Well this is it. Honestly it doesn't seem real that all of
this is coming to a close. I feel like I’ve been a missionary my whole life,
haha. Man, how can someone possibly describe or summarize two of the hardest
and happiest years of their life? I don’t think it will ever be possible to
adequately express all of what I’ve learned and felt on the mission. I don’t
think the keys on this computer could produce words, sentences, or symbols that
would describe the love I have for my mission. I don’t want to imagine my life
had I not chosen to serve. It wasn't exactly what I imagined it would be like,
I don’t think it is for any missionary that goes out into the field. But
everything that I’ve experienced, every hard thing that I’ve had to conquer,
every person that I met, every area I was transferred to, it was all a part of
His plan and what He had intended for me to fulfill.
The mission has meant everything to me. I was thinking about
how truly important my calling is. How truly crucial and indispensable it
really is. You can’t even begin to know or imagine how many lives you will
touch and how people’s lives will be effected for good down the road because of
your efforts. If it weren’t for
missionaries just like me, my father would not have joined the church 17 years
ago. If he wouldn’t have joined the church when I was a young boy, I would not
have grown up within the gospel and it would have been exceedingly harder than
it already was for me to have made the decision to serve a mission. Honestly I
probably would not have gone. And it can be traced back to two young men in
their early 20s with the same first name "Elder", who decided to
serve the Lord, not really knowing what they were getting themselves into, but
followed the spirit, worked hard, and did what the Lord led them to do,
whatever it may have been. Little did they know that it would have an effect on
me and in turn every single person I have ever met on my mission? Do you see
the importance?
There is that thing in life that we are all searching for.
There is a void that we are all trying to fill. A desire to be satisfied. So we
go out trying to find what it is. Whether it be the need for more friends,
material things, a job position, something, whatever it may be. So we go out
trying to find it, but we still have this hollow feeling and a need that still
needs satisfied. That thing that we are all searching for, that void that needs
to filled that we as human beings all long for, is The Gospel. Nothing else in
this world or this life will compare, it just simply will not. You can spend a
life time buying and doing temporal things to try and find it or satisfy that
need, but you will be discouraged time and time again.
And what if it’s all true? What if everything that you have
heard and done your whole life is really true? Do you understand what that
means? It means eternal families, its means the Priesthood has been restored,
it means Christ's church is upon the earth, its means so many glorious things
that we cannot even begin to imagine or wrap our minds around as mortals. And
that gives me enough initiative and drive for me to keep going. To keep
learning, to keep searching, to keep progressing, to keep serving, to keep
spreading the gospel, and to stay firm and forever steadfast in the things that
I believe. There is too much to lose. I hope that I never lose sight of what I’ve
learned here in Carlsbad. It has changed me forever, and I’m not looking back.
2 Tim 4:6-7
".The time of my departure is at hand. I have fought
the good fight, I have finished my course, I have kept the faith."
I love you all, can’t wait to see you on Wednesday!
-Elder Jon Daniel
-It’s been real Carlsbad
