The Return of Beloved Friends

2 years ago, many of us said our goodbyes and parted ways across the world to go and spend the next 2 years serving the Lord and one of his representatives. Finding and teaching his children the plan of happiness. Slowly but surely, we have been completing our service and returning home, changed men. Today I had the amazing experience of participating in 2 missionary homecomings. Both of them good friends I have known for much of my life.

Coming home is difficult on a missionary. You spend 24 hours of your life serving our Lord and Savior trying to be his servant and doing your best to complete his will. Doing this, you gain such a love for the work that it becomes apart of you. Sometimes memories of home creep into your thoughts, but they are quickly replaced by the need of an investigator, or revelation of a scripture that would help a family. Coming home means leaving one love and coming back to another. You become torn between the two worlds.

But the thing that remains the same is the love of a mother. When I served my mission, I gained such and love and respect for my mother. Sure there were times where is was frustrated with things that she made me do, but then i remembered all the things she did for me. Suddenly the things that she told me to do seem very trivial. What I love about this photo is that after being apart for 2 years, that love that exists between parent and child grows. The child learns the greatness of their parents and the parents forget all the mistakes their child made and only count they days until they are reunited. My friend Elder Taylor is the last of my generation to be reunited with their mother, making us all mamas boys again.

"Behind every strong missionary, there is a stronger mother on her knees."