Sid and Stephanie Bassett - Podcast Introduction

In this episode, we explore the inspiring journey of former missionaries who have navigated the often challenging transition from post-mission life back to the real world. These stories reveal vulnerability, growth, and the profound ways faith and experience shape their next chapters, offering valuable lessons and encouragement for others walking similar paths.

Key Topics:

• The personal journey from corporate career to mental health counseling
• The power of listening to the Spirit in making life decisions
• How late-life education and career changes can be rediscovered at any age
• Lessons learned from handling mental health challenges during and after service
• The importance of empathy, understanding, and love in leadership and service
• Navigating feelings of inadequacy and finding confidence in new pursuits
• How experiences and spiritual guidance influence major life shifts
• The significance of chapters and transitions in personal growth
• Practical advice for those prompted to change directions

Timestamps:

00:00 - Rewind to understand how career struggles and personal challenges sparked a new calling
02:22 - Returning to school in late 50s: overcoming feelings of inadequacy and awkwardness
03:44 - The power of vulnerability and authentic connection in therapy practice
04:42 - Sacred moments that affirm life-changing career pivots
05:14 - The importance of understanding empathy and walking in others' shoes
06:12 - Transitioning from mental health practice to full-time mission leadership
07:25 - Culturally adapting and empathizing with diverse missionaries
08:02 - Common mental health challenges faced by missionaries in Hawaii
09:15 - How clinical training enriched leadership and pastoral care
10:14 - Walking away from a PhD program: trusting spiritual promptings over plans
11:01 - Recognizing the need to pause and re-evaluate life pursuits
11:51 - The power of prayer, divine guidance, and the Spirit’s promptings
12:20 - Confidence in changing paths after listening to divine guidance
14:07 - The value of understanding the Spirit’s language in decision-making
14:54 - Developing deeper love through understanding others’ journeys
15:47 - The instant love for missionaries and the importance of knowing their stories
16:28 - The ultimate hope for the podcast: helping others feel they are not alone
17:33 - The influence of stories in inspiring, teaching, and motivating change
18:22 - Viewing life as chapters; embracing change and growth
19:01 - Moving forward through challenges, trusting the Spirit, and starting new chapters
19:41 - Gratitude and excitement for the upcoming journey of sharing stories

Resources & Links:

• Preach My Gospel
• Gospel Library App

Additional Notes:

This episode highlights that our "chapters" are ongoing and ever-evolving. Whether it's a career change later in life, navigating mental health during missions, or reassessing our life direction, embracing change with faith and divine guidance can lead to profound personal growth and purpose.

Transcript

SPEAKER_00 0:04

Hello, everyone, and welcome to the first edition of Return Missionary Next Chapters Podcast, hosted by Sid Bassett. In this first episode, I'm sitting down with my forever companion and co-producer, Stephanie Bassett. Before we dive in, I have to acknowledge that this podcast really wouldn't be happening without her full support and influence. I am so grateful for her patience, vision, and her push to get this off the ground. A bit about Stephanie. She graduated from Brigham Young University in Family Sciences, has raised four wonderful children, and remains highly influential in the lives of her ten grandchildren. While navigating home relocations to California, Texas, Oklahoma, New Jersey, and London twice. She now is adjusting to her post-mission life following our recent three and a half-year mission assignment, where we opened and served as mission leaders of the Hawaii Laye mission. In addition to her family, Stephanie loves reading, puzzling, serving in her community, and playing Wordle. For this first episode, we're doing a bit of a role reversal. Stephanie is going to take the lead today. She'll be interviewing me about many of the life chapters we've shared together, the spiritual promptings, the family challenges, and the lessons we've learned along the way. We're just starting out and definitely still finding our footing. But we're glad you're here to walk into this chapter with us. It's going to be a fun and meaningful ride.

SPEAKER_01 1:25

Let's rewind a bit to understand how you got here today. I'll start before our latest mission together. You spent 28 years in the oil and gas industry and in finance and commercial roles. So why pivot to clinical and mental health counseling?

