“We’re on a mission from God.”

Last night I went to see the movie “The Best Two Years.” I have about a million thoughts or feelings about this movie. None of which seems easy to formulate into a cohesive form of communication. I can say this though — I loved the movie. It seemed to capture so many of the feelings or experiences I had throughout my mission. It was also very interesting to go see it with Mindy and Brittany, neither of which has been on a mission. They thought it was fun and entertaining. For me, it was like reading my journal. Vivid and real, I either was or knew missionaries exactly like those I saw on the screen. And with those memories came a flood of emotions.

For me what made this movie great was not just the realness and believability of the story but the little personal details. The way the missionaries slapped their alarms and rolled over to their knee to pray. The apartment, run-down and paint peeling, decorated with taped-up pictures of the Savior or the Prophet. The blank stare of a missionary who hears a native speak for the first time. The spirit and joy of testifying of the message of the Gospel. The long hours of hard work followed by the most amazing yet simple miracles. The heartbreak of rejection and the bliss of acceptance. Seeing lives change, including your own.

I think a lot about the two years I spent in Hong Kong. I think of the people I met and taught, the friends I made and the things I both saw and felt. Things that I had once cherished or held as of high value I was asked to put aside I had to leave myself behind to find myself.

You give up the condo life, give up all your flaming worldly possessions, go live in a dilapidated house in the toxic waste part of town.

Before I went, I thought I had it all figured out and I knew exactly what it was going to be like. And actually I had it mostly right. But to know what something is like in the abstract or conceptual way is very different from what it’s like to actually have experienced it.

In Cantonese there are two different ways of to express things in the past tense. One means to have completed or finished an action, the other means to have experienced or literally to have passed through. My experience in Hong Kong wasn’t just something that I completed or finished; a simple chapter or event. It was something I experienced, something I passed through. And like a trip through Calvin and Hobbes’ Transmogrifier, I came out changed. No, perhaps just molded; sculpted. The best two years, huh?

…yeah

“Oh yeah? Well me and the Lord, we got an understanding…”