Anonimity

I'm becoming more and more like Dad every day.

I'm not gonna lie. I'm here tonight because A: I don't have anything else to do, and B: I have a lot of thoughts that need to be let out. So this post may be a bunch of random thoughts vomited onto the web; we'll see.

First things first, I have to give a shout out to my amazing sister Whitney for returning home from her mission. She did not have an easy mission, and that is what has impressed me the most. In a nutshell, she had to go home about 3 months into her mission for medical reasons. As she was home, her health deteriorated and word of "MS" and "ALS'' began to be mentioned in conversation. Not just scary stuff, but things that most missionaries would say, "Well, I showed a willingness to serve. I guess it's time to move forward." Now, I'm in no way saying that's a bad thing; I think that's a very positive outlook and a mature way to handle it. The thing that really surprised and impressed me beyond words is that in the face of all that, Whitney decided to keep fighting and figuring out a way to get back out. Some switch in her head flipped and she just fought and fought until she finally got the green light to return 4 months later. She went on to serve a very honorable, complete mission, and blessed countless lives in the process. Congratulations Boo-Boo, and Welcome Home :)

So, we continue to move forward in life. The house is filled up again with people, and the Earth keeps on spinning. I'm still busy as ever with work. I was pretty upset to see my first paycheck and find over $100 pulled out in taxes. Thanks, Government. Not like I needed that money for anything. So I had to do a little rebudgeting based on what my new projected income will be, and it's putting a little bit of a dent in my pocketbook; but I suppose in the end things will work out okay.

Okay, so here's more or less the reason why I've been hankering to write this post. It's actually been on my mind for a couple of days, but I just haven't gotten around to posting it because shut up. I've had this really weird and "not like me" quirk since I got home that I just plain do not want to see people. Once I'm actually with the people it's great and I'm super happy to see them! But if I'm making a trip to the grocery store or the mall or crossing BYU Campus, I just dread the thought of running into someone I know. Ever since I got back, I've kinda kept an unnaturally low profile. Anyone that knew me 2 years ago knows that I'm a rather eccentric person who is very opinionated, a little (or a lot depending on who you ask) loud, and slightly in love with the spotlight. Now, I am seem to be making a subconscious effort to stay out of the very limelight I used to thrive on. Why, you may ask? The answer I am stuck with giving people, and worse, giving to myself, is that I have no idea.

Is this a reason to panic? I doubt it. It's summer, and I don't really have a lot of limelights to jump into, so it may just be me trying to sneak back into society unnoticed. Maybe it's that I don't want to be put on the RM pedestal. Maybe it's because I'm honestly becoming anti-social. Who knows; I certainly don't. All I know is that I often just want to be a nobody in the crowd.

One thing that I have noticed is that there's few people in the same boat as me. With Social Media gaining more and more followers every day, we live in a world where we practically live everyone else's lives with them, without ever really living a life of our own. As my dad mentioned just the other day, there are some things that should just be kept to oneself and not shared for the world to see (having difficulty passing a kidney stone is one of them). Fewer things are special or personal because we're all so eager to broadcast every moment of our waking lives to the world. Because there's so many different social media sites out there, and so many statuses and pictures posted just among your own friends (let alone the people you follow), it's easy to become obsessed and even addicted to getting on. It's like checking the fridge on a boring day. No matter how many times you open it, new food isn't going to pop up out of nowhere. Just like a life isn't going to pop up in your news feed on Facebook no matter how many times you check and recheck it.

Even with the race to have the most exciting (or maybe just busy) social media page, we still put on a mask and hide from the world. It's like we're living of the world but not in it. It's so easy to spew out any insult over the internet because you have as long as you need to compose your "perfect" comeback, and you don't need a heart or feelings because you don't have to see the broken person on the other side of the screen. The worst part of it is that any time anyone tries to be as social in real life as most people are on the internet, we look at them as either A) A Pervert/Stalker/Creep, B) A Weirdo/Freak, or C) Old and Out of Touch. So for some reason we want to get up in each other's digital faces and yet when anyone even approaches our real face, we feel violated and weirded out!! You can have a room full of people and all you'll hear, if you listen closely, might be the sound of thumbs thudding against a touch screen. Just the other night, the whole family (my family) was all in the same room but no one was saying a word to one another. Everyone was living in their own little world, and we all just sort of coexisted in the same room. It's scary because every single one of us is guilty of it.

