CALLED TO SERVE: Chapter 2: Becoming

Well, this is my last week in the mission field. This is probably the last email you will be getting from me, because lets be honest--texting or calling is a lot easier. As I finish my mission, I have tried to avoid saying the word 'last' as much as I can. Why? Because I've sort of decided that the end of my mission is not really an end at all. Rather, it is just another transition. It may be the last week in the Taiwan Taipei Mission, it may be the last letter home I write on my mission, and it may be the last time I sit in a disgusting internet cafe while cockroaches run across the keyboard and League of Legends addicts spend hour after hour button smashing, but you could also say that "Wow! This is the last time I will ever eat lunch at 11:45 in the morning on June 17, 2017!!" You wouldn't be wrong, but I think you would be missing the point. Life isn't a bunch of beginnings and endings, but rather a string of changes--a pattern of becoming. In July 2012, Dieter F. Uchtdorf wrote a great article about being "Always In the Middle." In his words, "Beginnings are times for making resolutions, for creating plans, for bursts of energy. Endings are times for winding down and may involve feelings of completion or loss. But with the proper outlook, considering ourselves as in the middle of things can help us not only to understand life a little better but also to live it a little more meaningfully." Another chapter rolls by in the life of Elder Hawkes, but this isn't to be sad about. This is exciting! How can you read the whole book if you keep reading the same page?

I would like to write a little more about change. Over the past two years, I have become quite a different person. If you asked me how though, I might have to think for a moment or two. This bothered me for about a week--if I can't say how I've changed or identify a specific thing that has changed me, does that mean I haven't changed? As I pondered on this question, I came to a conclusion. I would suggest that the important changes that occur in the heart aren't as noticeable as something like the weather. I don't think our hearts change that fast. Conversion, as described in True to the Faith, is a "quiet miracle". I love that--a quiet miracle. The change that happens in our hearts is so quiet that often we don't see or notice the whole process. I think we are blessed when Heavenly Father gives us glimpses of who we are becoming, and how we are slowly developing into the people He wants us to become. Repentance is a daily course correction--am I just a little bit better than yesterday? So I'm not worried when I don't immediately become the person I want to, or when I don't take giant leaps every day towards being perfect. I enjoy the process. I enjoy the little steps towards Christ, and the occasional witness from Heavenly Father that I am on the right path, and that He will walk with me the whole way.

As we make these changes--as we experience conversion--we feel God's love more abundantly in our everyday lives. "And it came to pass in the thirty and sixth year, the people were all converted unto the Lord, upon all the face of the land, both Nephites and Lamanites ... and surely there could not be a happier people among all the people who had been created by the hand of God" (4 Nephi 1:2,16). Like the people in the Book of Mormon, when Christ visits us and we accept Him with a willing heart and an open mind, He will help change us into the people we need to become. We will become like Christ. Then, we will be truly happy. I am happy.