OREM, Utah — Marisol Stosich and her parents began putting the former Idaho soccer phenom’s highlights on the internet years ago, in hopes that it would land her a chance to play Division I soccer.
What she got was even more than she bargained for.
Those highlights earned the Utah Valley freshman forward an invitation to training camp with the Guatemala women’s national team at just 16 years old, and one of the most productive scorers on the west coast with 101 goals and 34 assists during her Idaho 6A high school career led to four caps with the senior roster and NIL deals with big brands like Gatorade and Zona Futbol before her teenage years were over.
Stosich is Guatemalan by way of her mother Claudia, who immigrated to the United States to study English at BYU and Utah Valley and met her husband Ryan before raising the couple’s three children: Marisol, and younger brothers, Ryan and Dominic.
A three-time all-state performer ECNL Best XI honors after scoring 16 goals in the 2023-24 season, Stosich graduated early from Mountain View High School in Meridian, Idaho, to join the Wolverines for the spring semester and begin her collegiate career. That experience earned her playing time as a freshman for a Utah Valley side in its first year in the Big West Conference.
But in December, she’ll put it all on hold for 18 months, temporarily “retiring” from competitive soccer for what she believes is a higher purpose.
Stosich has been called to serve as a missionary for The Church of Jesus Christ of Latter-day Saints in Barcelona, Spain. She’ll leave in December, following her freshman season.
Perhaps it’s fitting that the star youth soccer player who has been kicking a ball “since I could walk” en route to four caps with Las Chapinas will head to the home of the defending FIFA men’s World Cup champions.
After a standout high school career that included all-state first-team honors at three different high schools and five years with the Boise Thorns ECNL program, Stosich earned a scholarship offer from UVU head coach Chris Lemay and then-top assistant Kyle Christensen, who is now the head coach at Weber State.
“I really thought that this was the place for me,” said Stosich, who was born in Logan where her father played club baseball for Utah State. “It was just a moment where I felt like this was where I wanted to go.”
She had the same feeling, albeit in a very different way, when she first entertained the thought of serving a mission for her church.
Missionary service for young men in The Church of Jesus Christ of Latter-day Saints is widely viewed culturally as a rite of passage (though church leaders have regularly stressed the need for prospective Elders to “prepare themselves for the rigors” of service,” and not a reason to leave unprepared).
But for young women, missionary work has often been more optional, though encouraged for those with the desire to go.
With a recent policy change lowering the minimum age of sister missionaries to 18 years old, the number of young women opting to serve full-time proselytizing missions has exploded in the past year.
In the year since the age-related policy change went into effect, the percentage of sister missionaries has risen from about 15% before 2025 to 36% of new missionaries, according to The Salt Lake Tribune.
The rush of new sisters spurred an all-time record of 88,500 total missionaries in July 2026, according to KUTV. The previous record of 88,000 was set in 2014, about two years after an initial age change to allowed young women to serve beginning at age 19 instead of 21.
“I’m excited to be a part of it, to be part of the army that’s bringing people to Jesus Christ and to Heavenly Father,” Stosich said. “Being able to go earlier, it’s perfect in my time of life. Later might be harder, and this is the most perfect time to go and do what I’m supposed to.”
Stosich didn’t initially think she was going to serve a mission. But she first starting thinking about in the summer, and she said a blessing in church confirmed her decision to start applying for missionary work around the start of the fall semester.
“It was a hard decision,” she said, “but also not (hard) at all.
“It took a lot for me because I had just been put on scholarship, I was loving the team, and finally getting up to speed with the college game and all that stuff,” Stosich added. “But I got my patriarchal blessing, and in that blessing, it said, ‘Marisol, you’re going to go on a mission.’ That feeling was just coming back 10 times stronger — and I knew that this was the time to go serve the Lord, be humble, and be thankful for everything he’s done for me in my life. I’ve definitely felt his presence in many ways, even in soccer. I wouldn’t have made it this far without his help.”
Perhaps the most difficult part of the decision was leaving her squad of sisterhood.
The Wolverines are off to a 6-4-3 start with a ranked win over then-No. 17 Kansas and an unbeaten 2-0-2 start in their inaugural season in the Big West before Saturday’s road trip to Cal Poly (7 p.m. MT, ESPN+).
“I think we made a big statement in our first game in conference play,” Stosich said of the team’s 7-1 win over CSU Bakersfield that preceded a 2-2 road draw with UC San Diego and a 3-1 win at UC Irvine. “We wanted to show people, this is us; we’re UVU. We’re trying to show that we deserve to be here, and that we could go all the way.
“It’s a big thing to say, but I really believe that. We have an amazing group of girls, I love them all to death, and I think that we’re going to continue to make big statements.”
Still, some things are bigger than soccer, she adds. Serving a mission is one of them.
“Putting soccer on hold to show my appreciation and bring others to Him is very important for me right now,” Stosich said.
“On a scale of 1 to 10, I’m a 100 right now,” she added. “I’m so freaking excited to go and just spread the gospel — and have a blast. I’m so ready.”
