Hola!

Hola Everyone! Thank you for being here to hear about my mission! It has been a great transition being set apart as a missionary for the Church of Jesus Christ of Latter-Day Saints. 

I thought I would share with you why I decided to leave college and share the gospel for 18 months. I was baptized when I was 8, and I knew by the age of 12 that I wanted to be a missionary. life got busier when I got into high school, but I made sure to go on splits with the sister missionaries. On one of these appointments, I was able to witness the sister missionaries ask an investigator if he wanted to be baptized, and he accepted. That was such an amazing moment in my life and sealed my decision to serve a mission, because I got to see how his decision that he made gave him joy for the rest of his life. I want to give others the joy that I have from being in this gospel of Jesus Christ and I want others to have the light I have. 

So, this is my third day in the online MTC (missionary training center) and it's been a blast! I have been blessed with an amazing companion (Hermana Howard) and a great district! We have set some great goals as a district by the end of the MTC and I can't wait to see how their adventures go in the areas they have been assigned to. I keep looking if anyone in the online MTC is going to Ogden Utah yet but I haven't seen any so far. That's ok!

For now it seems like we are going to be practicing some light Spanish in the online MTC and then when I get to the Provo MTC (June 15th) my teachers will be talking to me in nothing but spanish. That is something I have a couple of fears about because I speak english, french, and Italian already, so every time I try to speak Spanish I have this internal multiple choice question in my head and i'm trying to figure out which answer is the spanish one. But I know the lord is with me and he will make my weaknesses become strengths if I rely on him as I do the work he asks me to do.

The biggest spiritual thought I had this week is the sacrifice I am making to serve the lord right now. Personally I learned that if Christ dedicated his entire life for the work, then I can lose myself in the work for 18 months. I'm hoping that I can keep that spirit for the entirety of my mission. 

I have a lot of mission rules, and I know what they are there to keep me safe, and something we learned today really helps me put things into perspective why we have the mission rules, and that is "because he asked". Because the lord asked me to do this, I will always follow him, no matter how hard some rules may be. 

Well guys, a picture tells a thousand words so I have a few photos that describe my week for y'all! 

(p.s. let me know if you changed your mind about being on this email list or if you want your second email off. I do not judge!)

(p.p.s. Please privately email me if you want to! I should get back to you either by the end of the day on my p-days or by the beginning of next p-day)

Hermana Vestel

1. This was my first day of Online MTC with my district

2 and 3. I got my endowments with my close friend Misha in the nauvoo temple,  (My mom, my best friend Haydn, and my great uncle Mark and his wife Denise were there too)

4. When I was set apart as a missionary by the stake president!!

5. My brother Oliver found my name tag. I hope he gets to be a missionary too