The unknown.

I haven't really experienced the unknown in a long time. It has been years. Thinking about it, I haven't really delved into the unknown since I went on my mission. Yes, I went back to BYU and had all new roommates, but let's be honest here, BYU is pretty much un-changing. Even my Parents, when they came for graduation, commented that not much had changed in Provo since their days there, many moons ago. So Provo wasn't really a new adventure. But this... this is a new adventure. The trip to the unknown. It's making me sick to my stomach. 


Currently I'm sitting in the Denver airport, people watching. I've got about 55 minutes until my flight to Colorado Springs. Airports attract all varieties of people, my favorite of the day was an older black gentleman, wearing a pinstriped suit and a hat. He had his ear pierced and was carrying a cane. I've seen cowboys, soilders, one girl wearing a T-shirt with a giant sparkling Y on it (why didn't I get one of those?) and the lady sitting behind me who just said the words "Oh-Em-Gee!" in a conversation. Also, there are some Amish or Mennonite women who just walked by. (At first I thought they might be Mormons...) And a grandma wearing a baby phat bejeweled t-shirt that reminds me of the bejeweled martini shirt that my great aunt wore to the family Christmas Party. 


I wonder what people think of me when they see me. I feel like I'm fairly non-descript. Forgettable. Except maybe that I have a terrified/shell shocked look on my face. 


What if I don't remember what the family looks like? What if they don't come? (At least i have their phone numbers).  The excitement I felt for the past few months at this new adventure is over. I want, more than just about anything (and I never thought I'd say this) to move back to Provo. I want to go back home, and hide in the cave at the apartment. I want to cry, knowing that my best friends are so far away from me, and I don't know when i'll see them again. 


But I can do hard things. 


Two weeks ago in relief society I gave a lesson based on a BYU devotional given by Elder Jeffery R Holland, who bases his comments on a verse from Hebrews 10:35-36. It is one of my favorite talks, life changing, even. Click HERE to read it all


Here are excerpts, mostly for me right now. 

If it was right when you prayed about it and trusted it and lived for it, it is right now. Don't give up when the pressure mounts... It's been done before. Don't give in. Certainly don't give in to that being who is bent on the destruction of your happiness. He wants everyone to be miserable like unto himself. Face your doubts. Master your fears. "Cast not away therefore your confidence." Stay the course and see the beauty of life unfold for you.
...
After you have gotten the message, after you have paid the price to feel his love and hear the word of the Lord, "go forward." Don't fear, don't vacillate, don't quibble, don't whine. You may, like Alma going to Ammonihah, have to find a route that leads an unusual way, but that is exactly what the Lord was doing here for the children of Israel. Nobody had ever crossed the Red Sea this way, but so what? There's always a first time. With the spirit of revelation, dismiss your fears and wade in with both feet. In the words of Joseph Smith, "Brethren [and, I would add, sisters], shall we not go on in so great a cause? Go forward and not backward. Courage, brethren; and on, on to the victory!" (D&C 128:22)....

Along with the illuminating revelation that points us toward a righteous purpose or duty, God will also provide the means and power to achieve that purpose. Trust in that eternal truth. If God has told you something is right, if something is indeed true for you, he will provide the way for you to accomplish it. That is true of joining the Church. It is true of getting an education, of going on a mission or of getting married or of any of a hundred worthy tasks in your young lives. Remember what the Savior said to the Prophet Joseph in the Sacred Grove. What was the problem in 1820? Why was Joseph not to join any other Church? It was at least in part because "they teach for doctrines the commandments of men, having a form of godliness, but they deny the power thereof"(JS--H 1:19; emphasis added).
God's grace is sufficient! The Lord would tell Joseph again and again through those early difficult days that, just as in the days of old, these modern children of Israel would
be led out of bondage by power, and with a stretched-out arm. . . .Therefore, let not your hearts faint . . . : Mine angel shall go up before you. . . .. . . and also my presence, and in time ye shall possess the goodly land. [D&C 103:17–20]

What goodly land? Your goodly land. Your promised land. Your New Jerusalem. Your own little acre flowing with milk and honey. Your future. Your dreams. Your destiny. I believe that in our own individual ways, God takes us to the grove or the mountain or the temple and there shows us the wonder of what his plan is for us. We may not see it as fully as Moses or Nephi or the brother of Jared did, but we see as much as we need to see in order to know the Lord's will for us and to know that he loves us beyond mortal comprehension. I also believe that the adversary and his pinched, calculating little minions try to oppose such experiences and then try to darken them after the fact. But that is not the way of the gospel. That is not the way of a Latter-day Saint who claims as the fundamental fact of the Restoration the spirit of revelation.
Fighting through darkness and despair and pleading for the light is what opened this dispensation. It is what keeps it going, and it is what will keep you going.  

Philippians 4:13 I can do all things through Christ which strengthens me. 


My plane is here. Time to board. Onward and upward.