At the age of 18 we are prompted to decide what our contribution to society will look like. Whether that be college, creativity, trades, or travel, there is a realization that your once externally influenced agenda is now yours to create.
Suddenly, it’s time to fly. Goodbye looming, uneasy anticipation carries you back and forth, house to car, with weighty, over-packed boxes. Between the sweaters, books, and picture frames, the risk of leaving home stomach’s itself for the first time. The car door closes and it’s time to go.
The first few weeks are a blur of new faces, forgetting the name of the street you live on, and assimilating to the new view out your bedroom window. A new roommate becomes your default best friend, accompanying you to the grocery store, helping you find the cereal aisle. They too just said goodbye to everything they’d ever known.
It’s just the first steps, the beginning of a chase on a wide-open world.
But, what if your choice of contribution is out of the norm?
At 18 years old, Connor Call shut the door of his childhood home in Kennewick, Washington with the realization that he would not open it again for a full two years. Leaving behind friends, family, and an iPhone; Call was Michigan bound.
Connor arrived to Michigan with no single destination in mind, and each time he unpacked his things knowing time was limited. Connor Call is a missionary for the Church of Jesus Christ of Latter Day Saints. During the course of the next two years he will be assimilating into various communities participating in service work. Every six weeks he will be transferred to a different home; receiving a new roommate, address, and bedroom view.
Six weeks in terms of college schedule is fleeting. For instance, six weeks is usually about the time in the semester of your first exam. Or the time from the beginning of the school year until Homecoming festivities begin. Missionaries like Call are forcibly acquainted with losing normalcy so often.
At any given Mormon church there are two men and two women missionaries. The men are referred to as Elders, and the women, Sisters. The four of them work together to engage the community in their faith.”Missionaries work with a companion of the same gender during their mission, with the exception of couples, who work with their spouse. Single men serve missions for two years and single women serve missions for 18 months.” according to the Church of Jesus Christ of Latter Day Saints.
Their work focuses primarily on approaching strangers. “Missionaries talk to anyone anywhere anytime about the gospel, because they never know who is going to be interested,” said the Church of Jesus Christ of Latter Day Saints.
Every morning they wake up and spend time with their companion. They pray, exercise, and then begin their outreach, which goes on well into the evening. Once the day has concluded the companions meet together again to pray, reflect, and talk to their leader about the day’s accomplishments.
Every six weeks the different missionaries from the region meet at a centrally located church. Once they arrive they are able to catch up with companions before they move on to their new community. These “transfer” days are a big event for the missionaries. Throughout their mission they are separated by distance and absence from technology. Transfer’s provide opportunity to mingle and catch up with others going through a similar experience.
Hailey Bayles is a Mormon missionary from Kamas, UT. She is stationed in Mt. Pleasant along with Elder Call. Bayles is not ashamed of her faith. In fact her e-mail signature is “I’m a mormon. I know it. I live it. I love it.”
Missionaries frequently approach people to ask them questions about themselves. The conversations aim to build relationships that will ultimately lead people to faith in Jesus Christ, and all that accompanies the Mormon belief system.
“Rejection happens all day, every day, basically,” Bayles said.
According to Pew Research Center, Mormon’s only make up 1.6% of the population in the United States. Regardless of the lack of enthusiasm toward their work, missionaries see it as fundamental to the church and a biblical way to invite new members.
They believe if they don’t actively extend an invitation they might not reach those fearful to come on their own. If you’ve ever been rejected, you’re aware that it comes with a cost. The elders and sisters are not immune to that affliction.
“It’s definitely taken a toll,” said Bayles.
For Bayles and missionaries like her, isolation and loneliness are at the forefront of their experience. The nature of their mission requires guidelines intended to keep them spiritually strong. They are only able to talk to their families once per week for an hour. They won’t spend time on social media, or get to share much of anything with anyone, aside from their companions. Companions, are similar to roommates. They share everything: a phone, a morning routine, a car, schedules. You will never find one without the other.
“Just because we’re always with each other does not mean you don’t feel alone,” admitted Call. Aside from those missionaries in the same location there is little contact with other people, aside from those contacted through mission work.
“I never wanted to do this, I never wanted to go teach someone about religion,” said Call.
Then how does an 18 year old decide to surrender two years of their life to the service of others, in the name of a faith regularly rejected?
“Growing up I honestly had a lot of pressure to be religious… it would kind of bother me,” explains Call, “I always enjoyed the church, I liked it, but not enough to go share it with people. Until about my senior year of high school.”
When Call was a senior, a close family friend, Loretta, was diagnosed with cancer and was expected to live less than a year. She was like a mother to him, and the news was devastating.
Grief will burden you with life’s difficult questions. Her passing sent Call into a whirlwind of those;
“Where is she? Will I see her again?”
Through strenuous seeking of answers, faith became a genuine source of comfort and hope for Call. Ultimately the loss of Loretta opened a desire to share that source of assurance with other people.
Alan Graves, the companion of Elder Call, left home one month after turning 18 to follow a similar path of service. Graves, originally from San Jose, CA, looked up to his older siblings all his life.
“When my brother went on his mission, I was eight years old,” said Graves, “I was like this is what I want to do; I want to follow his footsteps.”
At sixteen, Graves helped a friend come to know his own faith. Through the process of leading someone else to peace in their own life, Graves became increasingly committed to his faith and the mission.
“I decided right then, about age 16; I’m going to do everything I can to prepare and leave as early as I can. That was the goal.” A year and a half into his trip Graves has no regrets over his decision to serve. “I learned a lot, it’s not all easy. But there are so many lessons and blessings that I would never give back.”
Graves is nearing the end of his mission and the completion of his first major life goal. There is still a lot of life to be lived after this trip subsides, but the mission experience will influence his plans far into the future.
“I was focused a lot on myself and how I wanted to work. But instead, I want to work in fields that will then help others; that’s where I find my true joy.”
When the word ‘future’ comes to mind, we all have a dream defined. Be it big or small, the next step is only ever one stride away. Our motivations may differ, but the commonality remains. When you have a dream, an ambition, a mission, it requires effort. It’s creating, questioning, and seeking more. It’s not being satisfied with one accomplishment, or one understanding of yourself and the world around you.
Success is arbitrary, only meaningful when connected tosomething.
Something; a certain undetermined or unspecified thing.
How then, can we measure success?
How then, can we compare our successes?
When you cross paths with another it may feel like their world is imposing on your own. But realize we are really in the same world, battling the same feelings of inadequacy, loneliness, rejection, and fear of failure.
Consider this: the path may be different; the struggle is the same.
“Therefore let us not pass judgment on one another any longer, but rather decide never to put a stumbling block or hindrance in the way of a brother.” – Romans 14:13