Farewell Talk

Good morning, brothers and sisters! 

For those of you who don’t know me, which is most of you because I’ve only been in the ward since June and I’ve been gone basically every other week, my name is Rachel Heiss. I’ve been living with my grandma, Sister Layton, while I’ve been taking summer classes at BYU and preparing to serve a mission. I’m sort of from Georgia, but I’ve moved around a bit for my whole life, and now my family is living in Qatar—if you don’t know where that is, it’s a little country that’s connected to Saudi Arabia. My parents and my five younger siblings are watching this meeting on Zoom right now because that would have been a long way to travel to see me speak in church! I just finished my freshman year at BYU, where I recently declared my major as Middle East Studies and Arabic. In June, I was called to serve in the Vietnam Hanoi mission and started on September 16th, so as of a few days ago, I am officially Chị Heiss!

I spent a significant portion of this past year trying to decide if I wanted to serve a mission or not. I know a lot of people who have known basically their whole lives that they wanted to serve, but I was never one of those people. I always knew that it was an option for me, but until this year, I had never seriously planned on it. Honestly, I was a little annoyed when I first started feeling like I wanted to serve! I had plans for school and a job at the library that I really liked, and I was finally feeling comfortable at BYU. Despite all my plans, though, in December of last year I just got this weird feeling that I should start my papers, and it wouldn’t go away for several months. I felt a little silly going to my YSA ward’s bishop and saying, “hey, so I don’t even know if I’m going to go yet, but can you open the missionary portal for me anyway?” but he was very supportive and told me that I still had plenty of time to decide. 

And I did take plenty of time to decide! I prayed a lot and did a lot of research and talked to my parents about it and discussed it with my friends and church leaders and one of my teachers, and eventually (in like, May) my dad told me that I just needed to make a decision and see if whatever I chose felt right. I chose to just jump into actually finishing my papers, and then I knew that I was making the right choice. Things have been kind of a whirlwind since then. I finished my papers, got endowed at the temple, and received my mission call all within probably a month. I maybe really annoyed my home ward’s bishopric and stake president for a while because I was bothering them about my papers basically every day, but I was just so determined to get them submitted—once I made the choice, I didn’t want to wait any longer! 

I didn’t really have expectations or hopes about where I was going to be called, mostly because I didn’t want to start thinking I was going to be called somewhere specific and then end up disappointed. Before I got my call, I kept telling myself that I had to be fine going anywhere, because that would be where God needed me to go. My mom started throwing random missions at me to test that—like, “would you be okay with going to Kansas? Germany? Montana? Italy? What about North Carolina? California? Idaho? Utah?” I honestly do think I would have been fine going anywhere, but I had two secret hopes: First, that I would go somewhere speaking a different language, because I love learning languages and I’m kind of a linguistics nerd, and second that I wouldn't need to eat seafood, because I am not a big fan of fish. 

When I was called to Vietnam, it was extremely surprising for me and my family. Vietnam, to quote Tom Hanks in the movie Forrest Gump, is “this whole other country!” It’s a tiny mission, very far away in a part of the world I have never been to, and it was not on my radar at all. Being called Vietnamese speaking was also very much not what I expected based on my experience with Arabic and Spanish—those are not remotely similar languages! I started crying immediately upon reading my call (which was really alarming for my family), not because I was disappointed but because I was so excited and overwhelmed at the same time. That combination of feelings has continued in the months since I received my call. I am mostly so excited to be serving a mission, but as a naturally very anxious person, I also have a lot of worries. 

It would take a long time to list every concern I have, but I will give you some examples of what I am worried about. Here we go: I have never learned a language like Vietnamese before, and this is actually feeling even more scary as I’ve started home MTC! I will most likely have to eat seafood at some point, even though I am currently a huge baby about it—when my friends made me try shrimp for the first time last year, I had to literally hold on to my roommate for emotional support. As my mom said, in what was maybe an attempt to comfort me while I was crying after reading my call, “it’s hot there!” and it is very humid, all of the time. I will have to talk to so many people, and I am not good at talking to people! I will have to wake up way earlier than I want to, and go to bed way earlier than I am used to. I will have to ride a bike—sometimes wearing a dress—in the kind of crazy traffic in Hanoi and Ho Chi Minh City, so I am hoping to avoid falling over or getting hit by a car or motorcycle. I am also the only sister in my district at the MTC, and will therefore have to tolerate a bunch of 18 year old guys for 9 weeks. We’ll see if I survive that or not. 

