Sunday, November 23, 2008

Called To Serve: Texas, Here I Come!!!

Last Wednesday was quite an eventful day for me. To start things off, I woke up with the flu which kept me from going to both work and school. In a weird way, I guess it was a tender mercy from the Lord because that meant that I was able to open my big white envelope that came in the mail from LDS church headquarters a few hours earlier than I would have if I went to work.
Around 2:30 p.m. I was talking to my mom when I looked out the window to see that the mail truck had just pulled up to my house. I went outside to get the mail and low and behold, my mission call was here! When I got inside my house I walked back to my parents' room and said to my mom, "Guess what's here?" and she said, "I could tell by the look on your face when you opened the mailbox your call came!" Mom and I were both so excited. She told me to go back outside so she could get a picture of me taking my call out of the mailbox.

Later that day, my dad called from work and asked my mom if my call had come. When she informed him of the news, dad said he would hurry home from work so I could open my call. He got home around 5:30, which is pretty early for him. As soon as dad walked through the door, he quickly called both of my sisters (we did a conference call) so that they could share the exciting moment with me. Dad was also good not only to take pictures of the event, but also a video of me reading my letter. Don't let the crying fool you, I promise they are good tears and I really am excited to serve a mission!

Just to give you a little background knowledge, at the beginning of the video my brother-in-law guessed that I would go to Mexico. Also, my mom must be inspired because about a week prior to this she guessed I would go to Texas as a Spanish-speaking missionary; way to go, Mom!




Here are some pictures from my special day:



Reading my letter while dad holds the phone up so my sisters can hear everything

Smiling through the good tears

Me and Mom

Dad and Me

Of course I had to get a picture with my little brother!

Sunday, November 9, 2008

Mission in the Works

For those of you who aren't already aware, I have been contemplating the idea of serving an LDS mission for almost a year now. I started thinking about it around my 20th birthday last December and have gone back and forth about the decision until last October.

After the Sunday Morning session of General Conference, my sister decided to follow a prompting to give me a call. We had a nice long chat about what was going on with one-another. The question about serving a mission somehow came into play. I cried to her for roughly half an hour because I was having such a hard time with the decision. Being the sweet sister that she is, she listened to all of my concerns (which is hard to do through tears) and offered me some words of comfort. She shared with me some of the talks she heard both Saturday (unfortunately I missed the entire morning session and it was all about missionary work) and Sunday morning. My sister helped me to realize that I have no need to fear because if this is what Heavenly Father wants me to do, He will be there for me 100% of the time. Throughout the course of our conversation, I remembered one of the talks that had been given Sunday morning. I can't remember who said it, but one line that really stuck out to me was, "I can do hard things as long as I have the Lord's help."

Following our conversation, I contemplated everything I have heard from all of my family members, general authorities, and friends about serving missions. Needless to say, I decided to get going on mission papers.


Later on that day my bishop gave me a call to see if I had started on my papers (I had my first interview with him about a month prior to this experience). He helped me get started. I finished all of the paperwork last Sunday. Here is the picture I sent in with my papers:
After ward prayer last Sunday, my bishop pulled me into his office for a final interview with him. He then gave me a call around 10:00 p.m. informing me he was at my stake president's home and the stake president wanted to talk to me. I set up an appointment with him for today.
I had an excellent one hour interview with my stake president this morning. He was so easy to talk to. At the end of our discussion, he told me that my papers should be going up to Salt Lake City this week!
Hopefully my next post will be about my mission call!

Fieldwork

Last week was eventful and exciting for a number of reasons. On Monday, I started my fieldwork (same idea as student teaching, but it's only 3 weeks instead of 10). My partner and I are in a 6th grade classroom at Northridge Elementary and I LOVE every minute of it. The students and my cooperating teacher are absolutely fantastic! It's so fun to see the things that I'm learning in school FINALLY being put to use. This week was basically just observing the students and how the teacher runs the class. We also get to help students with their assignments, take them to recess/P.E., and grade MOUNTAINS of assignments. It has been so fun interacting with the students.
This week will be the real test for me. I am required to teach a minimum a 5 Social Studies lessons, 2 of which must include some form of Creative Arts, and 1 must be a "Technology Rich" lesson. This is all on top of my other homework which includes: journal entries for about 4 of my 6 classes, reading, preparing for two or three presentations, designing an intervention for a student who is either struggling in school or not being challenged enough, interviewing various faculty members at the school, and a 15-20 page Teacher Work Sample. I'm pretty sure there's more, but my brain just doesn't even want to think about it at the moment.