"Why are you giving up 18 months of your life?"

Some people ask me this question out loud.  Others just ask it silently.  Heck, I've even asked myself that question.  Why am a giving up the chance to start taking graduate-level public health classes?  Why am I halting my professional development in the field of behavioral health?  Why am I sacrificing any chance of getting married in the next year and a half?  Why am I relinquishing control of my own life and willingly abstaining from facebook, swimming, dancing, and hugging members of the opposite sex?

This photo illustrates one of the activities I will no longer do as a missionary.

The fact of the matter is that a little over four and a half years ago, two teenage boys decided to sacrifice twenty-four months of their lives to serve the Lord with all of their might, mind, and strength.  They filled out paperwork and interviewed with their religious leaders and declared themselves to be worthy to serve as ambassadors of Jesus Christ.  They were called to serve in the Arizona Tucson Mission, and they labored there for about eighteen months before they even knew I existed.  I know that I was not the only person whose life they changed for the better.  But I also know that they were called to serve in Tucson because I needed them.  When I began talking to the missionaries in March of 2009, I had a lot of baggage.  I was convinced that the Church of Jesus Christ of Latter-Day Saints had betrayed my trust, and I was pretty skeptical that I was capable of a true and enduring relationship with religion.

Because my two missionaries were willing to consecrate their time, talent, and material means to the service of God, I realized that the feelings I experienced when I  read the Book of Mormon: Another Testament of Jesus Christ were not the sort of ephemeral feelings that one feels when experiencing a brief fling.  My missionaries were able to open my eyes to the constant, unchanging love that my Heavenly Father and Savior have for me, and reading the Book of Mormon played a big role in my increased understanding of God's character.

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Because my two missionaries were willing to put away their worldly concerns and focus only on building up His kingdom, I was able to discover a strength that I didn't know that I had.  In fact, I know that the strength that I used was not my own.  Goodness knows that when the missionaries began teaching me, I had been trying to conquer my eating disorder for about 30 months.  I testify that there are some battles in this world that can only be won by a combination of our own sincere desire and Christ's enabling power.  

I owe my current comfortable way of life to the two boys that deferred two years' worth of worldly concerns to immerse themselves in the Holy Spirit.  I hope that by consecrating eighteen months of my life to God's service, I will be able to begin to pay Him back.  Nevertheless, I know that if I "should serve him who has created [me] from the beginning, and is preserving [me] from day to day, by lending [me] breath, that [I] may live and move and do according to [my] own will, and even supporting [me] from one moment to another-I say, if [I] should serve him with all [my] whole [soul] yet [I] would be [an] unprofitable [servant]"  (Mosiah 2:21).  There is no way that I can outdo the Lord.  Even as I seek to repay Him for his mercy and love by serving a full-time mission, I know that my family and I will be blessed.

Still, I cannot let this opportunity pass by me.  I know that there are people out there who know that something is missing from their lives.  And I know that living the principles of the Gospel of Jesus Christ will make every single one of us happier people.