Stewart Fletcher is the fifth of ten kids. He promised his younger brothers that he would serve a mission but found it more complicated than the typical missionary. So after delaying submitting his papers, Stewart finally went out, only to realize he wasn't ready. Stewart came back home, rinsed, and repeated. After going out to the mission field for the third time, he was confronted with Covid, as every missionary was, but he had experience that no other missionary had. Stewart had fought so hard to be out on the mission, and while there was a lot of confusion and fear throughout the mission, he felt excitement and optimism.
As you listen to his story and insights, you will ask yourself what unique plan God must have for you when things seem to be going wrong on the surface.
Reach out if you want to support Released at releasedthepodcast@gmail.com
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Remember, God is good and is planning on your success. And though you've been released from your mission, you haven't been released from your ministry.
Stewart Fletcher is the fifth of ten kids. He promised his younger brothers that he would serve a mission but found it more complicated than the typical missionary. So after delaying submitting his papers, Stewart finally went out, only to realize he wasn't ready. Stewart came back home, rinsed, and repeated. After going out to the mission field for the third time, he was confronted with Covid, as every missionary was, but he had experience that no other missionary had. Stewart had fought so hard to be out on the mission, and while there was a lot of confusion and fear throughout the mission, he felt excitement and optimism.
As you listen to his story and insights, you will ask yourself what unique plan God must have for you when things seem to be going wrong on the surface.
Reach out if you want to support Released at releasedthepodcast@gmail.com
Socials
Remember, God is good and is planning on your success. And though you've been released from your mission, you haven't been released from your ministry.
Welcome back to release the podcast. My name is Talmage Thayne, I am the host of the podcast. I'm excited to have you here today because we had Stewart Fletcher as the guest. He told us his experience about going on a mission three separate times. He went out, came back, went out, came back, went out, and finally finished his mission. It's honestly an incredible story, and I'm excited you guys get to listen to it. Stewart Fletcher is a 27 year old political science major at BYU Provo. He's the fifth of 10 kids and wouldn't have it any other way. Right now. He works as the communication manager for living room conversations, a nonprofit which creates conversation guidelines to facilitate civil discussions about controversial and personal issues. He also works as a freelance video editor and also runs a YouTube channel, the positive picture show where he gushes about films that he loves. Stewart loves to hike, to swim, to cycle to weightlifting to sing. But most of all, he loves to have deep conversations about things that matter most in life. Love, purpose, and connection.
Talmage:Day, Stuart, thank you so much for coming on the podcast. Let's just jump right into it. Can you tell us a little bit about your upbringing, where you're from? And what made you want to serve a mission in the first place?
Stewart:Sure. Um, my name is Stuart. I'm the fifth of 10 kids. So even in Utah, that's a lot of kids. Yeah. Yeah. My mom's from Guatemala and my dad is from New Jersey. And we've kind of just lived all over. I was born here, but I've lived on the East Coast. I've had brothers born in Maine and in Boston and all up and down the Wasatch Front. So I never really know where to say that I'm from
Talmage:Yeah, cuz you're just living everywhere. Yeah.
Stewart:Where's the best place? Oh, the best place. I don't know. I've got a soft spot for Utah. I like waking up and staring at the mountains.
Talmage:It's hard to beat the mountains because we're just like, right at the foot of them. I was thinking about that. The other day. I was like, dang, because I've traveled some places like we were in Iceland a few months ago, which was sick. But it also makes you realize how beautiful your backyard is. Because it's like, dang, Utah is honestly gorgeous. The mountains you just go up AFX Canyon, like 10 minutes away from us. And it's just like the rock formations are not.
Stewart:I love living in Utah. One of my favorite things is I live in Provo right now. And I drive down University. Avenue Parkway. I wrote which one? Yeah, one of the two. I drive down the one that goes north south. I hit probably drive down every day. And right at the end is Mount Timpanogos. Just like in all of its glory. And I get to stare at that every day. Let's say I love
Talmage:it. That is awesome. Well, your mom is actually for the audience. She was one of my very first podcasting client ever. She took a chance on me. She is great. I love Deborah. She's amazing. And so she
Stewart:is one of the most incredible people I've ever met. Yeah, I've been lucky enough to be with her every day of my life, basically. Yeah.
Talmage:That is amazing. Well, yeah. Tell us a little bit about what it was like growing up in your family. 10 kids, Deborah is your mom, and what ended up prompting you to go on a mission.
Stewart:So in my family, there's eight boys straight. The first eight are all boys and then two girls at the very end. So I grew up in a very hectic and busy household. My parents are very organized people. They're both highly intelligent, very organized. But there's only so much you can do with that many kids, right? Yeah. But they were both very active in the church. My dad's ancestry goes back to the founding members of the church and he He's deep. His whole family roots are deeply set in American history. We have people from the Mayflower. Wow, yeah, that's cool. That is sick. And my mom is exactly the opposite. She's from Guatemala, her parents are converts. And she was kind of born in the covenant. She was born to members who were baptized but they weren't sealed until she was eight or nine years old. And so I've kind of been able to have both sides of lifelong membership and kind of Fresh, newer perspective on the church, in my upbringing all the time. My parents are very serious about the church. Yeah. And they love it. And I've been blessed to grow up in a household that has two parents who know why they're in the church and you love baring their testimony and giving their knowledge of the gospel to us. But that doesn't automatically lead to like 10 Perfect little angels. Yeah. Unfortunately, when I was about 10, my oldest brother Robert, he left the church. And since then, about half of my siblings have left the church. The oldest didn't serve a mission and the next did. And then the third didn't. And then the fourth did, and on the fifth,
Talmage:and so you're like, oh, man, do I keep the pattern up? Or?
Stewart:It? Yeah, honestly, I that went through my mind. I was. I remember my senior year, we were living in Washington, DC at the time. And it got to a point, they just changed the age, I could go within a matter of months if I wanted to. And I had to kind of come to grips with, am I going to break the cycle? Or am I going to continue? Am I going to follow suit after the first and the third? And just kind of live the rest of my life? Yeah, it's not like they went off to become evil. They're Yeah, they're great, guys. They're awesome. They just didn't serve missions. And so I that was a decision I had to come to. I remember there was a fast and testimony meeting. This must have been 2014, maybe. Nice. The good times. Graduate graduation year, graduation year, yep. And I went up to bear my testimony. And I remember standing with you side of the podium in my hands, the microphone about this far from my face. And I looked down at my little brothers, I had three little brothers on the seats in front of us, and my parents always sat in the front row. So they were it's wasn't hard to find. So I gotta stare right down at him. And I was overcome by the Spirit. And it it told me to testify, and to make a promise. And so I said to my brothers, I promised that I will break this cycle, that I will serve a mission. And I expect each and every one of you to follow after me. Just because this was a pattern that was set up doesn't mean it's a pattern that needs to continue. And I remember being so overwhelmed by that feeling that it wasn't my words that I was speaking that they were stolen, they were given to me by the Spirit. And that like rock solid memory just solidified itself in my brain. Since then, it's been almost 10 years. And I can still think, exactly, I can picture that day of promising that I would break the cycle of every other brother serving, and that I would give it my all to serve a mission. Wow. Unfortunately, it's not how it went, Ed, that would have been easy. If that was all it took.
Talmage:Yeah, the thing is, is like, as soon as you have an amazing experience like that, it's almost certain you're gonna have some freaking hard times ahead. Yeah. Because you're gonna have to have something amazing like that to look back on to remind yourself. So it kind of proved to be the case.
