Here We Go!

The time has come! Can I just say that it's crazy how fast time flies... I've been waiting for this week to come for 105 days and now I leave for the MTC in just two short days! I can't even believe it! Before I leave, I just have a few short things that I want to share on my blog!

As many of you know, I got set apart 4 days ago and it was one of the greatest experiences of my life. My younger brother and one of my best friends, Cody was ordained an Elder the same night that I was set apart! It was cool to share that experience with him before I left! Not only did that happen but my stake president invited him, along with my dad and grandpas, to help set me apart as a missionary as his first experience with the Melchizedek priesthood. It was seriously one of the greatest things that has happened to me so far and not something that I'll forget soon!

My entire family, including my grandparents from

both sides, came for Cody's ordination and me

getting set apart! Such a great day!

Since my last post, a lot of people have talked to me about being set apart as a missionary so early. I feel like a lot of people have told me how they were sorry for me being a missionary for so long before I left. I've told some people "Well, I'm not!" This may sound weird but I actually needed to be set apart early. I'm the type of person where I like to be eased into things and becoming a missionary was definitely something that was nice to be eased into. I just like that I'm able to still do things with my family here but I've been able to cut down on somethings like music and Pinterest (Which has been a lot harder than it sounds)! Today I'm giving up technology in general though. I'll be done using Facebook, Twitter and my cell phone. Sure it will still be hard to give up but I'm glad I didn't have to go "cold turkey" the night before I entered the MTC! Don't get me wrong! It wasn't ideal that my whole stake presidency left for a leadership camp last Friday but because they did, I was able to gain a better testimony that the Lord knows each of us and our needs. He knew this is what would be best for me.

Well I want to let you guys know how excited I am to be apart of this missionary effort in a few days! It's a little scary to leave but I'm definitely more excited than I am scared. I know that this is the only true church on the Earth! There are people in South Carolina just waiting to hear the gospel from me and I can't wait to share it with them! Being a member of The Church of Jesus Christ of Latter-day Saints has made me a happier and better person! I can only hope that I'll be able to bring others to Christ, which will help them be just as happy as I am.

I'll have family members updating my blog with my weekly email while I'm gone so be sure to bookmark this page or something! I'll go ahead and leave you with my missionary scripture, Alma 29:9: "I know that which the Lord hath commanded me, and I glory in it. I do not glory of myself, but I glory in that which the Lord hath commanded me; yea, and this is my glory, that perhaps I may be an instrument in the hands of God to bring some soul to repentance; and this is my joy." I'll see y'all in 18 months!

I'm Getting Set Apart WHEN?!

It's blogging time! Why? Because I have some very exciting news! 1) I leave for the Missionary Training Center in 27 days (who's counting though?) and 2) I get set apart as a missionary in 21 days. ... Nope. That was not a typo. Here's how it went down.

I went in to my stake president to go get my temple recommend a few weeks ago. Before I got into the interview, I found out that it wasn't going to be your typical interview. The stake executive secretary said to me, "We're looking at times to set you apart for your mission. Would July 4th be ok?" Um. What?! I was so confused because typically the missionary is set apart the night before he/she leaves for the MTC. I think the executive secretary could sense my confusion and explained a little bit more. The whole stake presidency would be out of town at a leadership camp the week I leave for my mission. Now on their defense, they didn't know that they'd have a few missionaries leaving from our stake that week a year or so ago when they signed up for this camp. At the same time, I was a little frustrated.

The whole interview I was thinking, "Of course this would happen to me..." I was a little upset they told me this before my interview because I was in shock. This news scared me more than ever. I don't think it's necessarily that I'm going to be a missionary that scared me, but it was that I'm going to be a missionary sooner. I was also pretty nervous about living the mission rules all the time while living at home. It would be hard! I'd need a female companion all the time, I wouldn't be able to do companion study, I wouldn't be able to tract, etc. I came to the conclusion that for the last 6 days at home, I'd only be able to eat, sleep and read the scriptures.

I broke the news to my parents and they could tell I was a little upset about my unique position. My dad ended up talking to my stake president and asking what I can and can't do during my time at home since he will be basically be my mission president before I enter the MTC. My stake president is aware of this rare situation that I'm put in and he's willing to be a little lenient with the rules. Once I'm set apart, I can still do a lot of things as long as the Spirit can be with me like listening to uplifting music, watching G rated movies, etc. I can still be on the internet and use my cell phone but I'll probably try not to use either it if I can help it. The only things that I can't do during that time are go swimming and go on dates. So guys if you want to get in one last date for 18 months, you have 21 days to until I leave ;) Back to the story now! My stake president said that on July 8th at 6:00 pm, I need to start obeying all mission rules. That's something I can handle.

