Hello Y’all!
(I would like to warn everyone that I am in no way a writer or grammatically correct most of the time so please excuse the many errors you’ll run in to)
“My purpose as a missionary is to invite others to
come unto Christ by helping them to receive the restored gospel through faith in Jesus Christ and His atonement, repentance, baptism, receiving the gift of the Holy Ghost, and enduring to the end”
I get many questions asking why I would leave my friends, family, career, relationship, hobbies, music, the list can go on and on for the next eighteen months to serve? The answer is quite simple. I have no idea.
I’m just kidding (this is my sense of humor). I have many reasons why I want to serve. I’ll list the more prominent ones!
- Pure and utter service to the Lord
- He gave his up for me so the least I can do is give eighteen months of mine.
- Friends & Family
- My best friends are either currently serving or have returned from their missions. Being surrounded by that, it was hard to not want the same experiences and blessings they received by serving. Thank you for rubbing of on me.
- My family is the only family that are members and within that family only some of us are active in the church. I know how much the light of Christ has changed my life and I want to be able to show that to my family members who are no longer familiar with it. Being able to preach the gospel is great practice for that.
- I have a testimony of the love our Heavenly Father and His greatest gift to the world- His Son, Jesus Christ, and his atoning sacrifice that I want to share with the people of Idaho
So for those of you who aren’t familiar with any of these terms let me start from the very beginning. In a few weeks, I will be called Sister De Vera meaning “missionary” or “a witness of God.” I have been called to serve in the Idaho Boise mission which covers southern Idaho (i.e. from Boise to Idaho Falls) for the next eighteen months. I am leaving behind my friends, family, career, education, relationship, rap music, social media, my mother’s cooking, etc to humbly serve the Lord. I’ll be preaching the gospel in the English language and broken, grammatically incorrect English because my brain thinks faster than I can speak. I’ll be wearing a name tag that says “The Church of Jesus Christ of Latter-Day Saints” which is the Mormon church. We believe in God, the Eternal Father, and in His Son, Jesus Christ, and in the Holy Ghost. (1st Article of Faith) We believe that Book of Mormon is another testament of Christ coinciding with the Bible. We also believe the Prophet Joseph Smith restored the gospel here on this earth after Christ’s passing.
So I wasn’t always super active in the Mormon church. I lived a regular middle school, high school, and college life. I realized that the things I did was because other people were doing it.
Fun fact: In college no one cares anymore, it’s great.
At the time only half of my family was active in the church and I had a lot of friends who didn’t hang around together during school. I just lived my life the way I “wanted” to live it and how other people were living it because at the time it seem like they were happy. It wasn’t until I went through my hardest trial back in October 2015. I was sad, empty, lonely, weird, and not anything like myself. All of the usual stuff that would make me “happy” didn’t make me happy anymore. I was so heartbroken that I would reach out to anything to not feel this pain anymore. One day in January 2016, I hear this faint voice whisper “Hey, you should go to church.” So I did and I never looked back. Once you hit rock bottom, the only way is up right? Basically, the gospel has been very very good for me. I can now see all the blessings in my trials. I hope to help others realize them too.
I have met people who have changed my life, I gained my own personal relationship and testimony of Heavenly Father and His son Jesus Christ. I developed an understanding of the gospel that made sense in my head. Most importantly, I’ve been shown a more permanent type of happiness.
On February 8th, I report to the Provo, Utah Missionary Training Center (MTC) for a few weeks and then shipped off to Idaho. I don’t know where specifically but I’ll find out when I get there 😀
If you follow my emails, I’ll be sharing my experiences, miracles witnessed, hard weeks, my growing testimony of the gospel, and potato journeys.
I will not be sharing dog and baby videos sadly. I will miss my Facebook very much.
Love,
Cheyenne (soon to be Sister De Vera)
Follow me!
email: cheyenne.de.vera@myldsmail.net
instagram: hausofchey