Why I Want to be a Missionary

One of the missionaries (Sister Christensen) who served in our congregation the summer before I left for BYU.

I just want to write how I came to know I wanted to be a missionary. When we got sister missionaries in our ward (congregation) around when I was 16, I loved going out with them and really just wanted to help with the work of the Church of Jesus Christ of Latter-day Saints and be a missionary. That was the summer before the age change for sister missionaries to serve at 19 instead of 21 was announced. I was super excited when that happened and just wanted to go right then and there. Then I continued to be super involved with the missionaries in Georgia. Then I went to college. I worked in the MTC ( the missionary training center), where missionaries learn to teach the gospel, and really enjoyed my time there, but it wasn’t the same kind of missionary interaction I had back home. After fall semester that excitement I had felt like all my life had died down. I think it was because I was so caught up in school and ward member-missionary interaction in Provo is so small. So winter semester I decided to change my interaction with the missionaries. I got the sister missionaries number and went out with them to teach people about the church. The first time was just soo goood. I was in tears at like every appointment I went to. Then, I knew I had forgotten what I wanted to do. I still prayed about it and never got a super crazy experience, but I decided I just needed to go forward and do what I wanted. I did. Ever since sometimes when people are speaking and everything I can get a prompting of mission. It is awesome.  Also my sister Erin being on a mission in Japan has just made it that much more real to me of wanting to go. Her example of being a missionary makes me want to become better in the efforts I make. This is such an exciting time to be out in the field telling people about Jesus Christ and his gospel. That is what Heavenly Father has asked us as members of the church to do. I want everyone in the world to have the knowledge about faith, Jesus Christ, his suffering, and how they can feel joy. 
The most important reason I want to serve a mission is to serve my Lord and help others come unto him through faith, baptism, receiving the Holy Ghost and enduring to the end. I know that by putting 18 months of life up for him I will grow to love him more. I expect those months will be some of the hardest of my life, but I will come out so much different and better than before. 
I have been called to serve in Tahiti. I want to help the Tahitians know what I know and gain joy because of  the good principles of the gospel.               
I want to show my Father in Heaven that He can trust me with the truth I know. I want to help his children and be a part of the restoration of the same gospel he established in Jesus’s day and the gathering of his people.  
                   

My sister, Erin and I at Cafe Rio before we dropped her off at the Missionary Training Center in January.

                  

Well It Has Been Awhile

So things are defiantly changing, seeing that I haven't blogged in a couple months that shouldn't be too surprising. :)
First of all my older sister Erin has received her mission call to serve a mission for The Church of Jesus Christ of Latter-day Saints for 18 months. She will go about doing good and serving God for this time leaving me and the rest of my family for people of another country she will learn to love. If you want to know where she is going you will have to ask her. She leaves January 22 and it will be quite a change considering she has been my roommate and is my bffl. What I will do with out her, I don't know, but she is pretty exemplary sacrificing 18 months of her life for her #1.
Since I haven't been so current with this blog, I'll just have to fill in all the gaps I never have posted, like I have been working at the Missionary Training Center  (MTC) in the cafeteria for the last six months. Its been fun. The best part of the job is defiantly seeing hundreds of missionaries, like my sister will be,  regularly. Provo is weird in the way it has two MTCs with thousands of missionaries in them, but I am closer to the missionaries in Georgia serving in my ward (congregation). Anywho working in the cafeteria has been real and we get fed for FREE every shift, but today I put in my two week notice because I got another job that pays more and Erin will be reporting to the other MTC in Provo. I'll probably follow her there.
OK lets just be honest, the end of the semester is stinkin 1 month away!! That will be the best change ever!! And it also means CHRISTMAS! which I am super duper excited for. I love everything about it and do not care about the whole listening to Christmas music before Thanksgiving, so I have already started.
Alrighty so I figure if you are taking precious time to read this you must want to be enlighten by some kind of story about me and my oh so exciting life (btw I do have a great life). So today me and my roomie Monica wen to the gym and came home and decided to be all healthy and make some tilapia. It was super easy just put some parmesan on the fish and stuck in the oven which was on broil. We were sittin there just having a good ole time cutting up the tomatoes and lemon to put on the fish and Monica was like "it smells like hair" (you know like when you burn your hair straightening it). I thought "better check the oven." So I did ANNNNDDD the parmesan surrounding the fish caught on fire. I blew it out like the fire on  birthday candles. Thankfully the fish was not effected by the flames. We then proceeded to eat the fish with pesto and lemon and it was super healthy and tasty and we felt great.
Well thanks for reading my blog and hope everyone has a great week with lots of peace and blessings.

This is what we made, but ours didn't really look like that!

Me and my roomies.

Young Woman No More :)

Today I put on my young woman medallion while I was getting ready for church, thinking this is my last day of being 17 EVER! Tomorrow is my birthday and I will turn the big 18, becoming an official adult and finally being able to donate blood here at BYU. 