Stewart:Yeah, literally, just a few months after that, my parents decided to move back to Utah. And I was graduating, and I was gonna go to school in Maryland. So I just stayed, which was kind of, I look back at him, like, I was 18. I was a baby. Dang, I just stayed there. I lived with one of my friends. And my family left, and I was like, I'm an adult. Now. I'm good. I'm set for life. And, obviously, my mind I was like, Well, I'm gonna go on a mission. But I thought I'd planned my whole life to go to 19. They just changed the age. And so I was like, well do a semester or two. And then I'll go, yeah, yeah, but like a lot of missionaries. And like, a lot of people in the church. That little window between graduating high school and going on mission is locked up. And it's the crucible of faith for young people. Yeah, it's brutal to get away to put it. And for a little while, I kept going to my family ward. The people I lived with weren't members. None of my friends were members. I didn't really know. I didn't have any support system. In terms of the church. I had great friends. They love me. They wanted me to do what I wanted to do. Yeah. But eventually I just kind of stopped going It's easy.
Talmage:Yeah, it's so easy to stop. Especially when you don't have mom and dad, looking down your shoulder. Like you're looking down your back at the very first time in your life, you don't have that. And so it's so easy to lose it.
Stewart:And I've tried to explain this to young members of the Church. Like the church is weird. The church is awkward. It's weird to wake up early on a Sunday, when everybody you know, is sleeping in. It's weird to dress up nice when everybody else you know, is fishing or sitting in a lake or just going out for some brunch. It's, it's weird to swim upstream for so long. And if you don't know why you're doing it, you're just gonna stop. Yeah. Yeah. And that's what happened to me. I always had a testament of the church by just too much work. It's too weird.
Talmage:Yeah. I don't want to have this awkward feeling anymore. Just gonna go with the flow and sort of swim swim upstream. I get that.
Stewart:So for a couple of years there, I lived in Maryland for about two years without my family. And I just kind of stopped going to church. Just
Talmage:two years. That's a that's a long time to be without family. Yeah, a mission. It's a mission, but not serious mission. So yeah, what? What changed? Because you you stopped going? You totally got out of the habit. But why did you end up deciding to go back to church again? Because once you stop a hard, awkward habit. And it's easier, it's so hard to start that awkward habit again. Yeah.
Stewart:I can. I can boil it down to an impression that I had. But I can't picture when it happened. It was something that just like piecemeal at a time, got bigger and bigger in my brain. Because those two years were a lot of fun. You're 1819 No, I'm with I'm living with my friends. Yeah. And one of my friends unfortunately, got into a car accident, she had to drop out of school. But she recovered super soon. And she was just there all the time. And me and her and another one my friends. And another one, like we just hung out all day. And I was like, This is great. This is awesome. My girlfriend at the time was living like an hour away. And I didn't get to see her as much. But I saw her on the weekends. And it's like, it was so fun. But that like wears off really quick. When you have no direction in your life. And you have no purpose that's driving you. I miss my family. And I missed kind of that structure that I had. But most of all, I just missed having the spirit with me every day. I didn't realize that's what it was when I was missing. And I would think about a book. Why am I so unhappy? Why am I so bored? Why? Why are things that used to light me up with excitement? Why did they just seem so bland? I definitely went through some depressive phases in those two years. I got really low and I gained 80 pounds, which is pretty fun day. Day. That's if you're trying to bulk is substantial. That's great. Yeah. But if you're not Yeah, that's not good.
Talmage:Yeah. Did that. Like, take a shot to your confidence? Crush? Yeah.
Stewart:There are lots of things that just like slowly ticked away at my self image of who I knew I was. Yeah. And I remember just thinking, sitting there I biked to the gym, super high shapes are super tired. I actually did end up going to inside the gyms I was so tired from just biking there. And I was sitting there on the grass, my bike was just like thrown next to me. And I thought is this the trajectory that I want my life to take? are the building blocks that I'm putting down right now? Is this the destiny that I want in the long run? There's a great quote. I think it's from Nietzsche, but I'm not sure. But it says at any moment, man must decide for better or worse. What will be the monument of his existence? Day I think about that every day because it's something that when you're at a crossroads and you can go and every day there Crossroads every
Talmage:day. I love how he says any moment at any moment and you could choose that any moment. Yeah, the day. It's crazy.
Stewart:We always think that there needs to be like some big thing but every decision you make, when if you're gonna go out to eat fast food or if you're gonna go make food at home if you're gonna drink water if you're going to drink a Red Bull if you're just going to go To put on sneakers and go sit in your room, or if you're gonna go put on some dancing shoes and go out to the town like there are there are decisions that we make every day that determine the monument of our existence day. And I was consistently making decisions that were not leading to who I knew I was.
Talmage:And the funny thing about those, sorry, before you go on with your story, is you don't recognize those until there's one point in your life where you can see all of the decisions that led you to that moment, and where you are, you are 100% responsible for that moment, because your decisions are what got you there. And I similar to the way you think about that niche a quote every day, I think about a Winston Churchill quote every day that's very similar. He says, There's a point in every man's life when he is figuratively tapped on the shoulder, and offered to do something special to him, and fitted to his talents. What a shame it would it would be, if this moment found him unprepared, or unqualified for that, which would have been his finest hour.
Stewart:Actually had that quote written out and on my wall as a missionary.
Talmage:No way. Dude, I love that quote. Actually, I
Stewart:have. I have a couple moleskin little teeny. What does that three by five little moleskin? Yeah, just full of quotes that I've collected. I like collecting wisdom because it makes me understand the world around. I'm
Talmage:a quote junkie myself. I will write it down in my journal. I'll memorize it. I love quotes.
Stewart:Yeah, they're very powerful. Yeah. I just I remember sitting there and thinking, I have to make a change. And the Spirit said, you have to go home. You want the phrases I've always liked spirit chastises me a lot. Spirits said it's time to get your house in order. Yes. I thought about that. And I thought about it. I thought about it. I thought about it. And it became, you know, like in the movie Inception when you plant an idea deep enough, it'll take over your whole life. Yes. And they planted that so deep in my mind that I need to get my house in order that I eventually I had to move I moved back home. I stopped going on a trajectory as best I could. I ended up breaking up with my girlfriend, which was really hard. That's tough. I came home to Utah to my family. I was I wasn't very happy. You know, it's not like yeah, you don't just magically change be nice, like an AMA the younger thing. Yeah. I've always wanted that. I
Talmage:wanted that. So bad. Never happened. But oh,
Stewart:where's that angel? What are we doing? Yeah.
Talmage:How can he quit cold turkey from these bad habits? I feel it.
Stewart:We also read the abridged version. It's probably longer his
Talmage:progress probably wasn't as linear as we think it is. Yeah. But yeah, so you kind of get back home. And that's tough going back home after two years of independence. Was there a lot of structure kind of forced upon you when you got back home? Not really. Okay. Well, that's good. It wasn't my overbearing.
Stewart:My parents are incredible people. And they have a lot of trust in me. Which is really good. When you're doing good. Yeah, it's really hard when you're doing poorly. Yeah. Because they don't want check up on you as much because they trust you. Yeah, they won't ask you. They won't. You know, like, my little sister gets asked every day, if she's doing her homework. I would never get asked like, Are you reading the scriptures? Are you studying? Are you preparing? Like, the little things that if I could go back and magically change something? I would ask people to check in on me more. Yeah. Because I know I wouldn't have liked it at the time. Yeah, like, I would have liked it now.
