Getting My Mission Call

I'm just going to start at the beginning. I have wanted to serve a mission since I was very young. I remember when my aunt came home from her mission in Bolivia and my mother telling me that one day I would be old enough to serve a mission, if I wanted. I knew then and there that I would.

Fast forward to October 2012. I am 18 years old and my family is sitting in our living room, watching General Conference. Thomas S. Monson addresses the world and announces that all worthy young men and women can serve missions at new, younger ages. (18 for men and 19 for women. See Video Below.)

BEST. VIDEO. EVER. (Jussayin') Any-who, I cried. Like a baby. My brother laughed at me and my family stared, but I was so excited. Here was my opportunity to serve the Lord at an earlier age than anyone had ever anticipated. Immediately after Conference was over, I went on facebook to see how the peeps on AMSSA were reacting. I saw so many posts by girls saying, "It's in my patriarchal blessing and now I know when I should go!" and "I've been praying about it for months and this is my answer!" and "Right after the announcement I prayed about it and I knew that I was meant to serve a mission!" I stopped. In my excitement, I never once stopped to consider what Heavenly Father wanted for me. I began to pray and read my patriarchal blessing. Unfortunately, my blessing is very vague on the subject, and all I could do was find my own interpretation of what it meant. I read it and I got... nothing. I prayed every night and every night I received the same thing. Nothing. Not one peep. I prayed for 5 months, and in the meantime, I attended school at BYU-Idaho. I made new friends and met new people. I started new hobbies and learned new things. I had roommates that I wasn't related to for the first time in my life, and MAN was that hard! But I had a blast. It was sometime around March when I finally received my answer. I was in sacrament meeting in my singles ward. The Sacrament was being passed, when out of the corner of my eye, I saw my roommate pull out a copy of her patriarchal blessing. I thought, "Oh! What a great idea!" So I pulled mine out and said a quick prayer for guidance. As I was reading my blessing, an overwhelming feeling of joy came over me and I knew. I was going to serve a mission.

Unfortunately, at that time, I was still five months away from my 19th birthday. So I waited. I talked about it all the time, of course. (Probably really annoyed my roommates!) More than anything I wanted to speak Spanish, but I knew that Heavenly Father would send me where I was meant to go. Finally, at the end of April I was able to begin the mission application process. It was long, but mostly because my family was on the other side of the country from me and I had to wait for them to give me a lot of the necessary information. I finally submitted my papers on July 2, 2013. I don't mean my stake president did. I did. He had all of my information on his iPad and held it out to me, saying that he didn't want to make me serve. He wanted me to choose to. So, I took the iPad from him and pressed "Submit", knowing that soon my papers would be sent to Salt Lake.

I waited two weeks and two days. Six days before I received my call, it was assigned. It was TORTURE knowing that there were people in the world that knew where I was going, and I didn't! I received my mission call on July 18th, 2013. I walked to my mailbox with the thought repeating in my head, "Don't get your hopes up. It won't be there. It won't be there. It won't be there." I opened the mailbox and LO AND BEHOLD, THERE IT WAS! IN ALL IT'S SPLENDOR! I grabbed it and slammed the mailbox shut, running like a maniac back to my apartment. (There was a girl walking in the opposite direction that was giving me funny looks, so I shouted, "MY MISSION CALL CAME TODAY!" and she understood and shouted, "Congratulations!" and went along her way.) I posted it on facebook with this picture:

I was so excited! BUT I HAD TO WAIT! I still had a class right after I got it and I had to wait for my family so I could skype with them. I was restless though the entirety of my class and couldn't WAIT to get home.

I finally was able to open my mission call at 2:30 PM (MST). I opened it and read it aloud:

"Dear Sister Beaumont,

You are hereby called to serve as a missionary for the Church of Jesus Christ of Latter-day Saints. You are assigned to labor in the México Tijuana Mission. It is anticipated that you will serve for a period of 18 months.

You should report to the Provo Missionary Training Center on Wednesday, November 13, 2013.You will prepare to preach the gospel in the Spanish language."

I couldn't believe it! I had wanted more than anything to speak Spanish, and Heavenly Father answered my prayers! Just before I got my call, however, I prayed for Heavenly Father to help me to love wherever he sent me, no matter what language I would be speaking and no matter where I went. He answered both! I love the people of México and I am so excited to serve!