My reaction to my call

So I have had a lot of people ask me what my reaction was upon receiving my mission call. I think people wonder this mainly because of the fact that I am going to Salt Lake City. One girl told me sorry that I was going there, and if she had been called to Salt Lake, she would have cried. Well I've been thinking about it, and if someone would be unwilling to serve somewhere just because it is close to home, then they aren't serving for the right reasons. Serving a mission is not about seeing a new country or new culture. It is about leaving the Ninety and nine and finding the One lost sheep. Yes Salt Lake is close to home, and yes it is known for its large Mormon population, but there are still lost sheep there and they have every much of a need to be found as those in Europe or South America. That is what I am doing on my mission. Finding and bringing home the One lost sheep.

So what was my reaction when I read my mission call? It was this:

Am I excited? Yes. I am excited to share the gospel that I love with my neighbors. I am excited to learn Spanish. I am excited to share the Plan of Salvation. I am excited to the serve the Lord, and I am excited that the Lord has a plan for me and it includes the people of Salt Lake.

Well this is a short post, but here are some pictures of when I opened my mission call.

Baby Enoch is not camera shy. He loves getting his picture taken. So cute!

Friends and family waiting anxiously for me to open my mission call

Not the greatest picture of me, but here is me preparing to open my call.

Me with baby Enoch. He really thought the cameras should be on him and did not complain when I let him be in this picture with me.

My cousin Samantha and my Aunt Teresa on the phone with my cousin Kristin, narrating my every move as I open my mission call.

Finally Receiving my Mission Call and what I learned

Well I finally have my mission call :) Utah Salt Lake City West Mission, Spanish speaking. I leave May 22.

So last Friday, after going to a mission call opening for a friend, my excitement over the mission call returned.  The week began and I had a strong feeling that this would be the week that I would open my mission call. And everything seemed to be working out. I wasn't scheduled to work at all that weekend, yet the next week (this week) I would have a lot of work that I really can't afford to be getting out of. (I'm broke) So it just seemed perfect that my mission call should come that week and I could go home to Vegas to open it. However, that Sunday was Stake Conference, so I never saw my Bishop to ask him if my call was on its way. In a way, I was afraid of making any plans to travel to Vegas until I knew for sure I had my mission call, but there was no way of knowing. But I kept feeling I was going to open it this week. Finally I decided to take a leap of faith and assume it was coming, and plan on coming down to Vegas that weekend. Not long after, my mom asked my Bishop if my call was in the mail. He said it had been assigned the previous Friday but had received no confirmation that it was in the mail.

I was crushed when I found out. Week after week it kept being put off, and finally it felt like I would be getting this week, only to be told that it wasn't coming. I was perplexed. If they assigned it last Friday, why didn't they put in the mail? What are they doing with it? Holding on to it? I supposed that whatever feeling I had had all week was just my own wishful thinking, that it wasn't the Spirit telling me I was going to open my mission call this week. That's what hurt the most: thinking it was the Spirit, putting my faith in that, and that having that faith crushed.

Finally, after thinking it over, I decided to go home that weekend anyways, because I was out of food, and I really wanted to eat something other than peanut butter and plain pasta, as that was what I was eating for breakfast, lunch, and dinner.

That night, after my parents had already gone to bed, my dad felt for some reason like he should go downstairs and check my mom's phone. He did and she had received a text from the bishop saying that he had just received confirmation that my mission call was in the mail. My mom immediately called me, and the moment she said that, I burst into sobbing tears. I think I scared my mom; she couldn't tell if I was happy or sad, or if I was even Celeste, because I went into hysterics, I was so relieved.

We figured that my call had been put in the mail that Wednesday, and so then the question was, would it make it to my house in time? Before going to bed, I read in the Book of Mormon about having a trial of your faith before experiencing miracles. Immediately I felt calm and decided to just have faith that my call would make it to my house in time for me to read it this weekend.

Well the very next day it showed up in the mail at my parents house. Which means it had to have been put in the mail much earlier than Wednesday. I was so excited. I knew with all my heart that I HAD felt the Spirit earlier that week telling me I would open my call this week, and I no longer had any doubts that that would happen.

