I'll never forget that day in the mission field when I received my last transfer. I knew it was coming. The president had indicated there would be changes in the mission leadership, and I imagined all along that I would be called to serve the last six months of my mission as a zone leader. I was excited about the prospects.

When the transfer notice came, I fumbled with the envelope as I opened it and pulled out the official form letter. I quickly scanned the page for the details of my new assignment. But to my dismay, I could not find what I was looking for.

A sense of panic gathered around me, and a knot of dull pain grew in the pit of my stomach. I read the letter again, carefully this time. But it was the same. I was to finish my mission as a senior companion in Genoa, an out-of-the-way city located on the Tyrrhenian Sea in northern Italy. There was nothing more.

I tried hard to conceal my bitter disappointment from my companion, but I knew he sensed that something was wrong.

Outside the spring sunshine filtered down through the clouds, and the afternoon light burnished the cobblestone streets and walkways of Florence. Clay pots of colored flowers dotted the windows of the rust-colored buildings.

Our heels clicked briskly down the narrow byways as we walked silently toward the Pig Market, an open-air bazaar named for the great brass pig that guards one of its many portaled entrances. The market teemed with women gently squeezing fresh vegetables and plump, ripe fruit. In the portals swung gracefully shaped cheeses and chains of sausages, making the cool air pungent with their odors. There were booths festooned with spools of thread and ribbon and with bolts of multicolored cloth—plain linens; rich rustling damasks; warm, wooly quilts; fine, filleted lace; and soft, well-wrought hides with their thick, leathery smells. Tables and counters were cluttered with wooden icons, tapestries, paintings, marble statuary, and delicately blown glass from Venice, and everywhere were the sonorous sounds of haggling shoppers and the buzz of vendors moving deftly among their wares.

Taking refuge from the crowds, we walked near the old bridge that spanned the muddy waters of the Arno River. There I told my companion about my transfer—how hurt I was that I had been passed over for a leadership position, how I had done my best as a senior companion and as a district leader, how I had worked many thankless hours, almost to the limit of my strength at times, as historian and recorder in the mission office. I told him how I'd done my best to be a good missionary and how bitterly disappointed I was that now, in the last few months of my mission, I had not been called to be a zone leader but to work as a senior companion instead.

When I finished talking, we stood quietly for a while. But finally, my companion told me the very words I didn't want to hear, the words I'd said to myself so often: "It isn't where you serve; it's how."

I was near the edge of tears then, I knew what he said was true. I'd heard it all my life in the Church. I believed it with all my heart. But still I hadn't been able to rid myself of the desire to be a mission leader. I'd wanted to reach down into the center of my soul and yank that desire out of me by the roots. But I hadn't been able to do it. I'd tried to pray it out of me, tried to pretend it wasn't there. I'd fought it. But it wouldn't go away, and I couldn't fool myself anymore. I had to face up to it: I'd been doing all the right things for the wrong reasons.

At that moment I came closer to despair than I had ever come before. I felt worthless and despicable, filled with impure motives and desires. It seemed to me that my life had been a lie I did not want to exist.

In my heart, there on the stone arch of the bridge, I must have cried out to God for help in one of the most sincere prayers I'd ever offered: Why? Why couldn't I be satisfied with what I had? Why did I want so much to be a leader? What was wrong with me? Why had this desire gnawed at me my whole mission? What was I really after? What would make me really happy? Oh, Lord, what's wrong with me? What do I want? What must I do? Where can I find peace?

It was at that moment when everything seemed blackest, when I could no longer endure the taste of my own bitter self, that I suddenly filled with an illuminating insight that burst like a light in a dark place.

It was as if a voice had spoken to me—not the voice of my own mind, but of some other, greater mind. It was as if someone said to me, "What you really want is a sign that you are acceptable to Jesus Christ. A Church calling is not that sign; the true sign is the Holy Ghost."

For a few moments I could think only upon the name of the Savior of the world. His name filled my whole being as if nothing else existed or mattered. And for those very few seconds, I was filled with inexpressible joy and relief.

I began to understand the truth: what I wanted more than anything was to know that I was worthwhile, that I had somehow pleased my Savior, that I had somehow gained his love and trust. I had looked forward to a Church calling as a sign that I was worthwhile, a sign that I was acceptable to my mission president, to the Church, and most of all, to the Lord. But I had forgotten that a leadership position is not the sign that the Lord gives to those whom he accepts; the true sign of his approbation is the Holy Ghost—the power, the fruits and the gifts of the Spirit.

Without the insight I received then on the old bridge of Florence, I suppose I could have gone on seeking higher and higher church callings and becoming more and more disappointed and unsatisfied. It's odd, but the truth is that we can never get enough of what we don't really want, because what we don't want will never satisfy us. No substitute can satisfy like the real thing.

In my own case I had thought that a Church calling could substitute for the Spirit, love and approbation of Jesus Christ. But in the years since I received my last transfer, I have learned that no calling, no worldly possession, no academic honor, no amount of wealth or prestige, no athletic achievement, nothing earthly can substitute for Christ or for the knowledge that we are acceptable to him. This knowledge is the greatest comforter.

There on the old stone bridge I learned that the Lord may take from us our hopes and dreams, even our lives and our loved ones; he may take our time, talents, wealth, hearts, might, mind, and strength, not because he wants or needs them, but because he wants to be sure that none of these things becomes more important to us than he is; he wants to be sure that none of them become dumb idols or false gods that we might worship instead of the true God.

I am sure of one thing, though I may know nothing else; I know by the power of the Holy Ghost, a power more trustworthy than all our senses, that Jesus of Nazareth, who was crucified, was raised from the dead, and that he lives. I know he will come again. And when he does, "the trumpet shall sound, and the dead shall be raised incorruptible;" and all who have loved him and longed for his appearing shall see him in the clouds of his glory and shall be caught up to meet him triumphant in the air.

In that day we all shall know, in a way we cannot know now, that there is not and never can be a substitute for Jesus Christ, our Lord.

(New Era, June 1973)