So, I Have to Admit Something to You.

We need to talk.

It’s not that making blog posts is hard. I couldn’t give you a solid reason for no posts for the past couple of weeks. Maybe I haven’t found the time. Maybe I haven’t found something to write about.

But, I have today. So here’s to this small blog post that might speak to some people in the middle of the night.

Today, I drove to church. It’s Sunday. That’s not unusual. On Sundays, I plug a flash drive loaded with religious music into my car’s USB port. This was the same flash drive that accompanied me on my mission and collected hundreds of memories. The same music I used to listen to while cruising down the gulf coast is the same music I listen to flying down the highway to church.

Music is the oddest thing to me. It’s helped me through my darkest times, but sometimes the right (or wrong) song can take me to my darkest place. It’s given me my proudest inspirations and my worst ideas. It’s blessed me with clarity and my most muddled thoughts.

The right tune takes me to when I would stand at my mother’s bathroom door and listen to her sing to The Corrs while she put on her makeup. I was smaller then, and life wasn’t at all the same as it is now. Press the shuffle button, and I’m crossing Idaho with a friend to a concert we’d decided to attend on a whim. No money for a hotel, barely enough money for food and gas. Snow crept along the edges highway, but never touched the road. It rained. I felt alive.

This music, what I listen to on Sundays, plants me on doorsteps under the pounding beat of the Mississippi summer sun. The faces at each doorstep are as familiar to me as my own family. The crevices of their wrinkles, the hitches in their voices, the laundry that usually littered their living room floors—they all come at me like a swarm of butterflies. Brilliant, rushing, exciting, crammed together in fluttering displays—but fleeting, far away, fragile enough for me to not want to touch them.

Today, brothers and sisters, friends and acquaintances—today, I miss my mission.

And that can be hard.

I’m used to using the Internet now, but sometimes I still find myself cringing every time I throw my car into reverse without someone to help me. Going into public by myself no longer makes me feel like I’m breaking the rules, but I still yearn for a required hour of daily gospel study from time to time.

Pieces. Pieces of myself. Of things I used to do and once was, but don’t do and am not now.

When I was released from my missionary calling, my stake president rattled off a thousand words of advice before I left his office. They all felt like seemingly weightless words he was lifting onto a barbell and placing on the ground in front of me. It seemed easy now, but eventually I’d have to lift those weights and carry them. One line of advice he gave me was: “Talk about your mission. God expects you to. That’s why He gave you those experiences—so you could talk about them with others.”

He expects me to have to overcome this obstacle of Missing It. I think that's why I talk about it. I can't always explain what It is, what about the mission I miss. I just miss It. 

Heavenly Father took me to Mississippi because that’s where my pieces were. They were tucked in the door frames of people who smiled when they saw my tag; they were hidden between pages of little blue books I gave to people who wanted them; each companion held a piece of myself and dropped it into my hands as they left and a new one came. My pieces came together.

But, the thing is that I’m not complete. I’ve had to remove some pieces because they don’t fit in this world. I have holes. I am whole, but I am still building who Heavenly Father wants me to be.

I have a family who watches television with me every night. I have friends who watch the sunrise with me on the beach. I have a church that invites me into their arms every Sunday.

I miss the strained screech of a screen door when I would open it to knock. I miss scuffing my knees on the sizzling sidewalk as I scribbled scriptures with chalk. I miss laughing with my companions in our car after a lesson. I miss some things.

But that doesn’t mean that now isn’t great, too.

I love having a phone. I love being near my family. I love having my car. I love being able to serve as a returned missionary in ways I wasn’t able to when I wore the name tag.

So here’s to all of you who miss something—it’s okay to miss it. It’s okay to ache and to yearn. Because this isn't just about missions, folks. It's about the things we want and desire, and those things being far away from us sometimes.

Just don’t miss it so much your neck gets stuck that direction. You’ve got a lot to look forward to as well. The future isn’t dim. It’s bright. It’s got more pieces for you to find.

“Your future,” as President Monson says, “is as bright as your faith.”

Be confident. It’s bright. It’s ready for you.

Be ready for it, too.