There is a lot to process when returning home from a mission. Thankfully, BYU offers a plethora of services and support for recently returned missionaries.
A mission is a life-changing experience. Missionaries put a pause on their personal lives to serve the Lord. It is a spiritually and intellectually rewarding experience and the transition returning from a mission is often challenging.
Thankfully, there are plenty of resources at BYU to help with this adjustment. The Peer Mentorship Program, the Office of Belonging and BYU Enrollment Services are great places to start.
Eliza Jefferies, a student and peer mentor, gives advice to recently returned missionaries.
"The first piece of advice, especially for any returned missionaries is to give yourself some grace," Jefferies said. "There's a large adjustment period."
Jefferies, along with several other students, work as peer mentors in the Harold B. Lee Library. Their primary job is to help first-year students adjust to college life. Many returned missionaries are first-year students, so peer mentors meet often with returned missionaries.
"Our purpose as peer mentors is to help guide and to help give you the tools so that you can find answers to your own questions, so that in the future you feel confident in your ability to make decisions, set goals and follow up on them," Jefferies said.
Every first-year student is assigned a peer mentor. Peer mentors can be great because they are students themselves and have often had similar experiences adjusting to college life.
"We've all been in similar shoes," Jefferies related. "It's nice to talk to someone who gets it."
Beyond the help from peer mentors, the BYU Office of Belonging offers holistic counseling for students. Whatever students need to succeed, the Office of Belonging is there to support them. Yvette Rivera works there as an advisor.
"Sometimes it's hard to ask for help, right?" Rivera said. "Sometimes we think that we need to do things on our own and figure it out, when really there's so much support out there that can help things go more easily."
The Office of Belonging provides need-based scholarships, events and one-on-one counseling. They can connect students to professional counseling services, clubs, jobs and service opportunities on campus.
Rivera and Jefferies gave similar advice to missionaries in their first semester back. Both advised against taking heavy course loads with a large number of credits. Both suggested taking basic classes around 12 credits to get back into the rhythm of schooling.
"I think for returned missionaries we have this really ambitious feeling, but we forget when we come home we have 15 other things to worry about that we didn't have to worry about on our mission," Jefferies said.
In more technical matters, BYU Enrollment Services has several checklists to help returned missionaries. It reminds missionaries and parents of tasks relating to deferment, registration, scholarships, housing and even finding a job on campus.
"BYU is a really amazing place to be when you're a returned missionary because anything that could support you exists here," Rivera stated.
All these resources are available at the First-Year Experience website, The Office of Belonging website and the Enrollment Services Returning Missionary Checklist.