The Start of it All

My journey from my tiny town of Tulare, California, to Rosario Argentina didn’t start like some of the stories that people will tell you. It was a very quiet prompting that started after the October 2012 general conference. In one of the Saturday sessions of that year’s conference, the mission ages were radically changed. Men could now serve at the young age of eighteen instead of nineteen and women at the age of nineteen instead of twenty-one. Before then, I had never given a thought to serving the Lord in that way. I was going to get married to a rich boy at age eighteen (yikes, I know), go to college, and maybe have kids. The thing was, I was like twelve at the time and had unrealistic and weird world views. By the time the ages were changed, I was seventeen and a senior in high school. It was first time that I had given a thought to serving a mission. As illustrated by this Facebook post:

 

Then, I promptly forgot about it and went on with my life. The thought came into my head again when I moved to Laie, Hawaii to attend Brigham Young University-Hawaii. There I had many friends who were older then I was, and as a result, were returned missionaries (RM’s). Two of them, (you know who you are) had served in Argentina, and loved the country.  Now, I’m not saying that everyone else hated their mission, but one friend in particular adored Argentina. More then anyone I have ever met has liked his or her mission. His enthusiasm, coupled with the inspiring stories and positive experiences shared by all of my RM friends, motivated me to start my mission papers in January of 2014. The process took me an abnormally long time because I wanted to complete them with my Bishop back home. It was still in his first year being the leader of our ward, and I would be his first missionary. Besides, who wouldn’t want to complete their papers with their dad? Throughout the entire journey, I knew this was what I was supposed to do. I finally submitted my papers on June 23, 2014.

My mission call arrived at my house on July 4, 2014 when I was vacationing on the coast for the Fourth of July. When my friend who was watching the house called me the next day and told me that it was in the mail, I screamed right in the middle of the San Louis Obispo Costco parking lot. I wanted to wait until the next Friday to open it, but my dad got mad and told me that I couldn’t wait that long because we didn’t know when I would have to report to the Missionary Training Center. Soooo I posted on Facebook that I would be opening it on Sunday, July 6, 2014.

Sunday night rolled around, and surrounded by family, friends, and my computer, I opened my mission call to Rosario, Argentina, reporting to the MTC on November 19, 2014. I was so excited!!! After three months of preparation, I leave to the MTC in three weeks, and I am so scared and excited and nervous. I can’t wait to see what the next year and a half has in store for me!

Audios, Aloha, Till Next Time,

Hermana Spencer