Missions really do never end, or at least they affect you for your entire life. In the MTC, there was a really popular talk to watch by Jeffrey R Holland (prerecorded of course, that you could watch either on Sunday or Tuesday nights) where he talked about how basically everyday of his life, he had thought of his mission in at least some small or insignificant way, and how if we really worked hard, most of us would also never have a day go by where we also didn't think of our mission and things we had learned while being missionaries.
I remember at the time wondering how I would think of Russia every day, or how things that I did as a missionary would apply once I was back in regular life. Missionary life is so different, I figured, that eventually I would have a few days in a row where my mission would never really come up, or mentions of Russia would never enter my realm of thinking.
Fast forward to now, and (unfortunately in most cases) there aren't many news channels that don't have something Russia or Ukraine or Eastern Europe related, which is both a blessing and a curse. Aside from that though, I've noticed just in the past few weeks there are indelible things that I do or say, or ways that I behave, or ways that I think that are a direct result of being a missionary. Some of the simple things are kind of funny or simply utilitarian, like that I wipe the bottom of my feet off on my calves before I put on socks, or before I get into bed. We always used to do that before putting our shoes on, cause in our tiny Russian apartments, we invariably tracked dirt and mud through the house, and we didn't want to track that around as we were walking. I recently bought a shoehorn, which is a super simple device that I feel like hasn't caught on in America yet but they're at EVERY door in Russia, but you stick it in the back of your shoe when you're putting it on, and it helps you avoid having to scrunch your thumb as you slide your foot into your shoe. I tried it out today, and it was like riding a bike, and I STILL couldn't believe how well it works to slide your foot right in(: I can't write in English (or German) cursive anymore, cause I invariably switch over to writing Russian cursive, which is very different but I feel like has it's own really beautiful style and is really fun to write. I also have a predisposition around whistling in public, or shaking hands across door frames, cause it's OBVIOUSLY bad luck to do either(:
Some memories too are a little more overt. I'm obsessed with keeping my floors clean cause all of our apartment floors were hardwood or tile or laminate, so we felt all the dirt we tracked in. We have a cat named Vanya that I naturally speak to in Russian sometimes, just cause she's cute, and while she wasn't technically named just for the Russian name, I loved it because it's a really cute name in Russian(: I have some of my missionary tags magnetized, and I love turning I over and seeing all the stickers that we put on the back (most of them actually stickers from Old Spice Deodorant - they for some reason had English taglines instead of lines written in Cyrillic on their deodorant sticks, and they were GOOD). Like for some reason, one of the taglines (which was actually in Russian) on the stickers said "Only for Men", so someone had stuck one on the top of the underside of the toilet seat in the Assistants apartment, so when you put the toilet seat up, that was right there front and center(: It's little memories like that still get a good chuckle(:
Or honestly what motivated this post was I took a midday nap today, and super vividly I had a dream where Elder Fateev came to visit me and we just hung out for a little bit. I think at this point it's been 4-5 years since I've seen him in person, but we still got along just great, and it was such a happy feeling to see him(:
I guess the point of this post is to just say that your mission never really leaves you. I think some more direct memories would come back if I was teaching someone the gospel right now, but it's amazing that something that I finished almost 8 years ago still permeates my life in many small and almost unseeable ways. Missions really are great(:
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