Seriously.

Now that I've gotten used to the idea of getting set apart a few days early, I'm okay with it. My family is going to make my first few days as a missionary the most eventful in the history of missionary work! Seriously though. We're going to have fireworks, go four wheeling at my cabin, see a baseball game, have a missionary shower (like a bridal shower... But for missionaries). My parents pretty much rock and are doing what they can to make the best of this opportunity I have. So anyway, if you see me on Facebook or get a text from me after I'm set apart, don't fret! I'm allowed to. I just needed to let you all know so you don't make any unrighteous judgments! I'm excited though! 3 weeks from today! Let the countdown begin!

The (Mission) Bucket List

I've been thinking a lot lately (shocking, I know) about things I want to do prior to going on a mission... So I figured I'd post my mission bucket list on the blog along with pictures of the things I've done. Why? Because I can. I know I might not get around to doing all of these things, but I can sure try! I need to make the last 34 days I have here at home eventful!

• Go to the Festival of Colors at the Sri Sri Hadna Krishna Temple in Spanish Fork [Check]

This is what the after math of Color Fest looks like.

• Go mini golfing [Check]

My brothers went mini golfing with me and it was

AWESOME!

Thumbs up for mini golf!

• Go to a concert [Check]

Imagine Dragons with my best friend, Gina...

And Barenaked Ladies with my brother, Aaron!

• Go swimming or somewhere with water slides [Check]

Swimming at the Provo Rec Center with Cody!

(Not Pictured: Everyone else)

• See the Manti Miracle Pageant [Check]

Manti Pageant with my favorite people!

• Go through the neighboring temples in my area (Jordan River, Draper, Salt Lake, and Oquirrh Mountain) [Check]

With my brothers and sisters-in-law after I went
through the Jordan River Temple.

My parents and I after I took out my endowment.

My temple - the Draper Temple!

Aaron and I made it to the Salt Lake Temple!

I finally made it to the Oquirrh 

Mountain Temple!

• See Monsters University and Despicable Me 2 [Check]

Out of my way kids! I've been waiting 10 

years to see this movie! It was so good!

Cody and I with our favorite minion, Phil after

we saw Despicable Me 2!

• Go four wheeling [Semi-Check]

I couldn't go four wheeling so I did the next best

thing - ride Aaron's scooter! Thanks brother!

• See a baseball game [Check]

The Salt Lake Bees beat the Tacoma Rainiers 5-0!

• Go stargazing [Check]

There's nothing like stargazing in a small town

with your best friends! Also I saw 3 shooting stars

that night! Score!

• Get a Kong Kone from Macey's [Check]

You see why getting that cone was on my
bucket list now?

• Give away a Book of Mormon [Check]

Not the best picture of me... But here's

a picture of me and the Book of Mormon

that I gave away!

Meeting Up With My Future Sisters

First of all, guess what? I have less than two months before I go on my mission! Holy cow. Time flies! I'm a little nervous to start this new chapter of my life just because I'm leaving my comfort zone and going somewhere I've never been before. On the other hand, I'm freaking pumped to go and share the gospel with those who aren't members yet especially after the experience I had last night!

Back story time! A few weeks after I received my call, I went on a Facebook page dedicated to future sister missionaries and posted that I was going to the South Carolina Columbia mission. One girl told me that she was going to the same mission and they had made a different group just for the girls going our mission that I should join. On that page, they organized a time to go see "Joseph Smith: Prophet of the Restoration" at the Legacy Theater in Salt Lake City. I decided to go! I mean, why not? I'd get to see this incredible movie and meet some girls going to the same mission as me, so I feel like that's a win win.

Including me, there were five girls there. Three of the five are leaving in a few weeks for the mission and another girl and I leave on July 10th. Even though I won't be serving a full 18 months with most of those girls, it's still nice to meet them so I can see some familiar faces when I'm out there, you know? And the craziest part? I went to college with two of the girls! One of the girls is even in my former professor's ward! It's such a small world, I know. Meeting these girls was wonderful! I'm so excited to serve with them!

