Guest post by Sister Meaghan Nisse, blogger at >Missionary Meggie<. She has been called to serve in the West Virginia Charleston Mission.
So, I am kinda having a mini fangirl moment right now, seeing as how I adore Dain's blog, One Year Six Months Forever.
AND NOW I'M GUEST POSTING ON HERE.
AHEM. I mean, uh, this is cool. I guess.
Haha, okay I'm done with my lame jokes. Let's get down to business. (Before the Huns arrive.)
Dain gave me free reign to write about whatever I wanted that falls under the umbrella of mission prep. So, I decided to write about what I believe has been the best preparation for me before I head out to the distant and foreign land that the natives call 'West Virginia'.
I've been awake for three hours, and have spent all three of those hours trying to think of something to write for all of you.
Since last night I've been having a hard time, full of doubt, fear, and insecurity. This isn't the first time during the past month and a half since receiving my mission call that I have felt this way, and certainly not the first time within the past year and a half, as I prepared to graduate from college and put in my mission papers, that I have felt alone and without worth.
Sometimes I see girls receiving calls to the places I used to dream about being called to and am filled with pained jealousy. Sometimes I read through my patriarchal blessing, looking for solace and direction, and only feel frustrated, as if my blessing were just a blank page.
Sometimes I think about serving a mission and wonder, "why bother?"
A friend recently referred me to a talk given by Elder Tad R. Callister, a member of the Presidency of the Seventy, which he gave in the MTC about five years ago. It's called "Becoming a Consecrated Missionary," and is truly a wonderful talk. (Download/view on the Downloadables page.)
If you've read "The Fourth Missionary" (I have download and viewing links here) by Brother Corbridge, "Becoming a Consecrated Missionary" might have some ideas that seem familiar to you.
"What is a consecrated missionary? It is a missionary who is willing to lay everything on the altar of sacrifice and to hold nothing back. It is a willingness to give every ounce of energy, every conscious thought, and every drop of passion to this work – to submit our will to God’s will whatever it may be. Every missionary who has been to the temple has covenanted to consecrate his all. The book of Omni records the depth and breadth of that covenant: “Yea, come unto me, and offer your whole souls as an offering unto him” (Omni 1:26). The law of consecration is the law of the temple, it is the law of the celestial kingdom, and it is the law of a celestial mission."
I read this talk the night before I entered the Manhattan Temple to receive my endowment, and am reading it for the second time now, a day after becoming endowed.
(Bloglovin, I've recently discovered, is basically a place where you can follow all of your favorite blogs and have a feed of recent posts all in one place. Kind of brilliant. You should do it.)
Guest Post by Sister Meg Redner, blogger at >A Peculiar Girl<. She has recently been called to serve in the California San Fernando Mission.
A few nights ago, Dain asked me if I'd like to guest post here at OYSMF, and suggested I talk about my worries before I received my call. I thought about it, and realized that I had a few things I thought might be helpful to others in the same boat. This is a bit of a long story, but hopefully it will help someone.
A little about me – I was raised in the Methodist church until I was baptized in Connecticut when I was ten years old. My dad was a lay minister in the Methodist church while we lived in southern Pennsylvania (he didn't do it as his job, but he worked with the congregation the same ways that the pastor did and was a leader of the men in the church), and all of my extended family on his side identified with different denominations: my grandmother is Baptist, my papa is Methodist, my uncle and his family are Pentecostals (my uncle is also a minister), and my dad's twin brother doesn't talk about what he believes at all, short of expressing thanks to God for getting him out of Iraq alive during Desert Storm.
My mom's family isn't super religious either – they don't talk about it much at all. My stepmom's family is much the same.
I wanted to write a blog post today, but couldn't think of what to write. Then I stumbled across this beautiful, heartbreaking video.
Meet Zach Sobiech. Zach was diagnosed with a terminal case of osteosarcoma, a rare bone disease. A few weeks ago on May 3, Zach's 18th birthday, this video was posted celebrating his life and he and his family's struggles with his illness.
