principle of alternatives Explore opportunities and keep options open: What are the alternatives? What are the outside the box options? Explore “what if …” Who has done this? What have they done? What can they teach me? Which option increases my degrees if freedom in the future? What would be the consequences of each option? Get real about options. Educate our dreams with real data; see the world as it is. Set goals in both behaviors and outcomes; balance the two Principle of planning (making goals specific) AR2T2 Action: What specifically will be done? Resources: What resources are required to do it? Responsibility: Who will do it? Timing: When will it be done? Tracking: How will I track to goal? Who will follow up and how?

Action	What do I need to do?	Principle of small and simple things Think big, test small, fail fast, learn always Realize the power of little things. Break big outcomes down into simple actions Grades come from doing homework today What can I do today to make progress on where I want to be tomorrow? Little things. 15 minute drill Principle of carpe diem. Find joy in the journey, not the destination. Avoid the if only game: If only I could get into this program, things would be great If only I could get a better apartment If only I could get in shape If only I could date If only I could be married If only we could have a child If only I got a job If only I had a house If only never comes. Principle of time Spend time more carefully than money Pass the calendar test: how will my calendar reflect my intent Who I spend it with What I spend it on
Follow- up	How will I know?	Principle of accountability Monitor my progress Be accountable to myself … have a regular time to return and report Be accountable to someone else Principle of learning Reflect and learn: What worked? What did not? Why? Failure today is building block for tomorrow’s success What would I have done differently? When will I apply what I have just learned?

The process (vision, goals, actions, follow up) and principles can be applied in multiple settings. The process of making choices and decisions can be used for overall life direction (what is my vision, what are my goals, my actions, and my follow up) or for specific things (e.g., what is my career vision, goals, actions, and follow up).

Moving on (the content):

Age 21-26 is a period of intense choices, many of which have lifetime impact. We make choices in five domains:

• Emotional: our ability to make choices about personal and psychological issues

• Physical: our ability to make choices in day to day routines of life

• Intellectual/temporal: our ability to make choices in work, school, and finances

• Social: our ability to make choices in relationships with family, friends, and spouse

• Spiritual: our ability to make choices in working with God and finding transcendental purposes

Emotional

• Let go of your mission

  • Watch out for (from work by Bruce Olsen):

    • Missing the Mantle

    • Experiencing Culture Shock

    • Living without a Companion

    • Facing Up to Your Mission.

    • Rediscovering your family and friends

    • Successfully resuming dating activities

  • Do: Ease away from missionary focus (language, thoughts), organize memorabilia, define knowledge and relationship takeaways

  • Don’t: do mission comparison, blackmail God, expect to go back and be the same, expect transition to be quick (not like crossing a street)

• Create your “identity” … you can shape and reshape it many times as you move “what do I want to be known for?”

  • Realize that you may not be able to control what you do or where you do it, but you do control who you are and who you want to be in any setting

  • Don’t go back to past

  • Evolve your identity:

    • From the pre-mission: what do you want to hold

    • From the mission: what do you want to hold

    • From your anticipated life: what do you want to create

  • Identity cycles: from bottom (high school 9 – 12^th grade; new missionary to senior missionary), you are starting over. Look at this process of evolving your identity cycle.

• Create new and personalized routines for managing your life

  • Getting up, exercise, prayer, eating, work, friends, play, etc.

  • Move from single focus (mission life) to multiple foci (find balance). Hints for managing paradox:

    • Look for what’s missing

    • Prioritize for now and the future

    • Be willing to say no, for now, you can not do it all

    • Pay attention to lead indicators

• Accept solitude. Learn to like your own company.

• Plan to make plans

  • Find a way for you to organize your time:

    • Today (what do I do today)

    • Tomorrow (what do I need to do tomorrow)

    • Future: (where am I headed 6 months, 5 years)

  • Be resilient. Apply the lessons you learned from your mission about taking risks, failing, learning, and doing again.

  • Have a sense of humor.

Physical/Temporal

• Establish temporal structures and routines that lead to healthy living:

  • Exercise

  • Learn and practice good nutrition

  • Rest

  • Take time “off” for yourself

  • Seek competent medical care

  • Keep homes and surrounding areas clean

• Take care of the basics of life:

  • Computer (watch out for pornography)

  • Transportation

  • Drivers license

  • Register to vote

  • Dental and medical check up

  • Personal finances (taxes, insurance, bank, credit card)

• Living choices

  • Live at home vs. on your own

  • Get ready for change vs. stability

• Grooming

  • Watch out for 2^nd adolescence of return missionaries

  • Shape image you want to create

Please, you returned missionaries, do not abandon in appearance or principle or habit the great experiences of the mission field when you like Alma and the sons of Mosiah, as the very angels of God to the people you met and taught and baptized. We do not expect you to wear a tie, white shirt, and a dark blue suit every day now that you are back home, but surely it is not too much to ask that your good grooming be maintained, that your personal habits reflect cleanliness and dignity and pride in the principles of the Gospel you taught. We ask you for the good of the kingdom and all those who have done and yet do take pride in what you do. Spencer Kimball

