Note: I originally meant to write something like this for my first post, and then my second, but they turned into completely different things.
I'm a firm believer that there are the right reasons for serving a mission, and there are the wrong reasons. I'll just start off by saying I'm one hundred percent confident mine are right.
My first reason is simple: I was prompted to. And one of the biggest lessons I've learned recently is you don't delay or ignore promptings. You act on them.
For those of you who have no idea what I'm talking about, stay with me, I'm not crazy. A prompting is like a gut feeling, except it's in your heart. And it's not just you, it's God trying to tell you something. Something important. I promise you promptings are real. Try listening for one sometime. Then act on it.
The second reason I could go on forever about, and it's pretty personal to throw out there for everyone to see, but here goes nothing:
It's because Jesus Christ is my Savior, Redeemer, and best friend. I've used His Atonement to be forgiven of the times that I've screwed up, hurt myself, and hurt other people. No matter what I do, I'm still going to come up short. It's human nature. But He'll be there as my mediator to plead with God, because seriously, I've really screwed up in my 21 short years.
You know when something really horrible happens to you, or someone does something terrible to you, and there's that tightness in your chest? It hinders your breathing. And the whole world feels slanted and your vision's a little blurred. I've used Christ's Atonement to get rid of that awful feeling and heal from those emotional injuries. He's comforted me when I've been scared, alone, and beaten down. I've felt His embrace when I was at my lowest.
Because of the gift of the Atonement, I know God lives. What a great show of love to send His perfect, only begotten son to live among us, experience temptation and heartache, and then die for us so we can all be saved. God loves us. He loves us no matter what our weaknesses are.
He cares about me, and you, and everyone else. Literally everyone. He cares about our problems, from petty frustrations to the trials that we feel like we can never recover from. But we do.
I know these things. After the long, arduous process of studying, reading scriptures, crying, praying, and repenting, I found these things out for myself, and man, has life been good to me since then. Not easy, but so good.
And because I know God lives, and that Christ died for me, I have to tell as many people as I can. It's this undeniable thirst that's never going away. I have to tell people that we have Jesus Christ's restored gospel, right now, which has brought me joy and it will bring them joy like they've never seen.
I walk taller, smile bigger, and laugh harder because of this gospel. It makes me optimistic. It gives me peace. How can you not share something like that?
I can't even wait until I get to Singapore to share this message. I keep bugging the missionaries here to let me go to their lessons so I can tell people, soul-to-soul, how much my life has changed because of my faith in Jesus Christ. I won't shut up to my friends or strangers about my mission, and I'm disappointed when I don't have enough time to tell them why I'm going.
So here it is, in writing, in case I haven't talked to you yet.
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