St. Cloud Florida Stake Blog

Every year, between 40,000 and 60,000 higher education students take what is known as a “gap year” between their schooling. A gap year can be used to work, travel, or volunteer, with the intent that the experiences will enrich and deepen students’ understanding of who they are and what they want to accomplish in their lives. 

Every year, about 30,000 Latter-day Saint young adults do something akin to a gap year–although it’s not a year. For Braden Foster it was two years. Two years of voluntary service as a missionary, when he taught gospel truths, invited people to be baptized, and comforted and strengthened church members. What have those experiences taught him? 

When asked, Braden paused for a long moment. Then he said quietly and with emotion, “My mission for me has meant everything. I cannot imagine my life without it, and I know it’s going to bless my life forever.” 

His mom agrees. “I can’t think of a better thing for young people to go through than a mission and to have that experience.”

Braden served as a missionary in Salt Lake City. He was specifically asked to learn Spanish, and for the first year and a half he did just that, serving Spanish-speaking members in the area. But while also serving a Korean congregation, he realized that “if I could learn the Korean language, we could help [people] learn the gospel and help connect the members in a better way.” He received permission from the mission’s president to learn Korean, and spent the last six months of his mission serving the two Korean congregations in the Utah valley area. Not everyone would attempt something so seemingly daunting, but for Braden it was relatively simple: He saw a need, and he did his best to fill it. 

A mission isn’t exactly a gap year. You don’t get to choose where you’ll go or who you’ll meet. You don’t handpick your experiences to suit your own tastes. It’s more about what other people need and less about what you want. 

But in spite of that–or perhaps because of it–a mission experience has deepened Braden’s perspective and vision for the rest of his life. “I learned who I want to be and who I don’t want to be,” Braden said. “Through my mission I was actually able to know who Jesus Christ is. . . . being His disciple as a missionary has and will change me to be His disciple forever.”