As missionaries reach the end of their scheduled mission service, they’re invited to share a “departing testimony”. It’s an opportunity for them to stand in front of all 230 other San Diego missionaries and share their thoughts and feelings about their service and their faith. Transfers happen every sixth Wednesday, and these testimonies are given the prior day as a “goodbye” just before the missionary travels back home. Often they’re quite emotional.
Senior missionaries are slightly different: we don’t have regular transfers. We come and go according to a different schedule. But we’re still invited to give our departing testimonies alongside the young missionaries, at the last meeting before we leave. For us, it happened to fall today even though we’ll still be missionaries for another five weeks. Just a quirk of the calendar.
So we drove into San Diego for the big day, enjoyed seeing so many of our young friends, and shared our testimonies. Of course we took pictures with as many of them as we could.
We’re wearing handmade leis that one of the missionaries prepares for all those who are leaving. It’s a nice gesture and a long-standing tradition.
Many of our friends told us how sad they felt to see us leave, even though we’ll be around for another month and will probably see many of them again in different settings. But it’s true that for some, it’ll be the last time we’re together. It’s always hard to say goodbye.