Like most people, I've always wanted to write a book. I finally did. I started writing The Thousand-Day Journey about 16 months ago in February 2022. It was a heck of a lot more work than I realized it was going to be, between the researching, writing, editing, formatting, creating covers, etc. that I did all myself. Like building an airplane while flying it, as my first book, I felt like I was learning to write a book as I went. It was fun to watch the way the writing improved as the story went on, and the amount of editing I had to do to go back and fix the early chapters was astronomical.
On the upside, I feel much more equipped and able to write a book now than I did two years ago. And although I never intended to write two (or several) books, I feel like I can't stop now because I only just learned how. So if you like it, stay tuned for more writing in the future—my next books will likely be much more fun and funny and fictional.
Anyways, you can buy it here:
https://www.amazon.com/dp/B0C6BK4XFD
But also, there's a free PDF here
About the Book
It's 313 pages, which puts it somewhere in between the second and third Harry Potter books in length. It's nearly entirely religious themed, mostly psychological, and largely auto-biographical. All the stories are based on real experiences, with a few creative liberties taken here and there to fit the story. It's about a 17-year-old kid who leaves home to start a journey of preaching, teaching, and converting in a far off land. I felt like the book needed a disclaimer to state what it was trying to be and what my intentions were—largely so people who are religious didn't feel blindsided by the anti-religious themes (which happened to me countless times on my mission), and so people who aren't religious weren't surprised by the intensely religious framework the story is built on. As such, I wrote Preface that can hopefully give you some clarity about the book and what it's about before you buy it. This is the Preface included at the beginning of the book.
Preface
These stories are all true, for the most part, and mostly just mine. Although by the time you’re done reading you may or may not agree with me, my goal in telling this story is not to convince anyone to change their faith. It similarly isn't as much about telling things precisely as they happened, but rather to showcase my experiences. To demonstrate. To tell the story I’ve lived.
It was my experience growing up Mormon that when someone gets back from their mission, you always hear certain kinds of stories—usually the miracles. The good stuff. There’s a certain romanticized version of what happens while you’re out there that you want to share and a certain version that people want to hear. You want your experience to sound great and people want to believe that your experience was great. And for the most part, it is. Although mission experiences can be great, they might not always be good—but they are always impactful. They don’t call it “the best two years” lightly. Or, at least, I assume they don’t.
But there are other stories besides the best ones that people like to share. Apart from the great, there’s the bad, the fantastically bad, and the mundane. There’s the dire, the distraught, and certainly the devastating. What you generally don’t hear about are the most human moments of a missionary’s experience. You don’t always hear about the mistakes, the most honest situations, or the feeling of everyday dread that some missionaries feel. It makes perfect sense why these stories aren’t shared from the pulpit or in the magazines. But if you’ve never been on a mission, they’re forever hidden from your eyes and your ears.
In this book, there is a portrayal of a religion that resembles Mormonism. The parallels are fairly obvious. But it’s worth noting that it is not a perfect portrayal—Mysticism more closely resembles a conglomerate of ideas from here and there and religions everywhere. It’s a smorgasbord of beliefs. Although I wanted to tell my story from the perspective of someone with deep experiences in the Mormon religion, I didn’t want this story to be about only Mormonism. Instead, it’s about the human experience that is the Mormon mission (or other religious missions). In short, Mysticism isn’t meant to represent Mormonism directly and I hope you can take this made-up Mystic religion for what it is. In even shorter: Mysticism is not Mormonism, but it can be if you need it to be.
Although you may not identify as such, realistically, there are three camps when it comes to religion: the believer, the no longer a believer, and the never was a believer. Or as we call them here in Utah in regards to Mormonism: the Mormon, the ex-Mormon, and the never-Mormon. To my audience of believers, I hope you enjoy looking for parallels between Mysticism and Mormonism, but also note the differences. I hope you can relate to my realistic, honest retelling of a journey of faith. I hope you read about experiences that many Mormon people go through but don’t often talk about. I made an effort to detach these experiences from any stigma of a particular faith and tell stories objectively, without the need to look through the lens of church-approved glasses. I similarly tried to avoid the lens of angsty, post-Mormon glasses, too. I guess I tried to just look through the regular kind of glasses—you know, the ones that kinda help you see better.
(A quick aside: to anyone offended over being referred to as "Mormons," I do apologize. Old habits die hard and I gave out a couple hundred too many “I’m a Mormon” pass-along cards while I was a missionary to forget it ever happened. But you’ll be pleased to know that the term "Mormon" appears nowhere in this book after the preface).
To my no longer believers, I hope this book serves as a window into your past; I hope this book offers a reminder (without triggering too much PTSD) of where and who you once were. It can be easy to forget. Trust me, I know. A friend of mine once described reflecting on a mission experience as feeling like it was all a distant dream—”Did I really even go on a mission? It doesn’t feel real anymore.”
Alternatively, to those who have never strongly believed in anything religious, I hope this book gives you insight into what it's like to be a believer and why one might stay a believer in today's world. I hope that, story by story, it can adequately describe in an intimate way the psychology of being born into an intense belief system that you might not get to see otherwise. I hope seeing a spiritual journey through the eyes of a believer gives you a newfound perspective, particularly a sympathetic one, of people you see but might not understand in the world around you.
More than anything, I hope my writing has something to offer everyone. I hope it bridges gaps of human understanding for believers and non-believers alike—and most of all, I hope this book produces a perspective that promotes mutual respect for those who exist in camps outside our own.
But perhaps most importantly, to the young reader and prospective missionary of any faith, I hope this book gives you some insight into what growing up is like for a believer and what you're in for by signing up to serve a mission. It’s impossible to know what it’s going to be like beforehand. I know all I really ever heard about were the miracles, and how it was going to be the best years of my life. But also maybe the hardest. Calling it the best two years certainly feels idealistic and to some, disingenuous. But more on that later.
I hope this book challenges you to throw your faith into the refiner's fire of questions, reading, and learning. I do believe the refiner's fire analogy is apt—if you study relevant information deeply, without bias, and without preconceived notions as to what you hope is true, your faith ought to come out the other side either stronger than ever or burnt to a crisp. Whichever truth speaks to you. Either result is an improvement on weak, inauthentic, rule-following faith. As they say, anything worth doing is worth doing right. In short, I implore you to do your due diligence of exploring the depth of your faith and other faiths as well before you go.
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