@MyGPAIsAnL Sorry for the late reply! But yeah, I can definitely see how writing about a mission trip can come off as pretentious. The thing about my trip is that it felt very much real to me, and I didn’t talk about a huge personal change because one didn’t really occur (it’s usually very cheesy anyways); it was more about a realization about my passions and how this trip helped me realize what I wanted to do in the future. Most of my essay focused on the kids and how they helped me see things in a new light. Honestly, though, if you write about something that’s very much real and you express it in a “real” way, I think that it can be evident. I sat down one afternoon and typed it all out, then went back and changed grammatical errors. The core of it remained the same because that was how I wanted to come across: genuine and sincere. Hope that this helped!