Tips for Returning Missionaries: Coming Home
Coming home is its own kind of transition — sometimes harder than leaving. Here's an honest guide for the last weeks of your mission and the first months back: how to finish strong, handle the adjustment, reconnect, and hold onto what you've experienced.
Finishing strong
Stay present to the last day
It's natural to start thinking about home in the final weeks. The missionaries with the fewest regrets are the ones who keep working right up to the end. You'll never get these last transfers back — spend them well.
Say your goodbyes intentionally
Reach out to the people who shaped your mission — companions, members, those you taught, your mission president. A sincere thank-you now becomes a relationship you keep for years. Trade contact information before you leave, while it's easy.
What your first week home looks like
You'll be released — and probably speak in church
Shortly after you get home, you'll meet with your stake president, who formally releases you as a full-time missionary. You'll likely be invited to speak in sacrament meeting soon after (your "homecoming" talk). Knowing these steps are coming takes the surprise out of the first week or two — jot down a few mission experiences you'd want to share.
Give the first days some grace
Between jet lag, big emotions, and a house that may have changed, the first days can be a blur. You don't have to be "on" for every visitor or have every plan figured out. Rest, eat, and let yourself land before you tackle the big decisions.
Reverse culture shock is real
Expect the first days to feel strange
After 18–24 months of a singular focus and rhythm, ordinary life can feel loud, fast, and oddly empty. Feeling disoriented, restless, or even a little sad in the first weeks home is normal — it's not a sign something's wrong with you or your mission.
Go easy on the pace of change
You don't have to figure out your whole life the first week back. Give yourself permission to adjust gradually — rebuild a routine, get sunlight and exercise, and let the transition take the time it takes.
Be intentional with your phone again
Going from a tightly limited device back to an unlimited smartphone is a bigger jolt than most RMs expect. Notice how much time slips away in the first weeks, and set a few limits on purpose so the phone doesn't quietly fill the space your mission used to.
Reconnecting with family & friends
Your people changed too
Siblings grew up, friends moved on, life continued without you. Come home curious about their months and years, not just eager to share yours. Ask questions and listen — reconnection is a two-way street.
Share your mission in small doses
Your experiences matter deeply to you, and the people who love you want to hear them — a little at a time. Read the room, and save the deeper stories for the people who lean in and ask.
Preserving your mission memories
Save your mission email account before it goes offline
This one is time-sensitive. Missionary email accounts are typically deactivated within 1–2 weeks of your release. Emails sitting in your own inbox are safe — you can forward those anytime — but anything that lives only in your mission account (messages you received from a mission president, leaders, or friends, and any weeks that never made it to your inbox) becomes unrecoverable once the account is turned off. Pull those out first, while you still can.
Gather it all while it's still fresh
Beyond the emails, home is the best time to pull everything else into one place — your photos and your journal entries. Names, places, and feelings fade faster than you'd believe. A little effort in the first month home protects the whole record.
Turn the record into something you'll actually keep
Files on a hard drive rarely get looked at again. A physical keepsake — something on a shelf you can hand to your kids someday — is what makes the memories last and get revisited.
Figuring out what's next
Make a loose plan before you're home
School, work, where you'll live, a home-ward calling — having even a rough plan for the first few months eases the "now what?" that hits many returned missionaries. Watch enrollment and application deadlines that may fall right around your return date. It doesn't have to be the right plan forever, just a next step.
Put your mission to work on paper
The discipline, resilience, and people skills you built are real, transferable strengths. On a résumé or application, translate them into specifics — leadership and training, teaching and public speaking, outreach and sales, budgeting, and (if you served in one) a second language. Employers and schools value what a mission actually taught you.
Dating & relationships
Move at your own pace
Returned missionaries often feel a lot of social pressure to date seriously and settle down fast. Some are ready right away; many need time to adjust first. There's no single right timeline — let it be a healthy part of your life, not the scoreboard for how your homecoming is going.
Rebuild the social muscles gently
Casual, low-pressure friendships and group settings are a good on-ramp before serious dating. Be patient with yourself — normal social rhythms come back with a little practice.
Keeping the missionary spirit
Keep the habits that carried you
Daily study, prayer, and service don't have to end with your mission. The routines that sustained you in the field will sustain you at home too — even in a smaller, quieter form.
Stay involved
Accept a calling, keep serving, and stay connected to your ward. And if you learned a language, look for ways to keep using it — a local congregation, a class, or a friend — so it doesn't fade. Staying engaged is one of the best ways to carry the best parts of your mission into everyday life.
Identity & wellbeing after the mission
Rediscovering "who am I now?" is normal
For 18–24 months you were "Elder" or "Sister," with a clear purpose every day. Feeling unmoored as you figure out post-mission life is common. Be patient with yourself — you're integrating who you became with who you're becoming.
Ask for help if the low doesn't lift
Some adjustment is expected; a persistent low mood, anxiety, or feeling stuck is worth talking through. Reach out to family, a leader, or a professional. Asking for support is a strength, and you don't have to white-knuckle the transition alone.
Turn your weekly email updates into a hardcover book
Your weekly emails and photos, collected into a beautifully formatted, professionally printed hardcover Memory Book — including emails you forward in from before you had an account. A keepsake of your whole mission, ready for the shelf.
See the printed Memory Book New here? Start an account and import your emails →Know someone just heading out? Share our tips for new missionaries →