Blessing #1: Able, Worthy, With a Desire to Serve

I'm a member of The Church of Jesus Christ of Latter-day Saints. Fellow member or not, you've probably stumbled across one of those "I'm a Mormon" videos floating around the internet. Yep, that's us. 
Those videos, in fact, are actually very helpful if you're curious about the church- again, fellow member or not. I highly recommend checking out the website where they're posted: mormon.org. (I tried out the chat feature on that site to ask a quick question yesterday --totally awesome.) 
I even have my own profile on that site, check it out sometime! 

Anyway, we have this cool thing called General Conference, which is pretty self-explanatory if you just take it literally. The General Authorities (those that lead the church under the direction of our living prophet, Thomas S. Monson) all get together and speak to us as a world-wide church twice a year, and that's where the blessing I want to talk about was revealed.

Prior to the October 2012 General Conference, the age requirements for full-time missionaries were age 19 for men, and age 21 for women (check out that website if you'd like to know more about mormon missions). I've always planned on serving a mission when I turn 21, but have always been a little jealous of all of my dude-friends that get to go out in the field so much earlier than I do. Well, during the first general session of this conference, President Monson got up and announced that the ages had been lowered, and all able, worthy men that had a desire to serve could do so at age 18, and women at age 19. Tears of joy, prayers of gratitude, and hopelessly long wait-lists for Missionary-Preparation classes commenced immediately following the announcement.

I am thrilled that I have the opportunity to go forth to do the Lord's work earlier than I'd anticipated, and I can't wait to find out where I'll be assigned to serve for a year and a half! (I find out in less than a month!)

Welcome!

Well, folks, here it is! My very first blog post. I swore I'd never have one of these, but hey, this was (almost) an assignment from my religion professor, so I figure buying into social media is justifiable with a GPA at stake, right?

Anyway, the intention here is to use this blog to share some spiritual insights about the Book of Mormon and on my preparation to serve a full-time mission for my church, and maybe some random college-student musings while I'm at it. 

Here we go!