What I really want to write about today is my gratitude towards the program my church (The Church of Jesus Christ of Latter-day Saints) has for young women called simply Young Women's. By participating in weekly activities during middle school and high school I have grown and changed. Technically I have been out of the program since I have left the house to come to college, but the things I learned within it still play an active part in my life. Young Women's emphases values and morals like integrity, good works, individual worth, and knowledge. A young woman is encouraged to act upon the values she learned by completing experiences using a program called Personal Progress. One experience I had with Personal Progress involved starting a journal. I had never particularly been consistent with it. butI made a goal to write regularly. Since then I have kept a daily journal for a couple years now. Writing in my journal has been a way for me to reflect upon the miracles God has worked in my life that day and remember the blessings he has given me. 

During my time in Young Women's I made an effort to learn how to cook, sew, crochet, and paint. Now that I am in college I am so grateful for the wonderful women who taught me these things. It would be much harder now to learn how to learn all those skills as I am busy with school, work, and church. 

The most important thing I learned in Young Women's was who I am. By interacting with other girls my age and being in a wholesome environment I came to know I am a daughter of God, who loves me and I love Him. Going through my teenage years with this reassurance provided me with the confidence I needed to do the right thing. Part of gaining this confidence also came form building others up through service and kindness. When you treat the people around you like the son or daughter of God they are your confidence increases. Learning that little truth was one of the biggest impacts Young Women's had on my life. 

I am grateful for all the leaders who have shown their compassion and love towards the rising generation and for all the sacrifices they have made to help us know whose we are. Most importantly I want to let everyone know that there in a God in heaven who does love His children, so much that He sent His son, Jesus Christ, as a sacrifice. It was not fair that the only perfect person to walk the earth was arrested on superfluous charges and crucified to satisfy a mob.Yet it was done for us, through pure love. I cannot think of a greater gift a loving God could give His children. 

Young Women's Medallions (you receive once you complete Personal Progress) 

Biking with my girls for a Tuesday night activity

My Sisters and I at Young Women's Camp for girls ages 12-18

 

The fabulous girls from my town at this camp

Me and one of the many wonderful Young Women's leaders I have grown to love

Messing around with one of the leaders at a Tuesday night activity (she had no clue we were taking pictures haha)

My Mormon Moments: God is All Loving and All Knowing!

Here is this week's Book of Mormon thought for you guys!
2 Nephi 31 verses 9 and 10 reads “And again, it showeth unto the children of men the straitness of the path, and the narrowness of the gate, by which they should enter, he having set the example before them.  And he said unto the children of men: Follow thou me. Wherefore, my beloved brethren, can we follow Jesus save we shall be willing to keep the commandments of the Father?” As I thought about these verses, all the people who have ever sacrificed for the gospel came to my mind. I think it is so tender that Jesus Christ, our Savior wants us to become better. I have wondered how I can be more like Him and sometimes I tend to complicate things, but as Nephi describes it is just as simple as keeping the commandments. Knowing that keeping the commandments and sacrificing does bring forth the blessings of heaven, I see that living the gospel is not a burden but a tremendous blessing. I am grateful for the peace and love that my Heavenly Father has for me and all His children, and that He was willing to give up His Only Begotten Son to be the perfect example for me.

I love this picture!

My Mormon Moments: Handling Our Wilderness

     Alright so I have already survived 2 weeks of BYU life! This post is going to be more of my moments with the Book of Mormon (another testament of Jesus Christ). It is truly a powerful book that has helped me throughout my life, and even recently as I have experienced so much change over the past weeks.
     In class we are moving through the book quickly and mid terms are rapidly approaching, because summer term is so short. As I may have mentioned before I am studying about Nephi and his family who were originally from Jerusalem (600 BC), but were asked to leave the comfort of their homes by the Lord. They traveled in the wilderness for 8 years and experienced all kinds of hardship as you could imagine. Nephi experienced many trials within those years in the desert including: being threatened by his brothers to kill him on multiple occasions, building a huge ship, becoming a new father, experiencing constant opposition from his brothers, having to fix his broken bow while his whole family was starving, and on top of that his father dies. Those are just a few of the recorded events and I think just being in the wilderness and not knowing where we are going for 8 years would be more then I could handle. Clearly Nephi was am amazing man who had a bunch of faith. He knows why he has been able to carry on. He explains, "My God hath been my support; he hath led me through mine afflictions in the wilderness" (2 Nephi 4:20).  Something about this verse spoke to me. Here I am having just left my home (of course it is nothing in compared to Nephi) and am experiencing the most change I have ever had to deal with in my life. It can be confusing taking it all in at once, but just like Nephi I have felt God's support and love as I have left my friends, family, ward (congregation), and sweet sister missionaries in Georgia. I have felt His spirit comfort me and I know He loves me and surely has a plan for me, even though I may not know exactly what it is right now. I am so grateful I could feel peace as I read this passage and know to keep trekin', because He knows me.

