Big White Envelope

I waited two weeks for my mission call to arrive in the mail. It came Thursday July 19, 2013 during finals week at BYU-Idaho and while my parents were in Rock Springs Wyoming supporting my little sister at the National High School Rodeo Finals. Can you say bad timing! Luckily I only had 2 tests to a take and my family was willing to drive down Thursday night so I would be able to open my call Friday morning. I had to wait all Thursday and most of Frida morning. AHH! I seriously thought that waiting was going to be the death of me. All day Thursday I was a complete mess! I couldn't focus. I couldn't study. I couldn't eat. I couldn't sleep. All I could think about was what was inside of that big white envelope. I woke up early Friday morning to take my last final and then was on my way to open my call. The entire drive I was so nervous. I had butterflies in my stomach. My brain was going a million miles an hour. I really thought I might pass out while driving. What a story that would be! I got home and held the big white envelope in my hands. I noticed the flap had been taped shut. What?? So I asked my family if they opened it and of course they did not. My call clearly had quite the ride from Utah to Idaho. I began opening the big white envelope with shaky hands and started reading, "Dear Sister Driscoll: 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"...I paused. My biggest fear was not being able to pronounce where I was going or knowing the geographical location of where I would be. I read where I was going in my head in shock and immediately got emotional. I continued with a choked up shaky voice "Korea Seoul South Mission." Sure enough I pronounced Seoul wrong but that did not matter because I was going to South Korea!  I continued reading, "You should report to the Provo Missionary Training Center December 4, 2013. You will prepare to preach the gospel in the Korean language." KOREA?! SAY WHAT?! My little sister exclaimed, "Where's that?!" Then my entire family grew quiet and was in shock. It took my sweet sister-in-law to break the silence after a couple minutes and say, "Well this is going to be great!" I couldn't believe it. My family couldn't believe it. I still can't believe it.
Finally after the thought sunk in for a few minutes I knew for a fact there are people in South Korea waiting for me to teach and serve them. I knew that I had been called to this mission for a reason and I cannot wait to find out why the Lord needs me in South Korea. It is so comforting to know where I am going to be for the next 18 months of my life but I am extremely nervous for the language and being able to preach the gospel in Korean. I mean knowing the gospel and teaching it in English is hard enough. I know that the Lord is on my side though and trusts me with this call. It is now my time to trust Him. I know with his help and through the Spirit I will learn the Korean language and know what the people I teach need to hear. After all the conversion of an individual comes by the Spirit so as long as I am in tune with the Spirit and teach by the Spirit of the Lord, He will allow everything that needs to happen, happen. I am so blessed to be able to have this opportunity now during this time in my life. It will lay a fantastic foundation for my future. A year ago this was not possible for girls to go at 19 and now it is. I often wonder why now? Why the year I turn 19? BECAUSE I and many other girls are supposed to help hasten the work and serve our Lord NOW! I can't wait for this opportunity for I know it will be one of the most challenging experiences of my life but by far one of the most rewarding. Ahh! I still freak out occasionally and say to myself "I'm going to Korea to serve my Lord. Is this real life?"
After having my call for a few weeks I began pondering the past to see if there were any clues along this journey to where I would be serving. Of course there were. In May just a month after I had decided to serve a mission I attended a friends mission call opening party. Of course all who were there guessed where she would be serving. I myself thought I'm going to guess somewhere a little bazar so I wrote my name on the map next to the country of South Korea. Then a few weeks later I was talking to a friend who kindly informed me that I reminded him a lot of his sister who served in South Korea. He flat out told me you are going to serve in South Korea. Weird?! Then the day before I received my call, my cousin and I were talking about where I was going to serve and South Korea came up. We thought how crazy would that be if I served in Korea. Well sure enough all these experiences led to me reading "You are assigned to labor in the Korea Seoul South Mission" where I would be spending the next 18 months. I am so glad that I did look back on the past and have those experiences that were able to hint a little bit of where I would be serving the Lord. The Lord works in mysterious ways and maybe if I had been paying closer attention to these experiences I would have caught on to all these instances before opening my call. They are fun to look back on now though. I feel so blessed to be able to serve at this time and December 4, 2013 could not come soon enough.