Thursday, February 16, 2012

"Are you sure you want to do that?"

Last night I went to the mission call opening of two good friends. Logan, from my stake back home, got called to New York, Spanish-speaking, and my roommate Ashling got called to the California Oakland mission, Mandarin-speaking. I am so happy for them!

Needless to say, I've been thinking so much about missions. This is nothing new. In fact I've been thinking about missions for quite a long time. But if you were to take an x-ray of my brain the mission section would be red with a new level  of hyperactivity. (BTW, sorry to write yet another mission post.)

Watching a young man open his mission call feels different than a when a girl opens hers. I suppose it's just different for me because I  know the process she's gone through to get to that point of opening her mission call.

When you first tell people you want to go on a mission, they are either really supportive or they smile, shrug, and say, "You're probably going to get married first, honey." Or they say, "You know it's not a requirement for girls to go  on missions, right?" (No, really? I don't HAVE to do this? Wow! That changes things.) Or, they say, "Are you sure you want to do that?" How tempting it would be to reply seriously, "Oh." Pause. "No, you're right. I should think about this. Thanks for your concern, I'll give it some thought." As if one would voluntarily leave all they hold dear and pay their own way for 18 months without giving it some thought, ha.

But what I LOVE is when people ask me WHY I want to serve a mission. You see, there is lot to think about when thinking about a mission, but asking WHY is the most important thing to think about. I have been thinking about how I need to find clothes for the hottest weather I've yet to experience, how I'm going to survive the fact that they eat mayonnaise on everything in Paraguay, and how I can't wait to finally master the Spanish language. But what I love to think about most is the experiences I'll have with the people, for it is for them that I am serving a mission. I can just picture myself sitting on some old chairs in the yard of a poor Paraguayan family teaching them the Plan of Salvation, or teaching them that they are children of God....and the thought makes my heart beat a little stronger and nearly brings tears to my eyes. It makes me want to do everything I can to be better able to help others feel what I have felt--the happiness, guidance, peace and comfort of the gospel of Jesus Christ. The gospel has truly brought me more happiness than any other single thing.  The thought of sharing the source of that happiness is what makes me sure I want to do this.

1 comment:

  1. The best person to make your choices is you. Taking advice is ok, but some people just don't know how you feel about what you're doing, and they probably made way different choices in their life than you will.// Hey I noticed you added a countdown to your mission, thats awesome :)

    ReplyDelete

You Might Also Like

Related Posts Plugin for WordPress, Blogger...