Be Still and Know

My first day back in Del Mar in another trio. All I can say is I was pumped. Those four weeks were a huge whirlwind of events and exchanges and meetings and trainings and we just went with it. My time there didn't quite go as planned, that's for sure. I don't think I can adequately describe the thought processes I experienced or the struggle I was going through, but I do remember that I felt very hopeless. I felt like there was not a single soul that understood what I was going through. I hadn't ever really struggled with serious mental health issues before my mission, but it seemed like all of my weaknesses were being tried all at once and it was HARD. I struggled with a desire to get better as well, so that really didn't help. I remember having a few instances of some intrusive thoughts that took me totally by surprise and once it got to that point I knew that I needed more help than I was getting. June 16th, 2019 We were...

Let's get one thing straight: training is tough. What's even tougher is training an hermana that asks you how seriously you take the principle of obedience within hours of knowing her. We laugh about it now, but at that point, I was 100% terrified.  Hermana Heysell Cruz was a mystery to me. She and I had led very different lives, that was for sure. She was a convert of almost 5 years and came on a mission solely to follow the Lord's will. She was so laid back I was curious how she even made it out of the MTC. We were friends quickly and got along fine, but she didn't share much about herself for a long time. At first I did struggle with her attitude toward missionary work, only because it was so different than mine. I was trained to be very obedient and didn't have a lot of room for error. That had a lot to do with my perfectionist personality, but also because I grew up with parents who had high standards for us and I always wanted to meet them....

The Mexico MTC was easily one of the greatest experiences of my life. Aside from a few misfortunes, like a noro virus outbreak halfway through and a few encounters I had with bird poop, it was smooth sailing. I had the greatest district of 5 Elders and 6 sisters. We were close instantly. My companion was Hermana Petrucka from Pleasant Grove and I loved her. She always had me laughing. Our teachers were also the greatest and made sure we had fun while we learned. We had an elder from Australia, one from Tennessee, an hermana from Mississippi, and one from Texas. The rest of us were good old Utahns. Being almost completely immersed in Spanish without having any kind of previous experience or knowledge was a little overwhelming at first, but I picked up the basics pretty quickly. We taught lessons everyday and got to do little exchanges with the latino missionaries to get some more practice. The devotionals were almost all in some form of Spanglish as well. Looking back, I ...

January 26th, 2018 I had been so anxiously awaiting the arrival of a big white envelope that would contain my call and assignment to serve for almost 3 weeks. I was studying at Utah State University at the time and I remember sitting in class one Thursday morning when I got a video from my mom. I opened it without thinking and saw that big white envelope and almost screamed in an auditorium of 400 students. I couldn't get back to Riverton to open it until the following day since I was still in school so by the next morning I was dying. Literally the minute my classes got out I was on the road toward home. A close friend who was already serving a mission recommended that before I got my call I should start praying to love the people of my mission, wherever it would be. That brought so much peace to my anxious heart. I had been planning on serving a mission ever since I could remember and my parents felt the same way. I'll be totally honest that when it came time ...