Saturday, March 22, 2014

i love to see the temple


I love to see the temple, I went inside today, I covenanted with my Father, I promised to obey.

Today, I had the wonderful opportunity to go through the temple for the first time. It was the best day of my life. Hands down. Remember when I said the day I opened my mission call was the best day of my life? I was wrong. Today was infinitely better. 
I love the temple. I have never felt more at peace with my life or happier than today in the temple. I am so excited to serve my mission and share my peace and happiness with the people in my mission. 
I absolutely love this church. I love my Heavenly Father and I love my Savior Jesus Christ. The Church of Jesus Christ of Latter-Day Saints is the true church, and of that I am absolutely certain. I have never been more sure of anything in my life. I love this gospel more than words can describe. 



Friday, March 14, 2014

opening the call


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.