South Carolina bound :)

Now while that was a good reason to get pumped up for the mission, I feel like the Joseph Smith movie made me even more excited. If you haven't seen the movie yet, I'd encourage you to do so! You can either go to the Legacy Theater like I did or even watch it online by clicking here. It's an incredible story about an ordinary young man who was asked to do an extraordinary thing by God - restore His true church to the Earth. The things that he had to go through in order to do so were crazy. He was mocked, tormented and threatened because of the church. Even after all that, he proceeded to build up the church and its members. It proves the amount of faith that he had and how strong it was.

Once the movie was over, I wanted to do a fist pump and be like "THE CHURCH IS TRUE!" I restrained myself though... It probably wouldn't have been a good thing for me to do in that setting... But seriously. I felt the Spirit so strong while watching the movie. I'd just like to let my readers know that I have a strong testimony of Joseph Smith. I know that he restored the gospel to its fullest and through God, he was able to translate the Book of Mormon, the keystone of our religion.I really admire Joseph Smith for all he's done. It would be hard to withstand all of that peer pressure but he did and because he did, we have over 14 million members of the church worldwide!

Joseph Smith as played by Nathan Mitchell in
"Joseph Smith: Prophet of the Restoration."

Just before I end, I'd like to share a quote with you guys that's been on my mind lately. "You cannot know the strength of your faith until it is tested." Being religious isn't always easy. We are tempted many times but we can't give in. If we give in, Satan wins! We don't want that now, do we? These temptations are just ways for us to prove our faith. I know that if we have faith in God, we will be able to make it through our rough patches and our faith will be strengthened.

We Choose Faith Over Fear

Fun fact for you guys! As of yesterday, I've had my call for a month and I only have 2 1/2 months left until I'm in the MTC! This is so crazy! Seriously. Time has just flown by! I can't complain about that though! I'd much rather that time went by fast rather than slow. On the other hand, it kind of sucks when time goes by fast. Example: I should be excited that this semester went by in the blink of an eye but I feel like I didn't get to enjoy it as much as I should have. It's still a little surreal to me that this is my last week in good ol' Ephraim.

Love this campus!

I went to my student ward for the last time today and my bishop got up in sacrament meeting to address us for the last time. His parting words hit me pretty hard. "We choose faith over fear. Don't forget that." I think part of the reason he said that is because a good majority of my ward is heading out on missions. I mean I found out that of the two Young Single Adult stakes here, my ward is leading in the amount of sister missionaries leaving with 50+ girls heading out. Pretty incredible for a junior college, if you ask me!

Let me tell you why this statement that my bishop said was so important to me. Going on a mission was never in my plans. Last summer, I received an impression that I should go on a mission but even then I still had two and a half years to prepare to go on a mission. When the mission age was changed, I definitely took that as a sign that I needed to go serve the Lord.

I received my mission papers and planned on turning them in about two months later. The time came for me to submit my papers and I started to receive some serious doubts of going on a mission. I decided that it just  wasn't for me at that point. I thought that maybe I had been caught up in the hype of the missionary age change. I felt uneasy and I wasn't too happy with my decision. I prayed and fasted about the decision and finally I figured that I needed to go forward with faith and serve a mission (obviously).

Choosing faith over fear doesn't always have to do with a mission though. I believe this saying applies to any prompting the Lord gives us! I understand that it's hard to follow some promptings we receive. It may not be seen as the "cool" or "politically" correct thing to do but God knows what He's doing. If we trust in His plan and follow where He leads us, we will be blessed for it in the long run.

On a completely unrelated note... Check out my personalized

missionary map I had made for me! Pretty nifty, eh?

Three More Months...

It’s been a while since I’ve blogged… 13 days to be precise. So I decided I should blog today! Especially since today is my 3 month mark until I enter the MTC! Can I just tell you guys how excited I am for it? I’m so freaking pumped! I know there are a lot of people that think about their mission and feel a lot of anxiety but not this girl! I’m just excited to start on this new chapter in life. Sure, it’s a little scary thinking about leaving my friends and family for 18 months but I’m thinking about all the good that can come of it instead of the bad. I’m going to help people be with their families for eternity, I’ll be serving others, and most importantly I will become closer to my Heavenly Father. I don’t really see how there’s a downside to this.

After my last blog post, my mom pointed out that I didn’t talk about receiving my call. So let me tell you the tale of my mission call (And if you'd like you can click here to actually watch the opening of the call). I was home for Spring Break during the last week of March. I had turned in my mission papers two and a half weeks prior so unless something when wrong, I would be getting my mission called on March 27^th.

