reminising my streets

the streets of charlottetown

summer 2010

it is absolutely mind boggling to me that four years have passed by since this very night when i was sleeping in the mission home going...how is my mission over? when i look at the years since my mission i can think of a thousand ways that my experience as a missionary for the church of jesus christ of latter-day saints has blessed my life. i'm humbled by every single one of those ways and i'm so grateful for the experiences on this street and so many others like it.

it feels like only yesterday in someways and in other ways it seems like my time as a missionary was an eternity ago. or that it all just happened in a dream.  but i know it didn't because i am a different person because of what i experienced then and how i view the world in consequence now. 

as i look around my environment, i'm grateful for all the visual reminders that have kept my sights set on the experiences i had, the things i learned, the people who blessed my life and the many experiences i had with the spirit. the dog paperweight the cox's gave me for christmas, my missionary plaque with the efy scripture from the summer before i left. the picture will painted for me. my canada post stamp dispenser. the margarettesville lighthouse painted by a sweet sister in kingston. my missionary library books and copy of preach my gospel that sit on my study table. my scriptures complete with missionary tag attached. a small canadian flag pin. my journals. a lighthouse necklace and sand dollar earrings, oh and the clover necklace. and then there's the kindred spirits poster and the picture i took at peggy's cove. and last but not least, my book of mormon holder i made and carried my copy of the book to give away as well as other pamphlet's and teaching tools. 

while that might sound like a lot of stuff...its not. its physical, tangible objects that bring back a flood of thoughts and feelings, things that remind me of who i was, who i wanted to be and what i am still striving to become. 

i'm grateful for those experiences and for the way they still shape my life now. i don't think the mission was the best 18 months of my life but it was definitely and undeniably the best 18 months for my life.