SPEAKER_00 1:38

Yeah, it's a good question. One of the chapters in our life was pretty difficult before I retired. It was the challenge we had with a son who was trying to overcome some addictions in his life. And because of that, we went to rehab with them. And as we sat in that room those many years ago, it's been a while since we've even talked about this. I remember listening to the stories of those that were trying to overcome addictions and trying to understand their own mind. And I remember thinking to myself, I don't know anything about psychology. And I thought it would be great if I knew more about the mind and how things worked within the structure of the mind. And so there was a seat planted back then many years ago. And then fast forward, and I retired from my career and didn't quite fill my list of things to do except not to get up every morning and go to work. And uh, I remember our son invited me to go with him to school and to get another master's degree in clinical mental health counseling. And with that invitation, I didn't really take the bait for a while until I realized how much I really did want to learn more about the mind. And so after a couple of weeks, I went back to him and said, Yeah, let's do this. So we did it together. And that was actually one of the greatest gifts I'd ever given to myself.

SPEAKER_01 2:57

Going back to school in your early 50s after finishing your MBA decades earlier, did you ever feel out of place as an older student, especially moving from a corporate background into a social science field?

SPEAKER_00 3:08

I did. It was pretty awkward at times. There were a couple people in our cohort that were were my age. I don't know that there's anybody older, but in that cohort, we had a lot of young professionals, and I felt super inadequate. They had all mostly had studied social sciences in their undergraduate work and had already worked in the field for a number of years. For me, I was starting anew. And that was that was a struggle for me. I remember in one of my introductory classes, we had a time where it turned around for me, though. We were practicing being therapists, so we were going back and forth. It was a mock practice, so it wasn't even real. But I remember in a breakout room with one of my classmates, and she asked me some pretty pointy questions to which I responded, and then I turned around and started asking her questions, and immediately this turned into a very real, vulnerable, open conversation that got pretty complex. And I remember seeking to help her and responding with not just the clinical knowledge I had attained to that point, but also I felt this really strong spirit inside working within me to help address the concerns she had. And it ended in a very um kind of a sacred way. There was a lot of tears shed. And then we were called back to the main class, and I remember thinking, wow, that was a moment. That was something that I did not expect. She, I don't think, even expected it, but it forged a relationship between her and myself. And more importantly, it answered the question, why am I pivoting to this new role? And immediately I realized there's something that I needed, and I knew the Lord was going to stay by my side. I also remember in one of my earlier classes, one of our professors asked the question, What is empathy? And I sat there in my mind thinking, hmm, empathy, sympathy? Before I could sort of process that out, everyone in the class had raised their hand to answer what the word empathy was. And it was, it was a stark reminder to myself that I have much to learn about how to walk in the shoes of another, how to see things from the perspective of another. And I think if there's anything that came out of my studies that I've used every single day of my life, it was that. It was seeking to meet people where they're at, understanding their needs, their background off times, and their challenges in a way that I hadn't before. And that has helped me immensely in my relationships, both with my clients, but also with my children. And that's a gift that also has been a blessing to me and to our family.

SPEAKER_01 6:00

I remember when you were taking these classes to talk to you about the things you were learning. I had learned some of them when I was at BYU. And it was really great to have that common connection and to learn from what you were learning as well. So I love that. So let's fast forward. We were called to open the new Hawaii Laye mission in 2022, and you had to put your mental health practice on hold. How was that transition for you?

SPEAKER_00 6:22

Yeah, so I remember I had just completed all my hours for licensure, and I had to complete that before I did anything else because that was my focus. And having completed that and having seen hundreds and hundreds of clients, I was ready to start a new career. And so this little pivot into going and serving a mission was really unexpected in a lot of ways. And so when we found out we were called to serve for three and a half years, I realized that I wasn't able to keep all of my clients. The nice thing is, is at the time I was actually able to transition most of those clients over to our son, who was also practicing alongside me. So that was a great blessing. I felt very comfortable in handing off those clients. And as it turned out, of course, going to be mission leaders, I didn't realize how much we would be utilizing those skills in our own conversations with our missionaries. And so it really did set me up and prepare me in a way that I could never have imagined at the beginning of that journey. It's been great.

SPEAKER_01 7:25

What a blessing that the recent training you'd had in school helped you on your mission, helped you to navigate speaking with the junior and senior missionaries often.

SPEAKER_00 7:33

It really was. It also helped me to understand culturally the differences because we had a lot of young missionaries, maybe half of them, that were not from the United States. And so getting to know those missionaries culturally, the training that I had to be more empathetic, to be more understanding, to be culturally sensitive, those are all things that we learned quite extensively and even studied and researched during our time. So that I think was very useful for me.

SPEAKER_01 8:00

That was a big blessing on our mission. Looking back, what were the most common health challenges you observed among the missionaries during your time in Hawaii?

