D e c i d e d .

{ this is my story, of how i decided i would serve a mission. }

once when i was little i was in the car with my mom. i can't remember what we were talking about or where we were going but i remember being in the back and i guess randomly proclaiming to my mom that i was going to serve a mission in France.

for years growing up after that, when people asked me my life plan, that was the main thing i would tell them about. i had this massive day dream where i would be called to serve {in France of course...}and i would meet some lady who i was meant to convert, where all the world would align for me to help her. it always just seemed right. in high school though, my junior year i met a guy and we dated and for a while there...i began to forget about the mission. and even though i wasn't sure where the future would go with us, i was beginning to believe that maybe the mission wasn't my course.

but then my family moved the summer before my senior year. away from all of my old friends and starting to make new ones i met a guy. it was quite funny at first {i thought his sister was his girlfriend haha} but we became really great friends. we talked about everything, and he became the best friend i had ever had. i told him how i had wanted to serve a mission when i was younger and how now that i had moved, i wanted to again {which i'll be honest, was a big deal because by this point in our friendship we had started to have deeper feelings for each other}, and he encouraged me on that path. in fact, i'm not entirely sure i would be here today if not for him and his unfailing support.

we had planned to continue as friends through his mission and through mine as well and then once we were both back we would date and hopefully get married {we're both romantics but also realistic...interesting combination i promise}

he was called to Brazil and then general conference came around. i was eating breakfast with my family and he was doing yard work with his family when the age change was announced. i was in shock, and...in the softest sense of the word: angry. but he was elated, beyond excited. this meant not five years, just two and a half tops.

let me explain my reaction. i don't like change! and i prefer being in charge of my own plans. also i felt pressured. pressured that because i had always wanted to serve, now i had to and because i had chosen to work for a year instead of college, i would have to give up college too to go on a mission.

that night while all the boys were at priesthood session my mom and i made pies and talked. i was still in shock mostly, and i confided in her my confusing array of emotions towards the age change. my mom, a convert, talked to me about the incredible opportunity to serve others, and even though i was scared too that i wasn't ready, that i didn't have money and about going to college...i finally cried. i knew it was a change from God and He needed me too. i was called to serve!

and that is how i decided. i didn't decide because of a boy, i didn't decide because i didn't have anything better to do with my life and i didn't decide because it was what every girl wants to do now. i am serving the Lord because for some odd reason...He needs someone as human as me to teach His beautiful gospel.

i know this gospel is true. there were so many pot holes and brambles and trials along my way to get here but i have come this far.

along the way when things have gotten rough, and i have doubted that first initial confirmation i have knelt down at the foot of my bed and prayed. and He gave me peace, peace in my decision that this is right. and i know it with all my heart.

{ and this may be so cliche but oh well }

T H E   B E G I N N I N G .