Missionaries for The Church of Jesus Christ of Latter-day Saints are held to very high standards. For example: we don’t watch TV, listen to the radio, go to the movies, or read books that aren’t approved in the missionary library. We only get to call home twice a year and have one day a week where we can email family and friends. Here’s a nice FAQ page for anyone who is interested in learning more about what a typical missionary schedule consists of, how we’re encouraged to prepare for a mission, or missionary clothing guidelines.

As missionaries, we don’t date. In fact, we can’t even hug members of the opposite sex. When I would explain some of these standards to people while I was a missionary, I got a lot of replies along the lines of, “That’s way too strict!” Maybe for people who hadn’t dedicated 24 or 18 months of their lives to sharing the gospel of Jesus Christ it’s strict, but for us missionaries it allows us the focus we need to study Christ’s words and help other people.

There’s one phrase attached to missionary work, however, that I don’t completely agree with 100%. It’s “lock your heart.”

This phrase, “lock your heart,” basically means to check yourself and make sure that you guard your heart against any romantic feelings that may develop between you and someone else while serving your mission – whether it be towards another missionary or someone in one of your areas. It’s also a reminder for missionaries who have a girlfriend or boyfriend waiting for them back home to keep the focus on the work of sharing God’s word and not daydreaming about a future wedding.

I like the sentiment of that phrase – I honestly do. But there can be some danger attached to it, too. Before people start jumping down my throat, let me explain.

For my entire life, I’ve shied away from my feelings, especially when it comes to feelings of romance. They’re sticky and horrible and heartbreaking (for me). This caused me to have an extremely unhealthy relationship with my feelings where I would never acknowledge them. I’d push them down, down, down and deny I had them. Because of this, I didn’t know how to properly deal with my feelings.

Typically I hate sharing this part of my mission, but I’ve slowly come to a point where I’ve realized it is what it is and I had to go through it for a reason. While on my mission I had crushes on 5 different elders. You read that number correctly. Some didn’t last very long while others did. In fact, one got to the point where, when an elder went home, he decided to wait for me. Thankfully nothing ever came of that because I ended breaking things off before the end of my mission.

Some of my mission leaders became concerned – I can’t blame them for that. They were probably wondering where my focus was. But these leaders did not handle the situation in the best way. Instead of trying to help me and guide me through it, they made me feel like a harlot because I had developed feelings for another missionary. The message I got from them a lot of the time was, “This is wrong and you need to stop.”

I agree that a mission is not the ideal place to develop feelings for someone. The fact that I liked this elder so much – but had no guidance on how to deal with the feelings – weighed heavily on me. In fact, I was so worried about breaking rules that I went to my mission president in person and requested that we be transferred out of the district and not even serve in the same zone.

I wasn’t a perfect missionary. I stared at him a little too often. I even wrote him a note once, which is a big missionary no-no, but I eventually told my mission president about the error. I was so terrified of being sent home. All my mission president told me was to not do it again, quite sternly. And that was that. I repented of my ways the best I could. I tried my hardest to focus on my areas, plan lessons for the people we were teaching, learn Spanish, and train new missionaries. I thought I was a hardworking missionary.

But my leaders made me feel like dirt. “This is wrong and you need to stop.”

Really? Having feelings is wrong?

Like I said above, the mission is not an ideal place to develop feelings for someone. However, there are people who serve in the same mission who do end up getting married (sometimes missionaries will even marry someone from an area they served in). And the fact they have to explain themselves and say, “But our hearts were locked on our mission” is ridiculous. Not only that, some missionaries wear it as a sort of badge of honor, like “I’m better than you because my heart was locked and yours wasn’t.” Why do people automatically assume that spouses who met on the mission were disobedient?

For four years – ever since I’ve come home – I’ve been punishing myself because an elder from my mission decided to wait for me when he got home and I didn’t dissuade him. I thought that God had taken away my chance for marriage because I had feelings for not one, but 5 elders while I was a missionary. I’ve questioned my work ethic, worthiness, and effectiveness as a missionary because of that and how my leaders told me my feelings were wrong.

The fact of the matter is – feelings are normal. And as a missionary, you see the best in other people. You really start seeing others for what they’re worth for the first time. And sometimes it can be hard to balance those feelings out. Feelings are something that you constantly need to be aware of and assess. Why are you feeling a certain way? What is attracting you to a certain person?

It was on my mission that I realized I had an unhealthy relationship with my feelings. I didn’t know how to deal with or process them. Because of that, I’d deny them or go completely overboard. That’s one of the reasons I had my severe mental breakdown three months before coming home – I had bottled up my feelings so much and didn’t know how to deal with them that they exploded inside of me and broke me mentally. Even then, my leaders did nothing to help me out. They brushed my breakdown under the rug and pretended like it never happened.

Looking back, I wish someone had sat down with me and talked with me about my feelings for this elder. I think those feelings contributed a lot to the depression I felt because I didn’t know how to deal with them and I thought I was sinning. I don’t think I was sinning because I liked an elder. God gave us these feelings for a reason, but I needed help in bridling them. I wish someone had told me, “You know, these feelings are natural. But maybe we can work on some skills to help tame them.” If someone had talked with me instead of berating me, they would have also been able to know more about the depression inside of me. I stopped talking to my leaders about my feelings because I felt that I couldn’t trust them. Whether it was my depression or crush, I constantly felt like I was doing something wrong in their eyes.

Instead of “lock your heart,” why don’t we use something more along the lines of, “Be aware of your heart and bridle it.” “Locking” is such a cold, intense word. As a missionary you can’t lock your heart all the way. It has to be open to feel the Spirit and have compassion for others. Because of my issues with acknowledging my feelings, I sometimes had a hard time feeling compassion for the people I taught. Christ had an open heart. That didn’t mean He lusted after women, but He did allow himself to feel compassion and Christlike love for women He was ministering to. It’s a challenge for missionaries in their late teens and early twenties to have complete control over their feelings. They start learning how to on the mission. I firmly believe that’s one of the reasons I had so many crushes on my mission – it was the Lord trying to teach me how to understand, acknowledge, and bridle my feelings in an appropriate way for the situation.

Maybe this is just me trying to rationalize what happened to me and make me feel better because of my mistakes. But at the end of the day, I really do believe that feelings aren’t “wrong” or “bad.” You feel the way you feel and no one can change that. How responsible you are with your feelings is key. Are you letting them fester? Are you dwelling on them a little too long? Are you becoming irrational? If we allowed ourselves to feel and assess those feelings, I think we’d live in a much better world.