“Youth Opener,” Liahona, October 2020
Youth
When I was set apart to serve in the California San Bernardino Mission as a full-time missionary, my family was right there with me. This picture is of me hugging one of my brothers after I got set apart. It’s been a journey to get to this point, but I’m so grateful for the changes I’ve seen in myself and in my family.
My second-to-last year of high school, I got in a serious car crash. Before that I just wasn’t doing the things I should. But after the wreck, my viewpoint really shifted. My life could’ve been taken right then and there, and I did not want it to end like that. My bishop helped get me on the right path: reading the Book of Mormon daily and preparing to serve a mission.
Running track is my sport, my passion. After the wreck, I was out for the season, and I wondered what I even had left. But I turned to the Lord, and as I did, I had a phenomenal season the next year. There were still struggles, but what changed is instead of doing it for myself, I did it for the Lord.
Just seeing how many blessings can come from the fulness of the gospel was what changed me. Getting all of that happiness and joy, I want to spread it around the world. I’m longing for people to have the joy that I have every day because of the gospel. And that’s why I’m serving a mission: to help “bring to pass the immortality and eternal life of man” (Moses 1:39).
Garret W., 18, North Carolina, USA