LDS Mission Terminology (lets clear some jargon up)

I will use these terms and words frequently in posts, so I'm going to define some

mission - 18 months to two years of service in an area teaching the gospel of Jesus Christ. This includes living a strict schedule and wearing church clothes during that whole time. No days off!

elder/sister- title that missionaries are given when starting their missionary service. People refer to them as Elder _lastname_ or Sister_lastname___, the entire time being a missionary. This title gets put on a black missionary name tag with the church's name on it. Missionaries are then supposed to wear this tag every where they go for their entire service.

this is my sister with her nametag

companion- that certain individual a missionary is always with. They are always supposed to be in the same room or within sight. Missionaries do not choose companions, they are assigned.

MTC (missionary training center)- The place where all missionaries go prior to entering the area they have been assigned to work in. There are multiple MTCs around the world, however the largest and most common MTC for missionaries to go to is the MTC in Provo, Utah.

the field- mormon jargon for the actual area they are assigned to serve. For me I will often interchange the term "field" for the land of Tahiti. Here is a common sentence missionaries use, "After three months in the MTC I will go into the field."

mission president aka the president- A man, who with his wife, leaves his job and home for three years to keep up the mission he is assigned over. My mission president name is Pierre Bize. He was a business CEO and has paused his career to run the mission in Tahiti (includes managing over 200 missionaries on over 20 islands in French Polynesia), which is a huge full time job!

P-Day (preparation day)- The one day people may consider a day off, MAYBE. This is one day a week set by each mission president for missionaries to do laundry, shop for groceries, and email home. The prior listed activities are meant for that day specifically, so they don't happen on any other day. It ends at 6pm and the morning routine is still apart of it, which is all  apart of the schedule!

investigator- a person who meets with the missionaries

potential investigator- one who may meet with the missionaries

PMG (Preach My Gospel)- a handbook written by the prophet and apostles for use by missionaries. Missionaries across the globe use this guide daily with in their studies and use it to help them teach.

area- is the place where a missionary has been assigned to labor by the mission president. Missionaries are supposed to stay within this designated boundary at all times, unless given permission by a leader to leave.

the discussions/lessons- 5 specific lessons as described in PMG about the gospel of Jesus Christ and his commandments each investigator is supposed to be taught by the missionaries


STL (sister training leader)- The sister who is over multiple sisters.

DL (district leader)- an elder over serval missionaries (about 8-12) which covers a certain area. Each night he calls the missionaries he is over at 9pm to make sure they are back at their assigned apartment.

ZL (zone leader)- over a couple of districts of missionaries. District leaders reports numbers to him.

exchanges- When a missionary and his/her companion is temporarily exchanged it is usually for just one night

assistants- two elders who assist the mission president in keeping the missionaries in line. They go on many exchanges to do this.

the handbook aka the white Bible- a little white book about 80 pages long with the missionary rules in it. Missionaries all over the world are advised to be obedient to that which is in it. It covers everything from what entertainment is allowed to relationships with companions. For me in Tahiti this means no swimming!

ward- congregation

branch-smaller congregation (not big enough to be a ward)

The Call (and other things that may interest you regarding a mission in Tahiti)

   

      I got my call in the mail on Thursday June 28 in Provo, UT. I kind of surprised my family. They thought that my call was being sent to GA, but they were on vacation in FL. Thursday night I left for the Salt Lake City airport and barely got on the flight to go to Florida. While at the airport, I decided to tell my dad what I was coming with, so he could help me get the family together.  As soon as I landed all I wanted to do was open it with my family. Since they were on vacation Dad and I formed a plan to get everyone down to the beach. It barely worked. No one was really cooperating. We sang a couple of hymns and while doing so I burst out the envelope. They were pretty surprised. Then I  opened it and we were even more surprised. All my family thought I would serve in Europe and I kind of did too. It was just so surreal to know that I am going somewhere that is NOT going to be anything like what I know. My sisters and I went to Guam last month and I left the island thinking, "well, that was nice for a week, but I could NEVER live on an island." And we were staying in one of the nicest parts of the islands.
      After I opened my call I made a bunch of calls. Everyone's reaction was so different. That was fun to do. One person thought I was joking with him. Another was like that is going to be a hard mission. My good friend was like that is great. My uncle thought I was going to France for sure and was super surprised I was going there. Another person was like well aren’t you glad you decided to serve a mission, and then I went on to tell him how I would be at a beach with no beach for 15 months. All my  family was like, “lucky! You are going to have so much fun at the beach,” then I would explain to them how that is not the case.  I think everyone was surprised, including myself.
      I cannot tell you how many times in the past when I have said I was going to serve a mission when people told me, "oh, you'll go somewhere foreign for sure!" I didn't want to set myself on it, but still kind of did. After seeing how hard the missionaries work where I live, I knew that I could go anywhere and have a "refiner's fire" experience.
      I thought I would go foreign, but not middle of nowhere foreign. I was really at the point where if I got called stateside, I would have been fine. I wanted to have a hard experience, like my whole life, but now that I have my call I am just like, “I am going to learn A LOT! Heavenly Father, you are too funny, knowing I LOVE the beach and sending me to an island where I cannot just go relax at the beach.”
Everyone thinks I am going to paradise, but I cannot do whatever I want on a mission. I have heard that the housing can be dirty like people fining rats, birds, and roaches in them. I also heard that some areas don’t even have a grocery store. I will be eating whatever is given to me and rumor has it that, that includes lots of mystery meat. On top of it all, no one speaks english, they all speak French, so I have to learn French, but I was called to speak Tahitian, which is nothing like French. I am going to be learning two languages. Good thing Heavenly Father blesses his missionaries. So overall, I am so excited for this experience, but lets just be honest it is definitely not going to be what people think is an island paradise. I am going to have to adapt, work, and have faith.
I am grateful Heavenly Father trusts me to do his work and that obviously he knows I can go to Tahiti and be successful. I saw this quote that was like, “If your desire is to be successful, then Heavenly Father will help you be so, because He cares about what you want. Going into a mission the only thing I want to do is to do my very best and God knew that before I got my call, so He must know that I can be successful even under some rough circumstances.
      Now for the other things regarding a mission in Tahiti. There is only one mission that covers all of French Polynesia. There are 7 stakes (groups of about 10 congregations) on the island of Tahiti. It is a biking mission. There is a temple in Tahiti. French Polynesia, which is all the islands combined, is owned by France, sooo everyone speaks French, but my call was for Tahitian, so I will learn French and Tahitian in the MTC. I will be in the MTC for 3 months of the 18 month mission learning French and Tahitian (that means living in a one mile radius and never leaving... HELPPPP). Apparently, the Tahitian missionaries get to go on a day trip to San Francisco to get their visas. I am already excited for that! Tahiti has poisonous centipedes and I have read stories about other missionaries coming home to birds and mice in their apartments. One of the girls I know serving there killed a rat in her apartment. The people there eat tons of fish and meats. It is super hot and humid ALL the time (that is one thing I learned in Guam, that GA humidity isn't really that bad). In July there is a huge dance festival throughout all the islands. I hear that I will probably be playing piano a lot and accompanying for church meetings. The best thing of all thought is that the people love missionaries and I already love them too!
      OHHHH, here is something cool, so Bora Bora is in my mission and I have always wanted to go there, but didn't think of it as reality, because it is super expensive and where the rich and famous go to vacation, but now I actually will be there (pretty much).

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.