Best 2Years?? Nope.

And now a word to my recently returned full-time missionaries: I had a great time knocking doors with the sister missionaries yesterday but I was never too glad to say "I need to go home now" than I was 30 minutes into it. My mission certainly was the "best two years of my life" but only for a few weeks after my release because since then, every year just got better and better as I endured. And if you think knowing the gospel is never better than when you were serving full-time, I can emphatically say that I've never experienced the atonement and gained more knowledge as deeply and tenderly as I have until real life happened--until real life challenges hit me, until I became a wife and especially, until I had children and now--in a another new phase in life: as an empty-nester struggling to find my place in the world. We were not meant to be full-time missionaries for the rest of our earthly life....but rather, as true disciples of Christ living in a mortal world full of challenges, disappointments, fear and uncertainly. We are meant to be witnesses for Christ in thought, in our words and deeds for the rest of our lives. Because those mortal variables are just opportunities for faith, courage, choice, hope and a fulness of joy to be experienced. Booyah, I say. And damn the heat in the desert!