I'll Go Where You Want Me to Go

For those who don't know...I GOT MY MISSION CALL!!! I've been blessed to be asked to serve in the Slovenia/Croatia mission speaking Croatian or however my mission president sees fit (aka I could be speaking something else once I get there). I will be entering the MTC on January 11, 2012 which will be about 3 1/2 weeks after I get back from Jerusalem. This is exactly when I wanted to leave because it's enough time (or hopefully enough) to get home and do whatever last minute things I need to do and spend time with the family at Christmas, but not too long that I get super anxious to leave. From what I hear about Croatia area and seen on Google, I'm already in LOVE. Yes, I know the pictures are for tourist spots but it looks so pretty. There's a girl here that has been to Croatia, and she was telling me all about the place and the people. Apparently there are very few members, and those who are members are basically women. Someone else told me that's where their grandparents top place to vacation because it's so beautiful. Pretty much, I'm stoked. Period.

I thought it would be fun to tell my adventure though on how getting my mission call went down because it wasn't just a simple I got the call in the mail then I opened it right then. It's kind of a process. First off, I didn't expect my call to come on Thursday but instead at least 2 weeks from how mission calls get delivered, and I had turned in my call 9 days before so it was kind of quick. Well, there was a jazz/ethnic concert on Thursday night, and I was ushering for it. I headed upstairs and one of my friends, Shalyn, asked me if I was waiting for a mission call. I told her yes and didn't think much about it because word was getting around that I was waiting for my call. She just looked at me with excitement and said, "There's a white packet upstairs that looks like a mission packet with your name on it." I freaked. I ran upstairs (but she had to keep directing me from behind because I didn't know where I was going), and then ran into the office and there it was. All perfectly white on top of the students' mail pile. I gently grabbed it and started freaking out even more. I just didn't know what to think. I couldn't believe it was here, and I didn't know what to do. I needed to usher and by that time I was running late. I tried to think of different options, then Shalyn who is such a sweetheart kept offering to do stuff. But I ended up just asking her to hold onto my mission call until after I ushered. Well once the concert was over, I booked it out and tried to hunt down Shalyn. I've been waiting too long to get my mission call and I wasn't going to wait anymore as long as it was in the building. But I couldn't find her! The Jerusalem Center is quite a large place, so I went to all the usual places where people go and called her name. No I couldn't find her anywhere! So I just told everyone that if they saw Shalyn to tell her I was looking for her. I went to her room and only her roommates were in there, and we did a sweep of the top of her things to see if it was there. Nope. So I got to my room because I had no idea what to do and I figured she would come to my room if she did try to find me. After about 10 minutes, Shalyn knocked on my door. YAY!! We talked for a little bit about missions (Shalyn served in Chile), and I just kept getting stoked. If you're wondering why I haven't opened it up by now, it's because for the past 5ish months, I've been dreaming of opening my mission call in the Garden of Gethsemane. People kept telling me how patient I was, but I think it's because I had dreamed about it so much, I wanted it to turn out just right. Now don't think I'm a saint or anything because I surely was tempted to open it many times (especially at 1:30 in the morning when I don't have a super good grasp on self-control and the envelope was kind of turned on the end, so it was already at the beginning stages of opening). I didn't open it the next morning because since it was Friday, we can't leave the center until 3 pm because there are prayers going on to welcome in the Sabbath and if a riot was to happen in East Jerusalem and the Old City, it would happen sometime before 3. So I took a lot of naps because there was no way I was going to get homework done, and it made the time go by so much faster. I also was super tired from not being able to sleep the night before. But a blessing happened, and I asked the Academic Director if we could leave at 2:45, so my group and I could be back for our 4 o'clock meeting (the walk to Gethsemane is about 20 minutes). He approved, so off we went at 2:45!

The walk up to the garden was not fast enough! I feel like I could have ran the whole way there, but I don't think my group had enough motivation to run the whole way with me (there are some steep hills). Once we got there, I had thought this all through. I wanted to sing "Called to Serve" and "I'll Go Where You Want Me to Go". The girls who went with me (Shalyn, Eliza, Suzy, and Cali) are excellent singers, so I'm glad we were able to sing before I went off down the path a little bit and opened my call (they had a great view, so they caught it on camera. If you want to see it, you'll have to ask when I get home. It's pretty great). When I opened my call, I just couldn't believe it. Croatia? Wow. I'm so blessed. I then called my family (I called a earlier than expected, so it was soo hard to just keep it in. There were many times I wanted to be like, "I AM GOING TO CROATIA!" But I didn't.) The girls who were with me just freaked out when I told my family on the phone. But we had to book it back to the center for our meeting (totally made it back in record time) then I announced it to all of the people in the Jerusalem Center at the meeting where I was going. I received a standing ovation which was pretty cool (since I'm involved in theatre, standing ovations mean a lot to me). I just can't believe I'm going on a mission. AAAAHHHHHHH!!!

I know I need to go to Croatia (or Slovenia or Serbia; those countries are also in my mission). It's going to be super duper hard, but super duper awesome. For whatever amount of effort you put into something, you'll receive a greater amount back. I don't know what Heavenly Father has in plan for me, but I know it will be a great finale to these best two years of my life (EFY, Jerusalem, and then mission). Life is AMAZING!!!