I remember when I was little my sisters and I would play a game where we would spin our family globe( A decoration in our family room) close our eyes and put our finger on the globe until it slowed down and we proceeded to open our eyes..We would then tease, this is where I will go on my mission! I distinctly remember doing that hundreds of times as a kid..My sisters can testify to that haha. We all thought it was such a fun game. That was just a game though. I NEVER wanted to go on a mission. I would even say immediately to everyone that I would never go. I just wanted to go to college and get married..the usual hah. It wasn’t until I was 16 when I actually truly thought about it. I was sitting in a stake conference meeting when the words popped in my head, mission. I just sat there thinking, “ How can girls go on missions..It is so scary! Id honestly go if I could go somewhere cool haha.” I sat there thinking about this for a while. I really respected missionaries. My sister Carly went on a mission and I wrote her EVERY week and sometimes multiple times a week. I had a deep respect for men and woman who left their lives and families to give others the gospel.. So when I would say I would never serve, it was only because I thought deep down ( And would never admit) that I would absolutely be the worst missionary. I had always loved the gospel. I had gained my testimony at a young age up at Brightons Camp in Utah during the summer.. I LOVE the gospel..But I would be so insecure about how I could never answer questions in church or be that Star student in seminary that always had some spiritual experience to share or could memorize every scripture mastery.. No I was the girl that begged my seminary teacher to pass me because I always had a math test after so I would study during seminary, I could memorize maybe one scripture mastery, and I never ‘graduated’ from young womens and got a young womans madallion.. ( Sorry boys if that is like a “ MANDATORY WIFE” thing..) I never even finished personal progress.. But that was because I had a pretty stuborn head about not being forced into thing and doing spiritual things in my own time.. For example, I began to think of getting my patriarchal blessing when I was 17.. When I told my bishop this and got the paper my parents, bishop, church leader, whoever it may have been at the time began to put pressure on it... Not in a bad way AT ALL and not meaning to.. But would just say, “ When are you going to get it? Have you called? You should really get it it will help you so much.” I tried calling the patriarch several times and each time I put the number in the phone I would hang up..It DIDN”T feel right at the time to get it and I did not care about anyone telling me what to do.. Again the stubborn head.. It had to feel right to ME before I did anything. I waited an entire year after that and went alone to get it in Utah. I have a true testimony that Heavenly Father prompts us and works in mysterious ways to bless us because my patriarchal blessing was EXACTLY what I needed when I moved all by myself to Utah.. I know that it was the right time and has also lead to the decision of my mission. OKAY WAYYY off subject back to me sitting on those uncomfortable benches at the stake conference.. As I sat there thinking about how I wish I had the guts to go on a mission and wish I could go somewhere cool I thought..Wait, why would I need to go somewhere cool? Why would that be the only reason to consider it? I LOVE the gospel. And the gospel is the same throughout the entire world. The only reason I use to say that it was not an option was because I thought that it would be scary and time consuming. But when it came to the gospel I absolutely love it and would do anything to share it. I then sat there thinking and thinking about the sitation and a thought popped into my head, almost as though it were not my own thought.. It said , “ Why not? WHY NOT. You KNOW the gospel. You came to this Earth BECAUSE of the gospel. You would go wherever Heavenly Father wanted you to go, wouldn’t you. Then the hymn books opened and I saw which song was being sung. It was, “ Ill go where you want me to go Dear Lord.” I just sat there reading the words and decided. OK. I am going to go on one if by the time I am 19 I am not doing anything else... Kind of a lame way to say it but I still said it. Flash forward to a year later I had decided to graduate a year early from high school and felt the need to move to Utah. I have grown up SO much and have learned so many things from being on my own! I have dealt with so many different people, different homes, different friends, jobs etc...All of these things lead me to where I am and have tied together perfectly in a way that has given me a true testimony of my own and has shown me how God truly does guide us and work in mysterious ways. I learned to work 13 hour shifts ( 2 jobs back to back ) Which would mean I was up at 6 am, leave at 7 and not be home until either 7 pm or later.. If thats not mission prep I dk what is. My parents tease that a mission might be the most relaxing thing I have ever done because it will be the one time in my life where I will wake up and KNOW what I am suppose to do every day and not have to worry about anything else.. Honestly I think I will still be VERY stressed and worry about a million things haha. Anyways, talking about a mission again, I remember the next time I thought about it. I woke up around 2 am at night and just instantly thought, mission? This thought was put in my head. I believe that nothing is just put there for no reason. What was interesting was that I woke up and just thought MISSION..Almost as though the thought itself woke me. I didn’t sit there and think, “ Im hungry, why am I awake?” I just woke up thinking about a mission. I got up and grabbed a binder that had my patriarchal blessing in it and began to read it. When I put the thought of a mission in it it changed my entire world..My world went UPSIDE DOWN. EVERYTHING tied to a mission. I wanted to share that it said, “ You will be involved in gathering scattered Israel. The Holy Ghost will guide you and prompt you how you are to do that when the time is right. It also talked about how I will serve others and lift heavy hearts and hands that hang low etc etc.. Pretty much the entire thing until the 2nd to last paragraph is about serving others. The Holy Ghost gave me the prompting that night because it WAS time that I remembered my promise to myself at 16.. I would be 19 in 1 month and I knew something was missing in my plan.
