Last Tips and Goodbyes

A day, if even, is all I have left until I’m set apart as a missionary for The Church of Jesus Christ of Latter-Day Saints and I am so excited! After only a few more days I will be on my way to Peru, which is still really hard for me to comprehend. So, the time is ticking away and I still have a few final tips

1. Document the journey- take pictures, write in your journal, send home post cards. Serving a mission or exploring anywhere is a once in a life time journey so keep track of it. I hear it’s something you will talk about for the rest of your life.
2. Preparetoserve.com was a great resource for me. It has lists of blogs for your mission, videos about the culture in the area you’ll be serving among other things.
3. Music- ipod shuffles are great, but you can’t change up the music on them during the eighteen to twenty four months that are serving so flash drives are highly recommended. If you have itunes like me you’ll have to change it to mp3 format and you can look up how to do that for your version of itunes on ask.com. You can find cheap speakers to plug your flash drive into on sites like amazon.
4. Another helpful hint for music is that you can download LDS music for free off of the lds.org website and they’ll already be in mp3 format. They have the whole hymn book, children’s hymn book and songs sung at past conferences all for FREE.
5. Clothes- start searching as soon as you get your call, because for me they were very difficult to find. I found most success at stores like Kohls, H&M, Coldwater Creek, Talbots, and Sorella Bella
6. Shoes- I found mine at DSW and Clarks. I had to go with somewhat less fashionable shoes then I would normally desire because of the amount of walking I will be doing on my mission.

That’s all of the tips I can think of. If I find anymore I will be sure to post them at a later time. Good luck to you all!

 

 

For those of us heading to Peru…and other foreign places

So, you’ve put in your mission call and then the envelope you’ve been waiting for and dying anxiously over finally comes in the mail. You’re so excited when you find the envelope in the mail box that you let out a scream that can probably be heard by all of your friends, but you don’t care, you’re that excited. You wait anxiously all day until all of your family and friends have arrived at your home to share this special moment with you, a moment that will literally change your life. Finally, it’s time to rip open the envelope. You rip it open and the call says…Peru?

How in the world do you begin to prepare to go to a place like Peru for eighteen months?

That’s what I’ve been trying to figure out over the past couple of months. It’s one thing to search for the right clothes, music, and other things to bring. It’s a whole other thing to prepare yourself to enter an entirely different culture, with different people, different customs, different food, different everything. So, are you ready for some good tips I’ve found around the web? I know, I can see you jumping for joy, but seriously these tips helped me gain back some of sanity after the initial panic of preparing to leave the country.

1. You’re never alone. That was my first issue I panicked over upon opening my call. How in the world was I going to navigate my way to Peru when I’ve never even stepped foot in an airport before (I know, shocking), but after doing some research I know it’s going to be okay because someone is always going to be there for you, the Lord will guide someone into your path to help you begin your mission. And in my case I get to meet up with a whole bunch of other missionaries at my connecting flight, which is pretty cool.
2. If you’re going to Peru be prepared for the wild dogs. I’ve heard about several missionaries getting bitten in the mission I’m going to, but amazingly there is a product that scares away dogs. You can find it on amazon for a pretty reasonable price. It’s called a “dog dazzer” and from what I hear it really does work.
3. Be prepared to get sick. And to work your way through it. I’m sure this is true for plenty of other missions, but I’ve heard from several RM’s that served in my missionary to be prepared to face illness. The food there has different bacteria, then it does here in the states and it normally takes missionaries a few months to adjust, so in other words pack the pepto…
4. Get ready to eat a guinea pig. Am I ready? No way. Apparently they’re a delicacy in Peru. Who knew? Each mission seems to have its crazy food that a missionary has to try at least once during the time of their service.
5. Preach my gospel can help you through anything. It’ll give you a clear idea of what you will be teaching investigators the moment you enter the MTC. It’ll teach you correct principles and give you spiritual inspiration when you’re feeling like maybe this whole mission thing wasn’t the best idea after all. It’ll help you learn the language of your mission, but more importantly it’ll help you to learn the language of love. Because, in all honesty none of it matters if we don’t open our hearts and love those that we come into contact with. The gospel is love.

I love my Savior so much and I’m so excited to serve him two weeks from today. May you find success as you prepare as well. Enjoy the tips!

