Hey everyone, welcome back to another episode of Saints Unscripted where today we're actually
making history for the first time ever. We are going to be interviewing missionaries.
Hey I'm Elder Wallace, I'm Elder Salvador. I'm Elder Schofner.
And we're going to ask them some questions they've just never seen before. We're gonna get their
honest reactions about what it's like to think about going on a mission, what it's like in the
mission field and we went to instagram and asked you some of your questions so let's get to it.
Okay so Elder Schofner, thank you for being on today. So you're the first missionary we've ever
interviewed ever. All right let's go! And so the first question I want to ask you is like
did you always know that you were going to go on a mission slash like what was it like for you to
actually get on a mission. Yeah so for me it was different because I grew up in the church and I
was baptized when I was a kid but growing up it was weird because I always felt like going on a
mission would be like a really hard thing and I wasn't looking forward to it actually
um like growing up i was like i don't know like that kind of seems like it stinks like
video games like what yeah no i was the exact same when i was thinking about a mission i'm
like okay i have to get up at 6 30. i can never take naps work hard that hard yeah i like have
to go knock on doors and just sounded miserable to me like absolutely yeah yeah so it's like that's
like a lot of rules like no naps like i can't sleep in like that's like that stinks you know
so yeah like growing up i i didn't think i didn't honestly think that i was going to go on a mission
but then right like halfway through senior year of high school i had like i'd so i moved around
a ton so i always had like i'd always made friends but i'd never lost friends and then
like this one year in high school i like lost a friend that was like super super duper close
and it threw me through a loop um ended up i didn't realize it but it ended up causing ocd
um which i got diagnosed with later but then i like went through this like huge like self crisis
just because i lost a friend i was like who am i like what the heck and then after thinking about
it a lot i was thinking like what i need to like find a way to like be happy because i was like
i am not happy right now yeah yeah exactly so now i was like i need to figure out like what
like how do i find something else that makes me happy outside of myself because obviously i'm not
happy right now right so then i like started reading my scriptures again and like actually
trying in church and then i like felt the spirit and i was like whoa this is like something that's
like good so that's so cool and so that gave you the desire to want to start like putting
your papers in and starting to serve yeah yeah so i was like dang like i need this so then i got my
patriarchal blessing and so then i got that and in it it said that i would go and be a missionary
like all around the world and i was like dang like i need to do that and then it said in there
it's like don't wait like just go when you're done with high school and i was like shoot i gotta go
yeah that's good okay elder wallace thanks for joining today so tell me a little bit
about how you decided to get out on mission what that process was like for you yeah it
was a tough decision i went out later than most missionaries i'm 20 and i'm only five months in um
but i think what helped me make the decision was i read the book one cover to cover in a span of like
two months i think less than two months because i didn't want to go because my family wanted me
to go my mom really wanted me to go i'm the oldest of five and so i understood why she
wanted me to go but i wanted to go because i wanted to go and so i decided to read the book
of mormon i've read it before not really with an intent of finding out if it's true just because
my leaders when i was younger asked me to right you wanted to do everything
for you for the right reasons i wanted to do it for the for the reason i'm figuring out if i was
supposed to serve a mission right and so i did and i read it all and i prayed about it and just
as soon as i got on my knees i felt like there's nothing else for me to do except go on a mission
i knew that the book was true and i knew that it brought me joy reading it every day the best
part of my day was reading the book of mormon and so i wanted to share it with other people
that's so wonderful i'm glad that you're here it's so worth it okay so elder salvador so what was the
process like for you to come out on a mission and what challenges did you face in preparation
so there's actually a challenge and that was the sport i used to play soccer
oh really yeah it was definitely hard for me because i want to play at the next level and i'm
pretty sure that's for a lot of commissioners now these days it's just playing sports and they have
to decide either the sport going a mission and it's a hard decision yeah and so for me i have a
hispanic mom and so she told me just pray ask god if you need to go play soccer in college or
go on your mission and i did and so actually my mom was afraid for me to pick soccer over
and go and serve other people yeah and so i kind of like that touched my heart honestly
and what i did is by myself after work in the car just prayed to our heavenly father and asked him
should i go play soccer should i go several mission and that was it that was my whole
prayer that was my whole question and throughout the week i received signs and and just answers
that they deserve a mission and at the time i had a sibling serving another mission
and so he was telling me you should go it's going to bless your life it's going to bless
the life of our family and you're gonna bless other people as well and so i just decided to
just do it and i haven't regretted it yet so take that leap of faith that's so fantastic
okay so now you're here you're on your mission you've actually been serving for quite a while