Talmage:Yeah, totally. And sometimes it takes a little more effort than just like you doing good. Yeah. It's sometimes it takes a little bit more effort than that. Yeah. And, and your parents been as busy as they are. And having 10 kids on top of that. And then having two girls at the bottom. And so the princesses Get, get the attention. It's everything.
Stewart:Yeah, that on the record, like, yeah, princesses get the attention. But,
Talmage:man, yeah, I could see that being pretty tough. And so what so you got home kind of tell us the story of how you started changing the direction of your life to build a monument that you'd be proud of?
Stewart:One of the biggest things I can point to, and I don't think he even realizes this but My brother Reed came home from his mission the same day that I moved back in with my parents. Oh, nice. He came home. I moved in. And the next day my brother Bradley got married. So it was a big weekend for the Fletcher family. September 2015, I think. But we were crazy busy. And I was kind of resigned to soc. I was not very happy. I had no I, even when you make the right decisions, they don't magically make you happy. Yeah. So I came home. I was still not in the shape. I wanted to be I had no girlfriend now I had none of my friends that I get to see them because they're all on the East Coast. I didn't know anybody here. Yeah. And my brother Reed one morning called me at like eight in the morning, and said, Hey, my work needs somebody in the warehouse with me. You want to come and I was like, Frick, no. Not working in a warehouse. I don't want to wake up early or go to the warehouse, or just, I didn't mean we hadn't seen each other in years. He's just served a mission. That's like, I don't want to deal with like being awkward around my brother and unhappy. Yeah, yeah. But my brother Reid is a very tenacious person. And he was like, No, that's ridiculous. Come and I was like, No, I don't want to he's like, No, come. We need you. I was like, Oh, I'm tired. Like, that doesn't make any sense. Just yeah, this is a job. You're Are you looking for a job come. And so he forced me out. And I mean, read lots of really good conversations, but we were together for about a year and a half. And here's example of just being like a new person from post his mission. Way more patient way more generous. He was always very funny. But sometimes his funniness was like a little bit mean spirited, but now he just like had this like this happy, optimistic energy. And it was so cool to be around him and see the change that the mission had done to him. And that really helped me want that for myself. Yeah. And see a tangible example and be like, Okay, I can do that. So I ended up going back, not back, I guess, going to the mission. That would have been March of 2017, march 2017. I worked with my bishop and my state presidents and everybody else to get to the field.
Talmage:Where were you called?
Stewart:I was called to the Washington Kennewick commission. Oh, nice, tiny little mission in the southeast corner of Washington.
Talmage:Man, I knew some missionaries that serve there. But how long were you there?
Stewart:Yeah, that's that's the other side of the story. So March 2017. I go into the MTC and June 2017. I come home. Yeah. Because I was in the field. And there was a very specific moment. My trainer went home my first transfer and I got a new trainer to my area. Did he
Talmage:go home on time? That was just the end of his mission. Oh, so they only had him?
Stewart:Yeah, we were only going to be together. For one. They must have trusted me. I was already an older missionary. Yeah, that's I was already 21. So
Talmage:they're like, oh, man, this guy's like Skechers. Got it. Yeah,
Stewart:he'll run the area. And then my new trainer came in. And like, the area was dead. I didn't know what I was doing. And I was praying and praying and praying. And there was one day, we were just kind of mindlessly walking around. And it was hot. We're just knocking on doors talking to random people. And I was praying in my head, like, how can I increase my priesthood power in order to lead this area in the way that I think I should do? How can I have the the level of inspiration and power to turn this area around to find the people I need to baptize and to live to my maximum capacity as a missionary? Yeah. And the answer I got in the heart and like, deep deep down was like, You need to come home. You weren't really ready. When you said you were Dang. And I was like, ignoring that. What
Talmage:else can I yeah, you're like, obviously that's not that's not it.
Stewart:I literally remember fasting on Sunday. And I was like fasting to find a way and part of my prayer to start my fast was like Heavenly Father, please help me find a way to increase my spiritual capacity without having to go home. Yeah, and the spirit was like, that's not how it works. You can't put like that is so qualifications on the Lord can you can't you don't get to set the conditions for your own blessings.
Talmage:Did you ever question if it was the spirit that was telling you that? Or did you just kind of know,
Stewart:I've always had a very intimate relationship with the Spirit. I've I don't know if it's a gift of the Spirit. Maybe it's my own delusion. But I've always been able to tell the difference between my own thoughts and the spirit. Usually because the Spirit tells me what I don't want to hear. Yeah, yeah, but need Yeah, yeah. And that was very hard. And I fought it for probably two weeks straight, every day praying, like, is there anything else I can do? Is there any other way I don't want to go through this. And there was one day, my trainer, my second trainer at the time, elder Edwards. He looked at me after our planning session. The morning was elder, there's something wrong. Tell me what's wrong. And we didn't really get along. And I was like, oh, that's nothing, nothing. Yeah. And he was like, elder, I can feel it. I know something's wrong. I told him, I just need to talk to mission president. And that day, we call them up and we talked, I went to the mission home. And day and a half later, I was home day back in Utah.
Talmage:Did anybody question that prompting you had
Stewart:no. Meaning the mission president were very much in line with what needed what needed to happen. I, I had become so impatient wanting to get back on that path, you know, became so impatient, trying to build the monument that I wanted to build, that I hadn't actually done all the steps to prepare. I just wasn't a worthy missionary. And that's what it boils down to. Yeah. So I came home. Yeah, it was weird.
Talmage:Yeah, man, what was it like coming home? Did anybody at home question you?
Stewart:I would talk to my mom in the field was on the phone call telling her I was coming home. And she told me the story of my dad getting called by the state president. And like breaking down and crying that I was coming home. Not because he was like, disappointed in me not because he like had some crazy expectations. He just never thought that he'd have a missionary come home early. That's not something a parent plans for. Yeah, my dad was an incredible missionary. He's one of those missionaries. That doesn't tell you a lot about his mission. And that's how you know, he they were a good missionary, some pretty cool stuff. Because yeah, he holds it close to his chest. And you think, man, they're stories upon stories of your experience that you don't can't tell? Because they're so powerful. Where did he serve? He served in gets out the NAM go Guatemala. Okay. Is
Talmage:that how he met your mom?
Stewart:I think so. I think he met my mom's family when Okay,
Talmage:that's awesome. That's sick.
Stewart:We are lots I've explained this to lots of other missionaries who come home early. I've talked we we have a club. That's good. And lots of like the shame you feel coming home early. Lots of the discomfort and the judging that you receive is in your head.
Talmage:Dude, yes. I actually couldn't agree more. We manufacture a lot of the judgment, we feel.
Stewart:I think Satan puts it there. Yeah. On purpose. Yeah. Is if you come home from a mission for worthiness, or for health reasons, or whatever. And what the Satan wants you to do the most, he wants you to isolate yourself, and cut off any support from the church. And when I came home, I remember sitting in the pews and my family Ward, my elders quorum president, he was sitting like two rows ahead, he looked he like did a double take. And then afterwards, he's like, Oh, Hi, Stuart, how you doing? And in the back of my head, I was like, Oh, he thinks that I'm like, the worst missionary in the world. Yeah. But he never did anything to make me think that you only ever reached out to me. He only ever wanted me to be part of the quorum. You only ever was kind. And yeah, for some reason, I created that narrative in my head that the whole Ward hated me.
