Dear Blog Readers,
I have put off writing this post for a couple of weeks. I thought that I needed to get past the frustration, anxiety, bewilderment, anger, sadness...still not past it, but on we go...
It has been a journey - the last four months. It has been the hardest thing to watch my optimistic, healthy 19 year old son be reduced to broken hearted, damaged and sick missionary, holding on to his mission like his life depended on it. Then, like a phoenix out of the ashes, we watched this beautiful, damaged boy rebuild and reconstruct everything that he thought he was. It really was beautiful to watch, really, and one of the most amazing things that I have seen in my life. What emerged was an empathetic, kindhearted man that defended the schizophrenic woman on the street and cried with the struggling investigator. And, through learning to deal with his depression, he learned that life doesn't always turn out the way you'd expect.
He was recovering, slowly, but he was recovering, rebuilding his self identity and strength brick by brick. He was given the necessary tools by my sister, but he did the work. And he worked at it constantly. He made small goals at first, just trying to kick the rock down the road until he felt healthy enough to make bigger decisions. At the end of his last transfer, he felt like he wanted and needed to make the decision of whether he felt that he could make it through the next 16 months. He prayerfully considered what his next move would be. After many days of prayer, he realized that he could do it - he felt that he was strong enough to pull this off. He knew that it would be hard, he knew that he was still sick, but he felt that he had the support of his mission president and his parents and the help of his Aunt Pat. His mission president gave him permission to have us call and talk over the decision and make sure that it was the right one.
Honestly, the growth in him was astounding and we could tell a significant and marked difference in our son. He was excited, but nervous, about making this re-commitment to his mission and to himself. It was the start of something great.
That's usually when something unexpected happens.
We woke up on Christmas morning to an email from his mission president. It was great timing...Christmas morning. If we knew what was in the email, we would have waited until the rush of Christmas morning because it was like a bomb was dropped in the middle of an already emotionally challenging day. His mission president stated in his email that he felt that Kolton was too sick to stay in Japan and needed to come home to receive the treatment. That he wasn't getting any better. My reaction then...and still now...is 'HUH?' We had seen the remarkable change in him and essentially, we were being asked, by his mission president, to talk to him about something that we didn't believe. But, we chucked what should have been a happy, joyous phone call between Kolton with his sisters and, instead, spent half of our hour phone conversation with him talking about the one subject that he wanted no part of talking about on Christmas day - his depression. He was as bewildered as we were. He didn't understand where his mission presidents change of heart about his condition came from. But, Kolton said that he would go back and reconsider and pray about it again.
For the next four days, we waited with heavy hearts to hear what Kolton had decided to do. When Pat talked with him on Sunday night (December 29) he, again, restated that he wanted to stay and still felt that he could do it. He felt secure in his decision and we were proud that he was sticking to his guns.
Kolton, then, called his mission president and told him, again, that he wanted to remain in Japan. His mission president still felt that it would be best if Kolton returned home. Kolton said, at that point, something in him snapped and he came to the realization that if he stayed, he would be doing so without his mission presidents blessing and support, - the two things that he desperately needed. I imagine that he felt very defeated at this point, he had lost trust and belief in his one and only ally in Japan. He told his mission president that if he wanted him to go home...he would comply with his mission presidents direction.
This post isn't intended to make his mission president out as a villain. He has been very supportive and encouraging to Kolton throughout this whole unfortunate experience. That is why Kolton is so devastated in his sudden change of heart. He just has a different opinion of Kolton's health than his family, his therapist, and Kolton, himself, has. There are just so many questions that we have that cannot be answered and there is so much more that went on that would just make this post horribly cumbersome. Honestly, at the end of it, we still wouldn't have the answers that we are looking for.
I told Kolton in every letter that he was a Samurai. Samurai means essentially 'to serve' in Japanese. In his last letter, I told him "The ultimate act of a warrior is to lay down his sword" So...that is what he will do and will return home in the next couple of weeks. We feel that he stayed and fought as hard as he could to serve a mission until the choice to fight was taken away from him. He gave everything that he had and still chose to stay-that is the telling part of this story. He didn't ever give up on his mission but, rather, his mission gave up on him.
It is the death of a dream for him but he knows that he has learned a lot about himself and has grown in ways that he didn't expect. Missions, they say, are for the missionary-that it is the process of learning and discovering yourself is what makes the mission a success. Kolton laughed that his mission was "a mission on turbo" that he jammed so much disappointment, pain, insecurity but so much self discovery and growth into the 8 months he served, that he must have learned what the Lord needed him to learn. He served honorably and faithfully with nothing wanting. His mission is complete. Well done, Elder Klein - we can't wait to see you!
Love,
Jillyn
