10!!!! But not Top Ten.

I was planning to share top 10 restaurants or music bands or some other fun, but trivial post today.


But....today is my 1o year anniversary!!!!

Not my wedding anniversary, that is 4 months from today. Ten years ago today I boarded a plane from New York to LA and morphed from Sister King back into just Julie.


That day was tough! I was excited to see my family but I didn't want to be there. I don't think I did a very good job hiding it either. I felt like I was watching the people I had always known and loved, but not really there. I had no idea who Julie was supposed to be anymore. I wanted to be Sister King again.

You may have heard me say this before (because I have said it often) but just for the record...going on a mission was the BEST decision I ever made. Serving a mission helped me make the right decisions when the even bigger, more important decisions came along.


I can't believe it has been 10 years. I still say "on my mission...." way too often for someone who has been home 10 years. It all feels worlds away and then at some moments close enough to touch again. Occasionally a house that I knocked on, a person I spoke to for only 2 minutes, or a memory of a particular tour I gave will pop into my head. It was all so important to me. Every minute!

It still makes me laugh that I ended up on a mission. As children we would sing I Hope They Call Me on a Mission and I would go home and tell my mom, "I hope they don't". I never wanted to be a missionary.


Living in a foreign place, calling people on the phone, knocking on doors and wearing a dress 24/7. None of it sounded like my thing, but it was the right thing for me. When I knew that, I knew I had to go. Of course, how that happened is another story...a long one...and maybe I will share it sometime.

There are so many things about my mission that I will hold onto for dear life as long as my memory allows, and if senility ever takes my mission from me, those memories will be some of the first I reclaim after this life.

Here are a few highlights.


I saw a living prophet, President Gordon B. Hinckley.

I lived in the "cradle of the Restoration". I lived next door to the Joseph Smith home and my backyard was the Sacred Grove. I also lived on the Peter Whitmer farm where the church was organized.


I gave tours at the Joseph Smith farm, Hill Cumorah, Peter Whitmer farm, and Book of Mormon publication site (or the Grandin Building as I will always call it). I even gave a tour to Joseph Smith's great grandson, Joseph Smith.

I tracted until my feet were numb and bleeding. Would I do that if I didn't know?


I was never afraid to share the gospel. Heavenly Father would not have asked me to do something if He didn't know I could do it. For me to overcome fear and anxiety for 18 months was HUGE and I know I didn't do it on my own.

I served with the most amazing missionaries and mission president. Lots of them could end up on that Mary Poppins list.


I shared my mission with Seth. He was 6 hours away in NYC and even though we didn't see each other we were together the whole time. We grew so close spiritually. I don't know very many couples who have had an opportunity to focus only on the spiritual side of their relationship. Heavenly Father wanted me to be with Seth. That I know for sure!

THE PEOPLE!!! I met and taught AMAZING people. Some said yes and some said no but they were all amazing. I could feel how much God loved every one of them. I wish I could still see that in others as plainly as I did then.


I learned who I was. I learned the gospel. I learned that even in a quiet room isolated from everyone I had ever known, I was not alone. I had so many moments where I was certain of that. I became friends with my Heavenly Father and Savior, Jesus Christ. They were not just names in the scriptures, they were real. I studied the scriptures in a way that I have never had time to study them before or since.

I walked away so SURE that the gospel of Jesus Christ is true and that his church has been restored to the earth and that the Book of Mormon IS the word of God, no doubt!


I needed that. I am a skeptic and even after those "for sure" moments I have questioned everything I believe down to the core several times. I am so good at explaining it all away and convincing myself that none of it is real. You may think that I am a faith filled person and I am, but not by nature. By nature I am a total doubting Thomas.

If I hadn't gone on a mission I am afraid that my doubts may have stolen my testimony by now. But I have moments from the mission that I can't deny or explain away and no matter how many times I doubt I can recall those moments and rebuild. I am so grateful that Heavenly Father loved me enough to send me on a mission and give me those moments.


I remember about a month before I came home from my mission we were driving home from our area. We had our church music pumped up. Funny how you can get used to listening to nothing but Mo-Mo music. The song Keeper of the Flame came on (listen here). I cried so hard I thought we might wreck the car. My companion asked what was wrong. I told her that I was so afraid of losing what I could feel in that moment. I fought for my testimony and I was so afraid of losing it. Could I stand against the storm and not let the fire burn out. I have always been very aware that a testimony is fragile and very vulnerable. We are never safe, we are always fighting to hold on. Would I remain vigilant? Would I stay in the fight?

It wasn't easy. Everyone thinks it is easier for an RM somehow. In some ways I think it may be harder. When the miracles that you are accustomed to seeing everyday are suddenly not quite as obvious and you are thrust back into the world, it feels very bleak and discouraging. Coming home from a mission is SO HARD! It is funny that it is easier to adopt the foreign life of a missionary than to adjust back to the life you knew for 22 years before you went. It doesn't make sense, but that is the way it is.


I struggled for 5 years to try to understand and find my place in the gospel, post mission. I thought about letting it go sometimes. I just couldn't make it as real as it was then. But those moments that I had been blessed with on my mission helped me to fight and rebuild when necessary. Then, when I finally listened, I heard Heavenly Father telling me that He still loved me as much as He did then. He still had work for me to do both at church and at home and that what I am doing now is my main mission. That was just training.

So today, I listened to Keeper of the Flame and bawled once again because I have stood against the pounding rain and 10 years later I remain a keeper of the flame.