Talmage:Yeah, because if, if God or if Satan can isolate you, strength really isn't numbers. And so if he can separate you from the rest of the herd, then you have nobody to help you out. And those hard times, you're so much more easily persuaded. I remember when I was convinced people were judging me, even though they weren't. It's not even that I was convinced of it. It's that I really wanted them to. It was funny to like, Finally, understand that that about myself is, I would say something a little edgy, or do something that would try to prompt someone to look at me funny. And if I really thought about it, I was like, dang, why am I wanting them? To judge me? But I realized it would justify my bitterness. Yeah, and my anger and my disappointment in myself and validate that, and it'd be like, Yeah, well, they see it too. It's not just me. I'm not crazy. I am a disappointment.
Stewart:In a weird way, make it easier to come home. If everyone the church hated you. Yeah. Because then you just be like, Fine, I'm done with This whole church thing anyway. But I'd never really happened. Yeah, you wait for like you like you said, you almost want it a little bit. Yeah, I just hate me and throw me out so that I can just go be free. But it never happened.
Talmage:Did you just know it never happened and you just had that kind of self awareness? The whole time? Or?
Stewart:I mean, if it did happen if people were judging me, I never really had any interactions of that. Yeah.
Talmage:And well, that is very self aware of you to understand you like you know what? It's Satan that's putting this in my head. It's not my elders quorum president, he hasn't done anything to really make me feel that way. So,
Stewart:and well, lots of the self awareness comes in retrospect, because at the time, all I wanted to do, like, bury myself deep into the earth, and be left alone. Yeah, I want to hibernate. I wanted to become a little black bear. Yeah. Eat my body weight, and fish and berries and just disappear. And it would have been so nice, in a weird way to be free of it. But that didn't happen. Yeah.
Talmage:What what did happen? Because this is this is a crazy story.
Stewart:So I came home, summer of 2017. And just kind of slotted right back in to where I was before. Things happen to lots of missionaries. Yeah, everyone I've ever talked to, with the exception of a few just like beautiful discipline souls. Almost everyone I've ever talked to, they come home their mission. And for me, I know, like I was on the flight home, making plans in my head of like, I'm gonna wake up at 630. I'm gonna go running every day, I'm going to go study my scriptures for an hour. I'll study with my dad for an hour for comp study, I'll go and I'll do service projects on volunteer at the MTC and a volunteer here, just serve and I'll join the wire, say, and I'll become a teacher and I will be back in six months, and I will be the best missionary in the world. Yeah. And literally, like the first couple of days, I thought about doing that. And then just went back to write who I was like,
Talmage:I'll do that later break would be nice. Yeah, yeah.
Stewart:I was like, I don't I'm exhausted from this whole or emotional ordeal coming home. Let me just go back and be lazy. I started worrying in the movie theater. And so I started having really long nights. And so I stopped waking up early. And then I stopped kind of reading my scriptures because I could watch movies again. Yeah, it's easier. I could watch TV shows again, I can listen to audiobooks again. So I just I just went right back to who I was before. And it was so disheartening and so frustrating.
Talmage:Yeah. What changed? Because you you were wanting to get back out on the mission. Yeah, but you fell back into your bad habits and, and lost a lot of the good habits and your plan totally went to crap. It didn't get fulfilled. So what kept you from, I guess you kind of probably did return to some shame and be like, I thought I was over this. What made you get out of that again?
Stewart:The weird thing was that I didn't. I was home for almost a year and a half. Now went back to the field, January of 2019. After coming home, summer 2017. Yeah, I went back to the field just because I was like, people expect this of me now. It's been long and it's been too long. I have to go back. But I'd never really got out of that funk. That feeling of not being worthy. That feeling of frustration, that feeling of shame. I never really found my way out of it. Yeah. But I knew I had to go back to the mission. And people were expecting me to do it. So I just met with my bishop and I did all the things he told me to do. And never nothing internally ever changed. It was all external. Yeah. I would go to church and I would be at church and I do the things. And then yeah, January, I went back. And the second my flight landed, literally, I don't know if you've ever been in the Tri Cities have a tiny terrible little airport. It's like as big as a Smith marketplace day. A little thing. I land. I get off with the other missionaries. I see my mission president president white. And the second I make the same one. Same guy. Yeah. Luckily, yeah. Once I make eye contact with him, I was like, oof.
Talmage:He sees right through me. He knows
Stewart:and I know Yeah. I'm not supposed to be here. And I talked to him not that night. But the next morning I asked him at night. Hey, can I talk to you like well? Yeah, but we don't have time right now. Yeah. And we talked the next morning before we did any of the orientation stuff. And we both discussed that. Like it wasn't. He wasn't like disappointed in me in a way that mission presidents can. He was like, proud of my failure in a weird way of like, this is what God wants you to do. He wants you to fail so you can learn the right lesson. Yeah, he wasn't like your disappointment. Why'd you come? You wasted our time? He made the church pay for a plane ticket. Like, yeah, yeah, he was very happy to see me and very happy to know that I knew that I had to go back home. Yeah. So I was there for six days. For some reason, just because of the way the traveling were. Yeah, it's hard to get back. I can get right back home. I met my new trainer, Mike. I met my new trainer, other Hawkins. We went to the area. He didn't know anything. He didn't know that. I was like a dead man walking. Yeah. He kept asking me though, he was like, Do you want to unpack your bag? And he's like, Hey, do you want to unpack? Like, he did a very nice one of the kindest men I've ever met. But he was like, you, you want to you want to unpack your bag? Maybe we wouldn't buy groceries at first Pete and I bought like, bare bones. And he's like, you might want to buy more, you know, like, but we'll be here in a week. It'll be fine. Like, yeah,
Talmage:you're like, I'm gonna light either. That's okay.
Stewart:I know, the whole time. I was like, I'm not gonna be. I felt really bad.
Talmage:Keeping him in the dark,
Stewart:I suppose to say, Yeah, that's true. That's true. And but it was an incredible six weeks, we literally we had put a woman on date and almost had permission to baptize her early because she was very old and very frail. Yeah. And so they're like, well, she might die. And so let's baptize her. Yeah. But it was like incredibly spiritually fulfilling me and him just clicked like, we were so alike. Yeah. But I knew like there was a countdown. Yeah. And I ended up going home again after six days. And it was weird. I was like, thinking the exact same things I thought the first time like, I'm gonna go home. I'm gonna be the best missionary at home wake up. For some reason, like we humans don't learn from our mistakes law. So
Talmage:funny. So weird. creatures of habit. That's annoying.
Stewart:I remember sitting down my stake president first day came home. And he's like, so they gave you permission to come back a third time? Which is very rare.
Talmage:Yeah. That like never happens. How did you get that permission? I don't know. Yeah,
Stewart:they saw something in me. I guess. They just like, This guy needs to go. They obviously knew something that I didn't know at the time, because,
Talmage:but you made it clear that you wanted to go back out. Yeah. And so like, Okay,
Stewart:I said, I wanted to go back out. Part of me was thinking it's not going to work. Yeah. Because it didn't work the last time. My state president was like, what's going to be different about this time? And why did you do this? Again, he asked me in, in a great very patient way. My say President was like, What's wrong with you?
Talmage:Yeah, sometimes those questions are so good. We need to be asked that sometimes.
Stewart:Seriously. Yeah, it really he asked me is like, so you kind of just like lied to my face that you were ready. But you could tell tell your mission president? What am I doing wrong? Why can she tell me? And like, what? How can I help you get out of your own head? I thought about it for a long time, because I didn't have an answer for him. I was like living in this weird state of like dissonance, or what I was doing and what I was thinking didn't align and what I wanted. And the actions I took towards it didn't make any sense, either. Yeah. I still think about that, like brain fog. A lot. Is even these days has been now years since then. Like what was I thinking? Why did I go for six days? Just to come back? Just to kind of run the rat race again.
