Different.

August 24, 2010

It was hard for all the Sisters to say goodbye to Sister Quick, Sister Westwood, Sister Barry and Sister Picard. They left on Friday morning. It was a weird day. Every time someone leaves it changes things. Their presence is missed and we're working twice as hard to live up to what they were putting in. I love those sisters. I am so grateful for the friendships I have made. They will last for eternity. I will never be the same.

I am so different than I was 18 months ago. Completely different. I have changed so much. I don't feel like I even know that Sister Bailey of last April 2009. It feels good to be a new person and I wonder what she might think if we were to meet. I am in a different place, a different mind set, a different light, and I have a different heart. No matter our differences I know I'd thank her. I am grateful for her willing heart and I am grateful for her efforts, because no matter how non-existent she is right now and how much I would never want to go back, the present Sister Bailey owes her existence to the Sister Bailey of last April, and October and so on. I love the Atonement. I want the Sister Bailey of five years from now to be thankful for me, and happy for the distance between us. It's not that I was a bad person before the mission, I am just so different. I feel like I'm traveling lighter now. I wonder what else I have to sluff off and leave behind. I am grateful for old Sister Bailey's sacrifices and determination. As a missionary something that I've noticed is that we are blessed, but blessed for other's work. As we work hard we are led to people who have been being prepared for years. The real fruits of our labor are ones that future missionaries will see, not us. In that same respect the product of all the work we put into ourselves is never actually seen by that version of ourselves that put in that effort. Blessings and work are seen best in retrospect and cannot be predicted except by One who can see and know everything. And they seem to grow with time. At times the law of sacrifice seems much like a bank account. We pay once and are forever blessed, not with one blessing that lasts forever, but with blessings that flow down forever, to us, and to our posterity.

Well, as it is considered the above thoughts expressed were nothing close to what I had originally intended. But the principle is the same. I am different. I am grateful for it and in the coming years I plan to be even more different. I'm so grateful to be able to part of this work both now and forever, "to bring to pass the immortality and eternal life of man", as His missionary, as His daughter, and as a trusted guardian to His children.

This work truly never ends.

We've made some insane changes to the call center. So much faith and trust have been put into those changes. Miracles are happening. The Lord works in mysterious ways.

Sister Bailey