How SVU Helped Me Heal After Returning Early From My Mission
By Kenyon Kemp
Ever since I was little, serving a mission was one of the most important things I thought I would do one day. Once I started taking Seminary classes, I became even more determined to prepare to serve a mission. I thought serving a mission would help everything afterward fall easily into place. By the time I reached the beginning of my senior year of high school, I felt like I was ready to go, and I would simply need to coast through my senior year so I could go serve. I was very wrong about that.
My senior year of school ended up being more difficult than I ever thought it would be. Our school had split, so most of my friends ended up going somewhere else. I had more difficult classes than I had before, and near the end of the year, Covid broke out. I lost in-person contact with most of my friends, and the months leading up to my mission felt pretty lonely.
Once I got out to my mission, I thought things would be better due to having in-person contact with more people, but the contact moving from my family to strangers ended up making my loneliness feel worse. Eventually, my companion and I ended up getting a week long quarantine twice in just three weeks, and I began feeling like I couldn’t function anymore. I ended up unable to sleep at night, and eventually, after talking with my mission president, I realized I would need to go home after just four months.
My parents were very supportive when I came home, but I was worried about what my future would be like. I had always pictured serving for a full two years, coming home confident, and moving forward with a clear plan. Now I was home early, feeling less confident in myself than I ever had, and not knowing what I was going to do.
After a couple of months, I decided that I would come to SVU for the Fall 2021 semester, and I worked during the summer leading up to it. For the first couple of months I was here, I didn’t talk to anyone very much, because I was worried that people would think I was weak for not serving a full mission. Eventually, I began making friends with the cross country team and a few people in my ward. I realized that they didn’t care if I served a full mission or not, and we’ve all been able to become close friends.
I’ve also been able to talk to my bishops over the last couple of years, and I realized that I’m not worth any less to God because I didn’t serve a full mission. I’ve learned that what matters most is how we treat other people, and as long as we work to keep our own testimonies alive, we will still see the growth that we might have had on the mission. It doesn’t matter where you are as long as you continually try to become better. I feel like being at SVU has been a blessing because I have been able to realize that people want to see you succeed and that it’s always possible to make good friends. I’ve been able to have my testimony grow, and I’ve learned to enjoy smaller moments more fully rather than thinking my growth revolved around the ‘bigger’ life events.
