Deciding
Ever since I was 13, I knew I wanted to serve a mission for The Church of Jesus Christ of Latter-Day Saints. I yearned to put a name tag as a representative of Jesus Christ on and do my very best to be worthy of and have the courage to leave my loved ones, my education, dating,"normal life”, my love for listening to music all hours of the day, wearing sweatpants/tshirts all. day., naps, etc for 18 months to purely share my love of the Savior, the truth I know that’s in this gospel, and serve his children through him. Fast forward 3 years to when President Thomas S. Monson made the announcement of the eligibility of men and women serving would change from 19 and 21 years old, to 18 and 19 years old. WHAT!?! Michael and I were both just sitting on the couch so happy and stunned! The funny thing is that before that, I was realizing like hmmm I’m going to be older than I thought by the time I’m actually going to be able to go! 21 years old! But this change happened, the Lord is putting his trust in us, and the work is hastening-from about 58,000 full-time missionaries in 2012 to 2015 with over 80,000 world-wide full-time LDS missionaries out there.... it’s incredible. There have been SEVERAL times throughout the past 3 years that I’d randomly picture myself as a missionary walking the streets of who knows where or see my friends and family go off to give up 2 years or 18 months to serve and have just gotten emotional, feeling even stronger that I absolutely need to be one of those; that I wouldn’t be living according to what HE knows is best for me personally if I didn’t take this opportunity. So I planned! Yep, 3 years before, I planned. Don’t judge.
Waiting for it
Fast forward to a little before the 120 days prior to my 19th birthday that I could submit my missionary application to church headquarters and start the dreaded waiting. The part about not knowing exactly when it would come is the worst part about the call. Thoughts of getting called to strange places I’ve never heard of, places with no running water, cultures very different from mine, somewhere with 110-degree or 10 below weather... anyone who claims “ignorance is bliss” is wrong hahah. I knew I would get super anxious so I forced myself to not even think about it too much. One week after submission goes by, no big deal. 2 weeks pass? whatevvver. But as soon as that passed, the mixed emotions and anticipation came. When they say satan’s power is real, they ain’t joking. Internalizing the anticipation and trying to be patient was getting old, things starting going wrong, I was getting distracted and lowering my standards for myself, letting myself get angry and be hard on myself and lose my drive for schoolwork, scripture reading, losing faith in my prayers, patience with others... it’s definitely normal to be an emotional wreck before you get your mission call and IT’S OKAY! I realized the error of my ways one night and day after day of it STILL not coming, I almost felt like the Lord was waiting for me to humble myself and change before I would truly “deserve” getting what I wanted; “You did well today, but I think you know you could do better...you’re having more faith in me today, but you’ll gain even more by tomorrow... you thought for sure it’d come today and the day before that, but let’s just see what a little more test of the patience can do to you...” Well He’s a smart one, it worked! I thought for sure it’d come on that tuesday after my second week in, but the lord chastened me more each day until friday came, and in the end I KNEW it was a tender mercy from Him to let me change and truly be ready for the long-awaited dream that deserved the right kind of attention. I went to class that morning with hope but not surety, excitement but not anxiety, and a more humble heart. When I got home, all I wanted to do was feel the spirit, feel some goodness, and make sure I was mentally prepared for the big moment whenever it would be! I started watching The District and found my excitement and humility for the work increasing. I just wanted to do it! To get out there and love like Christ. To bring others unto this thing that I love the most, ,the truths that give me peace. I knew it was getting time for my aunt to inform me if my letter had come to her mail yet... Lol I was kinda home alone so I just started jumping around in the apartment smiling like an idiot ,waiting for a text, finishing up the second episode of the District... Finally I sat down to try to be somewhat productive and study for a big test coming up, but probably got distracted with more advice and mission talk on the ‘Many are called, but few are sisters’ Facebook page (which I definitely recommend keeping up with for any of you sisters preparing/going/or already back). THEN THERE IT WAS. THE TEXTS. “I hear the mailman down the street!, It’s coming!, It’s here!!!!” I just let out a squeal of excitement for the building to hear, nbd! The greatest moment yet... my mission call was here. *sigh*
Receiving
So the mass texts went out, and love and encouraging support suree came in. I started jotting down people’s guesses on my maps, listening to the movie The Errand of Angels soundtrack, rearranging/cleaning the apartment more, and then 30 mins before I stress-cleaned some more... people started showing up and I was trying to Skype like 5 people in, answer the loads of texts for them, greet the lovely ward members, family, and friends (and random people who I didn’t know, yes I ssee you ;D!) catch my breath. Finally, everyone was in and just waiting for me to get my stuff together. Trying to open it, I remembered that one dream I had about opening my mission call and not being able to understand it because it was in another language that I’m pretty sure doesn’t exist and being so sad because I still didn’t know where I was going, and then all the other horror stories I’ve heard. But I finally got it open, covered up the letter, and started slowly reading:
“Dear Sister Moon:
You are hearby called to serve as a missionary of The Church of Jesus Christ of Latter-day Saints. You are assigned to labor in the Chile Santiago North Mission. It is anticipated that you will serve for a period of 18 months. You should report to the Chile Missionary Training Center on Wednesday, November 18, 2015. You will prepare to preach the gospel in the Spanish language.”
