Michalla Beardhall had her bags packed, ready to go to the Knoxville Tennessee Mission for The Church of Jesus Christ of Latter-day Saints.
She soon discovered her mission was going to be elsewhere.
Two days before she was to give her missionary farewell talk in her local LDS chapel Beardhall, 19, was diagnosed with cancer -- acute myeloid leukemia. It was her second leukemia diagnosis in two years.
“I wanted to serve and to tell everyone about the church,” Beardhall said.
She wanted others to know there is life after death and that families can be together forever, she said.