Second Chances

I returned home from serving in Chile on September 1st, 2012. I had left on January 25th, 2012 for an 18 month LDS mission, so coming home the same year I had left was eleven months earlier than I had planned. It wasn't the first time, however, that I would find that my plans were not always going to work out as I had thought. It wasn't the first time or the last that I would watch as Heavenly Father would change my course and align me with a much better plan: His plan. 

In a month from this Sunday I will be starting my student teaching which is the final part of the process to becoming a teacher. I have been studying and working to become an art educator at the secondary level. It's been a long time comin (ask any of my friends or family) and I can't express my joy or gratitude for the blessing of being in this final phase. I'm so excited to be in the field and finally practicing what I've been learning about and studying for these past few years! To keep up with my life pattern of not doing things the "normal way", as I got told the other day by one of my favorite people as she heard about the opportunity I have this fall, I will be flying out to Tonga to accomplish my student teaching in one of the high schools there. It may not be normal, but it seems to be exactly what I should be doing right now.

I will be leaving with twelve other teachers, two doing art at the secondary level, and the other ten are elementary school teachers. We have all been studying at UVU and all applied and were accepted to take on the challenge and adventure of doing most of our student teaching in Tonga. Since this is the first time UVU has done this as well as the first time this large of a group has signed up to go, we have been asked to keep a journal throughout the entire process. We  have also been going to classes on culture and other things since May, and having meetings about the details of the trip, which there aren't very many. They are also sending a videographer with us to film our experience. Honestly, I didn't think we'd be doing all of this and I feel humbled that I'm even able to participate in this experience. I will be living with a host family while I'm there and will be teaching art with a cooperating teacher, both of whom I don't know yet but hope to meet within the first few days of being in Tonga.  

I will be teaching for a total of seven weeks, but gone for a total of ten weeks. They have a fall break after the first four weeks of school so we get the break as well and will be visiting other islands and going to Fiji. After three more weeks of teaching we have two extra weeks before we are to finish the rest of our student teaching here in Utah, which is another four weeks for secondary educators, so many of the teachers are going to visit New Zealand. 

I never would have imagined myself doing something like this for my student teaching and I truly am humbled that it has worked out to be during the semester I was to do my student teaching as well as to such a special, beautiful place as Tonga. When I was a missionary and found out that I was going to be coming home early and that several doctors and an MRI said I wasn't physically able to be a missionary anymore, I was mad. I was frustrated by the circumstances and truly frustrated because no matter what I did, my body was not going to heal enough or at all to give me the capacity to walk or stand among those wonderful Chilean people the way a full-time servant of The Lord needed. I prayed so hard and pleaded that He would let me stay and that my back and leg would be healed. How silly and foolish was I to think I could persuade God... In my eyes, though, it was worth a shot. As I sat in my exit interview with my Mission President, he told me something I'll never forget and have used several times since. He referenced Job 1:21: "...The Lord gave, and the Lord hath taken away, blessed be the name of the Lord" And it continues, "In all his Job sinned not, nor charged God foolishly".
Job was in a much worse circumstance than I was, and that was His reply. My mission president shared an experience with me from his own life that was again much more significant than mine. He told me that whatever The Lord does, whether that be giving us things or taking them away, we praise Him and love Him for He knows best.

I didn't know what to do when I got home, especially after an unexpected knee surgery, but He knew what was going to happen. Serving a mission taught me that I absolutely love this gospel and missionary work. It really started the fire within me to serve and because that flame wasn't exhausted, it only burns on stronger and my desire to serve a full-time mission again one day is still there. When this opportunity to teach in Tonga came up and I had several things happen in order to get me to go, I felt that the Lord was finally answering a plea that a broken Chilean missionary had sent to heaven almost two years ago. I believe He's giving me a second chance to serve.