Nephi and his wife comforting him during a troublesome time.

My Mormon Moments With the Book of Mormon: Nephi's Leading by Following

      Alright so as I have mentioned before I am taking Book of Mormon at Brigham Young University. It is a required class to graduate for my friends who didn't know! Even if it wasn't I'd still want to take it just saying. As a part of our weekly assignments we as a class have been asked to share what we learned with friends or family, so I thought I'd make a blog post of it this week and we will see how it goes. I will post links and try my best to explain what is going on for my friends who are not familiar with the book.
      In 1 Nephi 4:34 Nephi, an ancient North American Prophet, faithfully admonishes, “Surely the Lord hath commanded us to do this thing; and shall we not be diligent in keeping the commandments of the Lord.” Within the last four chapters Nephi has told his murmurous brothers (Nephi has two older brothers who were complaining about going back to get their records from a leader in their town after Nephi's family had fled the city in hopes of escaping from it to save their father's life) this same thing like 2 other times (the older brothers never wanted to do anything outside their comfort zone and Nephi was the only one to man up). It amazes me how persistent Nephi was in being a leader despite opposition from his family, even his older brothers who should have been examples for him. He does  not give into their petty complainants because he sees the bigger picture and knows the Lord will help him accomplish hard things. What a leader! It is just like in our day God has asked us to keep his commandments, and it takes faith a diligence to stay with it. It also reminds me of a program I was listening to and I think it was one of the apostles talking about the mission age change (the age for mormon missionaries was changed in October so girls could serve at 19 and boys at 18, which is intense considering these young adults give up family and media to serve the Lord for 18 to 24 months) and pretty much what he said was “the new announcement is something tremendous to ask of youth at even a younger age, but the Lord has given the commandment and we as church leaders expect them to rise up and we know they can do it.” I love the expectation our Heavenly Father gives us and the unfailing love and faith he has for us! He knows we as his little children can do hard things especially with Him there to help us. This is a comfort to me knowing as long as I am keeping the commandments and trying hard to draw closer to God, he will take care of me as I am away from home, young, and clueless. Nephi still leaves me in awe because he was all the above and didn't have his family support him and obviously had way more faith.

Nephi and his older brothers (Nephi is the one who looks like a leader)

Hello College!

      It is Monday and also the first day of classes at Brigham Young University for summer term. Somehow I have found myself here at this university. I don't know where to start, but I guess I'll start out explaining how I came to go to summer school. When I was accepted to BYU I was just admitted to Fall semester, but after thinking about it I decided it would be better for me to get out here earlier to establish myself with a job and take some "easy" classes before like 4,000 other freshmen show up and this campus explodes with chaos. All I did was email BYU and they quickly accepted me. That is how I got here.

     The last couple days though have been busy and filled with many firsts: my first apartment, classes, job training, and student ID. 

Honestly my thoughts and feelings about this tremendous change right now are:

1. I LOVE the mountains in Utah paired with non humid weather and the perfect temperature are ideal for walking around. 

2. Living on my own is pretty sweet, but I still love my home and town where I was raised and am super grateful for the spectacular childhood I have had, so in that sense I will always miss those memories and friends.

3. Going to church without air conditioning for three hours and then staying for another 2 hour meeting makes you feel sick and hungry.

4. I LOVE that I am enrolled in two religion classes. One is for The Book of Mormon  and the other is a survey of world religions. It is so wonderful to learn about these things that mean so much to me on a whole new level.

5. BYU is huge and it is crazy to think how many people do so many diverse things here.

6. I live right next to some of the new missionary housing and it was so cool yesterday to watch missionaries come home from the broadcast yesterday (for those who don't know the church broadcasted a seminar yesterday all about missionary work from the Marriott Center at BYU).

7. I miss Dad unclogging the shower (our shower doesn't drain well and I am actually going to have to put forth effort to call maintence because I cannot figure it out!)

     I also want to give a shout out to my friend Colby for kindly reminding me to just keep blogging, because I seriously lack confidence in writing and that made my day.

     Ok, one other story about today. My last class of the day was Zumba, so after spending all day on campus I got to this class. I thought that I had Zumba-ed before so it would be a nice little fun class. Yeah no. I was whipped by the end of it and problem wasn't even doing it right. Afterwards I was so tired and thirsty and had to walk like 30 mins to get home. I got semi lost on the way home and that was no fun. By the time I reached my apartment I wanted water and water and food. I thought the apartment would be open and it wasn't, so I took my backpack off in search of the keys and thankfully someone opened the door for me. AHHHHHH  it felt soooo soooooo good to be home. 

     Tomorrow I go to my first day of work serving food at the missionary training center. It will be an early morning, like by early 4 am. WHAT!? I know, but at least I'll have the rest of the day to read and rest. 

    

BYU baby! 

My sweet sister Abbee took this. I think it is on BYU campus  like within the last couple weeks.