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Another Way Home

Another Way Home

Last updated on: January 2, 2025 at 4:29 pm by Lisa Laycock

Another Way Home 2025-01-02T16:29:56-04:00 Lisa Laycock

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Two paths to choose another way home

(Macdonald/Unsplash)

After their time with the child Jesus, the Wise Men were told to return east by “another way” (Matthew 2:12) to avoid Herod’s evil intent. We may compare this event to the infinite atonement Jesus was to make, enabling all of us to repent and return to our eternal home in another way than the destroyer’s plan.

Invitation to Another Way

As we completed our blessings as mission leaders in Santiago, Chile, we thought about the invitation we continually extended to each of our missionaries: “Be wise men and women, and go home another way.” We wanted them to return from their mission transformed by Jesus Christ to be spiritually different people—serving Him and living their lives another way.

Another way includes receiving divine direction—through an impression, a revelation, a dream, or prophetic counsel—and obeying quickly and without question, as the Wise Men did. We avoid the tempter’s plans to interfere with the way of the Lord’s true plan of happiness. An eternal home of celestial glory is the destination of wise men and women who follow the light of truth to Christ, take the Holy Spirit for their guide, and render gifts of service, obedience, and love (see D&C 45:56-57).

Disciples in Jerusalem

As we were seeking to find another way in returning home from our full-time missionary service, we chose to emulate faithful disciples throughout the ages. Our thoughts turned especially to Jesus’s disciples, who needed another way when He was no longer with them on this earth. Their lives and responsibilities would be totally different.

We felt the heaviness that must have weighed upon them. After three remarkable years with the Savior of all creation, they understood eternal life in ways they hadn’t grasped before. They viewed the divine importance of this probationary existence with a glimmering new light. Jesus had walked with them, mentored them, and loved them. They were changed, and though they would return to familiar places, they would need other paths to follow with their altered spiritual lives.

Peter began with what he knew best. He said, “I go a fishing,” and the disciples with Him agreed: “We also go with thee” (see John 21:3). They must have felt wrenching grief in the profound emptiness. They must have desperately wanted to go home another way. Through the Holy Ghost, Jesus would guide them toward many routes that would be new to them.

Ways Never Expected

Our thoughts rested on a young woman whose fiancé suddenly developed cancer and died. Though her life seemed shattered, she chose a new path—to devote herself to finding Christ. She followed every light she could find: praying, searching, studying, journeying, and sacrificing. She prepared for and received her full-time mission call to serve in Santiago, Chile.

During her mission, this sister found Him, knelt before Him, and worshipped Him. She offered Him her finest gifts, and He changed her heart. During her 18-month mission, her way was consistent and devoted as she invited many souls to come unto Christ. She served her own family at home, the family of her deceased fiancé, her missionary companions, her missionary contacts and converts, and even us—her mission leaders. Her chosen way was to became a true disciple of Jesus Christ.

Her paths afterwards included temple marriage and four red-headed sons—one born with a debilitating illness requiring special care. She has chosen every day to allow her worship and service to Jesus, as well as her encounters with Him (in addition to her challenges), to strengthen herself and everyone who has associated with her.

Conversion for Another Way

We have also considered many beloved people whose baptisms we were privileged to witness. When Jesus changed them, they would never be the same, and each needed to be blessed with a new way to their heavenly home. They had journeyed a lifetime to encounter Jesus Christ and His true Church, and their lives reflected their transformation. Our Savior was enabling them to go home another way.

We remembered one man who found the small Chilean chapel on our third Sunday in Santiago. Our missionaries had found him lying in the street in front of the Church, picked him up, and carried him into Sacrament meeting. His clothes reeked of alcohol and body odor. He was loud, drunk, and disruptive during the meeting.

But each week he came to Sacrament meeting: each week a little more sober; one week wearing a white shirt and tie and smelling of cologne instead of alcohol; the following week with combed hair. Three years later, our last Sunday in Chile, as a completely changed man he shared his testimony in fast and testimony meeting. He explained how the Savior had changed him and how grateful he was for the opportunity to have recently been sealed forever in the temple to his beautiful family—sitting with bright smiles on the front row before him. He was definitely on his way home another way

Christ’s Way

We are extremely grateful for the privilege of serving God as His missionaries: for the lessons we learned, the love we experienced, and the miracles we witnessed—even grateful for the challenges we faced. Our missionary encounters with Jesus Christ had changed us, and we chose to go home as individuals prepared to seek and accept another way.

Through our encounters with Christ, we all find hope and peace (Alma 7:11-13). He teaches us what really matters in life, and we come to understand what eternal life—salvation and exaltation—really mean. We strive day after day and year after year to be wise men and women, who follow the light and prepare ourselves and our families to complete our divine life journey and return home another way.

Speaking of his miraculous recovery from what had seemed to his doctors, himself, and innumerable persons worldwide who admired and loved him to be a terminal illness, Elder Jeffrey R. Holland is teaching (some of the emphasis added):

I testify that God hears every prayer we offer and responds to each of them according to the path He has outlined for our perfection. It is for reasons known only to God why prayers [may be] answered differently than we hope—but I promise you they are heard and they are answered according to His unfailing love and cosmic timetable.

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