Sometimes, I get stuck thinking about all my worries and start spiraling and doubt whether or not I can actually handle everything involved in serving my mission. In those moments it gets really hard to hold onto the faith I have that this is the right decision, but I think I am getting better at that and I hope I will continue getting better at that as I serve my mission. 

One thing that has really helped me deal with feeling so overwhelmed is the song It is Well With My Soul, which is one of my favourite hymns but one that I can never sing very well because it almost always makes me tear up. Recently, the last verse especially hit me. It says: “O Lord, haste the day when my faith shall be sight, The heav’ns be rolled back like a scroll. The trump shall resound, and the Lord shall descend; Even so, it is well with my soul.” I just want my faith to be sight sometimes, too! I have faith that serving a mission is what I should be doing, but I have no way to know that right now, because I obviously can’t see the future. The heavens have not been rolled back like a scroll, and God has not come down to earth just to tell me that I am making the right choices, and while I would love for that day to hasten because it would make my life way easier, that is simply not how things work. This hymn helps me feel more like it’s okay to not know things for sure, because ultimately it is well with my soul. So are the “sorrows like sea billows” and my anxiety and all the mistakes I will inevitably make, because “Christ hath regarded my helpless estate.” He is there for me no matter what, especially when I feel anxious and scared, so it is well with my soul!

Honestly, though, beyond all the random little things that have been scaring me, my biggest worry about my mission is just my own inadequacies, which I have a lot of! I am so scared that I won’t do a good job! The biggest thing that has helped me deal with this worry is knowing that other people, and people I respect, have dealt with the same problem. I have heard this from basically everyone I’ve talked to about their missions. All of my friends who are on missions right now have also worried that they’re not doing a good job, and even prophets have worried extensively about their own weaknesses! 

In Alma 29, Alma has a lot of the same worries as me! This was a very helpful chapter for me to read, because it’s comforting to know that a prophet felt as inadequate as I do. Again, I am anticipating sometimes feeling like I am not doing a good job as a missionary, but it is good for me to remember that, as Alma says, I can only “perform the work to which I have been called.” God doesn’t expect me to speak “with a voice to shake the earth” or “cry repentance unto every people” and get everyone I come across to come to church or get baptized, He just wants me to be an instrument in His hands to “bring some soul unto repentance.” My job is not to get every soul! That is too big of a job, and—like Alma—I am only a person, not an angel. God just wants me to be out there making some kind of positive impact on people, and even if my contributions feel small, I am still being an instrument in His hands. All I can do is do my best in the calling that I have been given and trust that God has put me somewhere that He needs me to be. 

There are many other prophets, who, like Alma, felt inadequate and scared. Really, that’s like a running theme throughout all the scriptures! In Exodus 4, Moses is really concerned about his calling, and says, “I am not eloquent…but I am slow of speech, and of a slow tongue.” In Moses 6, Enoch has the exact same problem, and says, “Why is it that I have found favor in thy sight, and am but a lad, and all the people hate me; for I am slow of speech; wherefore am I thy servant?” I, like, Enoch, sometimes feel like just a lad who isn’t very good at talking to people (even though, as you can probably tell, my problem is more that I am too fast of speech), and like Moses, I don’t always feel eloquent—so a lot of the time I do end up asking myself, “wherefore AM I God’s servant??” But, like Enoch, I think that God would tell me, “Go forth and do as I have commanded thee…Open thy mouth, and it shall be filled, and I will give thee utterance…Behold my Spirit is upon you, wherefore all thy words will I justify…therefore walk with me.” Like Moses, I think that God would tell me, “Now therefore go, and I will be with thy mouth, and teach thee what thou shalt say.” God doesn’t expect me to be the most eloquent person ever, and He doesn’t expect me to be a perfect missionary. He just expects me to go and do His work despite feeling like I’m not qualified, because He will help me figure things out. I won’t always be sure what I’m supposed to say or do, but God wants me to go anyway! He will teach me, and be with me, and walk with me, so I really don’t need to worry as much as I do. 