Talmage:Yeah. Yeah. What was the difference at that point? Because I guess Yeah. What? Answer your answer your stake presidents question. What did you want to do different? Was it still unclear at that point?
Stewart:I knew that I had to serve a mission. Yeah. Because of that testimony. I had when in 2014. I knew I had to break the cycle. Yeah. So there was a sense of duty there. I knew I wanted to serve because I loved being in the mission field. He loved it. It was so fulfilling, even just for the six days and four months. was so exciting to me. Yeah, we actively engaged in just helping people every As this is awesome. So I, I knew I needed to serve I knew I wanted to serve. But one of the things I was missing was a genuine relationship with Heavenly Father. I had a relationship with the church and relationship with my parents testimonies. I love the Book of Mormon founders. So interesting. I love helping people. The idea of charity of full love is fills me up with purpose. Yeah, but I was missing the key most important relationship in my life, which was between me and Heavenly Father. And that became my biggest focus that after that second time going home, like who is Heavenly Father? Yeah. Why do you do all this? I remember driving around Yellowstone, with my family. And we were going up a ridge, and I was overlooking this beautiful valley. I was like, Why did God make this? Yeah. How does this play into his plan? We could choose Good and Evil by ourselves without beautiful Yellowstone. Yeah, he could have made the whole earth a big cement block, if you wanted to. I thought about it because he likes this. Because if he was here, he would be happy being here. Because he loves mountains. He loves rivers. Why did he make babies so cute? Because he loves babies? Why do you see do all the things he does because he loves it? Because it fills him with purpose. And the more I thought about Helling father, and the more I studied about him, and the more I prayed to have a relationship with Him, the more and more I was like, Man, I want to serve a mission. Because I want to help that guy.
Talmage:Yeah. Yeah, he deserves it.
Stewart:He deserves it. Yeah, he's put so much in. Yeah, he has. I think about the the Garden of Gethsemane when Jesus is suffering, all the pains of the entire world. And heavenly Father knows. In a second, he could stop it. But he can't help the Father as a sit there. On the other side of the veil, watching his most prized, most obedient son just suffer. And I was like, man, a man who is capable of withstanding that amount of pain deserves my respect. And if I can give even a fraction of what he deserves back to him, I want to try. And that relationship is definitely what got me back to the field. That third time. Yeah.
Talmage:What was the timeline between the second time you came home, and when you were able to go back out again.
Stewart:So they gave me again, six months, but it ended up being closer to 10. And part of that wasn't even on me. I, I felt a great duty to be there for my family. My family is going through a lot of different stuff at the time. And I wanted to be home. My mom was traveling a lot.
Talmage:And is this 2020 This is 2019 2019. Okay, I came home
Stewart:January 2019. And I came back to the field. November of 2019.
Talmage:Okay, yeah. So those into COVID Flip.
Stewart:That's a whole different story. Yeah, actually.
Talmage:But yeah, tell me about the third time experiencing going into the mission field. It sounds like I guess just to recap, the difference between this time and the other two times you went out is you prioritized your relationship with God. Yeah. And you finally understood, at least to some degree, how incredible he is. And if you could do anything to pay him back, then it's worth it. And so you prioritize that you worked freaking hard. You got back out on the mission. 10 months from the time you got back home the second time. And what happened then.
Stewart:There was a weird feeling. flying back in that airport. Now I have a new mission president, whole new guy, I've never met him. The whole mission landscape has kind of changed since I've left because of the new mission president. I fly in. And in general, I'm more of like a reserved kind of guy like to stick to my own. But I felt like so free. I felt like so excited. Oh, man that first day in the mission home. I was like talking to other missionaries. And they all thought it was so funny. They had no idea who I was. Yeah, they'd all spent six weeks or three weeks together the MTC and they come to the airport and they see me sitting at the gate and they're like, Who the heck are you? Yeah, oh, I'm going to Kennewick mission like that. That's where we're going. Who are you like?
Talmage:Yeah, you weren't in the MTC with us. Yeah,
Stewart:exactly. But for some reason, like I felt so loved by them, and so like, grabbed immediately by their group, and we've had a great time. And but the moment I was, I knew that I was ready that I had served, or at least prepared to serve in the right way. Was that night my mission president, President Rasmussen, he took me aside. He said, other Fletcher, I have a surprise for you. I am not supposed to tell you till tomorrow who your companions are. But your new Riri trainer is other Hawkins who you had 10 days on like, the spirit confirmed to me like you are in the right place. You're here in the right way. Yeah, you are ready. And seeing other HAWKINS I was like, holy cow, like 10 months of a mission. That's almost half his entire mission. Yeah, have a mission is you're a different person by the time Yeah, seriously. And to see him again, and he had told me that he was counting down the days like him, he had so much faith in me that I was going to come back. And in a weird way, me coming back eventually helped him serve more faithfully, because he had a lot of really hard companions right after me. He said, but other Fletcher's gonna come back, and we're gonna be together, and we're gonna be able to serve. And that was what one of those moments of the Lord was like, this is like a little bit of a rest for you. You've worked hard to get here. Yeah. Oh, I felt so good. It's incredible.
Talmage:That is amazing. It's a little, like love not from God saying, hey, you've done so well. You've taken this trial like a champ. You're taking it on the chin? I'm gonna throw you a bone. And have you have your favorite trainer. Like this awesome guy. This time did he still say he's like, Hey, are you going to unpack? Or did you? Did you just unpack right away?
Stewart:Yeah, luckily, I put him at ease. Yeah.
Talmage:I'm buying food. I bought a whole like
Stewart:five pound bag of rice. I'm like, I'm here for good. Yeah, that's great. I I'm sure in the back of his mind, he was like, Oh my gosh, he's gonna do it again. To do it. That's so funny. But then on I was in the mission. I never went back home, it became actually almost a running joke. Because the missionaries, eventually they would meet me and they would know. Why are you 24? Yeah, yeah. Why are you 25? And I'm like, Oh, well, I served here. So eventually, it became this whole big story. They, and instead of being like a badge of shame, it became a huge badge of honor. Yeah. Missionaries really respected me.
Talmage:The coming back is insane. Yeah.
Stewart:Coming back three times is almost statistically unheard of.
Talmage:Yeah, apparently absolutely unheard of. You're the only one I've heard.
Stewart:My stake president said I was the first missionary he ever met who had gone back after being home for 18 months. Yeah. I said about three months is the window if you don't go back within those first three months. You don't really ever go back. Yeah. I almost did that twice.
Talmage:Yeah, seriously. That's not. Yeah, I interviewed a guy that came back because of PT past transgressions. And he came back and worked through repentance for an entire year, and went back on the mission and killed it did an amazing job. And he was fantastic. But that alone, though, one year is insane. We're doing 18 months, and then another 10 months. Ridiculous. And so the fact that you got back out is a miracle, really. And it's amazing that you had such a confirmation the third time being there. So the contrast couldn't be more different. I'm guessing like the feelings of like, I shouldn't be here. I shouldn't be here. I absolutely should be here now. That's amazing.
