This Is My Summer Skin

There hasn't been much time to document the last little while before I head out on my mission to Panama because I've been too busy checking stuff off my list of fun and/or necessary things to do before I leave. Instead, I just took pictures.

This is my family after I gave my "farewell" talk in Midway
They rock.
The end.






These kids came to see me at my farewell. They're the best and I'm going to miss them :)



This is from when Paul and I biked to Utah Lake. It was hazy outside but still most triumphant.



This is at the Mona Ponds. It almost looks like Minnesota here... :)

Crafties

One more thing: check out this sweet home-made journal I discovered today. I think I'll make something like this when I get back :)

An Experiment of Sorts

The first attempt at a non-newswriting extra credit blog post. I've been on a journal writing rampage lately (mostly because there's not much else to do at my parent's mission home in Latvia while I'm visiting) so I'm just going to pull some stuff from recent entries:

Thursday July 2, 2009 (Excerpt)

New topic:
I've been thinking a lot about change recently. About how everything is always changing so fast, or sometimes so slowly that we don't even notice. Like my testimony. It's been slowly growing and growing for two years and I only notice when I stop and take a look back and say "Hey, that used to be me." I think about what I used to do or rationalize, and I can't believe it. It's taken me so long to get where I am, but I hardly noticed along the way.

Maybe that's why people get discouraged in the church and stop trying. They think it's going to be this fast thing, a month tops until they'll be a totally different person, all turned around. Maybe they think it'll even happen in hours or days, I don't know. So they get frustrated and discouraged when temptations are still hard, when they don't have a miraculous conversion experience, whatever. But in reality, slow imperceptible changes are a miracle themselves. God sends his spirit to slowly work a change inside us-it's awesome.

We have to do the work too, of course. We have to tell ourselves: ONLY UP FROM HERE and stick to it. We have to be like the Anti-Lehi-Nephites and say we'd rather die than commit sin. If we falter and mess up after that, it's bad but it's not the end of the world. Thanks to the atonement we can try again.

And that's awesome.

Another new topic: I can do big things.
Sometimes I see the talents of others and I want to be them or be like them, but I'm glad I still know this secret: I can do big things. I just have to remind myself every once in a while. Maybe I'm just idealistic, but I know my potential and it feels BIG. And that feels dang good.

Sunday July 12, 2009

I'm counting down the days until HOME. It's weird that Provo is home now, but it feels good too. Five days. Six if you count the time change I guess. I'm excited to get back but it's a little bittersweet because I don't want to see my mom get sad when I go. She's pretty incredible and I've been so blessed to have such awesome parents. I love them and like them, which is something I didn't say much when I was younger. I always loved them, but there were times when I didn't like them and I was always angry because I was a bratty doof. I'm glad it's not like that anymore.

Home HOME HoMe. Yes, I'm excited.

But kind of apprehensive too. Home means facing the future. Home means I'm a ticking time bomb again with less than three weeks left until I'm never the same again. But then again, I'm always changing slowly anyway, so maybe this is just the accelerated track.

Home means mountains, and hot hot heat, friends, my own pillow, my sweet beach cruiser. It means BYU, and bright stars, and my Seven Peaks running route in the hills. Home also means love. Paul love, roommate love, bff love, family love--all sorts of love up in that place.

BUT after three weeks, I'll have a new home. And that is ok. Minnesota is still my home after two and a half years away, so Provo will still be my home after one and a half years. And so will Panama. I'll have so many homes I won't know what to do!

Sometimes I have to remind myself that change is good.

It stretches us and makes us grow so we can reach our full potential.

I've always felt like I'm exploding with potential. Not in an obnoxious, overly-confident self-absorbed way (I hope), but more in an I-want-to-learn-everything and an I-can-do-anything-if-I-work-hard way. So I guess now is my time to tap into that potential, even if it's in ways I never expected. And even though this is going to be hard and long and different from anything I've ever done or imagined doing, it will be good. I want this.

I want to be in a place where I feel like I'm doing right things, and God is proud of me. And it's not like I haven't been doing right things, but there's always more.

I know this is the direction I'm supposed to be going.