Intellectual/Professional

We do not always receive inspiration or revelation when we request it. Sometimes we are delayed in receiving revelation, and sometimes we are left to our own judgment and understanding based on study and reason. We cannot force spiritual things. It must be so. Our life’s purpose to obtain experience and to develop faith would be frustrated if our Heavenly Father enlightened us immediately on every question or directed us in every act. We must reach conclusions and make decisions and experience the consequences in order to develop self-reliance and faith. Even in decisions we think very important, we sometimes receive no answers to our prayers. This does not mean our prayers have not been heard. It only means we have prayed about a decision that, for one cause or another, we should make without guidance by revelation. Dallin Oaks The Lord’s Way, 1991, pp. 36-38.

• School/education

  • Pursue education to increase choice

  • Pick a major by experimenting early, taking one step at a time, picking good teachers, balancing preference and reality, then taking your best shot

  • Do well at school by doing the basics (attending class, being attentive, turning in assignments on time, staying current, ask questions)

  • Learn to learn by not just getting a degree or grades, but acquire skills for lifetime learning

• Career:

  • Be proactive by imagining what you want you want your life’s work to be, what are the types of problems you want to impact, what talents you bring to a career, then turn these images into action steps

  • Observe others working and ask yourself “what if …”

  • Ask: what do you find easy, energizing, and enjoyable? What would you do if you were guaranteed success? What would you do if it were totally up to you?

  • Experiment within fields that interest you through entry level jobs and/or volunteer work

  • Consider career tradeoffs continually (wealth, interest, travel, family, location); everything comes with a price

  • Think in terms of 5- 7 years (many careers are not permanent)

  • Realize that there are downsides to every job

  • Build relationships; don’t burn bridges

  • Get a job by having a current vita (include mission experience), building a network, making job hunting your job, using resources (LDS employment, What Color Is Your Parachute, school placement offices, internet sites), taking interviews seriously (appearance, practice interview skills, learning about the company, asking questions, etc.), taking risks (remember your rejection tolerance skills from missionary work).

Now may I move to the last decision: What will be my life's work? I have counseled many returning missionaries who have asked this question. I interviewed seventeen hundred missionaries one year all over the world. My advice to them, and to each one of you young people here this evening and elsewhere throughout the world, is that you should study and prepare for your life's work in a field that you enjoy, because you are going to spend a good share of your life in that field. It should be one which will challenge your intellect and which will make maximum utilization of your talents and your capabilities. Finally, it should be a field that will supply sufficient remuneration to provide adequately for your companion and your children. Now that's a big order. But I bear testimony that these criteria are very important in choosing your life's work. Thomas Monson

• Finances

  • Make all you can

    • Educate yourself

    • Prepare yourself for a good job/career

    • Work hard; be good at what you do; take reasonable risks

  • Save all you can

    • Avoid debt: some debts are justifiable (education, home), but control even them

      • Use credit cards wisely

      • Don’t buy it if you can not afford it

    • Live below your means and start saving and investing now

    • Pay attention to where you are spending and recognize trade-offs

  • Give all you can

    • Pay tithes and offerings first and foremost

    • Share with others; be generous

Social

• Friends

  • Relate to old friends in new ways

    • Some former relationships will fade

    • Other former relationships will grow

  • Make new friends by initiating, being curious about others, sharing of yourself with others, responding to others initiatives, doing things together, and being patient

  • Practice and recognize reciprocity by making the first move and responding to others’ bids for connection, but then if it is not working, let it go

  • Pay particular attention to roommates and people you hang out with

• Family

  • Evolve your relationship with your parents toward more independence

  • Signal to your parents that you are an adult by letting them see how you think about problems, asking for their counsel, taking decisions seriously and making them, being calm in parent exchanges (“that’s an interesting idea”), showing them that you are responsibly managing your time and surroundings, accepting consequences of your choices, helping and serving in the family without being asked, and having mature conversations

  • Remember that families are forever by investing time in family activities (remember parent and sibling birthdays and special events, be available for family events)

  • Realize that your friends, school, and/or work will take the bulk of your time and energy.

• Dating

  • Get on it; don’t be shy; be bold

  • Use your missionary skills (increasing tolerance for rejection, asking questions, building relationships of trust, sharing at a personal level, being able to relate to people who are different from you, building your dating pool, trying innovate ways to contact people and know people, seeking referrals from others, etc.)

  • Build friendships in groups, but further relationships with one on one dating. Unless absolute disaster, date someone twice before quitting

   

• Selecting a mate

  • Avoid engagement extremes: moving too quickly vs. moving too slowly. Know your tendencies in other decisions and try to compensate.