Stewart:Have you ever experienced when you're doing really hard, but something you love? And so you're happy about it? Yeah. I feel like when I hike you're like in the middle of like a really rough hyper like this is awesome. I love this. There's a every day we would bike we went to biking area we bike up our area was like one long strip, like six miles by a mile and a half. Wow. Yeah, one long shift. It was all uphill all the way and then back downhill to get home. So we're just bite uphill every day. Am I poor trainer you get really tired and frustrated because he had been driving for a while my mission is mostly a driving mission. But I was like so happy I was like man, I am putting in my elbow grease. I am learning my way back in the field every day. I was thrilled to be biking out in the snow. And that's how the whole course of my mission went from then on. It was hard. Yeah, mission is hard. I got really sick. I ended up losing almost 50 pounds on my mission. Dang, I got terrible insomnia. Like, by the end of my mission. I was sleeping like 334 hours a night, too. But it was so fun because it was so purpose driven. And I've worked so hard to get here.
Talmage:Yeah. Yeah, nothing's gonna get you down. No, not the sickness, the insomnia, the bike riding. That's amazing. I totally know that feeling, though. When you're like, I should be miserable right now. But I'm not. I'm not I'm really enjoying this. And my life is good. I remember one time my brother was emailed me, because he served in South Africa. And so getting people to talk about Jesus was easy for him. In Scotland, it wasn't that way. And so and we were having a kind of a tough time. And he emails me he's like, Hey, it's okay to admit, if you're having a really hard time, and I'm like, I, I know. But I'm not. Like I'm not having a hard time. I things are really tough. But I'm loving it. I can't explain why I'm feeling this way. But I just am. And so it's one of the coolest feelings and it's such a testament to the work and to the purpose of, of the work that it just sustains you through the hardest things.
Stewart:There was a point near the end of my mission where I was so dog tired with the insomnia, and I got really sick and all sorts of other ways. And I just remember thinking like, it's so funny. That this is so fun for me. Yeah, it didn't make any sense. I was so excited. My mission is not the prettiest missions, like a weird desert town. Yeah, lots of people are nice. Lots of them are really mean there was like mega churches there that would teach anti missionary training classes. Daily. At one point we got like anti it's so hard, like my companion like, was overcome with like anger and sadness, because this man was so mean to us. I just like had this weird, like sustaining fire the whole time of like, man. Isn't this great? Yeah. This is an awesome that these people hate us. Isn't it hilarious? That my chain broken and cut my calf open? Or yeah, all sorts of stuff. Like we had a really hard winter. Well, at one point, the minivan got stuck. We drove a minivan. Pretty cool. Yeah, I got stuck gonna just be my companion. So he had to drive and I had to try to push it out. And my hands were like, completely puffy and cold and freezing. And I was like, This is funny. Yeah. What are the odds, and I'm here.
Talmage:So I count Angel earns its wings. This is how a missionary earns his tag. He's like, he's going through it. And it's what it's what the disciples went through. It's what Prophets went through. And what a badge of honor Yeah, to like, wear that and be like, dang, I'm doing all this. All this crap is flying at me. Because I believe in Christ, and I'm doing his work. Like, honestly, there isn't a better badge of honor than that.
Stewart:And one of the most powerful feelings to me of was, you're doing it because you're worthy to do it. And you're ready. You're here for a reason. I remember the day that kind of COVID Shut down the world. Just literally a week after that my trainer other Hawkins went home at the end of his mission. I got a brand new trainee, and I was like ready to hit the world go crazy. Yeah, church shuts down, everything shuts down. We ended up having a mission wide zoom call the zones got together in church buildings. And our mission president announced all missionaries at 21 months will go home immediately. And anyone who will hit 21 months in the next transfer will go home next transfer. And then he went on for a whole list of anybody with respiratory issues, anybody with immune disorders, anybody? All these things, and we ended up losing 70 Plus missionaries, including all of our 18 zone leaders, we lost 13 zone leaders holy and one of our APs. And our mission leadership was just gutted. A lot of the missionaries who are still here but we're about to go home next transfer we're just like completely demoralized. Yeah. And there was rockiness trunky or through the roof. It was crazy. Yeah, I had a roommate who was going home. He stopped wearing anything but his garments. He'd walk around in his garage all day in his apartment. And but I remember sitting there during that Zoom call, and I can feel like this trickling fear throughout the whole zone have people like, what's going to happen? Not only mission wide, but like, is the world actually shutting down are on my family back home? Are they okay? But I had the exact opposite feeling. It was like this weird like, uplifting feeling of like, oh, this is why it took me so long to get back. Because the Lord wanted me here. Now, he wanted an elder who was prepared for three plus years to get to the field, to serve with all of his mind to know why he's here, and to be an anchor to the people around him. And the spirit was like, this is your time to be that anchor to people. And it was such a powerful feeling of like, that's why this was such a hard journey. That's why I didn't serve at 18. So I didn't stay at 21 or 22. That's why it took me so long to get the mission field because the Lord needed one of many missionaries. But he needed me to be where I was to stand as strong as I could stand. So the other missionaries could lean on me
Talmage:in you had experienced disappointment that none of them had, you would experienced setbacks that none of them had. And therefore, causing you to dig deep find strength, and build upon that. And so when the disappointment of staying indoors came, when the setback of all the mission leadership being dissolved, came, you were able to be the anchor that is that is so cool. That gave me chills when you're telling me that because it really does come to a point, a monument, like a monumental moment where you're like, This is why Yeah, that is amazing. That is so cool. It was such
Stewart:a reassuring feeling to me of if I hadn't squandered my opportunities. Yeah, I hadn't wasted my shot. But in fact, I had been prepared to do what I was doing. Right then that the Lord could have had a great missionary in January 2019. He could have had a great missionary in March 2017. He could have had a mission great missionary in me when I was 18. In April of 2014. Yeah. But he needed me there then in 2020, and serve all the way to the end of my mission to give him my arm because that's what he had planned for in a weird way. Yeah. So he prepared me for
Talmage:man. That's amazing. That is amazing. And so what did you do to help the other missionaries? With their? Yeah, with their with their spirits? Oh,
Stewart:one of the things that I tried to do the most of my entire time in the mission was make sure that I was giving more than my fair share to every calling and area and meeting everything. Make sure that I was giving everything that I could me in a an elder we got together. I don't know October of 2020. I can't remember. But we got together. And we were both older. And we were in charge of this zone. And we sat down that first night were like, what if we just gave it all like every day? What if we just went as hard as we could. And we both got each other riled up pretty good. And we got like the other leadership there wrapped up and it's so fun to get like a whole zone like what if we every transfer, I said this once? I like every transfer, there is a zone that leads the mission. Hmm, why isn't it our zone every transfer? Yeah, why not? Why not? It could be anybody. Why not us? And so that kind of idea of let's just do excellent work because we can. Let's just give it all because we're here. Yeah, let's just serve with everything that we have, because we love God. And that was a very powerful Corinthians For me to live by. And from what I can tell it's helped a lot of other missionaries, especially lots of the young reassigned elders, who were 18 and they were expecting to go to the Philippines and to Brazil and Costa Rica. And here they are stateside in a COVID world completely wide eyed and frazzled. Yeah. I like to think that I was able to help them know why they're here. And if they don't know every day, at least trust that I knew. Yeah, every day he
Talmage:kind of became the data of your mission. On the age maturity, as well as just leadership, guiding them in things they might not know. But you're like, hey, trust me, there's a purpose.
Stewart:I said to my mission president's wife once, Alexis Rasmussen and I feel like the dad of the mission. Yeah. As you said, you can be the dad as long as president Rasmussen's the grandpa was like, I don't worry about a word for me. Perfect. That is perfect. Oh, that is so fun,
Talmage:man. Yeah. And when did the mission come to an end?
