So.... only nine days until I report to the Missionary Training Center (MTC). I'm mostly excited for what's coming, but I'm also a tiny bit nervous for the unknown. How will I adjust to the schedule? Will I have a good companion? Will I be able to learn Spanish ok? What's the food going to be like? These are some of the more benign questions that run through my head, but I know that whatever the answers to these questions, bad or good, everything will work out for the best. I mean I'm going on a mission. Everything wont be perfect, but it'll be good, and good for me. What worries me more are more long term questions. Will I be able to do well in school when I get back after so long of a break? Will the friends I have now still be friends in two years? or will they just be good memories? Again, for the most part I know that 1) there's not much I can do to change the answers to these questions, so why worry? and 2) These concerns are only raised because I'm going on a mission to serve the Lord and because of that Heavenly Father will bless me. Again, it wont be perfect, it might not even be pretty, but it will work out for the better. Thus the prevailing emotion is excitement.
Right now I also feel like I've got a million things to do and not long to do them in. It's mostly my problem for putting some of them off, although part of that feeling is that I'm going to be gone for two years, shouldn't there be a bunch of things I need to get done and squared away? All that being said, I'm sure I'll get done what needs doing, and, again, it'll all work out (brace yourselves, you're gonna hear that again).
Recently (last week) I had the opportunity to go to Minnesota to visit my uncle who has terminal cancer with a prognosis of living for about one year. I only tell this because this has been one of the biggest thoughts/worries when considering my mission because I most likely will not see my uncle again on this earth. While it was sad and weird to visit him, I'm very glad that I could; in part because I got to know him much, much better than I did before, but mostly because I learned a lot from my visit. While I have a strong testimony of the Plan of Salvation and the principle of eternal families, there's a difference between having a testimony and having to exercise that testimony. How different it is to say, "I have a testimony" when all is well with those you know and love, than to look at your uncle, the man who you just saw that summer energetic, playful, healthy, and see him skinny, weak, pale, with oxygen tubes in his nose, napping throughout the day, knowing you wont see him again, and then at that point say, "I have a testimony; I know that I will see him again, healthy and strong, in the next life." And then to see those that have the same testimony when he is their brother, father, son, or husband really amazed me. As my uncle continued to say throughout the whole visit, "This is weird, it's sad, it's hard, but everything will end up being all right"; this is what I learned most from the visit, that horrible, sad, heart-wrenching things happen, but because of the Gospel of Jesus Christ and through our faith in Him we can work through them and it will end up all right. "Adam fell that men might be; and men are, that they might have joy." (2 Nephi 2:25) Heavenly Father wants us to be happy, and he is all-powerful; if we let Him, He will help us to become happy and everything WILL be all right in the end.
Right now I also feel like I've got a million things to do and not long to do them in. It's mostly my problem for putting some of them off, although part of that feeling is that I'm going to be gone for two years, shouldn't there be a bunch of things I need to get done and squared away? All that being said, I'm sure I'll get done what needs doing, and, again, it'll all work out (brace yourselves, you're gonna hear that again).
Recently (last week) I had the opportunity to go to Minnesota to visit my uncle who has terminal cancer with a prognosis of living for about one year. I only tell this because this has been one of the biggest thoughts/worries when considering my mission because I most likely will not see my uncle again on this earth. While it was sad and weird to visit him, I'm very glad that I could; in part because I got to know him much, much better than I did before, but mostly because I learned a lot from my visit. While I have a strong testimony of the Plan of Salvation and the principle of eternal families, there's a difference between having a testimony and having to exercise that testimony. How different it is to say, "I have a testimony" when all is well with those you know and love, than to look at your uncle, the man who you just saw that summer energetic, playful, healthy, and see him skinny, weak, pale, with oxygen tubes in his nose, napping throughout the day, knowing you wont see him again, and then at that point say, "I have a testimony; I know that I will see him again, healthy and strong, in the next life." And then to see those that have the same testimony when he is their brother, father, son, or husband really amazed me. As my uncle continued to say throughout the whole visit, "This is weird, it's sad, it's hard, but everything will end up being all right"; this is what I learned most from the visit, that horrible, sad, heart-wrenching things happen, but because of the Gospel of Jesus Christ and through our faith in Him we can work through them and it will end up all right. "Adam fell that men might be; and men are, that they might have joy." (2 Nephi 2:25) Heavenly Father wants us to be happy, and he is all-powerful; if we let Him, He will help us to become happy and everything WILL be all right in the end.
-Elder Whitaker