I was very anxious to get my call mostly because I was anxious to know where I’d be serving the Lord. I really wanted to speak a language, Spanish specifically, but I knew I would be sent where the Lord needed me to go. After all, He knows me and my needs better than I know myself.

To calm my nerves, I decided to go up to my room and just read my scriptures. At noon, my younger brother, Cody came in and told me that the mailman was there. I totally thought he was playing with me so I looked out the window to check… The mailman was there. He had my call. I ran down the stairs and out to the mailbox to grab that white envelope of mine and I had to get a bunch of pictures with if of course!

Back story time! Cody was in a “Glee” concert for his high school choir, where they performed A Cappella music of popular music. At the end of one of the songs, he was supposed to set off this confetti cannon but that didn’t end up happening so he kept it at home for a special occasion. That occasion happened to be my mission call. He set it off for a picture of mine and it actually turned out pretty cool!

I told you it turned out to be a pretty cool picture!

Unfortunately for me, I didn’t get to open it up right away. I waited six hours. You heard me right – six hours! I wanted to make sure my immediate family and my grandparents were all there for my call so we decided to have a party at 6 PM for the opening. It was torture! That mission call was all I could think about; especially since this life changing information was in my hands! But be impressed with me, I did not steam open my call. I waited with everyone else.

Part of the reason that we had to wait so long is because Cody and I had an orthodontist appointment at 4 PM. My appointment was really quick because I just had to pick up my retainer since I had recently broken it. It took the orthodontist an hour to get to Cody though. I was so impatient because it was 5:30 at this point in time and my family was already gathering to eat before I opened my mission call. Cody finally came out of the orthodontist so we rushed (while obeying all traffic laws) home.

We got back around 6:10 and I ran upstairs grabbed my call and my mom asked “You ready to open it?” Oh. Trust me, I was. I grabbed our envelope opener and started to open it up. I read through and saw South Carolina before reading the letter out loud and I felt this huge sense of relief! The Spirit confirmed to me that South Carolina is the place I need to be for 18 months of my life.

South Carolina baby!

I know there are a lot of returned missionaries that say that they think about their missions every day. I feel like I can kind of relate to that now because since then, there isn’t a day that goes by that I don’t think about my mission. I am so excited to serve the Lord and the people of South Carolina. I know that there are people there that need to hear about the gospel of Jesus Christ from me specifically. This will truly be one of my greatest adventures in this lifetime.

So this is what blogging is like...

Yesterday was life changing for me. I opened up my mission call for the Church of Jesus Christ of Latter-day Saints and I'm assigned to labor in the South Carolina Columbia mission, English speaking! I've never been so excited in my whole life! I decided to start my very first blog on my journeys to becoming a missionary up until July 10th, when I leave. After that date, I'll have a family member keep you all updated on my adventures in South Carolina!

Now I know what's on all of your minds... Why is my blog called "Smiling Faces, Beautiful Places?" Well fun fact for you! That's actually the slogan of South Carolina! Bet you didn't know that! You learn something new every day...

So excited to serve in a state where the flag has a

palm tree (or a palmetto to be exact) on it!

So guess what my mom, my little brother, Cody and I did today? WE WENT SHOPPING FOR MISSIONARY APPAREL! Yeah... I just used all caps. That's how excited I am for it! We didn't really get any great savings or anything on any deals but I did get some freaking cute clothes! We went to the Sister Missionary Mall and we surprisingly hit up Mr. Mac as well. You wouldn't think that there would be clothing for sisters there but there was and it was fantastic! In total, I got 3 cardigans, 2 shirts, 2 dresses, 1 skirt and a partridge in a pear tree (See what I did there?) I also got a new Preach My Gospel manual, the missionary library (Jesus the Christ, Our Heritage, Our Search for Happiness, and True to the Faith), a missionary journal, a Mission Prep manual, and a brand new CTR ring. Successful day? I think yes!

Check it out! This is my collection of 

missionary items thus far!

Well that's all I've got for you today! I'm going to the Festival of Colors down in Spanish Fork this weekend with some friends for the first time ever! It's something I have on my "To Do Before The Mission" list so I'm excited to cross that off the list! I hope you all have a wonderful Easter weekend and I hope that you keep Christ in your hearts this Sunday :) I'll leave you with one of my favorite scriptures right now!

"For I am not ashamed of the gospel of Christ: for it is the power of God unto salvation to every one that believeth; to the Jew first and also to the Greek." - Romans 1:16