Tomorrow.

It's all a bit surreal, really.

This is something I've thought about doing since I was a kid, and something I watched cousins and neighbors and my friends' siblings do, and they went off and I imagined what it was like.

That's the hard part of it, I think. It's so new, so different. Change is always hard. It's the fear and unsurety of the unknown. It's not just going to a new place and meeting new people, or being away from my family for eighteen months, it's the fact that I'm going to be changing so much of my life.

My friend Kimmie is on her mission (she has a blog too - visit it here!) and she mentioned something that was really interesting to me.

"I think that for a while, I forgot who I really was. I forgot that I can still be myself here and be able to do missionary work at the same time. After I read about Saul/Paul, I decided to give up my heart to the Lord, and since then I've been SO happy. I don't think I'll ever understand the mindset that we sometimes get in that the Lord will change us into someone that we won't like. He loves us and would never want to make us unhappy, so why would he change us into a stranger that we would hate being?"

I'm really glad she mentioned that because it's so true, and I think I was worried about it! It's a whole change in how we live. I'm giving all of my time to the Lord.

But then I think about Alma, in the Book of Mormon, how he gave 14 years to be a missionary and it doesn't seem so scary. He turned his life around and gave it to the Lord, and the Lord was with him always because of that. I know He'll be with me, too, because I'm doing His work in bring people close to Him!

God lives and loves us! Don't you ever forget it.

See you in 18!

p.s. I'm turning my blog over to my dad who will update it for me while I'm gone. :)
p.p.s. Isn't my family cute? We got our pictures taken at the Gallivan Center by the amazing Dan Dresser on Sunday!