To serve or not to serve

I haven't always had the desire to serve a mission.  In fact most of the time growing up and especially in my teenage years serving a mission wasn't even on my list of things to do.  Every time my parents would make

mention of me serving a mission I would get upset and tell them that I wasn't going on a mission, instead I was going to college, I was going to go on to graduate school, I was doing anything but going on a mission.  

On my mom's side of the family there is a history of women serving missions.  My mom served her mission in the South Dakota Rapid City Mission, my Grandma Jensen served her mission in Australia, and my Great Grandma Jensen served her mission in Colorado. Now on my dad's side of the family he does not have a tradition of women serving missions.  So I am in the middle of two different but both very good traditions and until just recently I didn't know which tradition I was going to carry on. To serve or not to serve, that was the question.

In the October 2012  General Conference for the Church of Jesus Christ of Latter-day Saints, President Thomas S. Monson made the historic announcement that lowered the minimum age requirement for both young men and young women to serve a mission. (Click here to watch the announcement) Ever since the announcement you could feel the excitement coming from all the members of the Church.  Many of us tried to comprehend and imagine what this age drop would result in.  But there I was in my living room wishing that the announcement came a year earlier so that a mission would have fit into my plans.  There I was once again making excuses on why a mission wasn't for me.  

Weeks and months passed from when the announcement was made and I continued to focus on school and other activities.  But somehow the idea of serving a mission kept coming up.  Each time the idea of serving a mission showed up, I was there with an excuse on why it wouldn't work out for me.  Crazy thing is that whenever I would use an excuse, within days the excuse I had been using didn't work any more.  For example one of my excuses was that I was in the middle of sequences for some of my classes such as Chemistry, Physics, and Anatomy courses which all build on each other and become extremely difficult to take a long break and try to pick up where you left off.  so this excuse worked for a little while, that was until I met with my department adviser and found out that quite a few of the classes I thought I needed sequences with weren't that way.  Well that excuse was shot down during that appointment.  Similar things happened with all of the excuses I came up with and eventually I came to the conclusion that I needed to follow the prompting about serving a mission that I had been receiving and pushing aside for months. 

 On January 16th (the day I decided to serve a mission)  I wrote the following in my journal, "for the past couple of months every excuse I've come up with on why I shouldn't serve a mission has been worked around.  So I have been feeling like I should go on a mission, but I've tried to ignore it.  It has come to the point that I don't know if the Lord is going to slap me in my face anymore to get me to realize that I really do want to serve my Lord."  On Sunday January 20th, I met with my Bishop and started my mission papers, within 9 days my papers were completed and submitted to the Church headquarters.  For the next couple weeks it was a waiting period for the call to come in the mail..

Friday, February 15th, 2013, my parents and younger brother Dallin were heading to regional wrestling where my youngest brother Ben was wrestling.  On their way out of town they stopped at the post office and today was the day we had been looking forward to.  It was the day that a Big White Envelope from the Church of Jesus Christ of Latter-day Saints addressed to Sister Hannah Call came in the mail.  This white envelope contained where I would be serving as a missionary for the Church of Jesus Christ of Latter-day Saints for 18 months.   I was in my Nutrition class when I received the text message from my mom with a picture of the white envelope!  Needless to say from that moment onward I did not pay attention to a word that was said in any of my classes the rest of the day.   

My family was not going to get back from regionals until Saturday evening. So we waited anxiously until Saturday evening when I could open the Big White Envelope with friends and family present. Take note, Saturday was February 16th, exactly one month from the time I officially decided to go on a mission!   As we were waiting for everyone to show up we wrote down people's guesses of where I would be called on the back of the Big White Envelope.  

Finally six o'clock came and everyone had arrived.  The moment we had been waiting for was finally here.  With some family members on the phone and others present I opened the Big White Envelope and read "Dear Sister Call, you are hereby called to serve as a missionary of The Church of Jesus Christ of Latter-day Saints.  You are assigned to labor in the Iowa Des Moines Mission. It is anticipated that you will serve for a period of 18 months.  You should report to the Provo Missionary Training Center on Wednesday, May 22nd, 2013." 

I was ecstatic about being called to Des Moines, Iowa especially since Nauvoo and Carthage Illinois are within my mission boundaries. What better fit could there be for me than a mission with lots of small towns and rich in Church History? NONE!  So Iowa here I come!