yeah yeah so what is like a day in the life for you yeah so a day in the life of a missionary
for us we get up and we usually go on like a run or like go work out or do some exercise in
the morning um and then we plan for the day so we pray and let me take 30 minutes to just plan
out like what we're going to do for every hour every 30 minutes to figure out like how we can
you know spread spread the good word it's kind of tough because it's like different you know than
it was at the beginning of the mission because coronavirus started right and all that stuff so
yeah we like we sit down and we think of ways that we can like try out new things or do old things
that did work and then usually from like so in the morning we do studies we study the scriptures
um we do lots of like figuring out what we're going to teach people and the lessons that we have
and then we have like we study the language like we're serving in spanish so we can like study
spanish yeah and then uh after that then between one to five is a little tough because that's
when everyone's at work so then we'll usually like end up calling people to coordinate things
or maybe when it gets closer to four or five then we'll maybe go visit a member and see if
we can help them out or if they know anyone we do a lot of like videos for the facebook page
um i never like did anything with technology on my mission because it's cold
so like wait what's what's that like so it's it's different it's like it's definitely weird because
it feels like you shouldn't be like editing videos or like doing that stuff on the mission because
usually the stereotype is like no technology for two years like no social media kind of a thing
but we try and make videos like people view their story of how they figured out that the church was
true or like maybe just a really cool story of someone that even like a struggle that they had
how they got over it through like scriptures or something so you're able to use these
technological tools to spread the gospel yeah yeah it's pretty sweet yeah it's awesome okay so
around like four or five in the afternoon maybe you're like using these creative tools and then
like how do you finish out your night usually yeah so usually at five to six we usually have dinner
and then after dinner we usually just go back to normal missionary work we're allowed to
go and knock some doors with members and we can we usually have lessons i think that's when
everyone's back from work but yeah uh six to nine is just time where we go and have lessons talk to
people um yeah just like normal missionary work so okay cool so elder wallace how do you stay
focused on your mission when there's so many distractions there's so many things going on how
do you stay focused on your purpose of inviting others to come into christ that's a good question
um i think because of the joy that i feel in lessons i think you were mentioning earlier
i just love being in lessons and teaching people and sharing the joy that i felt because of my
knowledge and understanding of the gospel and so me knowing the joy that i feel helps me focus
on wanting to share that with other people and so it's it's easy to not get distracted
when the most important thing in your life is helping people feel the same joy that you feel
that's beautifully said have you seen blessings as you've been out you've been out for a while now
right yes around 15 months okay so what blessings have you seen as a result of your service
honestly with this whole pandemic and covet night scene
my family's doing great and that's honestly a blessing for me because i leave our family right
behind and they're blessed me personally i've gotten closer to my heavenly father i feel the
spread even more some of the blessings i see and enjoy the most is seeing people change from being
a not so good person to even a better person and that's through jesus christ and i've seen
stories as in miracles and i just love the fact that anyone can change if you come unto christ
and so that's one of the biggest blessings in my mission and i love it so tell me more about
what it's like to be a full-time teacher and what it's like to go into these people's homes and just
share the gospel with them day in and day out yeah day in day out it really makes you think
about whether or not you know what you're teaching i think for me because every time we go and we
teach someone and they ask a question it can be a really difficult question and they'll ask like
you know like what about this what about that and i'm like oh snap
i haven't even thought about that before so like it's a really good opportunity because
honestly mostly i feel like i am being taught it doesn't feel like i am the teacher totally
know what you mean yeah yeah because there's a lot of times when someone else will ask me a question
and i'll have to figure out the answer with them sometimes there sometimes i'll have to go home and
study and then like teach them again but yeah it doesn't honestly like every day i feel like i'm
learning a lot more than i am teaching and then i feel like it's not really me that's teaching but
it's more of obviously like we say sometimes it's the spirit like it's the feeling that they get
that they're like oh that's true but it's not necessarily anything i'm doing because i don't
you know i feel like i'm really learning more than i'm teaching but that's so wonderful
okay so a common question that we get is what are three things that you wish you would have known
before you came on your mission oh man that's a good one three things i wish i'd known um
i wish that i'd known how much fun they are like i think a lot of times we talk about how
they're really hard and you're always working and you come home super tired and it's just
a grind which is true but they're also really fun and you just like become best friends
with the people that you're serving with and the people that you meet um
so i wish i'd known that i wish um that i had known um to study spanish a little bit more before