All of this has just kind of made me want to not show my whole life off to the world. So that may be in part why I've been keeping a low profile. Again, I'm not sure, but that's my personal theory. Tonight, for example, I just decided I was done with my phone. I put it down and just left it there. If I missed calls or texts, I don't care; I'm not using my phone for the rest of the day. Don't mistranslate this as me announcing that I'm deleting Facebook, Instagram, and this Blog to be Amish. I still love how much of a miracle all of this is. Through these mediums we can keep in contact with people that it would be impossible to keep in contact with otherwise. I was able to Skype my family as a missionary, and I can keep in touch with old friends that have moved away. I think the biggest thing, as we are so frequently counseled to do, is to keep a balance on all of these things. We've all heard how we need to bridle our passions; I believe that certainly involves curbing our digital appetite as well. 

That world we're all so eager to share can seem pretty empty outside when we're all cooped up in our little corners of the world. So use your phones and use Facebook, Twitter, Google+ (okay, you don't have to use Google+), but just remember that in the end, the thing in your hand is a bunch of plastic and metal that shouldn't run your life. Mankind has made it this far because we've learned to harness and control the elements and objects around us to create whatever we have wanted or needed. That ingenuity has made man fly, live in inhospitable places, predict the weather (sometimes), and instantly find answers to our questions. We haven't come this far and made this much progress to fall prey to our own devices. We created the smart phone, but it was never designed to outsmart us. So take some time to put the phone down and go do something non-technology related for a change. Show the phone, and yourself, that you're in control.  

“I fear the day technology will surpass our human interaction. The world will have a generation of idiots.”

― Albert Einstein

AMS

Out to the Ballgame

I think this way is better

This wouldn't be a post on this blog if I didn't start by throwing out some excuse for why I haven't written for a week+. Well, frankly it's because I love you and didn't really have anything exciting to report. BYUtv owned my soul last week and I didn't think it'd be very appealing to read about how I did the same thing every single day.

Seriously, my weekend from Thursday to Saturday consisted of filming baseball and softball games. I kid you not, I would wake up, go film baseball, then go to bed. 3 days. It was great.

Honestly, it was pretty fun to get paid to watch baseball on the field. How many people can say they have a job that pays them for sometimes (most of the time in fact) the best seat available for all college sports? Not many I'd imagine. This weekend was actually my first time filming a baseball game and I had 1st base camera. I wasn't even supposed to work Thursday but they called me in to fill in. Well, somehow it came about that I didn't need to fill in, so they had me shadow the same spot I'd be filming Saturday, so it worked out okay. I was watching intently and trying to learn the spot so I wouldn't mess anything up Saturday, when the cameraman I was shadowing decided I was ready to take over and he was ready to get paid to eat a hot dog. He told me to keep the headphones only half on so I could hear him telling me what to do.

Well, that wasn't going so well considering I had the director in one ear, my supervisor in the other, and my brain wasn't really computing either. That resulted in me making a couple of dumb mistakes on live TV...oops. After the second or third blatant mistake, I hear the director say, "Who's on Camera 5??"

Um...it's Alex, sir.

Well, that didn't go over so well, but my supervisor was gone to get his hot dog by then so we just had to move forward. The rest of the game wasn't so bad, it was just a crash course learning my job, but no major mistakes after the 4th inning or so. The director talked to me about doing a better job the next time, but other than that it was all okay considering how I was trained...

Friday we did a softball double-header and that was a much more entertaining game than the baseball game. We got ours handed to us at the baseball game, but the softball team won the conference championship for the 4th year in a row! That was pretty exciting to watch. I also filmed the "classic" baseball angle:

Yes ladies and gentlemen, those lights mean my camera is live.

Saturday was back to baseball, but luckily this time we were done by 5. Yay! Alex has Saturday evening to relax!!

No.

