When I think of mission, I think of Mother Teresa, living in a different country giving up everything and spending all day serving others. But throughout my years at SDSU, I’ve learned it to be quite different.
Being a college student is hard. Your days are packed with class, homework, studying, work, clubs, and maintaining your own faith life. Finding time to go out and evangelize seems near impossible. But I've learned that being on mission is not me finding the time in my schedule to serve the Kingdom, it’s finding ways to serve within my schedule. Taking what is already planned, and intentionally bringing God into it.

For me, being on mission has turned out to be a lot more subtle. I wore an Aztec Catholic sweater to class and found out that my deskmates were all Catholic or Christian, which led to some great spiritual conversations. When I worked at the school's market, I would say hi to this girl who I had seen at mass once, she ended up joining my Bible study. My friend went from being atheist to believing in God, and it all started with her asking me how my break went and me telling her about a retreat I had been on.

These all might seem like happy accidents, but they weren't. I chose to wear my Catholic sweater in hopes of starting a conversation. I made sure to always say hi to the girl at the market, so that I could start building a relationship with her.
When asked about my break I purposefully talked about something faith related rather than all the other things I had done. My school has over 30,000 people, because of that I felt so small. So I made the things I did small. Small but intentional. I would spend hours finding catholic stickers for my laptop that could bring up questions or conversations. I walked into class thinking “this is an opportunity to encounter my brothers and sisters” and made sure I would try and get to know whoever sat next to me, no matter how awkward I felt.

Mother Teresa said, “We cannot all do great things, But we can do small things with great love” That to me is what it means to be on mission as a college student. Finding the small everyday ways to serve God and others, and doing them with a heart full of love.