Pepperdine Supplement Help? Please!

<p>I'm writing my supplement for pepperdine, and I'm not sure if I'm going in the right direction at all. Could you please help me?
The prompt is...
Pepperdine University is a Christian university committed to the highest standards of academic excellence and Christian values, where students are strengthened for lives of purpose, service, and leadership. How are you prepared to contribute to Pepperdine's mission and community of faith, learning, and service?</p>

<p>My essay is...
As a child, my mother used to tell me to be the best of who I could be in every aspect of my life. This became my motto, and I as I pursued a better quality of myself, I strived to be the best I could, in my Christian faith, my academic learning, and my service to others. Using my progress in each of these realms, I slowly worked to find my purpose in life, and as I continue to evolve in my faith, service, and academics, my purpose evolves also. When I came to visit Pepperdine, in the spring of 2010, I was startled and overjoyed to find a University with the same hopes for their students, as I hoped for myself. I still remember looking through the pamphlet, finding the mission statement, and thinking that this school could be it for me.
In order to contribute to Pepperdine’s mission, and do my part to enrich the campus community or at least those around me, I will continue to live by my motto, to be and do the best that I can be in every facet of my life. What’s more is that I will encourage those around me to live this motto also.
In my own experiences, it is difficult to watch others excel when I could only meet the average expectation. This happened to me when I became a member of my high school’s color guard. I was very good at what I did, but the new addition to our team had been in color guard for years before coming to our team, and could do everything I couldn’t. Initially, I let myself be the ordinary member, allowing myself to slip away from my motto. When I told my mom about our new team member, she shook my motto back into me, and I needed to keep doing all that I could to be the best that I could. Since then, I’ve worked hard to keep up, practicing extra hours, and getting extra help from our coach. </p>

<p>So far...
any opinions?
I'm not done, but I need to know if I'm in the right realm...</p>

<p>I think your headed off on the wrong direction. The essay is a max of 500 words and you haven’t really focused on what YOU would contribute. I don’t think they are really looking for your life’s story in this one…</p>