You are hereby called as a missionary for the Church of Jesus Christ of Latter-Day Saints.
You are assigned to labor in the Maryland Baltimore Mission.
Wow. Right when I read that I knew it was the perfect place for me. It's like I was born to go to Baltimore.
Last night when I opened my mission call with my friends and family I felt the Spirit so strongly. I knew that choosing to serve a mission is the right decision for me at this point in my life and I am BEYOND excited to be serving in Maryland. I will be leaving July 16 and, thank the sweet heavens, speaking in my native tongue.
I know what you're thinking. Sure, she is going to serve a mission because all of her friends did. She doesn't want to let them down or look like she wasn't good enough or worthy enough to serve like they are. She doesn't want to look bad after she told people a year ago she was thinking of going.
Well, you're right.... for the most part. All of these thoughts and feelings have been floating around my mind for the past year and a half since our Prophet Thomas S. Monson changed the missionary age. My friends are gone. I don't want to feel like I am staying behind because I'm not good enough to go. Those are both true. I have felt the well-meant or non-intended pressure by our Mormon culture. But I wanted to make sure that I wasn't going "just because" of anything.
For the past six months as I have struggled with this decision. I have had huge ups and downs while contemplating this life-changing...change in my life, for lack of a better word. At one point I had even come to a solid, "No."
One night that changed for me. It came softly and slowly. But as I was talking with my friends Ashlyn and Hailey who are currently serving in New Zealand and Washington D. C., we were talking about that $27 question that is on everyone's mind when thinking about a mission. "Why?" Why me? Why now? Why not?
That night after talking I sat alone in my room and thought late into the night. I thought about that question. Why? And as I was sitting there a thought came to me. I thought of the years I spent in the primary and Young Women programs in my church. I thought of the service activities, personal progress, meetings, girls camps, more meetings, one more girls camp...
And then I thought of where I would be if I didn't have that. Where would I be if I didn't know that I had a big Brother, my Savior Jesus Christ, my best friend to help me through the struggle that I like to refer to as the ages 10-18? What if I didn't know that He loved me? What if I didn't know that prayer can change everything?
There are little girls, teenage girls, and women out there who do not know this truth that I have taken for granted for 18 years. That thought, though maybe obvious to you normal people out there, but for an oblivious, self-centered little girl like me, that thought threw me for a loop. I have no idea where I would be without my Savior. He has saved me, comforted me, loved me, heard me, blessed me, bled and died for me. I love Him with everything I am. And there are little girls in Baltimore who don't know who He is, and what He can and already does do for them.
That's why.
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