Departure Testimony

Every departing missionary was able to write down their testimony for the mission news letter. This is what I wrote: 

This departure testimony is probably going to be a little unique...

My search for happiness started long before my mission. I pondered often on questions like, “how do I know if I'm really happy? How do I find true happiness? What makes me happy?” I used to blog about it all the time. I went through some hard experiences and for a while I just accepted the fact that I would never be as happy as I wanted. I remember distinctly having a conversation with a friend where I told him that happiness was one of the most important things for me. But I never felt like I fully grasped it.

I decided to serve a mission and, because of my search for happiness, when I read through my call letter this promise meant so much: “Greater blessings and more happiness than you have yet experienced await you as you humbly and prayerfully serve the Lord in this labor of love among His children.” I was ready for that. I had full faith that I would feel that happiness on my mission.

But I got here and my mission was hard. And we didn't have any investigators. And I didn't feel this happiness that I had been promised. I kept searching for it and I began to feel it, on and off, throughout my mission. It was too exhausting to stress about, so I decided to forget about it and just be the best missionary that I could be. One day I discovered this quote (it was actually in Elder Dixon's departing testimony): “Those who make happiness the chief objective of life are bound to fail, for happiness is a by-product rather than an end in itself” (Elder Joseph B. Worthlin, Let Every Man Learn His Duty, October 1980). I pondered on that a lot. Was that true? If so, what was it a by product of?

I came across this quote by President Monson: “To find real happiness, we must seek for it in a focus outside ourselves. No one has learned the meaning of living until he has surrendered his ego to the service of his fellow man. Service to others is akin to duty, the fulfillment of which brings true joy” (The Joy of Service, Ensign, October 2009). I found this quote by Elder Holland: “Best of all, we can serve others, the finest exercise for the heart ever prescribed” (Elder Holland, The Other Prodigal, Conference, April 2002). I read this in the scriptures, “He that findeth his life shall lose it: and he that loseth his life for my sake shall find it” (Matt 10:39). And I listened to trainings. The most influential trainings I've ever received were President Tew's trainings on love, service, and last lectures. Christ demonstrated pure, perfect love as he washed his disciples feet. He commanded them to love one another as evidence of their discipleship. He told them, “If ye know these things, happy are ye if ye do them” (John 13:17). And then he gave is final last lecture in the greatest act ever performed, He gave His life for us, that “through Him the world might be saved” (John 3:17).

Elders and Sisters, I KNOW this is true. As I have lived the truth that we experience happiness as we lose ourselves in the service of others I have felt the happiness promised in my call letter. I have felt true joy. I know these things and I am happy as I do them. And I can testify that anyone who lives this way will find true, everlasting happiness.