Podcast: Play in new window | Download
Subscribe: Spotify | RSS | Subscribe to Podcast
Early Return Missionaries or ERM’s encounter a unique set of challenges. Cultural traditions influence expectations on missionary service. Many worry about how their church family will receive them. Parents, and the early return missionary themselves, go through a mourning period upon return. These factors and many more all contribute to a complex and sometimes volatile set of circumstances.
Our guest on this episode, Kristen Reber, is host of the Early Homecoming Podcast, as well as author of the book Early Homecoming: A Resource for Early-Returned Missionaries, Their Church Leaders, and Family. Kristen is an Early Return Missionary. She shares stories from her own experience as an ERM. These stories and thorough research about this phenomenon help her readers and listeners to find peace and joy in missionary service, regardless of how long that term of service..
Elder Jeffrey R. Holland offered some counsel to Early Return Missionaries:
Kristen Reber also appeared on the Latter-day Lives Podcast to hear Kristen’s full story. Listen to that episode here:
The Latter-day Saint MissionCast Podcast has had other episodes to discuss the reacculturation of missionaries when they come home, as well as the stories of other Early Return Missionaries. If you are a parent of a child who is deciding about coming home before their anticipated time, or if you are a missionary struggling with that decision, or have come home and are looking for resources, please send us an email, contact Kristen Reber, but most importantly, reach out to your priesthood and mission leaders for resources and direction.