Post-Mission Epilogue

For all you faithful readers of Elder George's blog, here is the story he shared in his homecoming talk. He had teased about it in his last email on the mission, so I asked him to let me share this experience with all you who love him but were not able to hear him speak. Thanks for reading!

When I first started my mission, I honestly did not find it easy to fulfill my purpose as a missionary, which was to help other people to come unto Christ by helping them to receive the restored gospel through faith in Jesus Christ and his atonement, repentance, baptism, receiving the gift of the Holy Ghost and enduring to the end. I felt that I just couldn't do it because of the language barrier and other things. Just a couple of months into my mission, I had my first interview with my mission president. He told me, "Elder George. You are here serving a mission. But you're really not HERE". Those word penetrated to my very soul. I felt kind of useless and hopeless in that moment but then my mission president gave me some advice and a scripture that I treasure to this day. It's in Moses 6:32-34. That scripture really gave me strength to carry on and be the best missionary I could. From the very second that I stepped out of that interview I had a new sense of direction and meaning for the mission. I knew what I had to do and I was going to do it. I began to change and to lose myself completely in the work. I followed the presidents counsels with exactness and I achieved a lot of success in the mission.  As I approached the end of my mission, I had my last interview with my mission president. But before we had a zone conference. And in the conference, president asked us all, "Who is your greatest and strongest convert in the mission?" Everyone went kind of silent and then president looked at me and asked me directly the same question.  I replied firmly that I was my greatest convert. Then he told me to stand up in front of everyone. He told everyone that I had changed tremendously and that he didn't even recognize me. He said I even did my hair differently. He asked me to share in front of everyone what was it that brought this change of heart. So I shared the story of that first interview that I had with President and how I strived to be obedient to his counsels. 

I told them that I had truly become converted to the gospel of Jesus Christ and that is what made me the missionary I was and the person I was in that moment.