Sort of BIG news

So, yeah.  I'm going on a mission.  I got my call on Wednesday and I'll be reporting to the MTC on June 23rd.  I will be a missionary in the Arizona Phoenix Mission.  Just a hop skip and a jump away.  If I was Paul Bunyan, I would say 'literally' to that expression.

 I'm not going to lie, I was so so very disappointed when I opened up my call and found out that's where I was going.  And then I read on and it said English speaking.  So much disappointment in just two lines.  I'm also not going to lie and say I didn't cry.  But seriously, can you blame me?  I currently live in Utah and I'm from California.  My mom was born and raised in the California desert and I was raised going down there a couple times a year until my grandma died when I was in high school.  It's the same thing! I'm going to one of the only two states that boarders both Utah and California.  Seriously?  Could I get any closer to home?  I'm completely fine with going state side, I just wanted to go further from what I've always known.

HOWEVER, I'm very excited to serve a mission and be a missionary!  I really truly am.  And I am also, really truly, getting more excited about serving next door.  I have faith that this is where I'm supposed to go and that I will soon find out why.  I have already been able to come up with a handful of reasons as to why the Lord would possibly not send me to some exotic foreign mission like I wanted.  Really, the more I think about it the more I can see how the girl who wants nothing more than adventure, excitement and culture would be much more effective in Phoenix than in India or Cambodia or Whoville.

I've talked to quite a few return missionaries and they're all so excited for me and no one seems any less excited when I tell them where I'm going.  And when I actually think about it, I can't remember ever hearing any return missionary telling me where they served with anything but love for there mission.  I think this is a very good sign.

I am turning over a new 'I'm so excited about the Arizona Phoenix Mission' leaf and I invite you all to join me in my excitement.  Going on a mission was never in my life plans or a goal of mine but here it is and I know it's right.

On another note, ANY advice or suggestions will be welcomed and appreciated.  I'm so clueless about this preparing for a mission nonsense.

And on another other note, you should read this talk by Elder Rasband.  It's about the process of choosing where each missionary will serve.  I am so very very grateful that my mom's relief society president sent us a copy of the talk when she did.  I read it two days before opening my call.  I can't imagine the hysterics I would of preformed if I hadn't read this talk first.  Seriously, it would of been bad.