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me!

Define: Sarah

I like who I am.

I like the passion that I have for my religion; the faith that comes naturally and the feeling of having both hands clenched, white-knuckled, in muscle-spasm-turned-numbness to sturdy things like God and Truth. And the temple.

I like the words that I have to say and the overly dramatic fashion in which I say them. The songs that I sing and that stick in my head and that play in my subconscious as my life unfolds in movie form. Or at least in the way that I can see it.

I like my mission call. It fits me and I see the wisdom in it. God knows what situations I will face and what strengths of mine will come in handy. He knows what weaknesses I will have to overcome in order to make it through this life and knows that somewhere in the Philippines there has been built a place for my own personal refiners fire that is now in the process of being lit. The temperature will be just right to burn out some of these spots. Some of the more obvious ones will be easy to remove, but the ones I can't see (or won't) are festering beneath the surface and will take some prodding and pain. I just have to trust that they'll come out when the time is right.

I like my warm hair color and the shape of my nose and the fact that my lips don't require lipstick. I like my short fingernails and I like that I can't stand to wear fingernail polish. I like my weird clothes that are the kind of weird that isn't fashionable and that even though they may not make me look good, they make me feel good. I like that they're plain but have little tastes of character. Maybe that's how I would describe myself too.

You know, I even think I like that my dress size isn't a negative four. I'm not voluptuous and not concave. I'm somewhere comfortably in the middle. Soft, maybe. That's feminine too.

I like that each person in my family says "I love you" twenty three times or more before breakfast and another forty nine times before bedtime. And we mean it every time. I like that we burst out into seven-part-harmony as we clean the kitchen together after Sunday dinner or at Family Home Evening or when we go for a drive in the car or just when we sing "Happy Birthday."

I like that I can be totally at ease in a big city with traffic that causes perpetual honking and layer upon layer of buildings to the horizon. Then I can be just as wonderfully content in a place full of farm animals and the smell of horses and hay and blue jeans and lying in the grass and dirty tennis shoes perfect for working in the garden.

I like that my life is so full of little kids right now. Nannying, babysitting and teaching primary to kids of all ages is one of the joys of my life, and it all happened so suddenly. Just a few short months ago I was overly cautious and wary around small kids. They are so breakable and retain everything you teach them, good or bad. I have felt so inadequate at times, but my heart is so full when I watch my little toddler learn to walk or my preschooler learn to read or my nine-year-olds learn about the Atonement. Their humility and teachable natures are so beautiful and sweet. They're easy to love and easy to serve and I find myself constantly thinking of what more I can do for them. They are my beautiful little investigators.

I like the certainty in my life and the knowledge of my potential.

You MUST see this.

HOW TO TRAIN YOUR DRAGON

It's truly worth every penny.

A New Perspective

I'm going there today!

Drumroll please.

Magandang araw! (Good day!) This is the mission call post!

I came home from work yesterday around 1:30 (quite impatiently) and my call hadn't come yet. By the time it got here around 3:15 I could hardly sit still! I tried to be calm, but I had to leave the house so I went for a long drive. After I got home, we waited for my dad and Jake to get back from work and my boyfriend Jonathan came over as well. By 6:27 everybody was here. My family all gathered around me while I opened it. (Jake says he'll teach me how to use a letter opener before I leave... haha... oops...) My whole body was trembling and I could feel my heart knocking away. I used a magazine to cover up the words so I wouldn't see where I was going immediately. I moved it down line by line, but it didn't take long to see where I was going. My eyes moved to "PHILIPPINES" before my words could catch up, and I'm pretty sure I laughed out loud.

I have been called to serve in the Philippines Bacolod Mission.

I had almost convinced myself that I would be going stateside, so to see the name of another country was enough to shock me. But ASIA?!??!?!?!? I could hardly believe it. I honestly couldn't have been more surprised and happy.

The Bacolod mission is right in the middle of the country. It includes the island "Panay" (where you see the city "Iloilo") and the upper half of the island called "Negros Occidental" (where you see "Bacolod"). I have a good friend who returned from that same mission last summer and she has told me a lot about it within the past few weeks. From what she's told me, I'm looking forward to this. I still can't believe it!

I will report to the Provo Missionary Training Center on June 2nd and I'll learn Tagalog (pronounced ta-GAH-lug... not like the English word TAG-a-long). Tagalog is the official Filipino language, however there are over 200 different dialects spoken there, so once I reach the mission field, I'll have to learn a new dialect. They can't teach every dialect at the MTC. I'm nervous, but excited!


Well, that's all for now, but I'll be updating this as much as I can and let you know when/where my farewell will be. Thanks for everything! Love you all! Mahal kita!