The Call

Right around September of last year I started thinking to myself, "Self, I think I should serve a mission", but then I thought to myself "Silly self, you can't go for another 2 years, don't worry about it right now, just see how the cards play out", but then my self wouldn't leave myself alone. 
You know what I'm saying?
In my journal I wrote about how I was thinking about serving a mission and how it would be easy to put it off and decide later, but I wanted to make a decision sooner rather than later, but I didn't know why. Well past self, if you'll just wait about 3 weeks you'll find out exactly why! You guessed it, the announcement came in the October conference and changed my life! I was watching conference alone in my apartment, and the Mormon Tabernacle Choir sang my very favorite hymn, How Firm a Foundation, which made me really happy. When President Monson got up to welcome everyone to conference, I felt a peace and calm and thought "This man is a true prophet of God", and I will never ever forget how I felt when he announced the mission age change. I was bawling. It is still so surreal and amazing to me! I wanted to be one of those awesome sisters who got their Bishop's interview between the sessions of conference and were gone the next day, but I decided to take some time and make sure I wanted to go on a mission for the right reasons (not that they didn't, I just needed to make sure for myself). 
Once I decided through LOTS of prayer and temple going and fasting that it really truly was right for me to go, I felt it would be best to finish out the school year so I could finish my year-long mechanical engineering project and finish all of my math classes (p.s. PDE's is literally the worst class of all time). 
Finally the day came (Valentines Day to be exact!) when I got my call. I had some great friends and family there, and here's the video so you can see for yourself!

Manila Philippines. Speaking Tagalog (everyone knew how to pronounce Tagalog except me apparently). When I was contemplating my call I decided I wanted to get called somewhere I would have never expected, and that's definitely what happened! Nobody guessed it right, especially not me! I'm so excited for the adventure of living and serving somewhere sooooo different from anything I've known, and I'm still so incredibly grateful for the age change which gave me the opportunity to serve the Lord! 

From left to right: Meg Garfield, a beacon of light, called to serve in the Honduras Tegucigalpa mission; India Henson, my beautiful roommate, confidante, and best friend, called to serve in the Rome, Italy mission; Me; Carine Stearman,  my hilarious wonderful best friend, 'called' to do an internship in Ireland in a pediatric hospital! How neat are mah friends?!