“I’ll Be Back”

Dear friends and family:

If you’re old enough, you probably recall the movie called “The Terminator” that came out in 1984. In the movie, Arnold Swartznegger played the role of a T-800 Terminator‒a cyborg assassin sent back in time to kill Sarah Conner. In his hunt for Sarah, Arnold walked into a police station and was told that he couldn’t come in. His cyborg mind contemplated the situation for a moment and with Arnold’s heavy Austrian accent he said: “I’ll be back.” Arnold left the station, but less than a minute later he drove a car through the front of the building. 

I mention this movie because there are some similarities and some very slight differences between this scene and going on a senior mission with your spouse to Reno Nevada. So let’s begin with the differences between our mission and the Terminator. First, the T-800 didn’t go on his mission with his wife as a companion. Second, I’m a lot better looking than Arnold and I have slightly more muscle mass. Third, I don’t speak with an Austrian accent, but a lot of people wish I did so they could better understand me when I babble. Fourth, and most important, when Jan and I left for our mission 18 months ago, I didn’t say “I’ll be back.” But I should have said that because here we are: Home again, home again, jiggety-jig.

And now for the similarities between The Terminator and our mission to Reno Nevada. It turns out rather shockingly that there are no similarities between the two. I know, I know. It’s kind of disappointing after the big lead-in and all. So let’s just conclude this part of our nostalgic discussion by saying that even though I never said “I’ll be back,” we’ve come back anyway. Good news, we did not run into any police stations enroute, and as far as I know Sarah Conner is still very much alive.

As you can imagine, our return after 18 months has been bitter-sweet. It’s a little bit like John the Revelator’s Little Book Mission in Revelation 10:8-11. In these verses, an angel told John that his mission “shall make thy belly bitter, but it shall be in thy mouth sweet as honey.” Actually, I’m not sure how that applies to our return from the Nevada Reno Mission, so let’s just forget about what I just said and say that “our return was a bitter-sweet experience.” 

Obviously, we’ll miss very much the time we had with our missionaries. As we approached the end, I had so many missionaries asking for another NRM Movie that I was forced to produce one final movie that was played during our last set of zone conferences in January. When it comes to pressure, I’m not the Terminator. I’m more like the T-Rex in Toy Story that shudders when faced with pressure. So naturally, I caved-in to the pressure and produced one final major motion picture called the NRM Academy Awards. Spoiler Alert: Jan gets an academy award for her once-in-a-lifetime role in the FBI Movie. So if you’re up to it, here’s a link to the final NRM Movie.

In addition, and sort of last minute, the mission president asked me to prepare a music video for the 2026 youth theme song called “Walk With Me.” So if you want to feel youthful, you can take-a-listen and see some scenes from the Nevada Reno Mission set to music of Walk With Me. Here’s the link.

Needless to say, as we put the NRM in our rearview mirror it was made easier as we looked forward to coming home to spend more time with kids, grandkids, and family in general. This past Sunday we gave our homecoming talks in Sacrament meeting. Sometimes, you just can’t get away from these well-worn speaking traditions no matter how painful they are for the congregation. It just so happens that in the same meeting Jan and I were sustained as ward mission leaders. I was a little surprised that no one raised their hand in opposition, but then I realized that this is a transient student ward, and it’s pretty obvious that most people don’t really know me very well. I suspect that if the bishopric had asked for a sustaining vote after my talk‒rather than before‒we might have had a different outcome with the vote.

We’re looking forward to our continuing service. Today, for example we get to attend the temple to do baptisms with a young man who was baptized just shortly before our arrival home. We will be going in the company of two other youth from the ward, so that will be really great.

So what’s on the docket for these return missionaries. It turns out we have a trip planned to the old stomping ground of John the Revelator on Patmos Island and then on to Israel for about a month. I know what you’re thinking. “Finally, we have someone who can straighten things out in the Middle East.” Oh…. my bad. That’s not what you were thinking? Well okay. It’s true that we are just going to Israel on a tourist visa and not a diplomatic visa. Let’s just hope the country is still open for business when we head east on February 26^th . By the way, you’re all invited to come along. You just have to keep up on Facebook because I do plan to do daily posts of our adventures.

On a final note, you’re all invited to check out a new feature on my website at UnveilingJesusChrist.com. At the request of several people, I created an Second Coming Events Timeline leading up to the Second Coming. As I embarked on this project, it got a little larger than expected. Big shocker! So, the Events Timeline starts way back in the premortal existence and goes all the way through the end of the earth and its celestialization. The timeline is interactive, so you can search for events. I can’t take any credit for the technology behind the timeline, but it’s pretty cool and includes every critical event from the Book of Revelation in its proper sequence. You can check out the timeline by clicking on this LINK and take it for a test drive.

Well, that’s about all the news from this new neck of the woods. And that’s good, because I can see that you’ve also reached the limit of your endurance reading another email from yours truly. So have a blessed day and thanks for sticking around to the bitter end. So does this mean that this is the last of my many emails to all my peeps? Who knows? Maybe I’ll be back.

John Cassinat