Stewart:So I came home June of 2021. I served 23 and a half months. Overall, eventually, yeah. It only took me four years to do it. Day. That's when I got off the plane. My sister in law had a little sign that said, best four years of your life. And
Talmage:now then, and what was it like coming back home? And was there a difference between your expectations and reality? who've always always Yeah,
Stewart:I had the luxury of coming home three times. Yeah, I was a bit more prepared. Yeah, one of the nice things about serving multiple times at least multiple iterations, is I always knew like, what pants to bring the field, how to bring, like, that's nice. And so I felt like I was a little bit more prepared to come home, I didn't create all those plans in my head of like, I'm going to be the very best I'm gonna stick to the schedule. Part of me wanted to, but I was like, I know that's not realistic, because I've literally experienced it twice, twice. Yeah, I get this point. I'm an expert. I've come home more than most people ever will. Yeah, seriously. And it's still it's not easy. So is
Talmage:what you did, just like, I'm gonna get my footing first, and then make the goals. And the
Stewart:one of the things that I ensured, I said, my number one goal coming home has to be to maintain my relationship with Heavenly Father, because that's what got me through it all to begin with. So if I let that slip in any way, we've got a problem. Yeah. If I don't say my steps every day, if I don't wake up at 630, go to bed at 1030 Like a missionary, then those little minutia of things, they can rise and fall, no progress is linear. We're always going to have this up and down, up and down. And I can survive any of that as long as I maintain my relationship with Heavenly Father. As long as I know who he is. I know why he does things. And I know my connection to him, that he's my father, that I'm his son, that we aren't separate creatures. I'm the same kind of creature that God is. And as long as I can keep that in my sights, everything will be alright. Yeah, it still was hard. I think you've even mentioned this before. In another episode, I was watching about how the lack of purpose destroys a lot of missionaries when they come home. Mm hmm. And that was hard for me. Because not only did I have those two years of purpose, I had four years of purpose. Yeah, yeah, that's true. Even when I was home for those 18 months, or 10 months in between, I still have this drive of like, I need to get back out there. I need to get that. And that was the driving force behind all the acceleration of my life was serving a mission serving a mission. And when I got home, I was like, I did it. And there was a great sense of accomplishment. And like an A washing sense of like, Ha, I have actually finished what I said I was gonna finish.
Talmage:I did the promise. Like that. I said, when I was 1817. I don't know. Yeah, that's crazy. Like, I
Stewart:fulfilled this. I'm a man of my word. My integrity is on the page. People know who I am. And that was a great powerful feeling. But then the other feeling comes of like, what now? Yeah, what do I do now? What is that? Monument now that I am building? I've been trying to build this monument of a great missionary for four years. And if you track it all the way back to 18. Even when I was little kid, you're always preparing for mission. Yeah, yeah. If you grew up in the church, they raise you at eight years old to serve a mission and even younger Yeah, so that has been the goal in my mind for so long. That it was very disheartening to have it be gone. Yeah. And those first four, six months home really hard for me because of that. I watched this video once. He was a soldier who had served in Afghanistan. He had done like three or four tours. And people would always kind of judge him for going back to Afghanistan. And he said people think I think I go back, because I love violence. I think I love killing. And it's like, it's really wrong. That's not what I like. Yeah. When I'm in the heat of battle, when I'm out there with my men with my guys, it's just me in them. All we have to worry about is surviving. I'm surviving, they're surviving, and we are making it till tomorrow. Yeah, you come home. And he was saying, then I have to talk to my wife. And we have to decide what color to paint the bathroom. What kind of towels to bring to the beach? Well, how long do you want your hair to be? What shirt goes well with these pants, and he said, he would get so overwhelmed by all of the nonsense of modern life that he just wanted to go back to the simplicity of survival, I'm going to survive, my men are gonna survive. I'm going to make it till tomorrow. Yeah. And I thought about that a lot when I came home, because that's the same feeling I had. It's like, Man in the mission field, I could just wake up every morning and say, I'm gonna go help somebody today. Yeah, I'm gonna go be the happiest person, I can be on the street to strangers. Yeah, I'm gonna go rake a yard or weed some leaves, or I'm gonna go do a training or lead a discussion. Or I'm going to sit down with a widow and tell her that she can be with her husband again. And it was so meaningful. Everything I did was so meaningful to be back home. And to go on first dates,
Talmage:the minutiae of ordinary life, serving a mission, fill out
Stewart:medical paperwork, yeah, oh, my gosh, to go like sit in your class and pay attention to a lecture that have nothing to do with you. Yeah, it was very hard for me to come back to the thick of thin things back home.
Talmage:Totally. There was a study done on military personnel who came home, and they studied the, what do they call it? Just the interpersonal relationships that they have. And the military people that came home and had friends inside the military, that had family that were supportive, and had a good relationship with them. And friends. They were just, they were healthy, or, and they were able to eventually find some purpose at home. But the crazy thing was, is a lot of these military men that came home, and they didn't have friends inside of the military, they had experienced a lot of I think it was depression. And if they didn't have support, in terms of family and friends, that experience a lot of anxiety and PTSD. And it's so interesting, because it's so similar to a mission, when you come back home, and you don't have the support networks. like talking to mission friends, your mission president, or just other people that have served missions and know what you went through, you will experience some sort of, you'll feel isolated from the rest of the society and the people around you. Or if you don't have that support network inside of your family and friends, you're going to experience some kind of symptoms very similar to those same to the military personnel. And as I looked at that, and then looked at other symptoms that military personnel had when they came back home, like the loss of purpose, or just the simplicity of survival, it just paralleled so well, with missionary work, that I was just like, dang. Like, it is it is a it is a war when you get home in ways that is like it's harder than being out on the mission. Yeah. And so you're more
Stewart:alone, you're more cut off. less structured, less accountability. Yeah, it's very hard. I have a lot of sympathy for especially for the young missionaries. I had the luxury of coming home at 25. I've known who I am for most of my life. I've never struggled with that. But there are elders who come home at 20 sisters who come home with 21 and this is their first breath of adulthood. Yeah, lots of them had just gone straight to a mission and I always thought that a mission was like being more adult but once I got that oh actually you baby like the whole time Yeah, you don't pay for your car you don't pay for your gas you don't exactly barely budget given to you. Yeah, like they fill up your credit card. Yeah, go buy your own groceries but rated taken care of. Yeah, it's like you're basically living like a baby life. Yeah. And they get thrust into this world of you have to make decisions you have to be on your Oh, no matter what you're going to be on your own for some degree of it. I know lots of missionaries who will room with their former mission companions and who will stay in their home stakes or who will call their mission presidents every week or every other week. Just because they feel so abandoned. there's suddenly a feeling that I struggled with. I remember praying around the three month four month mark of being home. We like Heavenly Father, why are you not helping me as much as you promised to? You said you will not leave me comfortless that you'll come to me. Where is that comfort? That was a very frustrating feeling for me. I remember last summer having like a ranting prayer to God. Those are the best ones in my Yeah. And I was like, Yeah, in fact, he's probably laughing a little bit like, you think that's pretty intense. Yeah, he's
Talmage:like, You think that's hard?
