About two years ago to the day, I sat in the Missionary
Training Center in Provo, Utah and listened to a speech by a Church leader that
I knew I would remember for the rest of my life. Mostly because of how much it
irritated me, but also because I knew deep within that I would eventually reach
the end of my mission. I put down the pen with which I had been taking dutiful,
copious notes, my brow furrowed with annoyance and deep thought. He said that
you could always tell who had been a good missionary by how long it took that
person to adjust to the “real world” upon his arrival home. The longer a
returned missionary spends in that repulsive limbo of awkwardness and confusion
and pretending to have lost the ability to speak his native language, the
better his service. If he’s right, I must have spent the bulk of my missionary
service lobbing Molotov cocktails into orphanages. In the deep recesses of my
mind I knew no one really expected me to descend into a pit of social
obliviousness the same way you don’t expect a normal, functioning adult to
suddenly start dragging himself around on his hindquarters. “Oh Derek, we knew
you wouldn’t change!” I usually consider this a compliment, but I also have to
wonder if everyone means me well when they say it. After all, wasn’t I supposed
to?
I made the acquaintance of three people on my three flights home, all of them naturally curious to one degree or another why an otherwise normal looking 22 year old was wearing business clothes and a nametag on a series of lengthy international flights. My seatmate on the flight from Tokyo to Atlanta was a 24 year old UNC student flying from Taiwan to Baltimore to visit her ailing father. Despite the melancholy nature of her trip, she was a fun, talkative girl who spoke her mind and used a lot of hand gestures. We got along very well. I have a habit of sizing people up and got the initial impression that this girl was not necessarily a fan of organized religion. The conversation turned from her to me, and why exactly I had spent two uninterrupted years in the rural Philippines. I told her the nature of my service, and the church that I had served. When prompted by her, I shared some of my core beliefs. She seemed mildly surprised that I was Mormon, and went on to tell a story about when she lived in the western United States and knew some Mormons who lived in a giant yellow farmhouse on several dozen acres of beautiful land. They were eventually contacted by a development company and asked if they were willing to sell the land. They agreed, a sprawling subdivision of McMansions was developed, and the Mormons got rich. “Then, get this,” she said, her tone indicating the Mormons were about to do something reprehensible or at least extremely odd, “there’s this whole valley of giant, beautiful houses, right? And they pay a buttload of money to have that big yellow farmhouse ripped off the foundation and moved right in the middle of the subdivision.” She then went on to describe “generations of people” and the “constant stream of children” that were in and around the house, always in homespun overalls or some other clothing reminiscent of burlap. Her story, while doubtlessly exaggerated, spoke to me. Up until our chance encounter 35,000 feet in the air, those were the only Mormons she had met in her entire life. And I knew the type. Unquestionably decent, kind people with good hearts and even better intentions, but the social awareness of creatures that spend most of their lives burrowed in the ground. And the exact kind of people that would have raised a son who, given the same circumstances, would have robotically extracted a pamphlet from a stack in his carry-on and given a seemingly pre-recorded synopsis of his beliefs, with no consideration to the background of the listener. It was the difference between 13 hours of hellish, palpable silence, and two people sharing jokes, snacks, and stories- one of those people just happening to be a Mormon who really wasn’t that weird after all.
But now, my tenure as a "soldier in God's Army" is over. I took off my name tag and burned my filthy clothes in a pile on a basketball court in the Philippines. I'm not "Elder Dixon" anymore, no matter who you ask. I'm just Derek again. As expected, I have some pretty mixed emotions about that. Almost everyone I know has asked me what it is like to be home. I know this happens to every missionary, and I think the answer most would give is “indescribable.” In an effort to be less cheesy, I usually say something like “weird.” But the concept and feeling is the same for just about all of us, even if it is for different reasons. Everyone is excited for something different, and everyone misses something different about missionary life. Some are excited to be in the arms of that elusive statistical anomaly- the girl who waited. Some excited by the prospect of furthering their education at whatever impressive university they’ve secured admission to. Anyone with a semblance of a soul is excited to see their families. It also depends on where a missionary has served, and where exactly “home” is. For me, it's a little different. While I served my mission, I was exotic. This has happened to me only once before, and it was, you guessed it, in China. The Philippines was definitely no exception. I'd wander the same roads every day, and people would constantly shout at me "What's your name?" "You're so handsome!!!" or at least "Amerikano!!!" I got used to it after two years (and let's be honest, much, much earlier than that) and was walking around like I was someone who actually mattered. I was even weird amongst my fellow whiteys, who with very few exceptions, hailed from the Mountain West. "What's it like?" they'd sometimes say, and I would recount tales of pulled pork sandwiches and humidity and black bears and people called "Mamaw and Papaw." When prompted, I would accurately recreate any number of Southern accents from Antebellum plantation owner to motor-mouthed hill person to a rendition of the typical accent from where I actually live. In turn they would have their own stories to tell- something called "skiing", stakes made up of subdivisions instead of states, and a seemingly endless supply of extreme outdoor activities often involving daring feats of speed and skill or at least fire and jumping off of things. What they also have is a network of thousands upon thousands of people who know what a mission is and have been on one themselves. A transition into post-mission life is more seamless in everything from school to dating. In most cases, people can pretty much pick up right where they left off. They meet cool people in the mission and find out that they only live 15 minutes away. I, on the other hand, am calculating time zones and just trying to keep track, knowing that unless I can get out to that magical place that only Mormons and extreme sports enthusiasts ever care to visit, I will never see any of these people again.
I've been home about a month now, and have been shocked by the social transition. As previously mentioned, I really haven't changed, and I've noticed with that mixture of pride and shame that only Appalachians understand that the people I knew before I left haven't changed much either. So it's a huge surprise to me when I go to a good friend's engagement party and realize- "I don't know how to do this anymore..." Everyone is shockingly busy, in such sharp contrast to my stagnancy. I got wired instantly upon my return- got Facebook up and running, Twitter, Instagram, Snapchat, the whole nine yards, and then just as quickly realized I had no place there. My Facebook news feed is clogged with posts by girls who now have different last names, others put up ultrasounds, other people are taking shots at parties, some stand in front of the Capitol Building, where they just so happen to work now. What does a person who does absolutely nothing post on Instagram, when others put up their babies and significant others, or a stunning array of monuments they are visiting while in Paris? I guess I could snap an artsy pic of the frozen pizza I eat for lunch every day, or screenshots from the nonstop Breaking Bad marathon I have been on for the past 2 weeks or so. What do I Tweet about? "Listening to the same 5 Lorde songs over and over while I drive to work!!!!! #ROFL!!" So just about the only thing I do now is text the same tried and true friends pretty often. Without exception, they have better things to do. I often find I have interrupted a class, or work, or a party, or a pressing deadline. I am the pariah among them, always afraid to respond to their question of "what are you doing?" cause it's always significantly lamer than what they are doing. Their answer- "I'm making something of myself" and mine is that I'm not. I'm essentially in the exact same place that I was before I went to SVU- bored and confused with nothing on my agenda. But as a person, I couldn't be more different. I am not content with my 5 digit daily calorie consumption and mind-numbing TV marathons usually reserved for the catatonic or otherwise severely impaired. To put it bluntly, I have grown up. Regardless of where a mission is served or even how it is served, there is something to be said for the transition of a life in which everything is done with a specific purpose in mind, and whatever this is. So to answer the question of what I have done since being home, I give a sad half-smile and say- "I wrote this blog."