Helpful Sister Missionary Resources

As a sister missionary preparing to leave it can be hard to find the right resources to help prepare yourself for the next eighteen months of your life. My time since my call has been slowly ticking away and I leave for my mission in Peru in less than a month. Doing some research for my own benefit I’ve found a few resources that have really helped me get certain things together- clothing (I can’t help, but be picky since you have to live with the attire you choose for the next year and a half), wholesome music to bring, things to do to prepare before leaving, things to bring and special tips for the MTC, the mission life etc. So, I’ve decided to share a few of them on here today so that hopefully I can save someone else a little bit of time. I know how hard it is to find resources that are worth taking the time to read, so without further ado here are some of my awesome finds:

1. Bella in Berlin (bellainberlin.blogspot.com)- Maybe I’m spoiling this post by starting with what has become my favorite blog over the past couple of months, but I just couldn’t contain my excitement. This girl has everything. And by everything I mean everything a sister missionary could possibly want to know, not to mention her blog is a blast to read with all of her jokes and unstoppable enthusiasm. Seriously, go look at it now. Her “Things I Wish I Would’ve Known” posts are the best!
2. Hermana Silva (hermanasilva.blogspot.com)- This sister has one of the blogs I first started following before I even received my call. Her tips are an invaluable resource in helping to prepare, especially her posts about the MTC that give specific tips of what to expect ad extra things you can bring to save yourself from trouble.
3. In doing some research on the mission I’ve been called to serve in I was able to find not only a blog for my mission, but also the blog of the mission president which have both been extremely helpful for me as I try to get an idea of the area I’ll be serving in. If you will also be serving in Peru the two sites are as follows…misionperuhuancayo.blogspot.com and outofthefryingpanhendo.com. If I hadn’t stumbled upon this I’d have no idea my mission was a walking one, what a pensionista is, or that I might possibly eat a guinea pig. So, if you can find sites like these for your own mission I’d recommend it…
4. In my mission the language spoken is Spanish and clearly I speak English…,so I’ve been doing a lot of preparation for that as well. The resource I’ve found to be the most helpful is memrise.com. I found a course on there for my language that I can do on my computer or my phone and it’s FREE! It’s no Rosetta stone CD, so it hasn’t by any means helped me to become fluent, but it has been helpful in learning a lot of words that I wouldn’t have learned otherwise. The site tests you on the words and also allows you to review them, which is helpful for those of us that have short term memories…like me.
5. Music I’ve discovered mostly on my own just by hunting around. I definitely recommend, The Work- A Nashville Tribute to the Missionaries, anything by Jenny Phillips (But, she also has a called to serve cd out specifically for missionaries. I love all of her CDs.), and of course every missionary’s favorite The Mormon Tabernacle choir! 
    
   So, there we go. Those are my top picks for things I’ve found this week. Stay tuned next week for more.

Why?

That’s the question everyone wants answered. Why have you chosen to do this? Why have you chosen to give up eighteen months of your life to serve an eighteen month mission for The Church of Jesus Christ of Latter-Day Saints? It’s a valid question among other questions I often get like... Why would someone like me, a girl smart enough to keep going to school, decide to go on a mission right now? Why so long? How could you leave your family so long?

For me the answer is simple. I know The Church of Jesus Christ of Latter-Day Saints is the true church and I want to share that knowledge with people that are willing to hear the words of God. I know what happiness it has brought to my life and I want to give other people the chance to have the same happiness that I do. I want them to know that they are children of a God who loves them and has a plan for them.

As for school and my family…school can wait. It has to wait, because I have received personal confirmation that serving a mission is what I’m supposed to be doing right here, right now in this moment. It wasn’t an easy decision, and not one that I was overly excited to make in the beginning, but I have felt impressed through prayer my service as a missionary is needed now. My family loves me. They won’t forget me and they support me in my decision, because they love me.

I’ve been called to serve in the Huancayo Peru mission, a Spanish speaking mission in South America. I don’t know anything about the people there. I don’t even speak the same language as them, but the moment I opened my call letter I have felt a love for those people that I have yet to meet that I can hardly explain, after all how is it possible to love a people you don’t even know? But I do. I love them and I’m so excited to be able to serve them and share the message of the restoration with the people of Peru.