Hola familia y amigos!
My district is AMAZING. I love them all so much, I just wish I would hug them all and it kills me that we cant hug each other. Pero everyone feels like family.

Wow, preparing for a mission is honestly such a wonderful experience. It may be hard at times reading the Spanish Book Of Mormon and only understanding .01% of it, BUT preparing for a mission can also be such a spiritual experience.

For LDS missionaries to go on a mission, or be married in the Temple, we have to receive our endowments, before we can do anything in the temple. Receiving your endowments means that you are making specific covenants, or promises, to your Heavenly Father. When you receive your endowments, you also get to wear garments from then on until the rest of your life. For those of you who aren't members of the LDS church you can watch this amazing video that the church put out recently explaining our temple garments. Honestly, what we do in the temple isn't a secret, it is just sacred to us. We are doing the same temple ordinances/rituals in our temples today that were done in ancient temples, such as the Soloman Temple, and everything that we do comes from the book of Exodus, in the Bible. You can find some pretty amazing videos about our religion on The Mormon Newsroom Youtube and Mormon Channel and Mormon.org 

The first time going through the temple is a little weird, but a good weird. Everything felt foreign yet strangely familiar. It is honestly a hard feeling to explain. I was confused by a lot of things that were happening, but that is why you keep going to the temple, TO LEARN MORE and become more comfortable to what is going on during the sessions.  What we do in the temple is completely different than anything else that we do in our church. "The Lord's way of doing this is not like the world's way of doing things." One lady in the temple said this to me, and I LOVE IT. It is so true. Just because the world thinks that what we are doing is odd, doesn't mean that it is odd to us.

Overall, preparing for a mission has allowed me to enter The Lord's Holy House, and I am so grateful that I could do that, and be WORTHY do to that. Temples are interesting and so fascinating, and garments are pretty comfy :)

So this is the process of how my mission papers went down, from start: releasing my papers, to finish: receiving my call.

For those of you that don't know how an LDS mission works, the missionary has to fill out their papers, which is like an application, so the missionary center knows the basic information of the missionary, before they can assign them to an area. Once you fill out your health information and have a check up at a doctors and a dentist, you need to send your papers to your Bishop. You meet with your bishop and you two go through your papers and make sure everything is correct, then he interviews you to make sure that you are worthy enough to serve a mission and if it is the right thing for you to do. Then your papers get sent to your stake president. You then meet with your stake president and go through the same process with him as you did with your Bishop. You then if you have a wonderful stake president, you personally get to click the submit button with him and then you know that your papers are submitted.

So that is the gist of how the process goes down. My process was basically the same but it happened a little different. So you can only submit your papers 120 days before you can leave. Which for me is August 11, so the day that I could submit my papers was April 11. Since that was so close to when I was going home for the summer I decided to wait until I was done with school so I could do everything with my home bishop and stake president. Honestly it was a hard decision to make to wait almost another month to submit my papers, but it helped me learn patience, and I needed to learn some patience.

My bishop texted me on Sunday April 26, and said, "I just released your papers, here is your login information, you can start your papers..." Basically I couldn't sit still the rest of the devotional I was at. So as soon as I got back to my dorm, I started to input all of the information I could without my parents. As soon as I got home once school was done, which was a week later, my parents and I filled out all my paperwork in one night. I then went to the doctors and dentist, on Monday May 4, for my appointments. Funny story, so at the doctors I had to get my blood work done, I didn't know that before hand, so of course earlier that morning I ran 3 miles and barely ate anything. I am checking out of my appointment and all of a sudden I pass out... Yeah that happened. My mom had to come pick me up and drive me to the dentist... Awkward. Then my dentist said that he would only sign my papers if I told him where I was going, well obviously Dr. Sean, you're a family friend. I then had my appointment with my Bishop, Wednesday May 6, and everything was good, except we realized that I never got a breast exam at the doctors... face palm, so basically my bishop asked me if everything was normal, most awkward conversation ever.

Then I made an appointment to meet with our stake president the following Wednesday, April 13. I then waited the long week until Wednesday finally rolled around. The meeting with my stake president went well. It was a little emotional because I am on medication for stress/anxiety and sometimes you cannot serve a mission when you are on certain medications or you can't go to certain countries because that medication is unavailable. So we talked about how stable I am with my medication and if I honestly think I can handle a mission. It was tough, but it made me realize that I am meant to serve a mission. I know that it will be hard but I know that I can handle it to the best of my ability. I then got the blessing of clicking the submit button. After my meeting with President Gates, my parents and I talked about my medication. It really strengthened my testimony on the idea that everything happens for a reason. If I can't serve a mission it is because I am not supposed to serve a mission at this time. If I get called to Boise, Idaho, its because that is where I am supposed to go serve my mission. I have faith in my Heavenly Father that He knows what is best for me.

16 days later. MY CALL HAS FINALLY ARRIVED!! But let me tell you a funny story real quick, so on Memorial Day I am at work at Wet N Wild and I try to see if I can log onto MyLDSmail account, because if you can log on to that then that means your call has been assigned. So I was able to log on, and lets just say that I was very anxious from then on. Anyways, I have been called to serve in the SALT LAKE CITY MISSION, Spanish speaking. Now this may not seem like an exciting mission but I know that this is where I am supposed to serve, and I could not be more thrilled about it. To be honest, when I read my call, my family and I all busted up laughing. haha it was great. But another funny story, so 5 years ago, one year after I was baptized, my family and I went to Salt Lake City to go to our LDS general conference and check out the city. While there I thought to myself, this would be a really cool place to serve a mission... Well the Lord liked my idea so much that He sent me there. Guess I'm His favorite because He gave me the mission I wanted haha I report to the Provo MTC on August 26. So in like 60 something days, pretty crazy stuff! I am so blessed to have this opportunity to serve as a missionary for my church. I am very excited for this journey for me and I cannot wait to see how I grow and become better. I love this gospel and I am to grateful that I can share it with many others.

con amor,
Hermana Olivas

To start out this blog I would like to tell the story of why I decided to serve a mission.

It all started with my conversion to the church. When I was 12 years old my mom started to date a guy that she was friends with in high school.Things became serious between the two and he said "I would like you to look into the church, I don't want to marry someone who isn't a member of my beliefs." So my mom made an appointment with the missionaries and she asked my sister and I if we wanted to join her. Of course we said yes because we loved our mom. After the missionary discussions my mom, sister, and I all got baptized as members of the Church of Jesus Christ of Latter Day Saints on January 31, 2009. Missionary work has been a part of my life since the beginning of my membership at church.

Ever since I was converted I thought it would be cool to serve a mission. When I was first baptized the age for girls to serve missions was 21. Now that is kind of an old age to serve a mission, you are 3/4 done with your college schooling and most Mormon girls at the age of 21 are married. But in October 2012 EVERYTHING changed for missionary work. Our Prophet and President of our Church, Thomas S. Monson, changed the age for missionary work from 19 to 18 for boys and from 21 to 19 for girls! 2 whole years earlier girls could serve missions!! The next day my aunt texted me and said "are you going to serve a mission since the age changed?" Before then I had thought about a mission as a far away possibility, but I answered her text with a positive "Yes I think so." Since then my decision hasn't changed, only my faith and testimony of missionary work and deciding to serve a mission has grown stronger.

Deciding to serve a mission was really easy for me. Sure I have second guessed my decision, and so have my parents, but now that I have my call and I have prepared to serve a mission, I know that this is the best thing I could possibly be doing at this time of my life.