I opened my mission call on Saturday, November 30, 2013. It
was hands down the best day of my life to date. I blogged about it on my
personal blog here, but I feel like this blog won’t be complete without my
thoughts on opening my call.
I’d been home for Thanksgiving Break since Tuesday night,
and my call had been assigned Friday the 22, so I was sure I’d find a happy envelope
in the mail on Wednesday. Wednesday came and went… no envelope. Thursday was
Thanksgiving, so there was no mail delivered. Friday had to be the day right?
Nope. No white envelope. By that point I was really worried it wouldn’t come
while I was home and I’d have to wait even longer for my mom to mail it to me
when I was back at school in Provo. (I left to go back to school Sunday
morning.)
Saturday, I prayed all morning and most of the afternoon
that I’d find something addressed to me in the mail. I decided to stalk the
mailman and see if he knew anything about where my call was. But... I had to go
run an errand right before the mail got delivered that day. Gosh darn it. I got
back around 4:00 in the afternoon. The second I got home, I literally sprinted
to the mailbox to see if my call was there. I opened the door and I had to sit
down on the sidewalk because I felt so lightheaded. There was a huge white
envelope addressed to Sister Samantha Justine Oman inside that lovely, lovely
little door. IT WAS HERE!
I grabbed the envelope, forgetting all about the rest of the
mail in the box (oops…), and ran as fast as I could back to my house. My family
was in the front yard and when I saw them I started screaming “IT’S HERE, IT’S
HERE, IT’S HERE!” I then burst into tears. There was a lot of crying that day.
I ran inside, grabbed my phone, took a picture for Instagram,
posted it on facebook, texted and called everyone I knew, and told everyone to
be at my house at 7:00 that night. Because there was NO WAY I was waiting for
more than three hours to open that puppy.
I spent the rest of the day freaking out, crying, and
running up and down the stairs to make sure my envelope was actually on top of
the entertainment center where I had put it in the first place. Good news—it was.
7:00 rolled around, and wouldn’t ya know, my friends and
family were all late. I was about ready to open it without everyone, but my mom
told me I had to be patient. I finally opened the call at 7:13 pm, and this is what
it said:
Dear Sister Oman,
You are hereby called
to serve as a missionary for The Church of Jesus Christ of Latter-Day Saints.
You are assigned to labor in the Jamaica Kingston mission.
That’s about as far as I got before I started choking up,
because I instantly knew that I had been called exactly where I need to be. I
don’t know why I need to go to Jamaica, and I have absolutely no clue what my
mission has in store for me, but I know beyond a shadow of a doubt that the
Jamaica Kingston mission is exactly where I’m supposed to spend the next year
and a half of my life. I know that there’s a reason I felt the prompting to
serve a mission last July, and I cannot wait to find out what that reason is.
My lovely momma took this video of me opening my call:
I know this church is true. Christ lives. And He loves each
and every one of us more than we can possibly comprehend.
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