SPEAKER_00 8:07

Aaron Powell Oh, they were pretty diverse. I think the mental health challenges centered around probably anxiety, depression. This was a new chapter in their lives. They had to endure and adjust to a lot of things. They had some family challenges that they brought with them and had to process and work through. There were also a lot of the unexpected physical challenges that they would have to face. For the most part, they were able to be resolved. Sometimes they had to go home for a period of time, and sometimes they did transition to a service mission. But through all of this process, I was amazed at the power and the strength that they demonstrated in working through all of these struggles that they had. I would also say, obviously, through anxiety and depression, there were a lot of tools that they were able to find helpful. And the missionary department did an excellent job at providing, adjusting the missionary life tools. Also, life help tools that are on the gospel library were also very useful for many of our missionaries. So I've I really I always felt well equipped, even though I had only had a few years of training myself to help and assist the missionaries.

SPEAKER_01 9:21

I agree. The missionary department gives us great resources. Adjusting to missionary life, having access to family service therapists, and uh and and the scriptures and and preach my gospel really helped the missionaries overcome the difficulties they had on their mission. In what ways did you think your clinical perspective changed your approach to leadership?

SPEAKER_00 9:41

Well, I think I was the same leader, but I certainly was better at assessing the presenting concerns of the missionaries. When I was a bishop, I didn't have this training. And so I've I certainly was following the spirit, and I think that maybe the spirit bridged the gap a number of times. But having that clinical training to be able to really understand where they're coming from empathetically, not that I had gone through all those, but that helped me quite a bit to be able to assess what would be the next steps for them in their recovery process.

SPEAKER_01 10:14

Before and after returning from your mission, you worked to get into a mental health-related PhD program, and yet you walked away during your first semester. Why the shift?

SPEAKER_00 10:23

Yeah, that was really hard for me. Been raised as you have been raised to never be a quitter and to once you start something, you finish it. It wasn't that long into the program that I realized that there was something else drawing me away. Part of it was probably this podcast, but there are other things that were drawing me away. And I and I also knew that the five-year commitment to that program, there's going to be things that we needed to do. And so I just had this really strong feeling that it was time to put that on pause and consider an alternative. And I talked to you about it, and you were helpful at letting me kind of work through the pros and cons of that decision. So I reached out to the dean, and I had to make the very difficult choice of putting that on pause right now and not knowing if I would ever take that off pause again. And even some I never looked back about the decision, but I struggled with why did I feel prompted to go into this? And yet within months, I felt prompted to step away from that. And that sat in my head for quite a while. And I remember being on uh at a reunion with our family, and I was on a walk with my brother, and he brought up this conference talk. It was it was President Holland's son, Matt. He talked about um a time when he and his father had prayed about a decision to go one direction or the other. And they they felt good about going one direction, and it wasn't long after they realized that was the wrong direction. And they had to turn around and go all the way back and start over again. And they both asked the question of themselves, why did we have that prompting? Why were we led that direction when it was the wrong way? And I that helped me quite a lot because I realized that I had gone a direction that was not right for me at that time, and I had to go backwards. And that was really difficult for me. But knowing now the direction that I'm going in this path, including this podcast, it feels so right. And I've never second-guessed or questioned that decision ever since. And so similar to the story that he told, I now feel much more confidence in the direction I'm going. And I've and I have not looked back since.

SPEAKER_01 12:39

I love that talk. It's such a great example that, you know, we can change our minds. We are prompted to change things sometimes for reasons we may not know, but that the spirit guides us each individually, and we have to learn to know the language of the spirit personally. And you were guided and directed. And I remember that time, and it was very difficult. And there was a lot of thought and prayer and discussion that went into those decisions, both to enter into the program and also both to leave the program. It was not a decision taken lightly, yet the spirit was there leading and guiding you.

SPEAKER_00 13:13

Yeah. And I think that, you know, I know that's happened to me before in my life, but not as strongly as that. So I appreciate you asking the question because and maybe it's most recently on my mind that I struggled with why there were two paths and the path I I took originally was not the right, but now I know more with more confidence that this next path is the journey I am to be on and we are to be on together.

SPEAKER_01 13:40

Aaron Ross Powell With that, what advice would you give to someone who has felt prompted to change their direction after already committing to a path?

SPEAKER_00 13:46

Aaron Powell You know, it is kind of what you said about understanding the language of the spirit. And I think as long as you feel comfortable that that communication is coming from the right direction. And sometimes, sometimes you're not going to get a very strong prompting one way or another, but you're going to feel good about going down that path. And if you do that and it changes, that's okay. That's okay. I think Helling Father understands that sometimes these journeys that we take are for our learning and our benefit. And I know that path for me was a great learning for me. And so I think trying to find the reasoning and why is something I would suggest to our listeners as well. Because as we do that, we don't have to have regret. We don't have to go back and second guess ourselves all the time. It was a clear understanding, yes, a clear understanding, no.