Ever since that night I had planned for a mission. My best friend Brittany was preparing for a mission at the time so it was super cool to watch her prepare( In fact she lived in my basement at the time!) I got to see her go through papers and all. She was the first person I told. She had a mat on my floor one night and we sat in our beds talking and I just began to cry and said, “ Brit I want to serve a mission. I am GOING to serve a mission.” She started flipping out and got emotional too ( Hah such girly cry babies) And we just laid there talking until we fell asleep. A few days later I was super stressed about stuff and was driving with my Dad.. I was telling how nothing was adding up.. That I didn’t feel like what I was doing was even the right path and it made me so angry that I was stressed about that. I remember sitting in front of a Toyota store when I just started talking to him about wanting to serve a mission. Each time I got SO emotional about it..Each time I said ‘ mission’ it felt so familiar and good..I am NOT emotional in front of people with the spiritual stuff.. I don’t think it helps with a spiritual experience at all and is just annoying hahaha..But the feeling I got each time I said it was unreal..Something I had NEVER felt before. Once I began to put a mission in my plan I was at peace.
Time passed and I dated some people, forgot about a mission, thought about one again, forgot again..It just kept continuing like that..What was interesting was how each time I stopped thinking about it, Christ would kind of jerk me back into the direction of a mission..I would get stressed out of my mind and feel like my world was just all wrong. I couldn’t make school decisions, couldn’t focus etc..either through someone baring their testimony, my friends on missions writing me, a talk I saw, a quote..whatever it was..I would be reminded again. And then again as I put it back in my plan everything would begin to work out again. I couldn’t shake it even though at times I WANTED to... There was a distinct time I remember saying, “ I don’t WANT to go..I have a good job now that could help me save a lot of money to do a study abroad later, go to BYU Hawaii, plus I LOVE the family I nanny for..They are my family I can’t leave them now.” Because this feeling wasn’t going away though I decided to start papers. I knew that at this point if I waited too long I would be an oldie and decide that I still needed to serve a mission or if I didn’t go I would regret it for the rest of my life and always wonder, what if I went? Who could I have taught? Did I fail someone? I truly felt each time that Heavenly Father was giving me distinct promptings to tell me that it has been in my plan since the beginning..I believe that we had patriarchal blessings in Heaven... I also believe that a lot of our decisions here on Earth are prompted because of our Patriarchal blessing there..Some things may sound familiar or more appealing to us because we have seen it before. Our free agency allows us to change anything we want in that plan, but I do believe that it does have a strong influence on us and that some things may need to stay put in our plan if that is what Heavenly Father thinks is best... And when we follow him we are SO blessed.. Why wouldn’t we want to follow his initial plan? Im pretty dang sure that his plan is the best one..especially over our own crazy ones haha..If we all followed our crazy ideas and only had our own plans in our head we would all most likely be crazy people in the circus, djs, and probably die by the age of 25... Anyways, as time passed I was dating someone and realized that even though I really cared about them, I was still so torn about serving a mission. I remembered my initial promise to myself that if I wasn't dating anyone when I was 19 I would go ( That is seriously the worst promise hahaha) BUT it made me realize that I was dating someone and STILL wanted to go. A mission didn't just all of the sudden leave my thought because I cared about someone and when I told myself that whole promise thing I thought that if I started dating someone it was an answer not to go.. well I did date someone and it actually went the opposite of confirming that it WAS right to still go. Even though this person and I have different paths now I will always be grateful for his example and support. Maybe our paths will cross again someday. But I hope he finds the most amazing gal if not!
