11 years...really?

October 22, 1997. Eleven years ago I entered the MTC to leave on my mission to Taiwan!!! Below is a picture of me at the MTC a few weeks after beginning my mission. Anniversaries somehow have a way of making you really think about your life-where you've come from and what roads have led you to where you are. Eleven years ago in the MTC I was afraid of speaking chinese-fearing that my inabilities would prevent me from sharing the gospel with everyone.

Below is the last night before I returned home in May 1999. I attended the baptism of the sweetest lady, Gui Fu. She was genuine, and she had a testimony. It was that night I realized that the fears of my inabilities had subsided since that night in the MTC, and I had had the opportunity to teach this sweet lady the gospel.

Eleven years have passed, today, since I left to Taiwan. And now I sit here with insecurities about my inabilities to do many other things. I think that my mission really taught me about enduring, and trusting in God that all would work out. And it did. And today I reflect upon the best decision I ever made in my life-to serve a mission.

A reminder

I've been blogless for a while now. Just busy, and feeling like my life is no more interesting than it was a day ago, a month ago, a year ago. Today in relief society we talked about weathering the storms of life. And one single phrase stuck to me...."No trial or heartache we suffer is wasted". I look back at the many times I have said, "Ok., if I can just make it through this next hour, or this moment...", or "Tomorrow at this time, it will all be over", and I really think I understand that phrase. Nothing I have been through in my life has been wasted. Trials I've suffered truly have in some way benefited who I am today. They've made me ME. But gosh it's hard to understand that and see things in perspective when you are plunging through them. I'm so glad I went to church today. I needed a reminder that I have pulled through hard things, and many of them, and will continue to plunge through them as long as I live.