5 habits to help you be a HAPPY MISSIONARY

I try to tell it like it is, and I'm being totally honest about this, friends - being a missionary isn't always "smiles times"...being rejected constantly, seeing the gospel rejected constantly, being hated, having people want to argue with you, being screamed at, the heartache of people letting you down, working at full speed all day every day, seeing the situations and the poverty that people live in (even in the United States), it can be all be tough on even the strongest person. 

As a missionary, I felt really, really down sometimes. Different missionaries experience different trials, even if they are serving in the exact same mission - because you will have different companions and be in different areas. Some areas that I was in were rougher than others. It was discouraging for me, personally, because I knew that people needed the message of the restored gospel, but I often felt like there wasn't anyone who would listen. We frequently went weeks without actually teaching anyone (and when we did we rarely got past the 1st lesson), but we still worked all day long (often in the worst weather I've ever experienced). It was tough. Somewhat tough physically, but mostly emotionally. 

Knowing all of that, do I recommend serving a mission? Absolutely, I do. Only you can decide for yourself if you are willing to serve. If you are not sure if the Lord wants you to serve, then you should definitely pray about it. 

If you decide to serve, know that it will be hard work and it will be a challenge emotionally. But missionaries aren't meant to be miserable...nobody is. We are here to experience many things, but one of those things is happiness. Men are that they might have JOY! 

Discouragement is natural for missionaries, just like any other person. Prayer, hard work, obedience, and making sure that you have the Spirit with you are all key to a happy mission, of course. But there are some other things that you can do to help make life HAPPIER as a missionary and today I'm going to share some of the things that I did to help keep my spirits up during the tough times. I have recommended all of these things to my future missionary daughter! 

#1- HAPPY BOOK

Before I left for my mission, a roommate's sister (who had recently returned from serving a mission) told me about something that she did during her mission...she and her companions each had a "happy book." She showed me hers. It was a small journal. It was filled with long lists of phrases and inside jokes, listed in order by area/companion. She explained that starting with her first companion, she would write down funny things that happened and jokes that they had together (separate pages for each companionship). "You'll need one of these," she said. 

Before I left for the MTC, I converted an address book (that I didn't need) into a "happy book" by simply re-covering it. You could use any journal or small book for this, I was just using what I had available. Starting with my MTC companion, I began at the top of the first page with her name and the date that we started serving together (at the MTC). I didn't pre-mark the other pages in the book, because I knew I might need more pages for some companionships than others. When something funny would happen or we'd have an inside joke, I'd write it down. Just a phrase to help me remember later, like, "that time the roof exploded" or "the spaghetti incident". Nothing mean-spirited, of course. Whenever something funny would happen (like someone saying something crazy to us on the street or my skirt falling off while walking down the street), I would write it down. Then while I wrote, I'd also see all of the previous things I'd written down and crack up. It always cheered me up. This would really help to lighten things up at the end of a stressful day. Sometimes companions would read my previous entries and ask, "what does this one mean?" and I'd have fun telling them the story. I did this through my entire mission and I still have my happy book. Occasionally, I'll come across it and flip through. After all these years, I can't remember what every funny situation or joke was anymore, but I can still remember most of them. Every time I look at it, I still laugh so much that I cry. 

Since I've returned from my mission I've heard of other missionaries doing something similar (may be called different things, but the idea is the same). You might write about funny things that happened in letters home, but trust me, it really helps to have them all in one place that you can refer to at any time. And keeping them separated by companion helps you remember which joke you had with which companion and in which area (it will all start to blur together after a while). So get (or make) a happy book - like I was told, "You'll need one of these!" 

#2- HAPPY CALENDAR

I'm not sure where I first saw this or started doing this, but I can definitely remember using a happy calendar in an area where my companions and I were having a particularly rough time. This is different than the Happy Book discussed in #1. All of our apartments had a monthly wall calendar (like the kind banks and other businesses give away for free) that showed the whole month at a time. We decided that at the end of every day,  before we went to sleep, we would write at least one positive thing that happened that day on the calendar. It couldn't be something generic (like "we are alive" or "we had a good day"), it had to be something specific that had happened or something we had accomplished that day. If we couldn't think of anything positive that had happened (and there were days like that), we could at least write down something funny that happened. There were days and weeks when it felt like nothing was going right, but we could look at the calendar and remember that last Friday a returning member we'd invited had come to the ward activity. Or that 2 Wednesdays ago a ward member brought us some groceries. Or that on Tuesday someone accepted a Book of Mormon. So we could see that even when things seemed hard, in reality everything wasn't always gloom.

#3- PLAN FUN THINGS TO DO ON P-DAY

Planning ahead for something fun to do on p-day can really help to keep your spirits up because it gives you something positive to look forward to. If you have a baptism to look forward to, that would be ideal, but that isn't always possible. We would always look forward to district meetings and zone conferences (especially because we could see the other missionaries, since we were often in rural areas), of course. Another thing you can do is plan something fun for p-day - either with other missionaries, with members, or just you and your companion. Sometimes members will offer to take you sightseeing or on a hike, etc. Usually if we were in a rural area (i.e., not close enough to other missionaries to get together) we would plan something local, like going to a museum, visiting the state line, or taking pictures with a silly statue (they have a lot of those "Worlds Largest" statues in Minnesota). Just knowing that you have something to look forward to that is outside of your regular routine can give you a mood boost. Doing the same thing every day can start to wear on you, so doing something fun and different (even if it is low-key and cheap or free) will help keep you going. 