before my mission i'm a spanish speaking miss journey and i wish that i had like really just
dedicated myself i studied spanish a little bit in high school um but yeah i wish that i'd
studied that i wish i'd known i would have been a spanish freaking missionary or would have stood
uh you wish you would have been able to tell the future no yeah the most frustrating thing is like
wanting to say something and not being able to say it the right way yeah i bet um but yeah see the
third thing i wish i had learned how to listen to the spirit because on my mission i'm learning that
but if i'd already known how to do that before a mission then this beginning my mission would
have been even better than it already was just learning like how to rely on promptings and how
to follow promptings and how to receive more promptings is there anything on your mission
that you've experienced that you just didn't expect or didn't anticipate when you came out yes
actually okay it's actually really really personal so actually in the mission i was three four months
out and actually i had a friend passed away and i didn't expect that honestly it's just something
that happens obviously that's life and she passed away and kind of just i was just so so scared sad
i was depressed on a mission and kind of like what helped me the most is the atonement of jesus
christ just how he paid for all of our sins and just for us to come back to our heavenly father
and that experience actually shaped me to who i am today and motivates me to keep teaching
keep helping people come to christ come to god and change and that's an experience i never thought it
would happen but it did and that's actually kind of hard to accept his will honestly but as you do
you see the blessings you see the reasons why and if you don't sometimes it's better not to know
honestly the experience is one of the best questions i've seen because
i also had special experiences because of that so thank you for sharing that
so we asked people on instagram some of their biggest questions that they have for you guys
and one of them is how do you cope with the stress of missionary work like it's
constant you're always working how do you deal with just the never-ending things to do yeah
i'd say it's sometimes it feels like you don't cope with stress sometimes it feels like you're
stressed a lot but uh i think the biggest way that we cope with stress is i'd say sometimes sleep
like honestly being able to go to bed every night is a good way because then i just can kind of like
devolve and take a rest but i'd say the thing that really helps like deal with the stress is actually
being able to talk to people because a lot of the times like being able to see someone's life change
from where it was to like how it is now when when you're talking to them and like introducing
things to their lives that can help them like be better people i think it's like
really really i just the stress just kind of goes away when you're with someone and they have like
a moment where they're really like feeling like yeah this is like a good thing for me and they're
like sharing their experiences of how it's like helped them yeah the stress just kind of just kind
of leaves what advice would you give to members who want to be better member missionaries yeah
something that makes us really happy is when members work with us and like really want to
help us um i just think it's awesome because we are only here for a certain amount of time
you know maybe six weeks maybe longer but the members are going to be there well after we're
gone and they were here well before we got here so when they are working with us they can develop
those friendships um with the people that we're teaching and then it's just way way better like
we're i feel like mississippi we're really here to help direct people to um the source of truth which
is the scriptures which is the holy ghost which is our heavenly father and also to direct people to
friendships and connections that help them to stay in that truth and so it's not really our
responsibility to be friends with i mean to like you know work but no you're right yeah yeah your
role is to teach and it's the responsibility of the people in the community and in the
church the congregation to a friend and welcome and fellowship everyone in and
and if we could do a better job of that then i think that the work would move along a
little bit better okay okay last question el salvador so now that you're thinking about
i mean maybe you're not thinking about going home but it is coming up kind of soon um what do you
hope to be able to do to like stay i don't know in the gospel and keep your testimony bright and
continue to use the atonement of jesus christ in your life when you get home that's a good
question and i always think about that honestly and to me i wish back then when i was younger
i could have gone with missionaries even more because i experienced the joy it has it brings to
people into me and so i think after the mission i probably just go out more with missionaries
and just help them out and just talk to our friends and just serve other people so there's
a scripture that talks about when you're in service of others you're in the service of god
and that is so true and when you do that it brings peace to you it remains um
something special in your heart and when you do that and as you do that honestly you bring
blessings to yourself to your family and for other people so it's a win-win i love that okay so we
just want to say thank you to these wonderful elders one for being on our show but then two
just for their sacrifice and for serving the lord 24 7. we're so grateful that you were able to be
here and if you want to connect with these elders and like learn more about the church and or just
even meet missionaries in your area they have a facebook page that we're gonna link and then also
it's likely that missionaries in your area also are on facebook so go and follow them and ask
them any questions that you have so thanks guys for watching and we will see you next time bye