Believing in the Future

It was the first Sunday in January 2016. I sat down in my home ward Sunday School class, and the teacher announced that we would be watching Elder Holland's devotional address, "Remember Lot's Wife." Since he figured most of us were in the goal-setting mindset, our instructor said he hoped this particular talk would help us as we considered our personal plans and hopes for the coming hear. As a newly returned missionary, I was all about keeping up my goal-setting streak, and I was ready to receive whatever goal-achieving wisdom Elder Holland was going to dispense.

But I ended up hearing a much different message, one I hadn't realized I desperately needed to hear.

"The past is to be learned from but not lived in. We look back to claim the embers from glowing experiences but not the ashes. And when we have learned what we need to learn and have brought with us the best that we have experienced, then we look ahead, we remember that faith is always pointed toward the future."

I had only been home from my mission for two weeks, and every day, I had wished to go back. In my last area, I had gotten to a place where I felt confident and strong, where I had overcome so many of the reservations and struggles that I had fought with as a younger missionary. I felt on fire. I wanted to give and go on giving. And that's when my mission ended. I had finally felt able to give God something worthwhile, something tangible, but time beat me to it. So I looked over my shoulder, back towards Italy and its people, my companion and our members, and just wished to be there again. Part of me wished to make up all the times I had fallen short and to give God the best of everything after all I had learned. Another part wished to embrace once more the courage I had found to share the Gospel with everyone on those cobblestone streets, to pray my heart out for our investigators, to hold out a copy of the Book of Mormon with my own promise of its impact. I wished to be engaged forever in serving God, and what seemed the best way to do that was nearly six thousand miles away and sealed in the past. 

But as I sat in that Sunday School class, listening to Elder Holland, a sense of peace sprang up inside. My past was to be learned from but not lived in. God's timing, though I didn't understand it, was what it was supposed to be. I was looking over my shoulder and longing to go back to where I had been, but God was asking me to instead look ahead and trust that what was to come could be as good as, if not better than, what lay behind. 

It clicked. My whole life, I had been looking forward to serving a mission. Based on stories I had heard from others, I had thought of the mission as the ultimate, the moment, the maximum experience. And after it was over, I didn't know how to construct any meaningful framework around my life. I mean, the mission was everything, right? I could never be as happy or find the same sense of purpose in anything else. Yeah, marriage and family are important, but everyone just talked about the mission, how they'd go back in a heartbeat, how it was the best two years, how they've never been so happy...

But with Elder Holland's words, a new door opened. God's path for me lay in the future and not the past. Serving a mission was wonderful and it was right, but now it was time to move on to new and better phases. God hadn't intended for the mission to last forever, otherwise it would have. So I had a choice: I could live the rest of my life looking over my shoulder at my mission, at its ups and downs, its highlights and its trials, and become fixated on them, or I could count my many blessings, gather up the lessons I had learned, and stride into my future—a place God promised could be better than what I was leaving behind. 

I chose that day to have that faith-focused mindset. I chose to believe that what lay ahead was better than what I was leaving behind. As it turns out, the last year and a half have been the best of my life. Not because I've left the past behind entirely, but rather because I have tried to gather its embers in order to light my future. 

Thanks to my mission, I've been more outgoing, more willing to reach out and talk to other people than I have ever been before. As I have, I have developed friendships and relationships—including with many of you reading this now:)—and each has blessed me immensely. I love being around people, listening to their experiences and their perspectives and simply enjoying the goodness that they radiate. 

Thanks to my mission, I have worked harder in all of my endeavors. Work, school, volunteering, callings in my ward—I have been more engaged in all of them. I recognize that while results often do not come immediately, persistence pays off, if only in personal satisfaction at a job well done. I have learned to not be disappointed when my expectations don't play out exactly as I imagined. Rather, I have come to appreciate that life often has a mind of its own:) 

Thanks to my mission, I live sincerely. I focus on being in the moment; I don't want to come out of a meeting or a class or a conversation with another person and realize that I wasn't really there at all. I am more engaged because I know the value of experience that is grounded in wholehearted living.

Most of all, thanks to my mission, I have an infinitely closer relationship with my Heavenly Father and my Savior. They are a daily, active part of my life. Decisions I make, goals I set, opportunities I pursue are fundamentally tied to my ultimate objective of becoming like Them. Their direction and help have been a daily constant for me. My mission gave me a spiritual foundation that has allowed me to continue growing and building towards an ever brighter future.

When it comes down to it, "remembering Lot's wife" has helped me to focus on the future and believe that the best is always on the path ahead of me. The past is a fundamental building block, but it is not the sum of my existence. Wonderful as it may have been, God has more in store.

So believe in the path ahead! Trust the Lord to lead you to greater heights and more beautiful vistas. He is, after all, the God of "good things to come."

Anika