Zach died today, but that's not why this video is so important. It's not just because I know how it feels to lose a family member, and my heart is aching for the Sobiechs. It's not because watching these goodbyes makes me cry.
It's kind of selfish, actually. It's because, when I was still seriously considering not going on a mission, I tried to think of all of the pros and cons to going.
And I thought about dying. I thought about how close my own death could be, without me even knowing it. I thought about the person I want to be when I leave this world, and how much further I have to go to become that person.
I don't want to live selfishly anymore. I want to leave this world a little brighter than I left it. I want to help others to be happy, just like Zach did. And the most lasting happiness that I can think of is the one that comes from the peace of the Gospel.
I think about families like the Sobiechs, mourning the earthly loss of their son, and I think about how much more it must hurt because they don't know that families can be together forever. They don't know that they have a loving Father in Heaven and a Savior who can help them through their grief. They don't have the support of ward members who will mourn with them and comfort them.
I think about all of the lost and hurting sheep of Christ's flock, and how much I want them to feel whole. How much I want them to be my brother or sister in the Gospel. How much I want them to feel the peace of the Atonement, which washes away their guilt, their sorrow, their shames and heartaches. How much I want them to feel like they truly belong somewhere, and are infinitely loved.
That is why I have answered the call to serve a mission. I want to love deeply and fully, to live uninhibited by my fear, and to share what I have and know with the people that I care about. I want to help. I want to serve. I don't want people to feel the sting of loss without the knowledge of eternal families to soothe it.
That's why I'm going to Carlsbad, California. That's why I will never stop trying to be better, to be more like Christ. He spent His very limited time on Earth surrounded by the weak, the hurting, the sick and the sinners. He spent His time loving them, even the ones who didn't love Him back. He stands by me in my weaknesses and my sins. He loves me when I reject Him, heals me when I hurt others and myself, and never, even for a second, believes that I am not good enough.
I want to be that. So this is my first step into the darkness.
Call it a leap of faith.
Call it daring to live up to my potential.
Call it continuing in Zach Sobiech's footsteps, and Christ's before his.
Whatever you call it, know that fear is not in the vocabulary. "There is no fear in love; but perfect love casteth out fear."
What would you do if these days were your last?
(P.S. Please keep those in Moore, OK and the surrounding area in your prayers. They were hit by an F5 tornado earlier today and many are still missing or trapped in rubble.)
Hey y'all! As my MTC report date draws closer (39 days!) I'm finally starting to pull together the contents of my still-not-purchased luggage, and I thought I might want to make up some outfits to see what else I need to get. Then I decided "hey, wait, I can make a blog post out of this!" I've been collecting most of this over months and months, and had it before I even had my call.
So, without further ado, here are the bare bones of some mission outfits I'll be taking with me to Southern California.
I've been slacking, I know. Since I last wrote, I have:
-Graduated from college.
-Mailed in my acceptance letter and received a letter from my mission president.
-Talked to one of my best friends for the last time in the next 20 months right before she reported to the MTC. (She's there now. Reports to the California San Jose Mission, English speaking, soon!)
-Moved back home to NJ, for now.
-Got all of my immunizations. (Even the chicken pox, although I've already had the chicken pox...)
-Received my big girl temple recommend and permission to go to the temple! (That one happened just last night.)
-Done a lot of mission shopping.
-Had a terrible case of allergies that isn't quite gone yet.
Lookin' rl gud in that cap and gown.
I've been trying to put together a mission outfits post, now that I'm finally getting all of my stuff together, but what with my being sick and all, I haven't been feeling very photogenic. Just know that that's on the way.
What I wanted to share with you today is some of the knowledge I gained while interviewing with my stake president last night about the nature of an endowment. He used an analogy that I really liked, and I wanted to share it with you guys, because I know that it was the first time I've ever had an endowment clearly explained to me.
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