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It’s about “Doing Good”
By Heidi S. Swinton

Heidi and Jeff Swinton just returned from serving for three years in the London South Mission.

“What’s it like to be home from your mission?”  That’s the most common question posed by friends to open a conversation these days.  It’s kind of the updated version of “How are you?”

Both questions ask the same thing – how is it to be back in the hum-drum pattern of life that does not have as its constant purpose preaching the gospel of Jesus Christ. 

Well, in some ways it’s hard.  It’s hard not to see the light go on in the eyes of missionaries as they figure out why they are getting up every morning and putting on wet shoes from the rain storm last night and going out into the cold to find those prepared to receive the gospel.  It’s hard not to sit down in Church with members who are from foreign lands and whose life experiences are so different and yet whose spirits are so in tune with Lord and you can feel it.  It’s hard to worry about the light bill and getting new clients at the law office; it’s hard to feel behind on my current writing project and  to see trick-or-treaters dressed as ghosts and goblins at the door instead of missionaries in suits.  It’s hard to have the phone calls be from solicitors for who knows what useless item instead of missionaries with a great story or a cry for help.  It’s even hard to drive on what we call here -- the right side of the road. 

That said.  It’s wonderful to be home with family.  We got home in time to watch little Audrey London learn to walk and to lay sod in Jonathan and Annie’s yard.  We have Sunday dinner with two of our children, Ian and Janelle, Jon and Annie and my Mom.   We still talk long distance to Cameron and Kristen and the twins -- who are more interested in the buttons on the phone than chatting -- and to Daniel and Julia, Allison, Abigail and little Daniel Jeffrey. 

It’s so satisfying to hear from missionaries as they progress in school, shape their careers and find their sweetheart.  We have told them that they learned “finding” skills in the mission and now they need to really use them.  Some of them have started progressing – investigators.

Your language changes in the mission field; you talk about things in a new way.  You discuss “finding” and “member teaches” and “baptismal dates” like most people toss around football scores or bemoan gas prices.  You lose your first name and don’t miss it.  You wear a badge everywhere and when you get home you take it off and you miss it.  You miss the declaration of why you are here and what it says about your focus in life.

What you find at home is that you have to live in such a way that your very life is such a badge.  Put simply, you see things differently.  You don’t go back to who you were or where you were or what you were doing.  You start anew with a perspective that says “this life is the time to prepare to meet God.”  And that’s a mission from which you are never released.

It changes how you relate to people in casual conversations and how you greet friends or strangers on the street, in the grocery store, at the office, in school, or in social settings.  It changes how you spend your time; your scripture reading becomes even more intense because you need that spirit encrypted in those holy words.  It changes how you see service.  For if we believe, “ye are only in the service of your God” we act that way no matter where we are or what we are doing.  You don’t have to go on a mission to have that “mighty change of heart.”  You have to commit to the Lord’s way of doing things and make them the pattern not a singular effort here or there. 

When my husband Jeff was assigned to work at Welfare Square one afternoon this week, he blocked out his schedule.  He arrived to find – he was the only one who showed up.  Rather than ask, “where is everybody” he sorted books, mopped floors and carried bags of discarded goods from one area to another.  President Monson has so often reminded us, “do your duty.”  Well, that was his duty.

Duty is what serving the Lord is all about. It’s the essence of a mission.  No matter what the reason was that brought a missionary into the field, once he was there we worked at helping him realize his duty and do it.   After all, we came to learn to do “the will of the Father” no matter where that is.  Sometimes that will take us to exotic places like London, Exeter or Oxford.  Sometimes it takes us to Welfare Square.  Both have the same purpose and the same refining fire attached to our fulfilling the assignment. 

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Heidi Swinton just returned from serving with her husband in the England London South Mission, where he directed the work of 166 missionaries. She is an award-winning author and screenwriter. She also writes for Music and the Spoken Word. She is a former member of the Relief Society General Board and the BYU Women's Conference Committee. She is mother of four sons and daughters-in-law and four grandchildren.

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