Laying groundwork when you don't even know

I have mentioned some frustration with writing about my experiences when I was 6 and 14 and 17, because they were so familiar. That has not been the case with the mission stuff (21-22).

Perhaps because it is so new, it feels like the most illuminating. Those events were not as formative, but they help me understand the rest better. 

I suspect it is because they were not formative that I was not thinking of them on my own, but it is very helpful that they came up. How did that happen?

Back in 2015 I was going over some things, and I wrote out a list of Things to Do. One of them was transcribing my mission journal. 

I don't remember when I started feeling like I wanted to do that. I seem to remember it not having any particular logic. For some of the goals, I knew why they seemed like good ideas, or had an idea of what they might help and how.

It took a while to get there. I didn't actually get started until 2017. I made some progress, getting a few months in and adding copious footnotes.

Then my hard drive crashed.

I had hoped for a while that I could recover the data, but that isn't going to happen.

I have wondered whether I could just read the rest, or start typing from where I left off, so still going through the complete transcribing process, though not coming away with a full transcription. 

I am going to have to start over and complete it. I am not doing that now. 

It appears I have more things to learn. Therefore, at the end of this blogging series I will not yet be a perfect and perfectly emotionally healthy person. That is really disappointing.

I still believe that the amount I did brought up enough older memories that I got what I needed for this time around. That's pretty good.

It came from listening, once again reinforcing that I am not on my own in this. I am being guided.

I had thought this past week that maybe I could look some things up and get my memory jogged, but I wasn't finding the right places. 

I did find some more on that Christmas and being scolded by the elders, so at least here is an anecdote.

From the journal, I was short one hour on study, and my companions were short two hours each. I am pretty sure that happened because we'd had to leave early one day, thus getting up early, which made it reasonable to nap in the afternoon. Except back then, once I was up I was up, so I think I studied and made up one hour while they napped.

At the time, a normal day involved one hour of companion study, an hour of gospel study that included thirty minutes of reading in the Book of Mormon, and one hour of language study if you were not speaking your native language.

None of us were even missing a full day.

The elders - on the other hand - had not made their goal of teaching five lessons for the week. I think they got some push back on that, and that made them feel more need to put us in our place, except we refused to go in. That is from the journal, like even then I wrote that I thought they were just making a big deal about us because they had been chastised.

And yet, for all the times when criticism has brought me down, this couldn't. Those missing hours had all gone into spreading Christmas cheer, and we had been exhilarated with the things we were doing. I was riding on a high from that, and I had no regrets.

I still ultimately don't. 

I knew I was supposed to go on a mission. I have no regrets that I went. 

It would have been nice to not have this unexamined void of paternal approval and trust in my lovability, but did I want a completely different family? Who knows how I would have turned out then?

I am still ultimately happy with the life I have led. 

I do want to be better for what comes next.