Final Goodbyes

Elder Van Dyke exaggerates. It's three weeks.

Last Train

President Hinkley spoke to us missionaries while I was in the MTC. He said that we'd shed more tears leaving the mission field than we did saying good-bye at the beginning of our missions. Wouldn't you know it? He was right.

Trunky Missionaries

Trunky

As a missionary, I had the pleasure(?) of killing off two companions--that's missionary lingo* for seeing your companion return home at the conclusion of his or her service--and believe me, missionaries who are on their way home will often engage in some weird activities. Elder Long, here, would probably rate a 6 on the trunkie-meter.

*Or at least it was missionary lingo 25 years ago.

How Far Away is that Plane?

Like Elder Van Dyke, my trainer used to do this to me all the time. Unlike Elder Van Dyke, my trainer had four inches and 50 pounds on me, so I just took it. Drawing this strip was strangely therapeutic.

Trunky Companion

On my mission, I served with two missionaries at the end of their missions. It wasn't easy watching their focus turn more and more to home. Fortunately, neither got to the level of this missionary.

Getting an Early Start on the Homecoming Talk

During the first couple of months of my mission, I was always mentally compiling stuff for my homecoming talk. Every new experience, trial, or setback I would set aside as a possible anecdote for the world's greatest homecoming talk. Fortunately, I eventually forgot myself and focused on the work instead of impressing the folks back home and I didn't give my homecoming talk another thought until the Saturday night before I was scheduled to share it.

Needless to say, today's strip is based on my experience early in my mission.

Tracking Time

There are always missionaries who could tell you to the day how long they'd been out and how much longer they had left to go on their mission. I suppose a week and a couple of days into your mission seems a lot longer when you present it like Elder Ryan does above.