God has never given people callings based on how perfect they are—in fact, He said that we are supposed to have weaknesses! Ether 12:27 says, “I give unto men weakness that they may be humble; and my grace is sufficient for all men that humble themselves before me; for if they humble themselves before me, and have faith in me, then will I make weak things become strong unto them.” God will help me along the way as I serve my mission, and will ultimately help my weaknesses become strengths if I continue to have faith in Him. 

Another prophet who has felt inadequate in their calling is Elder Patrick Kearon, one of my favourite apostles. This past General Conference, he gave a talk called “About His Business,” where he spoke about his experience with his first ever church calling and went on to discuss the importance of callings in general. Elder Kearon said that his bishop tried to give him callings that were “stretching…but not overwhelming,” and said that he eventually saw “purpose and power” in any calling that he held. I have felt intimidated by basically every calling I have received—when I was called as the Young Women class president and when I was called as a counselor in my YSA ward’s Relief Society presidency, I thought, “are you sure?” and was really worried that I wasn’t ready. Both of those callings, though, were stretching rather than overwhelming. My newest calling as a missionary will also, hopefully, be stretching but not overwhelming. I am excited for the stretching parts of my mission even though I know it will be hard, and I am excited to see the purpose and power that come with this calling! 

Most of you are not full time missionaries, but many of you do have other callings. Just like me, and Alma, and Moses, and Enoch, and Elder Kearon, and basically everyone, you have probably felt inadequate sometimes. Our inadequacies, though, don’t make us less qualified to serve! As Elder Kearon said, the Lord works through imperfect servants. A calling is an opportunity to serve other people, learn, and grow to become more like Christ, not something we need to be perfect at. “Our service,” says Elder Kearon, “is a choice, an offering to God, and a blessing.” I feel like a lot of the time when we’re asked what we need to do to strengthen our faith, we say the primary answers, like “oh, go to church, read the scriptures, go to the temple, pray, et cetera,” and those things are all great, but callings are also so important to growing our faith! Elder Kearon said that “Callings from the Lord are tailor-made for our growth, as we humble ourselves, look outward, and learn that, indeed, when we are in the service of our fellow beings, we are in fact in the service of our God. It really isn’t where we serve but how that matters to the Lord.” I’m serving in Vietnam and you’re all serving in Provo, Utah (or in Doha, if you’re my family), but it doesn’t matter where we are! Whether you’re a bishop, or a Relief Society president, or Young Women class president, or a primary teacher, or a ministering sister, or even if you don’t have an official calling, we are all doing the same work. 

Elder Kearon ended his talk by sharing the story of when Jesus went missing as a 12-year-old boy. His parents were worried and returned to Jerusalem to search for him, eventually locating him in the temple, teaching a group of men. When he saw how concerned they were, he told them that he had simply been about his father's business. “And we can be too,” Elder Kearon tells us. “Every calling, whatever it may be, is ‘His business’ when embraced with a humble and willing heart and a desire to lift and comfort His children and share His good news. We are not merely filling an assignment when we respond to an inspired call but joining the Saviour of the world in His infinite, redeeming work. He needs you, and He needs me. Life is better—everything is better—when we are about His business.” I am so excited to be about my Heavenly Father’s business as I serve my mission in Vietnam, and I invite you all to be part of His business wherever you are as well, because everything is better when we are about God’s business. 

I bear my testimony that I know this church is true, and that we will be able to grow our testimonies and become more like Christ as we serve in callings. I believe that serving a mission was the right decision for me, and I know that God will help me as I serve. I know that He will help you with anything in your lives, too. 

I say these things in the name of Jesus Christ, amen.