An announcement.

Hi everyone. This is a post in the category of "time to get personal with Shannon." Welcome.

As many of you know, the past few weeks have been a rough time in my life, and the only advice I have received from anyone has been: "It's a choice between two good things." Incredibly helpful. So, I was left on my own to make this decision, and it has not been easy.

I haven't talked much about my religion, and unless you have visited my "About the author" page you might not even know that I'm a member of the Church of Jesus Christ of Latter-day Saints, more commonly known as Mormons. I wish I could explain more about it but that might take a while, so if you're interested, click here to learn more.

I'm sure even if you don't know anything about my church, you have probably at least seen our missionaries. They are either young men in suits and ties or young women in skirts, both wearing black name tags and knocking on doors all over the world. Previous to this story, the men were encouraged to serve missions at age 19, and the women were allowed to at age 21 if they so desired. A few weeks ago, however, the church changed this to age 18 for young men and age 19 for young women.

I'm 19. This is where I had to make a choice.

As soon as this announcement was made, girls all over the world began crying, rejoicing, and texting their church leaders to start their mission papers. I was down in my little town of Cedar City, Utah saying, "This is crazy! This is awesome!" over and over again. I knew this announcement could completely change the next 18 months of my life, if not the entire course of my future.

Just a few weeks prior to all of this, I had been stressing hardcore about my major and what I want to do with my life. I had finally almost come to the conclusion I want and had about the next two years of school and opportunities planned out. Then, all of a sudden: "Oh yeah, or you could go on a mission." Cue explosions. Commence crisis.

As I saw it at the time, I had two choices: go on a mission and finish school later, or finish school now and maybe go on a mission later. I spent a week thinking, praying, meditating, reading, biking, hiking, going to the temple, and overall driving myself crazy over this decision. Finally, I had made a choice: I was going to go.

So, the next day I set up an interview with my bishop, the next day after that I made doctor and dentist appointments, and the next day after that I started filling out the papers. Then, for whatever reason, I put this all on the back-burner and decided not to think about it for a few days.

The next weekend I started wondering again. Had I rushed into this decision? Is this what I should be doing right now? Is it what I want to be doing right now? And that's when I realized there was a third choice: don't even make a decision yet.

I went to the doctor the next day and was stabbed with five needles after being told I am only five foot two and three quarters instead of five three, which was traumatizing. Then I went to the dentist and they told me I need to get my wisdom teeth out even though I am 100% positive that I went through that lovely experience last December. (I reminded them of this, don't worry, and they said, "Oh, JK!")

And after all this, I decided that my decision would be to not make a decision until I'm ready.

Which means I may have faced my deathly fear of needles for nothing.

Anyway, thanks for reading, if you've made it this far. A lot of people have been asking me what I'm doing, so here it is: I'm staying where I am for now. And if I do decide to go on a mission, it will be when the time is right for me, and I know then there will be no doubt in my mind.

Over and out.