After the Leap

The confirmation comes after the leap

This week marks my two year anniversary of concluding my service as a full time missionary for The Church of Jesus Christ of Latter-day Saints.  I have been thinking about what the mission taught me about leaps--the BIG ones and the little ones--in life.

The mission was a BIG leap for me.  It was never something that I planned or wanted to do.  I decided to be a missionary because I felt the Spirit prompting me to do it.  Describing a prompting of the Spirit is kind of like describing how love feels.  It's hard to describe with anything tangible.  It's simply a feeling inside.

In all honesty, it was scary to pause my life in the U.S. for 18 months based on a feeling.  That's part of the reason why the mission was a big leap. 

I had a sweet experience six months after starting my mission that taught me that the confirmation comes after the leap.  I'll explain what I mean by confirmation, but let me share about the experience first.  My brother wrote me and explained that he had sat next to a man on a public transit bus who happened to work for the missionary department of the LDS church. My brother mentioned that I was on a mission in Peru, as well as our parents.  To my brother's surprise, the man responded that he remember the day when I was assigned my mission call.  He recounted that it had been discussed that my parents already had a call to serve in Peru.  The church leaders who were discussing my call also knew that I already had a visa to come to Peru with my parents.

One of my unspoken concerns that I carried during those first six months of my mission was that I was asked to serve in Peru simply because that was the easiest option with regards to a visa.  What my brother's bus friend explained resolved those concerns.  He shared, "Even though your sister's parents were already going to Peru and she had a visa, that wasn't the reason she wasn't asked to serve in Peru.  The men who assigned her call felt inspired that Heavenly Father wanted her to go to Cuzco, Peru."  

This was a confirmation or an assurance to me that I was in the right place in terms of my physical location.  It was also a confirmation that I was doing the right thing with my life because Heavenly Father had been instrumental in the process of helping me get there. 

So when did this confirmation come?  It came after the leap.  That's how it usually is in life.  Sometimes we take BIG leaps or small ones and the confirmation doesn't come until some time later.  It might even be years later.  That can be frustrating, but it is blessing for us because it gives us the opportunity to show Heavenly Father our faith.