Preface: This is Why I'm Serving

June 12, 2013

Everyone,

If you're receiving this email, either you are going to be receiving my weekly emails, or I will be keeping in contact with you individually. If you ever want to be taken off this list, let me know via email.

Furthermore, if you are going on a mission soon and your email address changes, let me know! I also expect to hear about any engagements or mission calls.

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I've been asked many times why I decided to serve a mission. Why would I, in the middle of college and with much to leave behind, take two years off my personal life, sacrificing time and limiting communication with my friends and family, to be a missionary?

I would be lying if I said I'd never asked myself that question.

When President Monson announced the missionary age change last October, everything began to happen quickly. Arranging dental and medical exams, interviews, filling out my application -- in the midst of everything, I never really took the time to sincerely ask myself why I was going.

Young men in the LDS Church are expected to serve missions. It was expected of me, so originally, that was why I made the decision to serve.

That isn't a bad reason, but after I received my mission call and as doubts and fears began to enter my mind, it wasn't enough. I would pray and ask, why am I supposed to serve? Why does the Lord need me to learn Dutch and teach in Europe?

Over the past few months, I received many answers.

I re-read the whole Book of Mormon in the month of May. As I re-learned the simple truths, and as I felt the immense happiness they bring to me, I remembered -- this is why I'm serving.

I got to go through the Washington, DC temple with my parents this past month. As I sat and realized that families really are forever, I realized there is nothing I'd rather do than share that and the other simple truths with others -- this is why I'm serving.

I got to see my younger cousin get baptized less than a week ago. As I saw her begin this new phase of her life, washed of any wrong-doing, I remembered -- this is why I'm serving.

As I remembered how Christ suffered for our sins because He loves us so much, and that the least I could do to repay Him is by giving two of my years to further the Atonement, I knew without a doubt -- this is why I'm serving.

As I was set apart as a Mormon missionary yesterday, I remembered all the events in my life, everything that had happened to prepare me for this, I knew -- this is why I'm serving.

In half an hour, I will enter the MTC, knowing why I'm serving. I wanted you all to know, too, why I would sacrifice what seems to be so much for two years. To share the restored gospel I know to be true, as our Heavenly Father would have me do. That is why I am serving.

--Elder Bonney