Well, as the description states, I'm going to go on a mission for The Church of Jesus Christ of Latter-Day Saints. Man, is that a mouthful. Since this is an introduction, I suppose I should explain a bit about what that is and why I decided to do that.
My church does a lot of missionary work, which is mostly done by 18+ year old men and 19+ women. It is voluntary, but it is generally more expected of men to go than women. People who want to be missionaries fill out some forms and are interviewed by church leaders; once all that is done, your "papers" (even though it is not paper...) are submitted to Salt Lake City where the headquarters for the church are. Soon enough, you get a nice big envelope that tells you where you are assigned to go!
My decision to do this took awhile. For the longest time, I thought "Eh, a mission is not off the table... but no. Don't think so." Even when they lowered the eligibility age to 19, I was still thinking "That's nice. Still, eh." Once I got back from Germany, I had a good friend who was going to go on a mission, and she convinced me to go to Mission Prep classes with her after church. I just did it to humor her, spend some time with her, and just enjoy the class. I really enjoyed it, but still didn't think so. But whenever someone from the class was about to leave on a mission, they would give their testimony (in Mormon lingo, that's when they state their beliefs in the Gospel and such). One week this one guy was speaking quite powerfully about missionary work and Christ, etc.; it was just great, and he really touched my heart. As I was listening, out of the blue, the thought came to me that I could/should do that. Immediately behind that thought was, "wait, what? No, no, no" But I kept thinking about it, considering it. The thought wouldn't go away! One time I was having a conversation with some people and at one point I was trying to say "no, I'm not going on a mission," but I basically choked on the words and had a hard time forcing them out. I suppose my subconsciousness had made a decision but my consciousness wasn't with the program yet. Soon I went off to my first semester of college at BYUI, and I had a GREAT time. I really loved it, and that was making it hard to decide. I wanted to stay, but I still kept thinking about it. I was praying a whole bunch, trying to figure out what I should do, but I must have changed my mind back and forth a dozen times. Still, slowly but surely, I became convinced that a mission would be a good thing to do. Some of my thoughts behind it was college will still be here later, but I only have a short time I could do this; but also that I have been given so much and I know how happy the Gospel has made me, and so I would love to share that with others. Once I became convinced, I finished my papers REALLY fast. I got all my interviews and submitted them. It was towards the end of my semester, so I had it sent to my sister's address, because I would be with her family over the Christmas break. And THANK GOODNESS it arrived while I was there, but I still had to wait a week until all my family arrived to open it. It was KILLING ME to have my letter sitting there on the shelf.
Finally I got to open it, and I was SOOO surprised. I was expecting somewhere in the States, or maybe South America because a lot of people have been going there, or possibly Europe because I know German, but it never even occurred to me that it could be an Asian country! I am quite excited for this new challenge, and I look forward to being trilingual! That'll be cool, and with the random-est languages too :P I look forward for this opportunity to serve others and focus on what is really important in life.
Anyways, my parents will be updating this blog while I am away so that you all know what is going on with me. Keep in touch everyone, I would love to hear from you. :)
