it's all for the mission...

One of the worst feelings in the world is the one you have when waking up from anesthesia. Trust me I know! After my knee surgery I promised myself that I would never have surgery/have to be put under anesthesia again. Sadly however, here I am only six months later and I find myself preparing for another surgery. Don't worry, it's nothing too serious, just your typical wisdom teeth removal. Yes, tomorrow I have to have all four of my wisdom teeth removed. About a year ago, at one of my dental checkups, a panoramic x-ray confirmed that my wisdom teeth were impacted and that they would need to be removed eventually. I thought that I would be able to put it off as long as I could. I was wrong again! Now due to my mission papers, my teeth needed to be pulled ASAP and that happens to be tomorrow. The odd part is I don't know what I am dreading more: the feeling I am going to have when I wake up or the pain that I am going to have for the next week. Let me just say that on a scale of 1-10 my pain tolerance is maybe at the most a 0.1. (Aren't you glad you aren't my mother?) I keep telling myself that this is for the mission and that is the only thing getting me through.

On a side note: This happens to be the last step in the process of filling out my papers! All appears to be right on schedule and if everything works out, I could have my call before December is over. Who could have ever guessed?

and now the future is bright...

Well I am not even sure where to begin. First of all I would like to explain that I in no way expect anyone to read this. It is a place for me to write my thoughts and feelings for my own personal benefit. I have tried many times to write in a journal for the same purposes but I always seem to lose interest or come up with an excuse of why NOT to write something. So here I am trying something new.

Anyways let me explain something. From the time I was a little girl, I had a plan for my life.

1.      Graduate from high school with good grades

2.      Get into and attend Brigham Young University Idaho

3.      Leave for college the fall after graduation (isn't that how it is supposed to work?)

4.      Finish three years of school and then at 21 serve a full time mission

5.      Hopefully get married in the temple (I say hopefully because I understand getting married may not happen for me, but if it does, it will DEFFINATLY be in the temple)

6.      Be a mother/have a family (I also understand that this part of MY plan may not be a part of my heavenly father's plan for me. It also obviously won't happen if #6 doesn't happen)

7.      Live a life that I, and my savior can be proud of

Well by now, since I graduated from high school in May, you would expect that I would be right on track with my plan. I should have my first semester at BYU-I almost finished and two and a half years to prepare for my mission. Well actually, this is not the case. For the past six months, I have been enduring a small trial and I have to admit, it has taken a lot out of me. On April 12, 2012 (this happened to be my eighteenth birthday) I was in the Jemez Mountains just outside of Santé Fe on a choir trip when I trip as I was running down a small hill and tore my ACL. Actually I completely severed it and had a deep bone bruise and blood clot all from tripping. Now I am sure you are thinking "Wow what an idiot" and man you couldn't be more right. Anyways, I was told by my orthopedic surgeon that I was going to have to have surgery to repair my knee. Based on the fact that it was the middle of April when this happed and because it wasn't a life threatening injury I elected to wait until after graduation to have my surgery. So I graduated with honors on May 22, 2012 and completed step #1 of my life plan. The two days later I underwent reconstructive surgery to repair my ACL. Now back to my life plan. I was well on my way to attending BYU-I (I know its life goal #2, but I actually was accepted back in February). Anyways I was assigned the fall/spring track at BYU-I (They run on a three "track” system, meaning they are in session for three separate semesters and each student is assigned to attend two of them.) So I was set to begin college in September. Now I said above that my knee injury was not life threatening but it was however LIFE ALTERING. Throughout the summer, while preparing to go to school, I was also trying to heal my knee. I had to endure weeks and weeks of physical therapy sessions in order to fix all of the damage that had been done. Now I am not going to say much about my physical therapy experience except it was the most painful experience of my life. Now, like I said before, I was preparing to leave for college and I felt as though I was progressing not only through my life plan, but through life itself. Then out of nowhere the bomb dropped. It was during one of my grueling physical therapy sessions when my therapist said that my knee wasn't healing right, I had scare tissue build up that was causing my knee cap to not stay in place, and that I was going to need quite a bit more therapy. He said that we needed to begin looking for therapy places in Rexburg. I was devastated because I didn't want to go to college and still have to deal with this injury. Then the devastation only deepened when my parents told me that our health insurance wouldn't cover physical therapy in Idaho. This left me with one thing to do. I had to submit a "medical deferment" to BYU-I saying I would not be healthy enough to attend the fall semester. Now from here I had two options: 1. wait until April and attend my next assigned semester or 2. Submit an appeal to the BYU-I board appeals asking them to allow me to attend as a full-time student in January. I decided on option #2 because I was dying to go to college and I hoped and prayed they would accept my appeal and they DID. I was so happy I cried. So a new plan was set.

1.      I would attend BYU-I in January 2013

2.      Finish two years of school and then at 21 serve a full time mission

3.      - 6. Rmained the same.

After all of this mess, I just had an over whelming feeling that my progression has stop and the feeling left me with a sickening feeling. In the LDS church, a major theme is that we are put on this earth to learn and progress towards becoming the best versions of ourselves. So this feeling of not moving forward was a devastating one. In my mind I knew that I would eventually go to college and that my progression would continue. I went two months feeling this way and I kept telling myself as the time to leave for school drew nearer, the feeling would begin to diminish. But as time went on, the anxiety within only grew. Little did I know that I was just being prepared for a LIFE ALTERING announcement that would in all reality set me back on the path of progression.

On Saturday October 6th, 2012 Thomas S. Monson announced that the missionary age for women had been changed from 21 to 19. The moment I heard this, the awful feeling that I was no longer progressing left me and I was able to see the bright future that lay ahead of me. Now time for some backstory: I guess all of my life I have known that I would serve a mission. There was a time at about the age of five or six I got scared and tried to deny this knowledge, but never the less I knew that I would serve a full-time mission. However, along with this knowledge, I also knew something frankly too personal to share now (maybe I'll tell you in the future) but it seemed as though both of these "things" would never be able to happen together. A simpler way to explain it would be if I went on a mission the other thing probably couldn’t happen or if the other thing I knew were to happen, then I couldn't serve a mission. Now you can somewhat see how this battle of information was constantly at odds within my head.(Just to clarify the other thing that I know may happen is a very good thing, I just can't talk about it now). Now switch back to October 6th. and the moment I heard the announcement, not only did I feel as though my progression had begun again, the two warring pieces of knowledge that I had held in no longer looked like two separate competing pieces of my life that I had to choose between, they now appeared as two pieces of the puzzle tightly locked together to create a portion of my life. I also realized that during the past few months my progression hadn't stopped because I wasn't going to college; actually it hadn't stopped at all. I was just being prepared so when that announcement was made, I was able to know with a certainty that this was what my Heavenly Father wanted me to do.

So now here i am on the 2nd of December with my mission papers completed and waiting for submission and preparing to go to one semester of college, and then leave on my mission. I guess I have learned through all of this that we can make a plan for our live, but it’s not our plan that matters, it’s our Heavenly Fathers. I am now contemplating whether I should go to school or if it would be better to remain at home a couple more months and work, and save to pay for my mission. I guess I will see what lies ahead because so far, it’s been pretty interesting!