Hello everyone!
Um, the only update I really have is that I saw Dear Evan Hansen and it was absolutely incredible. It's a life-changing show and in the words of that one guy in "You Will Be Found", "Everybody needs to see this."
This blog post was very unplanned. Many of you saw that I posted a really big video project yesterday, "The Jumpstart Documentary", where I finally told the full story of what I did my freshman year of college. I really enjoyed making it and I hope you all enjoy it too!
Normally I wouldn't post a video and a blog post two days in a row, but something very unexpected happened last night. I've been preparing to serve a mission for the Church of Jesus Christ of Latter-day Saints for about a year now. This required an application process which was pretty long for me. I submitted my application to serve in October. Church leaders seek revelation from God and I am assigned a location. Well, yesterday I was given my assignment! I received my mission call and I couldn't be happier. A lot of you have had a lot of questions regarding my call. I've tried to give some of you some short answers, but I thought it would be better if I fully explained everything here for you all. Here's the things about my call that people are the most eager to know.
You got a mission call?! Yes I did! I've been assigned to labor in the California Los Angeles mission for a two-transfer mission. I report on the fourth of March.
What's a two-transfer mission? If you don't know, most missionaries serve a full-time mission, which for sisters is eighteen months long. Two-transfer missions are to make sure that a missionary is prepared to serve full-time. I had to complete a lot of counseling and evaluations to submit my mission application. My circumstances were taken into consideration in my application so I will be serving a two-transfer mission so that we can be sure I am ready to handle missionary life. The two-transfer mission means I will be serving a mission in the Los Angeles area (yes, I go directly to Los Angeles!) for three months. In the last of those three months, I will have to go through more evaluations on how well I am doing in missionary life. Once the three months is completed, there are a few things that could happen. If it is determined that I am unable to handle serving as a missionary, my mission will be complete and I will come back home. However, if they find that I'm doing well in missionary life, I will be able to serve the remainder of a full-time mission, so fifteen more months. At that point I will go to a Missionary Training Center, which most missionaries go to at the start of their mission, for two to eight weeks. Then I will either go back to the California Los Angeles mission, or I could even be assigned to serve somewhere else for the remainder of my mission. So there is still a lot about the future that is unknown! But we at least know where I will be starting my mission and where I will be until, in the words of Dear Evan Hansen, "end of May or early June".
How do you feel about it? I am overjoyed. When the call was being read to me (It wasn't under exactly normal circumstances that I received my call, but then again my entire mission application process was pretty abnormal), I couldn't stop thinking about how perfect it was. Every detail, the two-transfer mission, serving in the Los Angeles area, my report date not being too soon or too far away, it all felt so perfect. I have been waiting a very long time for this but I know it was all worth it. My assignment was definitely inspired by God.
Are you excited? Absolutely! I know one reason this question was asked was because just under a year ago I said that I knew I didn't want to serve a mission in LA, haha! As you can see in "The Jumpstart Documentary" in the link at the top of this post, I spent some time with Jumpstart in the LA area for a few days in our second semester. What I didn't know at the time was that I was literally in my mission, in the place I would be serving a year from then. The areas we were in, like Santa Monica and Universal City, are within my mission boundaries. It was on that trip while we were driving through the beautiful night on our way to our hotel that I realized I would never want to serve a mission there. (In the place I would be serving a mission. I just can't get over that.) But the reason I said that is because I have such a strong desire to live in LA. I think it is so beautiful, I love big cities, and I want to work in the film industry. So I didn't want to serve a mission there because I didn't want to serve a mission somewhere that I planned on living in the future. So yes, while I said I don't want to serve a mission in Los Angeles, I am ecstatic! I can feel that it's right, I love it there, and I'm certain it's going to be amazing. Plus I've wanted to serve a mission for so long. Now that I know when and where I'm going to be doing that, now that it's really time to go, how could I not be excited about that?
Are you nervous? Absolutely! All the worst things and all the best things always make me nervous, and this is definitely among the best things I'll ever do, so I'm undoubtedly terrified. However, I don't think I'm nervous for the reasons that most of you think I'm nervous for, haha. Either way though, the fact that I'm nervous doesn't really matter to me at all. Because what am I gonna do? I can tell that this is a part of my life purpose. This is something very important to me. Something very important in general. Being nervous doesn't change that, and it doesn't have to affect how I work and what I do either. Being nervous is just a feeling. I acknowledge that I'm nervous, and I move on. Anything's possible to work through with God on your side.
Can I receive your emails? No you can't, but not because I'm being a jerk. Let me explain. If you don't know, us missionaries are told to update our family and friends once a week on what/how we are doing. Most people send out a weekly update email to all of the family and friends that ask to receive them. I won't be doing that. Instead I will make sure the blog is updated every week with my missionary adventures. You will be able to stay informed on my mission life right here! Which is great not only because it keeps a record of my time serving God but also because not all of my readers know me personally, so you guys will be able to stay up-to-date too. If you want to contact me personally, you will be able to do so by emailing me at day.elizabeth@myldsmail.net. I'll be able to respond to emails once a week.
I am so excited for this next chapter of my life. Considering it takes a lot of preparation, I'm going to be taking a break from the blog for the remainder of my time in the Las Vegas valley. I have a lot of things I need to do to get ready to serve and just some loose ends that I want to tie up in my life before I go for eighteen months. I'll do one more post before I leave, and after that the blog will be updated weekly on how I am doing.
Thank you all for the love and support. I am incredibly happy about all this and excited to see how everything goes. I love you all.
--Lizzo
