I wrote this letter to my family when I decided to open my mission application.
Family,
For the record, I want you to know that this decision wasn't easy. Making a 2-year decision shouldn't be.
I needed to decide if a mission is what I want. The process was surprisingly messy. Mormon culture drives the message in like a carpenter hammers in a nail: "go on a mission, or go to hell". Worse, friends and family seem to have made the decision for me. It was implicit: I'm going on a mission. I've already got the clothes.
But blind rebellion is almost as stupid as blind obedience. Either way, I'm not choosing for myself. So, I scrapped all your opinions, and burned away what little care I had for what BYU had to say.
A mission is hard. It's hard in two ways - it's hard like lifting a weight, and it's hard like solving a puzzle. It's intrinsically difficult to do - get up in the morning, follow a strict routine, meet with the poor, the needy, the drug-ridden, the violent, the twisted. And it's difficult because I'm stepping into an alien world, and I don't have a map. To non-Mormons, I don't talk about religion. Using the word "God" makes most people uncomfortable. If I choose to do this, I'm going to have to fight against 18 years of social experience and common sense. I'll be conversationally, maybe linguistically handicapped.
But not every kind of hard is bad. There is good pain and bad pain, and I'm going to place my bet that this is good. Bad pain is the kind you'd get from stepping on a nail. Good pain is the pain you'd get from going on a run.
So, I'm okay with this. But make no mistake. I will never become a salesman of religion. I will help people become better people, in their own way, in their own time. I will use the gospel as my medical gauze. But I refuse to push anything onto anyone.
I have worries about leaving. Two years is a long time spent on an orthogonal agenda to the last 18. For my whole life, I've been pushing for myself. Solve problems, build things, accumulate credentials, make connections, get smarter, work faster, hit harder. I am a killing machine in the (BYU) classroom. Two years is a long time to freeze what I've been building. And there's no guarantee it will be intact when I get back. But I've decided that it takes real confidence to throw work away. You have to be able to say to yourself, "There's more where that came from." Painters, writers, and programmers do it all the time. And so will I.
Going on a mission shouldn't be for myself. It should be for the love of people, and for the love of God. Do I really know God? No, I don't. I don't know what God would do about the Syrian refugees, the latest Javascript framework, or the gay rights movement. Do I know the people? No, I don't. And I don't feel love for them, as strongly as I should. So, I'm going to place a bet with high stakes. I'm going to take a leap of faith, trusting that once I get there, I will feel the love I need to feel for the people who I serve. I hope I'm not making a mistake.
Do I believe in the gospel? Taught and used correctly, I believe in what it can do for people. Something about the gospel is strangely, unnaturally beautiful. Maybe it's just that I don't understand it fully. A can opener probably seems miraculous to a dog. Do I believe in the scriptures? How they were brought about seems like a ridiculous load of work for a fake. Are they perfect? No, and I don't think how people interpret them is perfect either. The whole system is a mess - interpretations of filters on filters on the mouth of God. It's not the best we can do, but we have it.
Some of you might be surprised that I was even hesitant. I don't think that hesitance is in itself a good thing. But I think it can be the sign of a good thing. A throbbing headache, for example, can be a sign of recovering consciousness after being hit on the head. I'm being cautious when it comes to separating my identity from yours, and that of BYU.
Sum the observations, and you'll find a net positive. I wrote this to tell you that I carefully weighed this decision, and I believe that now, it is mine.
Thanks for all your support, and I love you all even though I might not say it often in person :-)