Engage in the Wrestle

A little over a year ago, I was shuttling down the winding roads through the green peaks of La Masca, Tenerife; walking through the forest of blue and green and scarlet sunlight on the floor of La Sagrada Familia; looking over the red-tiled housetops that stretched out like a fan, the collective roof of Florence; skimming the surface of Lake Como, the ferry's bow slicing through the waves and misting our sun-beaten faces with spray.

La Masca, Tenerife

Interior of La Sagrada Familia, Barcelona

At the bottom of the duomo's bell tower; Florence

View from the bell tower 

Ferrying it in style across Lake Como

View across Lake Como

Mom, Austin (my older brother), and I were on a tri-mission tour, visiting Spain and Italy. Austin served in the Spain Madrid Mission while my mom and I both served in Italy (she took Milan while I headed south to Rome). While I was ecstatic to get back to Italy, a knot of anxiety twisted inside of me.

I was facing a crisis. I had been home for six months, and while on the surface everything was going well, there was a deep, undergirding pain to all of it. My mission was not what I expected and, in my mind, not what it was supposed to be (more on that next time). I was afraid and embarrassed that Mom and Austin would see me for my failures and everything I wasn't. I didn't think I could hold up under the scrutiny.

I wish I could remember how I stumbled across it, but however it happened, within the first few days of our trip, I ran into Sister Sheri Dew's address entitled "Engage in the Wrestle." It was heaven-sent (and totally worth checking out right now or bookmarking for the very near future). The focal point of her talk was that in order to grow spiritually and to receive revelation, we have to ask inspired questions and subsequently be willing to put in the effort to find the answers. Here are a few gems from her talk:

"When we have unresolved questions, our challenge doesn't lie in what we think we know. It lies in what we don't yet know. "

"The Lord wants us to ask every probing question we can muster because not asking questions can be far more dangerous than asking them."

"Questions are not just good, they are vital, because the ensuing spiritual wrestle leads to answers, to knowledge, and to revelation. And it also leads to greater faith."   

Well, for the first time in my life, I had real questions, the answers to which I desperately needed. Questions that I was totally, completely, 100% invested in. Why did my mission happen the way it did? Why had God sent me to Italy? Why had I not seen the miracles I had expected to? How could I possibly turn my mission into a motivating force for my future instead of a deadweight tying me to the past?

Thanks to Sister Dew, I began to ask, seek and knock. It was not an easy process, but the answers I began to find as I asked these questions have changed my entire perspective and, in all honesty, saved me. I am no longer drowning in discouragement, doubt, and regret. I have been filled with light and hope by the Prince of Peace.

I don't feel like we talk enough about the challenges of coming home from a mission. For the first few weeks, neighbors, ward members, friends will ask, "How was it??" You give the expected "Amazing," "Indescribable," etc., but it feels a bit rote. Then the expectation clamps down that you adjust back to "normal" life fairly seamlessly and plow forward without a second thought.

It wasn't seamless for me, even though I tried to make it so. But my regrets, my doubts, my disappointments ate at me, and there was no one to give me the answers and the relief I was looking for. So I put on the facade, telling people my mission was wonderful (which, don't get me wrong, it was—but wonderful often comes across as "perfect," and my mission had definitely not been perfect). I shoved the negative emotions and thoughts even deeper inside, desperate to escape from them, afraid of what truths they might expose. It wasn't until I realized they were suffocating me and the future ahead of me that I decided to engage in the wrestle.

I took Sister Dew's challenge to ask the questions, to look for their answers in the scriptures and through personal revelation and communion with God. My purpose behind this blog is to explain how I went through that process and what answers I have found that have helped me be at peace with my mission and what's more, forge into a future full of light and potential. This is my journey. I know it isn't everyone's; my personal opinions and convictions are just that—personal. But I have felt like my experiences in coming home from my mission and coming to terms with it are worth sharing, if not for others who experience similar feelings, then simply for me to articulate and understand myself better. I hope that my words can be a positive, uplifting force.

For today, that means that I hope you will feel inspired to engage in the wrestle, as Sister Dew puts it. We all have "real" questions, the questions we are truly invested in and want answers to. The questions that in fact, we may be too afraid to face because of how much they mean to us. But if you are willing to wrestle with them, I can promise that the beginnings of answers come. Their entirety, I believe, is the pursuit of a lifetime, but even their beginnings bring peace and assurance.

Engage in the wrestle! I have never grown so much as when I have dared to ask my most difficult questions. The windows of heaven that had seemed distant and closed opened in remarkable ways as I was honest with myself and God and worked with Him to find peace and resolution. He has the answers, and He wants you to have them:

"Draw near unto me and I will draw near unto you; seek me diligently and ye shall find me; ask, and ye shall receive; knock, and it shall be opened unto you" (Doctrine and Covenants 88:63).

Anika