End

Even after I stepped off the plane, I was still, technically, a missionary. Two years ago, my stake president laid his hands on me and used his priesthood power to officially make me a missionary. With that distinction, I was bound by missionary rules and entitled to specialized missionary blessings. With the laying on of hands by a person who carried the authority of God, I was set apart in the sense that I now occupied a distinctive class of human beings —no better or worse than my fellows, but different. I was, for lack of a better word, apart.

As my parents drove me to the stake president's office, I was quiet. I had awakened from the long dream of my mission, but I was still groggy. This place, my home, looked just like it had when I had left it. I wasn't sure if I should cry or start celebrating. It was just too surreal to accept just yet.

President Miller looked the same as he had before my mission, a tall, balding man with a firm handshake. In his office, he steepled his fingers and asked, "Do you think the Lord is pleased with your mission, Elder Kunz?"

I could feel my parents' gaze on my back. I knew the answer was probably a yes, but I had to think on this one. My perfectionist nature refused to allow me to forget a few incidents, including the one involving the camel, that marred my obedience record.

But it occurred to me then that President Miller wasn't just talking about following the rules. A missionary can follow all the rules to the letter and come home unfulfilled. Did I make the most of my time? Did I make New Mexico a better place?

"I think so," I said.

"Really?" President Miller asked.

I thought over all the people I had taught, over the few I had baptized, and over the companions I'd spent time with. All at once, I felt peace. It wasn't the same kind of peace I had felt at the end of my mission, which was a tenuous, hard-won peace like an armistice between opposing armies. This was a final peace, like the kind you're supposed to feel just before you slip into the great beyond.

In a way, I was definitely slipping into that great beyond.

"Yeah," I said.

President Miller laid his hands on me and declared that my full-time missionary service was over. I rose and looked up at my parents.

"I really want to watch Transformers now," I said.

President Miller and my parents laughed. As we left the room, we passed the stake president's next appointment — a kid two years younger than me, squirming between his own parents and wincing at his freshly cut missionary haircut.

I gave him a thumbs up.