#ldsmission

Hello! This is an announcement to let you know that for the next 18 months or so I will not be on tumblr.

I have already said this before, but I am a member of the Church of Jesus Christ of Latter-Day Saints, also known as Mormons, and in two weeks I’ll be leaving to serve a mission! I’m so excited, I’m serving in Japan, but that also means I won’t be updating my blog. I will come back (eventually) just not for a while!

“There’s surely somewhere a lowly place in earth’s harvest fields so wide where I may labor through life’s short day for Jesus, the Crucified”.

I cannot count how many times I was asked “Where do you want to serve?” the same way I answered a wild guess where I could go. It  would be totally convenient to go and serve back home (Philippines) location-wise and visa-wise or just serve here in Australia. It can be anywhere, but I know in my heart where I wanted to go.

We all have dream places to go to and for me, it’s quite impossible to be assigned to this place that I wanted to serve in. I have always assumed that people who go on this mission are the prettiest and the best kind because this mission is the top baptizing mission in the world and they get to tour people around the place. Well, it's always "Temple Square" as my dream mission. "Salt Lake City Temple Square" to be exact.

(Photo credit: Church News) 

On the first few months of preparing to lodge my mission papers, I always think about Utah alot. Maybe because I wanted to be there and people keep on telling me about going there to serve.

Now that I am days away from opening my call, I feel that where I serve doesn't make any difference when it comes to missionary work. Wherever the Lord needs me, I will go.

It was difficult but I felt peace telling the Lord that His will be done and not mine. Indeed, I'll go where you want me to go dear Lord.

In the conclusion of my interview with my Stake President, I was told that bigger temptations will come. I just shrugged it off knowing I won’t give in to any. I knew what I was expecting...at least, I thought I knew but I was wrong.

Man I was questioning myself if I should take back my application for something so worldly. 

For a year, I’ve been constantly finding vacancies for a job that I’ve always wanted to do but I never seem to find the most suitable one for me or for my qualifications. The day I knew my mission papers were in the Area Office was the day I was offered a job I love but I did not even apply for. I was not in the recruitment pool for this; I was just offered the job. This job would give me financial stability in the next 5 years or so. This job would help me obtain a permanent residency in Australia. How can I not resist? I waited so long for this. 

I’ve asked myself so many questions if this is a cue for a fulfillment of a righteous desire or was it the bigger temptation my stake President had warned me about. 

I know for myself that it was a worldly thing that will lead me to a different path. So, to say the least, I’m not accepting the offer no matter how convincing the offer is. 

I know that greater blessings will come, even greater than this job offer, when I choose to seek the Lord’s path and walk in His way by serving a mission. All these worldly things will not help me obtain eternal life, they all are just there to sustain us temporarily. What matter most are the things that we do for our salvation because I know Heavenly Father will not judge us for the job that we choose to do but with the way we lived. 

Have you ever been so excited about something, you cannot wait to have it?

I felt exactly the same as I wait for my mission call. Straight after my interview with my Stake President, I was crying about finally having the last step done but little did I know that it was the “waiting game” that is last. 

As I wait, I ponder about the possibilities of where I would go. Philippines? Australia? I don’t know but I’m sure Heavenly Father and Jesus Christ would let me go to the place where I am needed. 

Temptations never stops. They get worse as I wait for my call. My patience is right at its end most times. I just couldn’t do my scripture study properly. I always am 5-10 minutes late for mission prep class. The list can go on...and I am losing my motivation as I wait. 

My papers were stuck at the area office for quite some time and had to communicate with them a couple of times for my paper to be sent through to the Salt Lake office for assignment. 

With all these, I am unable to focus on what I should be doing while waiting. 

I struggled. I needed help. I was becoming impatient. 

I prayed. 

Heavenly Father knows our worries and struggles. I can testify of that. He knows us more than we know ourselves and He knows what is best for us. All my blessings came right at the perfect time just like how my mission call came 4 hours after that Come Follow Me lesson I did and a simple prayer offered for the progress of my mission paper.