Why I do what I do

I spent most of yesterday evening hanging out with a friend of mine who joined the Church about six months ago. He is planning on serving a mission and this last weekend while he was visiting his family for Mother's Day he told his parents about his plan to go on a mission. They didn't take it very well.

As we were talking things over I shared a few experience that I and my parents had had with family opposition to the Gospel. I don't know if that helped him at all, but sometimes it is nice to know that you aren't the only one going through something, or to hear that everything turned out okay in the end for someone else.

Then I started thinking about how difficult it is to explain my somewhat strange, Mormon lifestyle to people who have not experienced it themselves. At worst I get open opposition, at best, mild confusion. I don't think you can fully understand it without experiencing it. So sometimes we just have to accept that not everyone we love with understand or support the passions of our lives.

All of this made me think of this song from the classic Fiddler on the Roof. The exact situation is different but the sentiment is on that I understand

How can I hope to make you understand
Why I do what I do,
Why I must travel to a distant land,
Far from the home I love.
Once I was happily content to be
As I was, where I was,
Close to the people who are close to me,
Here in the home I love.
Who could see that a man could come
Who would change the shape of his dreams.
Helpless now I stand with him,
Watching older dreams grow dim.
Oh, what a melancholy choice this is,
Wanting home, wanting him,
Closing my heart to ev'ry hope but his,
Leaving the home I love,
There where my heart has settled long ago
I must go, I must go, I must go,
Who could imagine I'd be wand'ring so
Far from the home I love
Yet there with my love, I'm home.