Things I Will Miss About Being a Missionary

Our Mother's Day Skype call with Elder Alley

Us as we were saying goodbye...

Us right after the call is over and the screen goes blank. :(
Hurry up, 5 months!

May 9, 2016

Dear Alley Family,

How's it going y'all? It was awesome to see all your faces and hear your voices again! I really did enjoy our time together. Sure, it was a little hectic with all the technical difficulties, but who cares? This will only make a great story to share with our future generations ;) Ha ha. Still, it was great to see everyone.

Well, I don't really have much to report to you all in this e-mail since we already talked about it over Skype. However, after our session, I thought a lot about your question to me: "What will I miss about being a missionary?" Well, I've been thinking about it and I didn't get a chance to give my full answer to you over Skype. So, I will just give you full answer in this e-mail.

As I have always said before, being a missionary is hard. My complaints about it have ranged everywhere from getting sick of wearing a white shirt and tie EVERY SINGLE DAY to being frustrated with people who either just close the door on us or actually try to contend with us to prove that we are a false church when they have done absolutely NO RESEARCH to back up their arguments. If they did do any research then, more often than not, they look at the wrong resources and not the resources provided by The Church of Jesus Christ of Latter-Day Saints. Basically, people who judge God's true church to be false and His members as either deceived or evil out of either ignorance or just pure stupidity just drive me up the wall. I'm definitely not going to miss having to put up with all that stuff.

However, as I said over Skype, there are some things that I will miss as a missionary. Mainly, the friends that I've made out here in the mission. I will miss the members (active and less-active) who were always willing to help us out or just talk to us. I will also miss many of my former missionary companions and other missionaries who either were my leaders or just happened to be in my unit. I will also miss President Salisbury and the counsel that he’s given me since being here.

I'm also going to miss all the moments I had when I felt so enlightened and inspired by the Holy Ghost to just "go and do" the Lord's work. It's hard to explain the feeling of excitement and joy that came from either reading something in the scriptures, listening to something that the Prophet and Apostles said in General Conference, or just hearing something in sacrament meeting and then all of sudden feeling like I can serve the Lord and that nothing is impossible. Like I said, it's hard to describe so I'm just rambling here. Hopefully, it makes sense to you.

So as you can see, there are some things that I'll miss as a missionary. I promise that I'll continue to do my best for the Lord here. Until then, I love you all and miss you all.

See you all in 5 months!  Hurrah for Israel!

Love,

Elder Michael Alley