  • Learn to tolerate the ambiguity and uncertainty of not being married without having to rush into something

  • Recognize “anticipatory regret” by realizing that no spouse is perfect, marriage will require sacrifice and giving up some of yourself, and that you likely will have second thoughts

  • Learn how to have an emotionally intimate relationship by sharing what you feel and think, listening to understand the other person, confronting differences, jointly solving problems, being honest about feelings, sharing what hurts, talking about serious issues, etc.

  • Realize that physical intimacy is part of the relationship that must be managed

  • Get to know each other’s families; you don’t marry a person, but a family both good and bad.

  • Keep focused on and committed to temple marriage

The second decision for us to consider is this: Whom shall I marry? Now we're getting close to that which is in your mind and heart. It is essential that you become well acquainted with the person whom you plan to marry, that you can make certain that you are looking down the same pathway, with the same objectives in mind. It is ever so significant that you do this I should like to dispel one rumor that is very hard to put to rest. I know of no mission president in all the world who has ever told a missionary that he had the responsibility to marry within six months after his mission. I think that rumor was commenced by a returned missionary, and if not by a returned missionary, by the girlfriend of a returned missionary.  In making the momentous decision concerning whom you will marry-and in making other decisions throughout your life-you have a formula, a guide, to assist you. It is found in the ninth section of the Doctrine and Covenants, verses 8-9:
”You must study it out in your mind; then you must ask me if it be right, and if it is right I will cause that your bosom shall burn within you; therefore, you shall feel that it is right. But if it be not right you shall have no such feelings, but you shall have a stupor of thought.”

That counsel from the ninth section of the Doctrine and Covenants has guided me, and it will guide you. Thomas Monson

Spiritual

• Recognize three needs of all new members and returning missionaries:

  • Have a friend at church: engage, participate, initiate

  • Be nourished in the good word of God: study scriptures and church books

  • Fulfill an assignment: be bold, ask, consider the temple, take initiative, do the unseen calling,

• Find ways to feel the spirit that work for you. Do things that bring “spirituality” into your life.

  • Pray

As I look back on my life following my mission, I realize that there were periods when I was able to maintain the same closeness to the Lord that I experienced in the mission field. There were also periods when the world seemed to creep in and I was less consistent and faithful with my prayers. L. Tom Perry

• Share the gospel

Opportunities to teach the gospel and baptize are not exclusive to those who wear the badge of a full-time missionary. I wonder why we allow the fire of missionary service to diminish when we return to the activities of our life in the world. L. Tom Perry

• Study the scriptures

continue to be “nourished by the good word of God” (Moro. 6:4), remembering that the Master, our beloved Savior, is identified as “the Word” (see John 1:1–3, 14; Alma 34:1–6).

Daily and quality reading of the scriptures opens the door to personal and intimate communication with the Master. The scriptures bring the voice of God into your heart (see D&C 18:30–36; D&C 88:123–26) L. Edward Brown

• Serve others

• Write in your journal

• Attend the temple

• Commune with God in nature

• Be active at church

Always be active in the Church. I will give you a formula which will guarantee to a large extent your success in fulfilling that commitment. It is simple. It consists of just three words: Pay your tithing. Thomas Monson

• Find meaning in the routines of life. Invite God into your daily routines and welcome Him. Find ways to make what you do everyday spiritual.

  • Who am I serving?

  • What characteristics am I developing though this activity?

  • How is this daily activity preparing me for future mission?

  • How do I show my spirituality through what I do? (bringing up the church in conversations, letting people know my faith, being friendly and helpful, being honest, working hard, acting with integrity)

  • How can I slip spirituality into the routines of my life by gratitude, enjoying nature, a positive attitude, communicating with God throughout the day.

• Realize that mature spirituality after the mission is different from spirituality during the mission.

Evolving Spirituality
Mission	Post Mission
Focused on others (and self)	Focused on self (and others)
Life changing experiences that become the meaning	Life enhancing experiences that nurture, sustain, and infuse what we do with meaning
Found through obedience to the rules of the mission	Found through discovering how we form a relationship with God
Concentrated in missionary work (finding, testifying, teaching, converting, baptizing)	Resident in daily life (school, job, social, family, church)
Takes concentrated, intense, time consuming dedicated effort	Appreciation of snippets of spiritual connection
Revelatory, dramatic, available	Inspirational, quiet, subtle, with occasional bursts of insight
Focused on learning and teaching the gospel in relative isolation	Focused on living the gospel in community

Conclusion:

This is not the end. It is not even the beginning of the end. But it is, perhaps, the end of the beginning. Speech given by Winston Churchill at the Lord Mayor’s Luncheon, Mansion House, London, November 10, 1942

... your mission is not yet full.

Nevertheless, ye are blessed, for the testimony which ye have borne is recorded in heaven for the angels to look upon; and they rejoice over you, and your sins are forgiven you.

And now continue your journey.... (Doctrine and Covenants 62:2-4)

Worksheets for Moving Forward

Step in decision process	Implications for me
Vision
Goals
Actions
Follow up

Domain	Rate how well I do (0-10)	An idea that makes sense	An action I can use
Emotional
Physical
Intellectual
Social
Spiritual