After the longest three weeks of my life, I got my mission call. For Mormons, a mission call is the most important/highly anticipated letter you'll ever get. It's a letter from the prophet assigning you to serve in one of the 300+ missions worldwide for 18-24 months. I'd been waiting many months (years really) for this and there it was, sitting in my mailbox. I ran inside, impatient to open it. Luckily half my family were home to witness, although in hindsight I wish I had've waited for all of them to get home. But the suspense was killing me, so I opened it. Hands shaking, I pulled the contents out and started to read. My eyes went straight to the location; I couldn't help myself. I yelled something in disbelief then read out the first sentence for my family's benefit.

"Dear Sister King. You are hereby called to serve as a missionary of The Church of Jesus Christ of Latter-Day Saints. You are assigned to labor in the England Manchester mission."

!!! There was a lot of screaming, hugging, crying, phone calls, and Facebook statuses on my behalf after the announcement. I've been somewhere between shock and excitement ever since. But as excited as I am to serve in the country I've been dreaming of for as long as I can remember, the reality that I'm going to be a missionary is setting in and I have a lot of preparing to do. I report to the MTC on January 24th.

Some fun facts about my mission and the Manchester area in general:

My mission area is pretty much the whole north west coast and goes as far east as Manchester, from the Scottish border down to the middle of Wales.

Probably the biggest thing I'll have to adjust to in England is the insane cold. The average temperature in winter is 4°C and a 'warm summer's day' is around 18°C. I think I'm going to have to invest in some thermals if I'm going to survive walking the streets every day. I found it kind of funny that the first thing on the personal items to bring list was an umbrella. Typical England. At least I get to enjoy an Australian summer before plunging into the cold and wet.

Weather and culture aside, I'm really looking forward to being a missionary. It's the best decision I've made. I know that the hardest things are always worth doing and that as long as I have a testimony of the things I'll be teaching and a desire to serve and love others, Heavenly Father will make my weaknesses strengths. I've been listening to general conference in the car this week. I loved the talk by Elder Nelson about missionaries where he explains their purpose. It really reassured me that by going on a mission I'll be able to help people change their lives for the better and have the happiness and peace the gospel has brought to my life, and that's a much better way to spend my time than anything else I could be doing right now. Here's the talk: