Doing my Best Imperfectly

Marci Hatfield
Jun 23, 2024
3 min read

Almost 3 months on our mission. So I’m just going to be raw and real here. I really felt impressed to go on a mission when we were invited to by the Mission President we are serving under.

We felt like this would be a good opportunity so soon after retirement. Now that part was a great idea, however for the past 39 years I have not seen my husband during the weekdays for about 8-15 hours give or take. We cherished our weekends when we got those. Now this guy is with me 24/7 and while I love him dearly he is in my empty space of not ever having anyone to talk to during the day, or me just doing my own thing ha ha ! So that’s been a whole other change. We work hard though to keep super busy, (because neither of us can stand to be bored) and on task with our assignments which makes our time together work good.

I’ve never served a mission, but Brett has. When we first got out here Brett put himself back in missionary mode. Of course he would look at me like “and Marci will bear her testimony”. 😳First of all, I will share but only when I feel so impressed to do so. I don’t like just randomly share something especially on demand. In Brett’s defense he just remembers that’s how you do it. So we worked out those bugs or rather I just flat out don’t say anything if I don’t feel like it. Ha ha

I love working with the young missionaries. They are my relief to the unknown. I relate to them, I feel comfortable with them. i feel like I’m looking out for them for their moms. We do go with the missionaries and visit friends (investigators) of course I’m never sure what situation I’m going to be put in.

Everybody has dogs and cats lots of them and sometimes I get slobbered on way too much. Or the cats are constantly using your legs as a scratching pole. Wearing dresses is a horrible idea when visiting these people.

Wearing dresses was fun every Sunday for a few hours, but I love my jeans, t-shirt and flip flops. Oh how I miss my flip flops. The ladies can wear nice pants but flip flops are totally out of the missionary standards. So the dressing up thing is way different for me too.

Some of the places and circumstances people live in make me sad, sometimes queasy, and makes me grateful for all that we have been given. The main reason we chose to go on a mission was because the Lord has blessed us so immensely that we wanted to give back to him.

In addition to our daily missionary assignments we are helping put together a humanitarian project mission wide which is literally helping the homeless and needy people. Apparently the Lord is really getting me out of my comfort zone to be reminded that God loves all his children.

These young missionaries are amazing! Being out here lets me see first-hand what our sons, daughter in law and my husband went thru when they served their missions. They get yelled at some spit on, dogs have peed on them or bit them. Some have had guns pointed at them. They push forward without fear! They are on the Lord’s errand they literally feel invincible. I’m a Mom, and a Grammy therefore I worry because “I am a Woman!”

Of course there is the leaving our children and grand littles. I worry our grand littles will forget us when we get back. Our children have taken upon themselves a huge responsibility of taking care of our place of ten acres while we are away. They are sacrificing so much on our behalf just so we can serve. That’s huge and a blessing I can’t make up for but pray always that they will all be blessed with the things they are in need of in their lives and to help them know God loves them and recognizes their good works.

Because of our children being so willing to provide us with this opportunity to serve the Lord, I intend to do the best that I can to not let them down! To be an example to our grand littles that we can do hard things.

To do what it is that the Lord needs us to do to help build the Kingdom of God. To be a light to bless the lives of others.

I am not perfect, but I am a daughter of God who is just trying to be the best I can in my most imperfect way.