As you recall, I have two jobs. The other job is a video editor for the Arts Department. That evening I was in charge of filming the Children's Dance Recital. Its basically where a bunch of moms living vicariously through their children sign their children up for dance classes that they choreograph and watch their kids perform their dances. It's one of those things. Anyways, my only job was to turn the camera on, push freaking 'record', turn the stupid camera off, and take it back to the flipping office. That's it. Seems simple right? Well, everything that could have gone wrong went wrong. I went to our office to grab a battery, but the only battery was at like 15% which isn't near enough for a full show. I took the battery and its charger and prayed there was another one available at the theater. I then headed down the hall to the Richard's Building Theater for the show only to find out the show's actually in the DeJong Concert Hall in the Fine Arts Center on the other side of campus. Great. So I hurry over there right before they open to the public which was just enough time to set up the camera. The camera had a battery at 50% so I knew I'd have to switch at some point, but I didn't know when and didn't want to cross that bridge until I got to it. Everything went fine until the moment came to cross that bridge. A number ended and I knew I had about 15 seconds to turn the camera off, swap batteries, and start recording again. Well, I must have done it too fast because my memory card got glitched and didn't want to record anymore. Lucky for me it was Intermission so I had time to run back to the RB and grab another card. I told the Stage Manager to stall for time and I took off literally sprinting like a fool.

I made it back in time to put the card in, and what would you know? I grabbed the one card that had the recording of the show from the night before. So now not only is my problem not solved, but I also am risking losing both shows!!

So, with 20 minutes of recording time left, I just pushed record and ran back again to the RB and grabbed like 3 more cards. No way I was making the mistake again. When I got the card in, it started looking black and white in the playback screen but at that point, I just didn't even care. I was sick of problems and the whole show could have gone to kaput and the camera blow up in my face for all I cared at that point. I was tired, and I was done with that show. Fortunately we got the whole show captured in color with no problems. I took the equipment back and at 10 PM I was finally done for the night. I found Jake, Joe, Ethan, and Wes to enjoy a little needed Bro Time for the end of the night.

Every time I tell a story about something ridiculous or difficult or annoying that happened at work, Mom and Dad always without fail try and make me feel better by reminding me to think about the money. Dad always sings a song with the lyrics "Money, money, money, money, makes me feel good." I used to always think that was a real song, but it looks like you'll only ever find it in the Dad Hymnal. I think they think if they remind me of that I'll suddenly imagine this and feel better:

But in the end, all I end up seeing is this:

In the end, I am grateful for my jobs and that they're so much fun. I don't expect them to go perfectly and without problems, especially since I'm just getting back in the swing of things work-wise. It's just those little moments that make me chuckle at how ridiculous life can be. It's learning to laugh at the uncontrollable ridiculous garbage that we put up with that makes my world go round.

AMS

From Zero to Busy

Life's Finally Almost Back!

Okay, the main purpose of me not having written the past week is there really hasn't been a lot to report on. I remember I was a lot more able to come up with meaningful entries in college because there was variety new things to report on daily. Now? Well, let's just say that life is about to get interesting again.

I start work this afternoon and I couldn't be more excited to get going again! The downside to today is that I won't be getting paid because the office I needed to fill paperwork out at decided to close for 5 days for graduation. That was a 1 day thing; why the heck do you need 5 days to be closed?? No matter, at least it's something to do; though I would like something to do with money.

The week before was a lot of spending time with Jake and Ethan. Now that Jake's back and neither of us could start working until this week, we figured instead of being a menace to other people with busy lives, we would just hang out and help keep each other busy. The biggest key to making a decent transition back into the real world is just keeping yourself busy. As a missionary you have an hour by hour plan for each day for 2 complete years. Literally, there isn't a single day that goes by without a plan from 6:30 AM to 10:30 PM. Then you get home and literally have nothing at all to do and hardly any expectations to uphold. Wanna take a 3, 4, 10 hour nap? No one's gonna stop you, so go for it. Except your conscience won't let you so you just end up staying up and twiddling your thumbs because you don't know what to do with yourself. That is the situation I've been battling the past few weeks.

Well, the battle is over and I now have a good 30 hours of work under my belt from the past week. It's not as much as I want but it's a good start. The most important part of it all is that it's giving me something to do. I have two jobs on BYU campus now. One is the heavenly job back at BYUtv as a cameraman. I've talked about this job and how much I love it before, but it begs repeating. I love working as a cameraman for BYUtv. I seriously don't know how I got so lucky to have a job like that but I absolutely love it! It's giving me something really great to put on my resume and on top of that it's super fun!

My other job is as a video editor for BYU Arts Video Production. Basically, different departments in the arts department can hire us to their pleasure and have us film their shows, rehearsals, and classes. Then we go and edit the footage and put it on YouTube or put it on DVD's. It's a really fun job that lets me be creative and in charge of the projects I'm assigned to seeing that I basically head the project from start to finish. I of course have a supervisor, but he's really good about letting the students retain their style in making these videos; and we're careful not to take advantage of that. It's a great job, and both jobs are giving me a ton of work experience in the multimedia field.

