I've been thinking lately that I haven't told you guys anything about my mission, and that makes me sad. I got an idea the other day, inspired by my friend Heather ho posts an inspirational journal every Sunday. I decided to do something like that; to share a little tidbit of my mission experience once a week. Hopefully that'll keep my blog from rotting anyway.

The first thing I thought I would say was a question I was frequently asked (besides where I'm from.) There were a lot of people that would ask me why I wanted to go on a mission.

A little background, here. For missionaries, it's common for the local congregation to volunteer to feed them dinner (even lunch sometimes) to help ease the financial burden of feeding themselves (stateside missionaries get $150, or less, a month for the essentials like food, laundry, postage, etc. Sometimes, it just doesn't go very far) and it also helps the missionaries get to know the people. Well, when I was little, I remember my mom having the missionaries over on a fairly regular basis. And whenever they would come by and we were sitting around the table, I always remember asking them to "Tell a missionary story!" That also applied to my dad and no matter how many times I heard the same stories, I thrived on them.

So of course, I grew up always thinking that I was going to go on a mission. In church our teachers would talk about going out and telling people about Jesus, we'd sing little kids' songs, and I would collect pictures of Sister missionaries. In college, when I was nearing 21 and could finally submit my papers to sign up for a mission, I practically avoided guys, not wanting to be distracted. Heh.

Well, that's basically why I wanted to serve a mission. I grew up on "missionary stories," especially loving anything my dad could tell me about his mission in Norway and the things he learned about there. I'd always wanted to, and so I did.

^_^