Embrace Your Position

 I wrote this as an email to all of the English-speaking missionaries I taught at the MTC from May 2022-April 2023.

A couple of years ago, I was working as a Korean teacher at the MTC when my supervisor left. I actually was one of the people who had worked in the area the longest and my Korean was really, really good. In addition, I had really strong relationships with the other teachers. My supervisor who was leaving said he recommended me to his boss as a replacement and felt pretty sure I would do well. I thought for sure I would be chosen and I think a lot of the other teachers thought so as well, but the manager who was relatively new actually didn't even hold interviews and called another teacher and offered her the job. I was a little surprised, but I figured it just wasn't my time yet and was grateful to keep teaching.

In the middle of last summer, the new supervisor also announced she was leaving. This time, they actually had a thorough interview process. At the time, I was still teaching Korean and thought for sure that this would be my time, being even more experienced. I am still pretty certain that if I had been hired, I would have been a really good supervisor, but again, the manager went with a teacher that had only been working as a teacher for a few months.

At the time, I couldn't understand why I was not chosen either time. Was I lacking something? Did the Lord think I would do a bad job? Was I not a good teacher like I thought? Being passed over so many times felt a little discouraging.

But here's the thing! Looking back now, I can see clearly what would have happened. If I had been hired either time, I would have stayed in the Korean area and never gone to the English area at all, meaning that there would have been basically a 0% chance of me meeting any of you. Knowing that, some of you might now wish that I had been promoted to supervisor, haha! But I'm so glad I wasn't because my time with all of you blessed me so much. I often think back on funny class moments or one on one meetings with all of you and just can't help but smile. You all have strengthened my testimony and faith in Heavenly Father and Jesus Christ. And part of your personality has left an impression upon me and become part of me and made me a little bit of who I am. Not only that, but I had many experiences where I saw the Lord uniquely work through me to bless some of you in ways that no one else could have. All of these opportunities would have been ruined if I had been chosen as a supervisor, even though I might have done a great job there.

So as I thought about how grateful I am for the time and relationships with each of you that God has blessed me to have, I felt prompted to send this message: Stop worrying about whether you have or are going to get a leadership position or not as a missionary. Don't waste time and morale trying to gauge how valuable of an instrument in the Lord's hands you are based on when you get what responsibilities, if you ever get them. Being assigned to a leadership role has nothing to do with being better or worse than other missionaries. The Lord will put you exactly where you need to be to bless both you and the people that need you.

It may be that the Lord needs you to touch the hearts of members and nonmembers in non-leadership areas your entire mission. Or, there may be a period of time where the Lord asks you to use some of the time you would be finding and teaching members and nonmembers to strengthen and build up other missionaries around you. Either way, the Lord will put you exactly where he needs you, and he will give you the people and experiences with them that will be most valuable to you. So trust him by embracing your current position and putting your heart and soul into it. If you do, you will be happy, see miracles, and one day look back and know why God gave you the specific assignments you needed, even if they were not the ones you thought you wanted.