Speaking of work, that's all I've done this past week. There was the BYU Women's Conference that ate up the majority of my week, particularly between Wednesday and Friday. It's a great faith-boosting experience for the women that are there, but for a guy, you feel dangerously outnumbered and extremely unsafe. One sexist joke and it'll be like this:

Not safe.

Anyways, the second day I was doing work for the big event in the Marriot Center at BYU and I got the most lucrative job of all: Script Reader. Basically my job for 10 hours was to sit next to the director and follow each line of the script with a pen to help him keep track. Yep, I got paid to point at a script. And yes, it was as exciting as it sounds. Let's just say I prefer being behind the camera. After the whole shabang was over, I went to the Marriot Center to help take the cameras down. All of the Relief Society, Young Womens, and Primary presidencies were there in the tunnel and I walked past every single one of them. I even was wheeling one of the cameras into the tunnel and almost ran into Jean Stevens who is in the Primary Presidency. As cool as an experience that was, Sister Stevens, if you ever read this...sorry about that.

So that's my life now! I really am going to try and get a more frequent updating so I can actually have a journal like blog. That was the whole purpose of this thing, but it doesn't do a whole lot of good if I post in it every other week...I'll try to do better.

AMS

Patience: The Great Virtue

...That I Just Can't Seem to Master

Well, here I am on week 3 of the whole "Returned Missionary" experience. 

Gosh, that's the way to start a post, right? I'm at a loss for a better intro, so we'll just have to stick with that. I know it sounds like I'm depressed, but I promise I'm not. I'm still very happy to be home, and I think I'm even starting to find my place in the 2014 version of Spanish Fork. I guess the only thing that's bogging me down is

BOREDOM

Now I'm not about to go on a rant blaming the world for my boredom, because frankly, it's not the world's fault. It's completely my fault. But nonetheless the boredom is there. This is kind of a "good news, bad news" thing. The good news is I got my job back at BYUtv! Last Friday I got a random text from my old boss saying that they'd hire me back and to come to paperwork next week! I was ecstatic about that especially since I can't start working the BYU film job until the end of the month.

Well, that's where the bad news comes into play. Like the other job, I can't work at BYUtv until the end of the month either, thus making me wait another two weeks to start working, and thus leaving my entire day each and every day completely up to me what I'm going to do.

So that's the current situation. Don't get me wrong, I am SO grateful that God's blessed me with all these work opportunities. It's just annoying that I have to wait to actually get started. It feels like those super busy days where you know that from 5-8 PM you're going to be running around like a chicken with its head cut off trying to accomplish 9000+ things that have to be done in that time span but not being able to start doing any of them until 5 so you're forced to just sit and twiddle your thumbs waiting on the wave to hit you.

Something like that.

The other things that's been on my mind the last couple of weeks is:

Okay, I know you're all thinking "Alex. You need to calm down." I'm not about to jump at the first girl that bats her eyes at me, nor am I really feeling getting back in the dating game right now; but I will be honest when I say that it's been on my mind. One of the natural things that comes with getting home from a mission is that everyone you meet (particularly those that knew you before) not only ask you like crazy when you're getting married, but also jump to the assumption that you're getting married within 6 months; as if marriage is a race (though at BYU I sometimes wonder if it actually is). As if this isn't all enough, many of them are chomping at the bit to introduce you to their 18-25 year old daughter. I could look like a dead animal and they'd be so eager to introduce me purely because I am home from a mission. This, however, was all anticipated and hasn't bothered me. What has made this all get inside my head is the fact that every time I get on Facebook I see yet another Facebook friend is married or engaged. No joke, I think over half of my high school friends are married now, and the other half are on missions.

That being said, I'm not mad or annoyed at any of them, nor do I feel any amount of pressure to get a move on with anything; this is just the reason why it's been on my mind lately. I mean, it kind of is the next big step in life for me, so I can't turn a blind eye to it. I think it's just because as the closer friends start getting married, the more the reality of marriage becomes. It really starts hitting home you could say. I mean lets be honest; 2 years ago I was still a little kid fresh out of high school with a tiny amount of college experience under my belt (the fact that I'm returning to school still a freshman is also bugging me super bad). Now, I'm 21 years old, considered a "man" and "adult" by society, and as such, am expected to take on adult responsibilities; one of those is getting married and starting a family. Hearing stuff like that and picturing myself in those shoes looks something like this to me:

Either way, it's the next step of life and I'm a little intimidated by it. I mean, don't get me wrong I want to get married but I also see this as literally THE biggest decision I could ever make. This is the choice that impacts eternity and I do not want to mess this one up.

