Dear Sister Hawkes.

You are hearby called to serve as a missionary of The Church of Jesus Christ of Latter-day Saints. You are assigned to labor in the...

New York Rochester Mission!

What a day. I am beyond excited. Stoked. Ecstatic. Actually, I have no words to describe how I feel right now. I have never felt more peace and more happiness. I am overwhelmed with gratitude and love I have for the people of New York. I also get to serve in the Hill Cumorah Visitors' Center, where I will meet people from around the world. I'll get to walk straight out and show them right where Joseph Smith saw God the Father and His Son, Jesus Christ, and I'll have an overwhelming spirit come over me and everyone around the sites...the Sacred Grove, the Smith farm, and the Smith home. I couldn't have picked a better place to serve Him. Not in a million years.

My grandpa is an Emeritus member of the Seventy, so I convinced him to call and see when it was ready. It was ready this morning, and we got to go pick it up straight from the Missionary Department at the Church Office Building. It was a great experience to have with my grandfather. 

These sweet ladies had my call waiting for me right on the top of the desk when I got there. 

They are filled with the Spirit and I could just see the joy in their eyes that they have working in such an amazing environment. 

So when I read the actual call, I turned into my dad and started balling like a baby. I knew Rochester is the perfect place for me to be--I shouldn't be anywhere else. I have fallen in love with Western New York, and I already don't want to leave it. I can't wait to see people's lives change. You better believe I'll be one of those weird RM's...New York State is already my phone background, and I'll always about my mission and refer to it as "the best mission in the world." Because it is. I already know it is. President Christianson has already become a father to me, and my companions have become my sisters. 

I've never cried so many tears of happiness in one day and have never been so overwhelmed that this is the only true and living Church on the earth today. Christ lives. Heavenly Father knows everything about us--more than we know about ourselves. He loves us more than we can even comprehend.

Is it coincidental that I was baptized on this very day 13 years ago? This is God's Truth.