The Maiden Post

This is my blog documenting my experience serving as a full-time missionary of The Church of Jesus Christ of Latter-day Saints. To serve a mission for the church I needed to fill out mission papers--kind of like an application. It took some work and miracles to collect the required materials and information I needed to be considered prepared and worthy to serve a full-time mission. My papers were submitted on September 6, and ten days later I found a big white envelope in my mail box and I knew it was my call. Getting letters in the mail is always exciting, but it isn't very often that you get a letter in the mail that contains the course your life will take for the next 18 months so, needless to say, I was pulsing with excitement. I opened the envelope with my family on the phone and started reading:

Dear Sister Smiley,

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 Utah Salt Lake City Temple Square Mission...

Growing up I've always wanted to serve a mission for my church, initially because it sounded fun and exciting to go live somewhere different and maybe learn another language, but more recently my desire to serve a mission has stemmed from a love of my Savior and and the change that His restored gospel has brought about in my life. So even though Salt Lake isn't very "exotic" and I'll be speaking English, I'll still be able to share my testimony and help people come unto Christ and feel His love; this is why I want to serve a mission.

The Temple Square mission is unique because only sister missionaries and older couple missionaries serve there. So the leaders in the mission are sisters--which is different from other missions. It is geographically the smallest mission and is composed of Temple Square, the Beehive house (where Brigham Young lived), Welfare Square, and the Humanitarian Center. My job will be to give tours of the square and answer people's questions. Aside from that, I don't really know anything about the workings of the mission, so I'll have to figure that all out when I get there. 

I leave on February 2 and report to the Missionary Training Center (MTC) in Provo, Utah. So since I've been home from school and waiting for the approaching date, my family and I have been trying the get me all prepared with clothes and other things one might need for the next 18 months. There is a dress code for missionaries and finding clothes that fit the code can be a challenge. Winter coats and boots have been two of the biggest challenges so far, and stores are sorely lacking in summer wear and sufficiently long skirts that aren't gray.

Every week I'm on my mission I send a letter home (by snail mail or email, I'm not sure) and I'll have my parents post it on this blog so that you can follow what I'm doing. So until my first letter, cheers!