So I suppose after all of this thought vomiting, it all leads back to the theme of this post: Patience. It's never been a quality I've excelled at, and it very well may never be. I wouldn't necessarily say I have a short fuse anymore, so it's not a temperance issue, it's mostly accepting that some things are out of my control. I'm not a control freak, but I do like being able to create my circumstance. However, there are just some things in life that I have zero control over; time being the biggest of them. Then again, maybe we have more control than we think. In the Lord of the Rings, Gandalf counsels Frodo with these words:

"All we have to decide is what to do with the time that is given to us."

 We may not be able to make those 5-8 pm assignments come any quicker in the day, but we can decide what to do while we're waiting. I can either choose to get marriage hungry and jump at the first girl that bats her eyes at me, or I can figure out who I need to become to deserve the girl of my dreams so that when I do meet her, I'm ready and worthy of her. I can either choose to be annoyed that I'm not working or in school and just sit and mope, or I can choose to utilize the free time I have right now and make good use of it. I can't control when things happen much of the time, but I can control my attitude, reaction, and outlook on those situations.

Besides, fall will eventually come and I'll be back in school taking on those challenges before I know it. I'll be living in Provo with Jake having a blast, working, going on dates, and yes, eventually finding a wife and getting married. But that's not the time I'm in right now. Right now what I can do is be excited for Jake to get home in a couple of days. With each brother coming back one by one, we're calling it "The Gathering". Brace yourselves.

In the meantime, I'll continue to make the most of the time and opportunities that I have right now. I'll take advice from the old Arabian Proverb: 

"When you are the anvil, be patient. When you are the hammer, strike."

AMS

The Adjustment

Finding the Balance: Not as Easy as You'd Think

Well, I now have about 2 weeks under my belt as a normal civilian. And yes, I'm aware that I'm still not in the habit of posting daily, even often. But the thing is, I don't have a laptop of my own which made it much easier to post before, and I'm not on the computer all that often. Furthermore, I refuse to try to do a post on a tablet or my phone. So until I have my own computer, don't expect the most frequent of posts.

Anyways, yes. I have a couple of weeks home now so I suppose I can say I have at least a taste of the real world. People have asked me several times over the past week or so what it's like to be home now. They want to know if I miss the mission, if it's hard adjusting, if I'm awkward, etc. It's hard to completely put it into words, but simply stated, it's been interesting. I don't think it's been easy, but it hasn't been hard either. It's funny, because I don't want to go back at all. My service time is over and it's time to move forward. However, I don't know how much I like being home either.

Truth be told, I don't really feel like I am home.

I've talked to Mom about this a couple of times. First, before I talk about that, I've gotta give a shout out to Mom for always being willing to drop everything to sit and talk to me about whatever. Anyways, I talked to her about how I was feeling and she summed it up like this: My house in Spanish Fork isn't my home anymore. I haven't really been steadily living here for almost 3 years now, and "home" to me is Provo now. It's just the natural step of life to want to move out and move forward with life...that is, unless you're like this guy:

To each their own I guess.

The past 2 weeks have been sometimes busy, and sometimes downright boring. I guess I'm still somewhat in the missionary mindset in terms of not being able to just sit and do nothing. I've been back on BYU campus quite a bit getting everything ready for school. So far I have an idea of where I want to live, I have 2 jobs ready for me in 2 weeks, and I'm signed up for Spring Term classes. At this point I think I would have gone downright insane if I couldn't start school until the fall. I think living here with nothing to do is already giving me cabin fever.

We're getting dangerously close to this point.

In all honesty, I really am happy to be home. I think it's just the challenge of finding my place in the world. I've basically been removed from everyone and everything I know for the past 2 years and now I'm being asked to just jump right into things like I was never gone. It's like sprinting down a moving sidewalk and then at the end being asked to go right back to walking normal. Possible? Yes. Challenging and a little awkward? Youbetcha. For example, I'm living at home, but I'm technically not under parental control. This is a little awkward for me because I feel obligated to tell them where I'm going and when I'll be back; along with constantly waiting for them to tell me I can't or I need to do something. Yet they're not. They just let me do my thing which would be fine if I weren't living under their roof. So, since I can't get my head around it, they frequently give me weird looks that say "You're an adult, you don't need to come to your parents about that."

