Returning Home From a Full Time Mission with Julienne Bringhurst – Episode 22

Welcome to the LDS MissionCast a podcast to educate and inspire in the great cause of Missionary Work. Returning Home From a Full Time Mission Jason (left) and Julienne (right) Bringhurst - A father and daughter pair of return missionaries and guests for this episode of LDS MissionCast Missionaries go out on missions and they come home from missions. In a previous episode of the LDS MissionCast, we interviewed Kathleen Sheffield and talked about this idea of reacculturation of missionaries after coming home. Today we have our first recently returned missionary in Julienne Bringhurst. She served a mission in Omaha, Nebraska and, at the time of our interview, she had only been home for 4 weeks. As anyone who has served can tell you, 4 weeks is still in that time frame where adjusting to non-fulltime proselyting is a challenge. Julienne shares some of her favorite mission stories, as well as some of the challenges that she has faced in that reacculturation process. We also have her father Jason Bringhurst who shares what he is doing as a parent to help ease that transition as well.  Jason is also dedicated listener to the show. He shared our interview with Dusty Smith on his blog and has some insights to share as part of how he has shared the gospel online through his blog Rocky Mountain Sunshine. I kind of sprung the interview on Jason in asking him about his experience sharing our Dusty Smith podcast on his blog, and how some of that experience has informed his own brand of missionary work online. Megan Bryant, guest on our Latter-day Lives Segment Following their interview we have a Latter-day Lives segment from Shawn Rapier where he talks with comedian, and keynote speaker, Megan Bryant.   We each have different experiences coming home from full-time missionary service. Often times the missionary is changed far more than the people “back home” have changed. In that sense, time seems to take on a whole new meaning. Life takes on a new lens through which we view the people around us. When I first mentioned to some people in the missionary department of the church that I wanted to put on this podcast and get some feedback on the idea, I was told by one individual that the greatest need that the missionary department is facing right now, is keeping missionaries active upon coming home. The adjustment process is more than just changing your schedule, and daily routines. Coming home from a mission and staying active is as important as going on a mission in the first place. We should seek to find ways to do both with honor. In future episodes we will be spending a great deal of time talking about the challenges to coming home from a mission as it is so vitally important. So, stay tuned, and thank you so much for listening to this episode of LDS MissionCast.