Me and a giant cow

#4- PLAN FUN CHALLENGES WITH YOUR COMPANION

My husband says that he and some of his mission companions would play games where one missionary would pick a word (like "hippopotamus") and then the other one would need to try to use that word in a conversation with the next person they talked to (when tracting or talking to people on the street). I probably wouldn't recommend this particular game, because I feel like it might be distracting from the Spirit when you are trying to teach someone. That's just my opinion. But there are plenty of things you can do to make things fun with your companion without distracting from your purpose. 

In my mission experience, most of our fun challenges involved food. My first companion and I lived in an apartment near a small diner called the "Victory Cafe." This was one of only a few small restaurants in the town. We decided that we would wait to eat there until after the branch had it's first (ever) baptism, because that would be a huge "victory." Every day, we'd walk by the Victory Cafe and look forward to that day. Eventually there was a convert baptism and we finally got to eat lunch at that diner. We took pictures of each other in front of the Victory Cafe that day...

Here I am, celebrating the "victory" on p-day at the Victory Cafe

Another thing I remember doing was promising ourselves a treat for getting through the day...like, if we had no appointments planned and were facing a whole day of tracting (going door to door) in freezing cold weather, we might say, "ok, after we do this, we're going to make hot cocoa when we get home tonight." Or we might say, "If we work really hard all week and keep a positive attitude, we're going to get ice cream cones on P-day." These sorts of things might seem silly, but they worked surprisingly well to keep us in a positive mindset.

It's good if you can motivate yourself to work hard, but it doesn't always have to be about missionary work. In one area I was having a particularly rough time and I don't remember what was happening at the time, but I remember that I was really down and we'd driven to a nearby town to tract. It was so cold and I was wearing my ridiculous full-length down coat and snow boots. We got out to start our tracting and I just felt so discouraged. We were parked near a mini-mart next to a large field that had several feet of snow on it. My companion dared me to run across the field and said that if I did it, she'd buy me a hostess fruit pie at the mini-mart. Apparently, she was joking, but I didn't notice, because I TOOK OFF RUNNING into the field. I didn't get far, because the top of the snow had crusted over and although I had broken through the ice when I bounded into the snow, I was soon stuck in the snow up over my knees and couldn't get out because of the ice. I remember my companion laughing and getting out her camera to take photos. She helped me out of the ice/snow situation, then we went and got fruit pies at the mini-mart...

Me stuck in the snow

It was silly and we got a good laugh. I know that trying to run across a field wasn't very dignified (even if nobody was around), but in a weird way, it saved the day.

#5- DON'T SAY NEGATIVE THINGS ABOUT YOUR COMPANION (EVEN IN LETTERS HOME)

This is a tough one. I think I was really lucky because while I did have companions who were very different than me (different styles or personalities, etc). We had our issues, but I didn't have any companions who I actually disliked (or who were disobedient to mission rules or refused to work). My husband had some issues like these with some of his companions. It's bound to happen sometimes. 

One thing that I really tried to do throughout my whole mission was not to complain about my companion in letters home, and NEVER to say anything negative about my companion to investigators & church members (this could really negatively impact their impression of the other missionary AND of me, which could affect the missionary work and the trust of the members)...and also NEVER speak negatively about my companion to other missionaries (more about this below).

Have you ever walked into a room and had the feeling that people were talking about you (and not in a good way?). Think about this...You are going to be with your companion 24/7. For at least several weeks, probably several months. You will do everything together. You will always be together. If they are saying negative things about you, you can tell, even if you don't actually hear it. The Spirit departs. If you are saying negative things about them (even in a letter home), they will be able to sense that something isn't right in the relationship. So unless it is serious enough that you need to bring it up in your "companionship inventory," just bite your tongue. So yes, I was annoyed at times and felt justified in complaining about certain things, but I really tried to keep it to myself. And I know I did my share of annoying things, too, so I know there must have been a lot of times my companions bit their tongues also.

Of course there are some exceptions, such as if your companion is in some sort of trouble or breaking mission rules and you've already tried to talk to them about it, then you would want to talk to your Mission President about your concerns. Some things are serious enough that you should talk to your Mission President anyhow, even if you have talked to your companion about the issue. The Missionary Handbook covers all of this and explains what is appropriate in these situations.

But in general, if its just stupid things that you want to complain about, like you hate the way your companion chews or that they keep saying, "like" every other word, just keep it to yourself. If you complain about your companion to other missionaries behind his/her back (say, at zone conference), your companion will probably sense it and (even worse) whatever  you said might get around the mission and eventually back to him/her later. Which would not exactly help your companionship or the work. You will feel happier if you just try to overlook faults and bad habits and try to focus on the positive. You probably don't want to hear this right now, but this sort of thing will be preparation for being married, because your spouse will have habits you don't like, either. Except that you are planning to be with your spouse forever, not just until the next transfer, so the stakes are higher! :)

Best of luck to you on your mission!