It's such a broad term. One doesn't have to live abroad even. Right?

When I was a child I wanted to be a missionary. Once or twice a year missionaries would visit our church and entertain us with slideshows, objects, and true stories about their host countries(where they lived at the time). We learned about some of their favorite friends and helpmates in these stories. We became concerned about these faraway brothers and sisters’ welfare and showed that concern when the religious workers took up an offering. We learned of floods, fires, and earthquakes that the expats sometimes had to endure and survive. We kids always remembered the strange animals and odd dishes the missionaries came face to face with occasionally. The hyenas, anteaters, etc. The blood sausage, whole cooked pigs still boasting eyes, heads, and feet, etc. It was all new and, at times, hard to believe even though mostly true . I’m sure, however, that one or two of these servants of God stretched things a bit just to make the story more exciting and to keep our pre-pubescent attention. Who could blame them?
The missionary visits were complemented by a church magazine in which we could see more photos of the different countries and sometimes the step-by-step progress of a church building under construction.
I never made it to the mission fields after I grew up and the reasons are various. I did move abroad, however, and began experiencing first-hand some of the adventures I’d been told of during those circuit visits. One day I realized I was a missionary of sorts after all. Sort of a combination missionary-junior diplomat, if you will. I was the first live citizen of my country some of the people I met(not terribly many, of course) had ever had contact with. This realization became an awakening you might say. It made me want to do my best; to be cheerful and trustworthy though, unfortunately, I was still all-too-human with those inevitable defects that that condition entails.
Anyway, today I’m still at it. I’m still trying to be cheerful, trustworthy, and trying to do a good job. I’ve learned to worry much more about what the Supreme Being thinks of me and my actions than what my earthly and mortal peers might think. Maybe on some days I succeed at these good job attempts. I hope so. At any rate, on the days I do not, I find the majority of people with whom I have contact to be quite forgiving. That’s the key. That’s where I learn from them. After all, what “missionary” or junior diplomat who is worth anything can afford NOT to forgive? Thanks for reading.