The Release

I am not in Texas.
I am home.
I am no longer a full-time missionary.
I am Elder Richard Wesley Hall
Things have changed.
This is happening

Me shortly after being released as a missionary

Growing up as a male member of the church, the thoughts of the mission are inevitable. You don't have to go, however. You can run away from the obligation, you can struggle with the stresses and skills that come with the calling, you can even fail to keep the commandments, which are much needed to serve. But when you do go on a mission, there's one thing that you can't avoid, and that's the release.

The process of registering the 2 years of fantastic lifestyle into what most people claim to be "reality" has always intrigued me. I have plenty of friends who have served missions, they're easy to observe. You can often spot a recent return missionary. They're the ones who go on walks in the evening just to talk to people on the street. They nervously wade through clothing stores constantly checking if their friend is within sight. The release and subsequent transition is one of the greatest sociological experiments known to the modern world! No one changed, but everyone changed! Everything is happening, but nothing happened! These young adults in the crux of their lives went 180 to 180 without a buzzfeed article to explain it to them.

You'd be surprised the amount of people who have two cents on the adjustment that takes place. some say it's easy. Many say it is hard. As a young observer, I didn't understand what either of those meant. Actually, as a missionary I didn't understand what they meant. It only came when I was responding to the easiness, or the hardness, of the transition.

I've been off of the mission for about two and a half weeks now. From my experience, would I say it has been easy or hard? I'll give the cop-out truth. Yes. 

I know! I can't give you that genuine, well theorized answer that we all want! The "it depends" answer often rubs me the wrong way, but when things become personal, nuance kicks in. However, those experiences that don't line up or don't give straight answers eventually lead to finding answers. And not just an answer, but the answer!

Some of you may know that my mother kept my long line of weekly reports in a blog while I was gone. When I came home, she thought I was going to write one last post; a send-off to my mission stories. A *ahem* magnum opus. It struck me, because I wanted to start a new blog and declare a mission-statement, a call-to-arms. a *a-hem!* Manifesto. This post is a kick-off to a string of stories of what happened to a recent return missionary. They are experiences you can relate to, laugh at, and overall enjoy the perspective of a naturally self-conscious 20-year old Mormon. Eventually the blog will ease into anyone else's ramblings and takes, but the first few are part of the social experiment of "the transition."

But I don't want the mission to end! and I don't dare think of having a fresh start. I don't want a magnum opus or a manifesto, but both sort-of have to happen. I want my life to have both. Before I even left on my mission, I wrote in my guide to missionary service "The mission is not the end." It isn't, and I also knew that post-mission release was not the beginning. I want my life to begin with the end in mind. Just as much as I want a grand-finale and a grand opening, I want it to be grand. It's the vision that carries our plans, and gives us an identity.

This blog is to help you track me, and help me track myself, during the life that lays ahead of me. I hope that many people read it, and more importantly, it is worth reading. Here's to the beginning of the end, the end of the beginning. and the middle of everywhere.