whaaaaat? I didn’t even believe it. No! Chile? Where my grandpa was a mission president? where my dad served his mission? SOUTH AMERICA? I’d given up the idea of South America like 2 weeks before and thought for sure I was going to Kansas (which would’ve been awesome still), but my goodnessssss!!!!! After I read it, I didn’t even know what to do, it was surreal! All these people clapping and cheering and I was just processing it like it wasn’t even real life. I felt like I needed to give some grand speech to everyone but instead I just squealed and yelled WOOOOOOOH hahahah. Who do I hug? Where do I go? Do I just hang up on all the skyping family and talk to the people in my actual presence or have the skyping people stare at my leg for a few mins wlahsfdvludh;boadhb’dih I know none of those things actually mattered but at the time I just felt like all I could do was smile so big and hug everyone and love them and life. SO YES! I had my mission call, and eventually everyone cleared out and so I started looking through my packet and later looked up the weather and that was the first of the many times I’ve felt that I’m going EXACTLY where I’m supposed to be.
Some fun facts about my mission from preparetoserve.com:
Some fun facts about my mission from preparetoserve.com:
the annual high temp is 85 degrees (F), and the low is 37! YAAAAASS. Not hot, not super cold, I love iit.
All of the cool sites to see are in my mission!
The temple is in my mission!
The mission is about 2-3 hours across, so it’s nice and pretty small.
Their food is apparently soo good.
DOGS, DOGS EVERYWHERE.
The people are SUPER kind.
they speak castellano, which is like spanish but a tiny twist on pronunciation- por ejemplo, instead of Yo me (y)llamo, it’s like zjo me zjammo, haha idk, just a funny sound to it, i like it.
The CCM only fits 20-100 missionaries at a time, WOOH! It will be so good for me especially to have a smaller, less overwhelming atmosphere and learning environment to get close to my fellow hermanas and elders. I know I’ll cherish my time there. PS you get to site-see on P-day there :)
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| Why yes, Joy got me a chile hat. And yes, I got a Chilean flag |
Post-mission call
So yes, I know I will love my mission more than anything after it’s all said and done, but for now, what the heck am I doing? Well, I’m back home working more than I anticipated. It’s been hard for sure, not knowing exactly how to go about this whole leaving for a year and a half thing and expecting myself to be the most prepared I can be since I have so long before I leave, it’s like the pressure to be perfect has been way on! Working long hours for me is really good prep for those 12 hours in a classroom that I’ll have in November, along with the communication with workers and customers... I’m being stretched more and more each day for suuure haha. But I definitely wish I had more down time to have that spiritual preparation I was planning on. I’m kinda stuck on making use of the random few hours I have every other day, and wish I had a good study plan set, but I have to say I’ve made some progress! I’ve gotten to go to the temple each week, I’ve started putting together a binder of all of the advice I’ve personally gotten and researched on some great blogs, scriptures, quotes, talks, etc.. and last week Ken and I got together and we tried to start teaching the first lesson and we memorized the first vision in spanish, so I got to at least check one of my goals off the list! Goals really are key. and Preach My Gospel. And Scripture study. I cannot tell you how many times RMs have stressed those to me, and I learned in mission prep class the importance of diligently planning, setting goals, and following up and continually improving, so hopefully I can do Bro Zeidner and myself and Heavenly Father proud by striving to fulfill the goals I think I can achieve before I leave!
Anyways, I can talk more about my prep in the future once I make progress, but now I’ll say that I’m just so. excited. Deciding to go, waiting for, receiving a call, and preparing for a mission provides a huge rollercoaster of emotions, but I wouldn’t want to be doing anything else at this point in my life. I know the Lord has a plan for all of us! As I learned up at school in my wards and with friends, a mission isn’t in everyone’s plan. For some girls, the desire is so strong, but they find that the Lord’s got something else in mind for them! AND IT’S OKAY!!! There was a point where I wondered if, besides how much I wanted it, was it what I’m actually meant to do? I never did receive a blatant answer “burning in the bosom” deal when I was demanding to know ha, but I remembered the endless “small, simple assurances” I’ve had before and since the submission and call that IT’S RIGHT. And I’m just so happy. I hope the same peace for everyone in their lives! “The best times in my life are when my plans and the Lord’s are the same.” -Elder Sam Allred
(And thanks to most of those beautiful pictures by MY ROOMMATE Joy Chan)<a href="https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=Jfcr2AAHnnI">
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