When coming home from my mission,
I met with my bishop a lot
and was having hard time accepting that
I had only served for a few months.
I just felt like I let down my friends,
my family,
my parents.
Kind of felt like... a failure.
I really did not want to go to church
and just sitting there in sacrament meeting,
made me feel like others were
judging me.
(Off-camera) Takoda, why are you here?
I'm here today because
I don't want people to be
greeted by people
who don't know what to say,
like I was.
"Well you're home early.
What happened?"
"Why didn't you just get a priesthood blessing?
Don't you have enough faith to be healed?"
"You came home because of that?
That's not a good excuse."
What am I supposed to say?
I think I ran and cried in my car,
because I just didn't know.
I think sometimes we don't realize that
it's not always the Lord's will
to be healed
or to go back out on their missions.
My response to them was
"It doesn't matter why I came home.
I served faithfully.
The experiences that I had on my mission
made an impact in my life,
the impact of those around me."
It was hard when people would be like,
"Oh, so are you going to go back out?"
"Why are you home?" and
"When are you going back?"
The doctors don't even know
where I'm going to be in two months
let alone a year.
We went to dinner at a food truck in our city
and my mom says,
"Oh yeah, this is our daughter, she just got 
home from her mission.
Well, she came home early."
And I'm like "Mom! She doesn't even know me!"
Someone posted a photo of me on the internet.
They put the dates and
when I saw that I was just kinda like,
"Why did that person have to put the
date up like that?"
So we had a discussion about boundaries
and about who needs to know.
I've had people ask me if 
I really came home for health issues.
We don't need to ask them.
Don't ask them why they came home.
We just need to love and support them
and help them through this trial
of their faith and this hard time in their life.
I have wonderful friends that have kept me going,
wonderful family members I've kept going.
Someone will just make a comment of
"I know you really wish it you were on the mission
but I'm so happy you're home
because I needed you to be here."
And for me that was my closure that
helped me understand that
I was needed where I was.
One person in particular came up to me and
put their arm around me
and gave me a big hug and
told me that they were glad that I was there
and they were proud of me and
it made me feel really loved.
Invite them out to lunch,
go on a temple date,
go see a movie,
just take them out and do something that is normal.
Help them feel like they're just a regular person
because they are! There's nothing different.
Early returned missionaries
don't owe anyone an
explanation
or a reason why...
because our service and what we did was for Heavenly
Father and for the Lord.
The best that we can do as children of God
is to support each other
and so
that's my simple advice.