Wow..This is a novel I am so sorry! But flash forward to when I received my call. I waited weeks for my call.. When I first turned in my papers in November one of my medical papers went missing ( Of course) like the Stake President called me saying they couldnt find it haha! So I had to make another appointment with my doctor just so that she could fill out the paper again, no check up just a stinking signature on a few things that she already checked and it took forever to get another appointment in. I was pretty bummed but my Dad reminded me to be patient and that God has his own timing with certain things.. So maybe it was put off so that I am with a certain companion that will teach me something.. I guess we will see! So I finally got an appointment in and put in my papers OFFICIALLY. Then for the other fun part, of course the holidays messed it up too so my call wasn't assigned for 3 more weeks. So frustrating but I was okay. It helped me to prepare a little more for when I received it. I would get random moments of being super stressed and freaked out thinking of where I could be called..But I would always be reminded that God KNOWS 100% where we are suppose to serve. So when I remembered that I wasn't scared anymore. Obviously I was wanting to go foreign so that was my first fear..I would catch myself worrying that God didn't think I was tough enough to learn a language or go somewhere hard..Which is ridiculous but I really thought that and had NIGHTMARES about being sent to Hong Kong and being sent home early because I couldn't figure out the language HAH. But actually, at the end of all of this worrying I was dying to go somewhere close to home english speaking. Which was a good thing for me because I finally realized the perks to both sides and remembered that IT DOES NOT MATTER where you go. The gospel is the same throughout the world. I finally went to the mailbox and I saw that thick white envelope! I had initially planned to go open it by myself.. but decided that I wanted my family to see my first reaction to be a testimony builder or whatever. I was just ready to open it!! I seriously was so nervous I couldn't even eat! My friend gave me some good advice that I should pray right before opening it so I was sure to do that. It did help calm me down. I told myself I wouldn't get all emotional opening it..Yeah that lasted maybe a second but I was done for when I saw the line that said, " Dear Sister Springer." I had been anticipating THIS MOMENT since the first time I thought of a mission at that stake fireside when I was 16 and it was FINALLY here..It was just that feeling of, " Wow I DID IT! I finally got to this point." I began to read down and accidentally saw where I was called before I got to it.. I seriously could not speak I freaked out. I saw PERU and all of these emotions just hit me instantly.. I thought, " Of course!! I knew that!" and " Holy cow I dropped out of spanish 3 times in high school." AND " Wow...I absolutely 100% feel that this is right." I can't even fully explain the feeling.. It would be a whole other page. But it was so cool tying things together.. things in my patriarchal blessing even make sense now when I tie in Peru. TRUJILLO PERU NORTH MISSION!! Now I should probably end this blog post and go study spanish or something...
I wanted to bare my testimony that I KNOW with all of my heart and soul that this is the true Church, that Heavenly Father knows us personally, and that he is always there guiding us for what is in store. He sees us either through someone elses eyes, or directs the holy Ghost to prompt us in what he would have us do to return to him. His love is unconditional. I was born and raised in the gospel my entire life..How will I ever repay my father.. There will never be a way to repay him, but I CAN leave my family for a short amount of time so that other families can find the gospel and be with each other for eternity just as I was blessed coming here. If I baptize 0 or baptize many, I KNOW that I am suppose to go and find someone that has prayed for an answer and needs the gospel. I am excited to find them. What a beautiful day that will be to bring another one of my brothers/sisters HOME.
Look at my beautiful temple!!
And just a random cool photo of some random girl riding a Llama in Peru.. Life goal..
