Elder Mitchell Head: Elder Head in the Philippines - The circle of life.....as a missionary :)

IT'S THE CIIIRCLE OF LIIIIIIIIIIIIIFE. AND IT MOVES US AAAAAAAAAAAAALL.

Please excuse the corny introduction. That's exactly what I saw this week though. On Monday, there was a final dinner for the departing batch of missionaries, then Tuesday they all had a temple session together as their batch and the foreign missionaries went straight to their flights afterwards. After that we returned to the office and loaded up the truck with all the luggage of the local missionaries for their flights the next day. Then the next day, I witnessed the circle of life.

Elder Saluta and I woke up at 3 am to take the missionary with the earliest flight home, stopped in real quick at McDo for breakfast, and then went back to the airport to take the rest of the departing missionaries their luggage. As I was talking to the missionaries, they all just seemed tired, and not just because they woke up at 4:30 to get to the airport by 7:30, but they just gave all they had for the past 18-24 months. They seemed so seasoned, and wise. About wiser than any other 20-25 year old can look. They'd seen so much, felt so much, loved so much, and lived so much in the past little bit that they just seemed ancient to me.

Then, after leaving them to go to their final resting place, we went to the other side of the terminal to pick up the new missionaries. It was WEIRD. It brought me back a year to when I first got here, excited, nervous, still adjusting to the slurping in of soupy oxygen, full of energy and life, and a truck load of other emotions. Speaking of truck loading, after we loaded up all their luggage into the truck Elder Saluta and I were charged with the task of going to S&R and buying a truck load of food for lunch. Background of S&R, it's basically Costco. Which is GREAT. I was blown away with all of the similarities. They even have a Costco-esque pizza. So good.

Anyways, we took every thing to the mission office and then went to the mission home. When we got there, I was reminded of the nervous excitement that came with seeing a bunch of seasoned, super-cool trainers. I had a quick reunion with my batch, Elder Borrego, who is training and for the first time in his whole mission is being assigned on Cebu island. Afterwards, I gave some announcements about finances (Don't waste your money, This money came from the sacrifice of many people who care and love you, Yes there is room in you budget to get haircuts, etc.) and then just mingled with the trainees.

There was one trainee who was kind of a loner I noticed, so I talked with him for a while, then that while turned into basically the entire day. It turns out that he has only been a member of the church for 1 year and is the only member in his family. He's kind of shy, but told himself from the time he was baptized that he wanted to serve a mission. He was nervous and had a lot of questions about the mission, all of which I tried to answer to the best of my ability. Then, the coolest part is that later that night when they found out their trainers, it turns out that his trainer was also just a member for a year before his mission too and had a testimony before, but now has a burning testimony of the gospel. I hope that he adjusts well.

Then, just as tradition states, all the trainers and trainees had ice cream with their trainers before we took them all home to start their missions. So in one week I was able to see the missions of some excellent missionaries and disciples of Christ come to an end and see a group of eager, young missionaries start in this cycle of Christ-like service, the truest and most fulfilling work anyone could ever do. I'm grateful that I've been blessed with the opportunity to take part in this work.

It was so cool.

Elder Mitchell J. Head

Mitch sent these pictures this week with his own captions!