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My Next Great Adventure!

Last Christmas, I was over at my grandparents' house as is our yearly tradition and my grandpa and I were hanging out in his office. We were talking about the recent lowering of the age at which girls in the church can serve missions from 21 to 19, my age at the time. I told him about how I had prayed a lot about the decision to serve a mission, and had felt that it was not what I was supposed to do, at least not at that point in time anyways. I told him that even though I had reached this conclusion, I had an itch to travel and see the world. Grandpa paused for a second before saying that he thought that every college student should have the chance to go abroad and experience a new place. He encouraged me to seriously consider going on a study abroad. Me being the planner that I am started immediately asking myself tons of questions. When? Where? How? I knew study abroad programs weren't exactly cheap and I had to pay for it somehow. Despite all of my questions, the more I thought about it, the more I realized that this was something that I wanted to do.

Fast forward about nine months to just before I came back to BYU to start fall semester this past August. I knew it was time to make a decision about whether or not I was going to do this. I examined my grad plan and realized that spring term would be the best time to go so that I would not have to miss a semester of classes and the cost would be significantly cheaper. So there was the answer to question one. Question 2 took a little bit longer to answer. I remember one particular afternoon over the summer sitting on the couch at home excitedly reading aloud descriptions of various study abroad programs to my sweet and patient mother. "How will I ever CHOOSE," I lamented. I think my mom definitely started having flashbacks to that joyous time in our lives when I was deciding where to go to school! Thankfully this decision wasn't THAT painful! The more I thought about it, the more my thoughts returned to one place: LONDON.

I prayed about my decision, but was not really getting an answer. So, I decided that I would start the application process. The very first day I started working on it, I was overcome with just a GOOD feeling that this was something that I was supposed to go through with. In what all seems like sort of a blur, I finished the application and submitted it last Wednesday. On Friday had an interview with the program directors. I thought they were phenomenal and literally walked out of the interview thinking, "Man, I hope I get accepted just so I can hang out with them for 8 weeks!" They told me that they would be in touch soon. I didn't know that SOON meant 3 days later! Yesterday I received this e-mail and proceeded to jump up and down and scream in my room before calling my family! I cannot even begin to express my excitement for my next great adventure! 

I've spent a good chunk of the past 24 hours pinning pictures on Pinterest like these: 



Getting texts with pictures like this one (Thanks Aunt Julie!):
And of course trying to contain my excitement for this Monday when my amazing cousin who also happens to be one of my best friends will get the e-mail that I sent him about how we get to spend the last month and a half of his mission living in the same country! Here's to hoping we can "coincidentally" meet up at the temple! 
LONDON HERE I COME!! 

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