It's a good thing though. I've just been doing a lot of things to 1) Keep me out of the house, and 2) Get me out of any "missionary comfort zone" I have. For example, 3 days after getting home, I was invited by a family friend who I had only ever written but never really talked to in person to go to the Hare Krishna Color Festival. I'd only been to this thing once and it was right before I left 2 years ago. I had a sub-par experience, but I felt like it'd be a good thing to do so I went. I'll be honest, it was super hard to act normal and just embrace everything that was going on, but it was fun and I think it helped me a lot.

I've been on a couple of dates and I've been out and about doing different things like Temple Square, Museums, and just being back hanging with the bros. I've also been home with the family a lot watching movies and just spending time with them. I'm still in the process of figuring out how to integrate mission habits I want to keep going without being a goober of an RM. As long as I can avoid this, I think I'll be okay:

AMS

El Regreso

I'm Home

Oh man, that was the trip of my life.

Yep, the rumors are true. I am back from my mission. Two years of incredible experiences, way too many to be mentioned here, and now I'm home and ready to take on life.

Actually, to be quite honest, I don't know how to feel still. I've been on a mission. It's a two year commitment that changes everything about you internally and externally. I say internally because my experience has changed man things about me. I would say generally I'm still Alex, but a better version with a better understanding of who I am and what God expects of me. Basically, Alex 2.0 which is exactly one of the reasons I went out in the first place. It's incredible how much your outlook on life can change simply by serving the world. My desires and priorities in life have changed dramatically, and I think overall I'm more prepared to take on the challenges of an adult life. What I have learned over the past 2 years will make me a better husband and father, a better employee and student, a better priesthood holder, and a better citizen of the community. Simply speaking, I left home a boy, and came home a man.

And then I post pictures like this...

Now when I say externally, I mean that nothing is the same from when I left home. I do remember at the beginning of my mission praying that God would push the reset button on my life, but I guess I didn't realize to what extent he would do that. From the moment I got home I could tell that things were completely different. For one thing, our house has been remodeled and I hardly recognize it anymore. Not that that's a bad thing, it's just different. Another is how ridiculously big Benjamin has gotten. He just sprouted up into this mini Goliath and is suddenly the tallest in the family!

On top of all that, Whitney, Micah, and Grandma and Grandpa are serving missions, so I came back to a very small family. I don't have the same job at BYUtv since my boss Steve Lowe retired, my girlfriend from before the mission is engaged (along with, no joke, everyone and their dog), and all in all things are just different. But you know what?

That's okay.

I honestly can't complain and it would be wrong of me to complain about any of this. I've been gone from everyone and everything for two years and it would be stupid of me to whine that the world just so happened to keep turning during those 24 months. They may have gone fast, really fast, but there still 24 months and that's a lot of time for a lot of changes. Besides, if I asked for changes, I have to expect changes. That's how a loving God works; He gives us what we want. Always.

In all of this, I have two options: One is to whine and mope and mourn that I'm home and things are hard, or I can take the experiences I had in South Texas, learn from them, and move forward in life more prepared to face challenges as they come. I'm going to choose the latter. I was called by the Lord to serve Him for 24 months, no more, no less. At the end of it all, I can honestly say that I did that, and I did it honorably. I don't think after all of that faithful, hard work that God wants me to just sit and reflect and be sad that it's over. As Dr. Seuss once said:

"Don't cry because it's over, smile because it happened."

Well, the moment I waited and prepared for my whole life is now over. And you know what? I'm smiling. I'm smiling because my life will be forever changed. I'm smiling for the people of South Texas who now occupy a part of my heart I didn't know existed. I'm smiling because there are so many opportunities waiting just around the corner that I can take advantage of with a new outlook and newly acquired skills.  I am smiling because the Lord loves me and trusted me enough to send me to help bring people to Salvation, and now He trusts me to move forward and to continue to be a blessing, not a burden. Besides, our favorite hymn "Called to Serve" doesn't suggest a time limit. In fact, the oft repeated line of the song says:

Onward, ever onward.

It's great to be home.

AMS