Stewart:I was outside doing yard work. And I was very sick. And I the insomnia didn't stop. I actually got worse when I go home. And I was just like, at the end of my rope, and I was like, Why? Why is it still going on? I have like a skin disorder that makes every inch of my skin itch sometimes, and just feels like you're on fire. Feels like you're being burned from the inside. Oh, it's so frustrating. And you can feel it like in every crevice and
Talmage:flare up because of something or it's all like immune
Stewart:connected, like okay, it can be allergic thing or whatever. There's lots of things that trigger it. But I remember what I was working in the yard and I was so sweaty, and I was like on fire. I could get feel every inch of my skin like burning underneath it. I was so frustrated. And I was like God, haven't I learned my lesson? Didn't I put in all these years? Didn't I serve a mission to my best capacity didn't die preparing this wait and like, do it all heaven. I prayed him I studied heaven. I gun everything. You've asked me. Why is this still part of my life? And the spirit was so funny. Like I said, he always chastises me. This feels like Well, clearly you haven't learned your lesson. If this is your response, yeah, yeah. Take it back. You got me again? Yeah, you're tricky.
Talmage:Dude, yeah, I totally feel that. What is something that you would do? What is something from your experience that you've learned that you would tell return missionaries now to help them transition in a way that helps them really succeed in life by having like, with faith and God's plan for them?
Stewart:I would say two things. One, and I'm sure this has been said on your podcast before, find a new purpose. Because if you're purpose driven on your mission, they literally beat it into you in a way. Yeah, I'm like, we're going to go and fight people to come on to Christ. And this is how we're going to do it every day. If you can find a new purpose immediately, then you will be able to just jump right in the ground running, keep, keep going. Even if that purpose is I need to get an A in this class. As long as it's something, it can just keep finding new purposes when that one runs out. I think that's very important. And I think the second thing would be maintain your relationship with silence. There's a lot of silence on a mission. And there's not a lot of silence at home. And if you can maintain your relationship with silence, where you walk on a mission for hours, just you and your companion, you talk to each other, but it's not like there's music going on all the time. You sit and you study in silence. I know. Sometimes we'd work out in silence in the morning because we're also tired. We didn't want to talk to each other. Yeah. And you'd pray at night in silence. And there will be whole stretches of the mission life where you could actually hear the sweet little whispers of the Spirit. And when you get home, you lose your relationship with silence you find videos and tiktoks and podcasts unfortunately and that's true. Audiobooks and music. I don't remember the last time I got my car, it didn't automatically turn on music or video or something.
Talmage:Yeah, Ed Sheeran to a team turns on every time I'm in the car.
Stewart:But if we can find a way to maintain a relationship with silence, that's where heavenly father lives. He lives in the gaps between noise
Talmage:Yeah, dude, I love that. Well, before we end, I know you're a quote junkie and So I want to hear one of the most impactful quotes you've had besides the one you already shared. Yeah, I just want to hear some of the quotes, you know.
Stewart:Oh, there's so many good ones. Yeah, where to start? Yeah. One that I really like, is very simple. It's, it's a stoic Bonterra. Okay, Lan. It's a more fati. Okay. Just love of fate. And it's, it's like the the Josephy Wirthlin. adage. Like, come what may and love it. Yeah. The idea of whatever is in store for you. You can face it head on happily. Or you can let it hit you. That's up to you. Yeah, but once you rather face it happily. Yeah. I love that one. That's good. There's one from Theodore Roosevelt that says a man's usefulness is directly related to his living up to his ideals. Which I really liked
Talmage:did. Dang. Yeah, that's true. A man's youthfulness usefulness is directly related to living up to his ideals.
Stewart:Yeah. I like that. Theodore Roosevelt's my favorite, I'd say a million from Theodore Roosevelt.
Talmage:Do you know Man in the Arena,
Stewart:I wish I had it memorized. It's such a good one. So I have it on my phone. Look at every now and again. But one of my favorites is fearlessness is created through the sheer dint of practicing fearlessness. Yeah, yeah. Dude, yes. Theater. Are you son of a gun.
Unknown:He's so is so good. That that is a virtue you
Talmage:can never fake. Because whenever you fake it, you're ending up doing it is being a fear of us being courageous, being brave. And so he can't get it without doing it. Yeah, yeah. That's so interesting. And as soon as you as soon as you do it, even if you fake it till you make it, you did it. You didn't fake it. And it's so funny. I love that. I love that principle. Winston Churchill, to bring it back to him. And one of his quotes he says, courage is rightly esteemed the first of human qualities, because from it spawns every other. I love that. You need courage to practice faith, you need courage to love. You need courage to tap patients, to be humble, to take risks, to be diligent and consistent. Yeah, it's so cool. I love Winston Winston Churchill is my Teddy Roosevelt.
Stewart:Not a bad choice is Theodore Roosevelt and Winston Churchill. Those are two good men, they look up to Amen to that. One that rings in my brain all the time, which I'm sure you've heard is very famous. It's from Viktor Frankl. He says he who has a why can endure anyhow. I think about that all the time. Like, why am I doing this? I don't know why I should stop doing it. Or I should find a why. So I can continue to do it in the right way. Yeah.
Talmage:Yeah, it's so true. And it's funny because even if you're doing something good, and you don't have a why it will still serve whoever you're doing the good thing for, but it's not gonna serve you. I think I've really been thinking about this lately, because I don't know, it's just come up in this podcast several times. Now. If you give it the gift, grudgingly, it'll be counted on to you as if you've retained the gift. They're going to still receive the gift and good for them. But it's not going to bless you in the way that it could have. Yeah. And so if you have the right reason for why you're doing things, if you have a purpose, and is virtuous, even if even if you have some vanity or pride to what you're doing, if the majority if the main reason of why you're doing something is good and virtuous, it is, in the end, kind of bless you so much, and eventually overwhelm the pride and vanity. At least that's how I see it. Just just flood your your vices with your virtues kind of thing. But yeah, I love what you said. And that totally goes with what your story is all about. If you don't know why you're doing something, either stop it or find the purpose fast. Yeah, find out why. And you ended up finding that your third time. Third time's the charm, baby because the charm has Curie. That's right. Everybody said that to you.
Stewart:I don't think they'd let me do a four. Okay, like we spent $1,000 on plane tickets. My dad used to always say this is a family adage. We actually almost make fun of him for it because it's so wise, but it's he said it in a funny way. He said there's always a way to cheat. And as a kid, we would think oh, there is good to know. Thank you. Thanks, dad. Like oh, that's how you get honest Uh, but he would he clarifies that there's always a way to cheat. So always choose not to. And I thought about that a lot when I served my mission. I was like, I could just stay. Yeah. Have it done. I don't have it done years ago. Yeah. And nobody would even know. And nobody probably would have even cared. Yeah, they would have applauded, you actually would have like, Great job story did. You came home and you did it. And I get stopped on my back, give a homecoming talk. And I get married at BYU. Yeah. But I was like, just because there is a way to cheat doesn't mean you should. And because there's always a way to bend the rules. Just choose to be a more moral person and choose to never do that.
Talmage:Well, I really appreciate you coming on taking the time out of your day to drive up to Draper and and share your experience because it is a very unique experience that has a lot of morals that people can take out of it. And so I appreciate you coming on. And yeah, this is gonna be going out pretty soon. And so
Stewart:well, thank you for having me on. I appreciate it. Totally.
Unknown:Hey, guys, thank you so much for listening to this episode of released the podcast. It was so fun having Stuart on he has such an interesting and inspiring story. I just want to say thank you again, if you guys have any feedback for me in this podcast, what we can do better, what you would like to hear more of guests that you would like me to have on, please reach out to me on Instagram at Talmage Thayne or at released the podcast. Again, if you guys have found this show enjoyable or helpful in any way, please think about leaving a review, subscribing, sharing it with a friend. It really helps out. I have some really fun interviews coming down the pipeline. I'm really excited for you guys to get to hear them. But until then, remember God is good and is planning on your success. And though you've been released from your mission, you've not been released from your ministry.