SPEAKER_01 14:37

Right. And I love I love that we talked about, you know, it may be that you had that nagging to go back to school for years. And if you hadn't listened to it, you wouldn't realize that it wasn't really the right time for you. There were other things in store. Yeah. Thank you. In your clinical work, you often say that getting to know someone helps you appreciate their journey. So why is that intimate knowledge so vital to how you serve them?

SPEAKER_00 15:02

Well, I think the more you come to understand somebody, it's natural to love them more or to appreciate them more at least. And when you love them or appreciate them and have a basis for understanding why they're there, it's so much easier to serve them. It really, really is. And I think our missionaries, I mean, it's natural for mission leaders to love their missionaries, no question about it. But you love them even more as you understand their story and you understand where they're coming from. So I think that that clinical background helped me to better put myself in a place to seek to walk in their shoes. And that happened with all 650 of our missionaries, and some to a greater degree than others, of course. Some we met with more than others. But I think generally it's important for all of us to get to know people before we just immediately seek to judge them. I think the more we know, the more we love, the more we serve. I think it's a pattern that's worked well in my life.

SPEAKER_01 16:04

I love that. One thing that surprised me about being a mission leader was the instant love that you have for a missionary call to serve in your mission. And you look at their picture, you read about them, you see them come off the plane, and it's like there was never a time when you didn't love them. And so I and then you take the opportunity to get to know about their situation and your love just just grows exponentially. As we start this journey together, what is your ultimate hope for this podcast?

SPEAKER_00 16:33

I want people to realize they're not alone. As a return missionary, oftentimes we feel like we are or isolated. Sometimes that comes because our family doesn't understand us. Sometimes it comes because things don't turn out as we thought. Maybe relationships don't pan out the way we expected. And so they can find themselves alone and isolated. These stories will help people realize they're not alone. And while their journey will be unique to those they hear on the podcast, there is great wisdom of weaves through each of their stories that they can apply in their own lives. And I found that there's so many out there whose stories have been so inspiring to me. They've helped me not only feel like I can do hard things, but I can also rely on the Lord to help me do hard things. And so I I want that for our listeners. And I think that's certainly been one of the outcomes for me already in this process.

SPEAKER_01 17:33

I think in listening to other people's stories, we find inspiration, we find enlightenment, we find empathy, we find people who may be in very similar situations or whose situations may be completely different. And yet it's so inspiring to hear what people have done with their lives, and it can be so motivating for us as individuals, as return missionaries, to hear successes and failures and to realize we're not the only ones going through successes and failures, but that coming home from a mission can be hard. We don't have a specific purpose of sharing the gospel anymore. We don't have a specific schedule, we don't have a specific P Day. Um so we have to come back from our mission and reevaluate. And I think these stories of the amazing people on the podcast will help fill those spaces in our lives and give us inspiration.

SPEAKER_00 18:22

Yeah, and I think that it's important as we're going through these chapters to realize they're just chapters. They're not our story. They're not the end of the story, right? They're not the conclusion. I think then as we see the next chapter, we'll see as we look backwards, perhaps how that prior chapter helped us in the next chapter of our life, which can be very inspiring and uplifting. And there are some people who want to close the book in their life. They've had so many things go against them. And I just call out to them to consider that this is just a momentary time and that things will change and they can change for the better as we get help, as we uh challenge ourselves to do hard things and then listen to the spirit, we can get through these chapters together.

SPEAKER_01 19:12

That's a beautiful concept. Our lives are chapters, and as we come from our mission, that chapter's ending, but that's okay, because we'll start a new chapter. And if we have a difficult time in our lives, that's okay. That chapter can end and we can move on.

SPEAKER_00 19:25

And we can, you know, we say often, don't go home and put your old blue jeans on. We've changed, we've developed, we've grown through hard times, through challenges. And I think that as we do that, it will make our next chapters that much better.

SPEAKER_01 19:41

Thank you. This has been a great time together. We look forward to the podcast, and we're so grateful for those who've shared their amazing stories.

SPEAKER_00 19:47

Well, we're just learning and getting our feet under the table, so to speak, but it's gonna be a great journey and uh it's gonna be exciting.