a girl with a mission (call)

When I was 10 years old, I wrote myself a "time capsule letter" that I vowed not to open for 10 years. On the cover I wrote:

There's a couple ironic things that come to mind when I think of this letter:

1) At the time I wrote this, the missionary age for girls was still 21 and wouldn't be changed to 19 for another five years. If I had researched a little more before writing this letter, I would've realized that 10 years from then, I still wouldn't be old enough to go on a mission; luckily, President Monson dropped the missionary age a couple years to save kid-me some embarrassment about miscalculating when I could be on a mission. (OK, that's probably not why he changed it, but it still would make kid-me feel better.) 

2) This point is a little more interesting. I like how it says "college or mission," like I hadn't concretely decided what I would be doing at the age of 20. I had left myself a couple options.

And this brings me to well, me, about eleven months ago. I was sitting in Sunday School in the Provo 150-something singles ward, listening to another lesson that somehow evolved into mission prep. I can't tell you the exact "when" or "why," but at some point, I realized that I wanted to serve a mission. So I prayed about it. I prayed about whether I should stay in school or start my mission papers. I prayed and prayed.

And prayed.

And...either option felt like the right choice.

It didn't make sense to me. All these other girls were talking about how they had felt such a strong prompting that a mission is what they needed to do. They got concrete answers and I wanted one, too. I wanted trumpets heralding, I wanted the clouds to clear and a plane to loop the words in the sky in bold white smoke: "CAMI YOU NEED TO DO THIS ______." I wanted a definite answer. But every time I fasted and prayed about staying in school, it seemed like the right move. And then every time I fasted and prayed about going on a mission, it felt equally right.

Eventually, I understood. 

God trusted me. He trusted me enough to let me make this decision on my own. He trusted me to use my Divinely-gifted agency to pick my path for the next year and half. 

I didn't realize how hard that could be. In some ways, it's difficult to do what you know the Lord needs you to do, but at least there's a surety behind it. There's the 1 Nephi 3:7 promise that whatever He asks of you, He will provide a means for. But being able to choose for myself meant that I kept second-guessing. What if I would make the wrong choice? What if I was just forcing myself into the mission field, taking the spot of another girl that the Lord actually needed? Or what if I was missing specific opportunities in school that would lead me to my future job? Or what if I met my future husband? What if, what if, what if?

After even more praying, I finally got the courage and made my choice. I decided that I would do what I wanted to do and believed the Lord believed I could do.

In March of 2016, I started my mission papers. I decided that, since this is what I wanted to do, I would hit the ground running, have my papers in as soon as the 120-day mark hit, and be on my mission the week after I turned 19. If the Lord really believed that I could do it, then the road to get there would be straightforward, right?

Well, I was wrong. Medical problems came up and I thought I would never be able to go on a mission. I remember crying in my car after my physical at the doctor's office, asking Heavenly Father why this had to be so hard. If it's His will, why does it seem so out of reach and impossible? I cried and felt hopeless until a phone call from my mom pulled me out of my murmuring, to put it in Book of Mormon terms. "Trust Heavenly Father," she told me. "Don't lose hope." And so I started praying to have hope every time the despair kicked in again. Eventually, months went by and, by a God-sent miracle, I had my papers in that July, a little under two months after I'd planned.

And though I hit a few road blocks, I was still sure that I'd be out in the field come October. Whenever people asked me where I wanted to go, I told them "anywhere that I don't have to Visa-wait for." I didn't have forever. My availability date was in early September, and I was 110% positive that the Lord knew how much I wanted to just get out there and serve so He'd send me as soon as possible. I was 115% positive He wouldn't send me somewhere that would make me wait. I'd already struggled enough in this process, surely He thought my patience had been tested enough.

And so pretty much every day for the next couple weeks, I was checking the mail five times a day to see if my call came. And then, on the one day that I happened not be home, I was meeting with the missionaries at my best friend's house and I joked that my mission call was probably sitting in my mail box. Well, the ironic thing was, when I came home that night, I went straight to the mailbox. 

And there it was:

a big white envelope with my name on it.

And so on a roasting July night, I was standing in my living room with half the ward and then some, holding this packet, these words that would tell me where I would be for the next 18 months of my life. I opened it.

"Dear Sister Morata,

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 Brazil Ribeirão Preto Mission ... You should report to the Brazil Missionary Training Center on Tuesday, December 13, 2016."

December?

I had to wait more?

It was a bit of a hard pill to swallow at first. I thought that the Lord knew how much I wanted to serve and how soon I wanted to leave. But after much prayer, I realized that had made the choice to serve--the choice to be the Lord's hands whenever He needed me. And while I wouldn't report to the MTC for nearly five months after I got my call, I knew that this assignment was given by priesthood holders who held the keys to send missionaries where they would be able to reach those were ready for the message of the restored gospel of Jesus Christ.

With that, I promised my Heavenly Father that I would love the Brazilian people with all my heart. I would serve them. I would be patient and wait all those months for my Visa. I would go and do.

 And while it has been a long wait, I'm officially down to one day until I fly out to the São Paulo MTC. One day until I get to go on my long-awaited mission. And I couldn't be more excited.