Friday rolled along, the day Lexi and I planned to drive home...and it started to snow. Lexi was pretty nervous, but I was very calm. I knew we were going to make it home and I was going to open my mission call. And we did make it home safely.

So Saturday night my family came over, we ate really good tri-tip, friends and neighbors came over, and I opened my mission call. It was pretty unexpected. Salt Lake City. My dad guessed temple square, so pretty close. Everyone keeps laughing though that I am only going 45 minutes away from where I currently live. But I know this is where the Lord wants me to be, and I am excited to learn Spanish as I have been wanting and trying to learn Spanish for many years now.

And well, now I am back in school, in the middle of midterms and it's kind of daunting the amount of work I have to do this week. But I'll get it done. Because that is what I have learned throughout this, is that I have to have faith before God will show His power and give his miracles. I have also learned that I can recognize the Spirit, and I have to have faith both in myself, in my ability to feel and recognize the Spirit, and in the Lord that he will keep His promises.

Questioning my sanity right about now

I am doing so much better. I've still got a cough, but I don't expect that to go away for a long time. Still don't have the mission call yet. Crossing my fingers that next week will be the lucky week. At this point, I've kind of lost my excitement over the mission call to be honest. After waiting so long, I'm no longer thrilled. Just like, whatever, it'll come eventually. I've got this feeling like it's just never going to come. Like I'll just keep being told, not this week, next week. But not next week, the week after. And not the week after, but maybe three months from now. My Dad told me "don't worry, it'll come. It's like Christmas. You think it will never come, but then it does." Yeah, but Christmas has a deadline. You can't keep pushing Christmas back. Whereas my mission call is 3 weeks late and still not here.

On the bright side, the snow is melting! We are finally in the 30s and it is beautiful! Blue skies! I am SO glad for the warm weather, and the fact that I am feeling a lot better, and I got two letters in the mail today. I just took a test for Human Development, and had the odd experience of my score failing to show up on the screen, and questioning my sanity, wondering whether I had either forgotten my ID number, or somehow it showed up but I missed it. I seriously stood there for a long time wondering whether I had memory problems or vision problems. I finally went back up to ask why my score never showed up, and after a couple minutes of searching, they finally found my test and realized that it hadn't been scanned. Good thing I went back and checked or I might not have gotten a score for that test!

I am entering the midst of midterms, yet I'm really not freaking out about it like I usually do. I'm just taking them one at a time. Oh, and speaking of my Human Development class, it is absolutely fascinating! I cannot stress how awesome I think it is. I like to call my mom and tell her pretty much the entire lecture (even though the majority is stuff she already knows being a nurse) because I can't get over how cool it is. Like babies are built in with the ability to walk - walking is a reflex! I did not know that! What babies have to learn is how to balance their weight, that's why walking is difficult. And when babies are born, they can't see very well, only like 8-10 inches away from their face, which coincidentally is about the distance from your face to your arms if you are holding the baby. That's so cool! Haha I seriously could talk all day about human development. I kind of wish I could switch my emphasis to Human Development, but we were told in our Intro to SFL class that there's not much you can do with Human Development other than become a professor, which I don't want to do, so I'm probably just going to stick with Family Studies.

So yesterday, I was having intense sugar cravings. Like really really strong. Nothing sounded even remotely good, but bread and sugar. Finally, I gave in to my cravings and made sugar cookie dough. And ate it. Not all of it, but a good portion. Yes, I made sugar cookie dough just to eat it. I had no intentions of cooking that dough. I am so unhealthy. A little while later, I decided to weigh myself, since eating that much cookie dough is so unhealthy. Just to make sure the scale was accurate, I used three different scales. And they all told me the same thing. In two weeks, I have lost roughly 6 pounds. And no, I have not been trying. Well that explains the sugar cravings! I don't feel so bad about eating all that cookie dough now.

Well, today's my sister Allison's birthday, so I am going to get off so I can call her and wish her a happy birthday. Then I am going to go watch a mission call opening for one of my good friends Amber. Ta ta!