Reminiscing

I'm trying to remember all the stuff that happened this last year.

I woke up a year ago to the sound of banging when my zone leaders were out on the porch hitting their pots and pans together. One of my ZL's actually broke one of my favorite cutting boards. I was quite upset.

Many many many things have happened since then.

We had Coco's baptism. I moved to Cagliari and had all my picture memories stolen at Termini a Roma. I had to be a zone leader over 4 cities that included 16 of us missionaries on the island of Sardegna. Pecorino is good.

I served with Elder Valenzuela and Elder Rrokaj on the island. It all went well. We were even given a bottle of wine one day because we decided to make brownies for the apartment. I had to learn how to drive a stick shift. I love them now. I learned what bang is. I learned what it meant to really be a part of the members. I'd like to say that all of my character was built because of it, that every single quality that I have has been strengthened because of what I have learned on my mission. There is too much to write about it all but after searching for people and yearning for their salvation and seeing the difference between people that really want it and others that are just being kind to listen. I had to learn how to stop fearing. There is one person that I need to please always and that is God.

After I got off my mission the best summer of my life happened with Amber. The day I saw her again at my homecoming and the little party afterwards at my house she was the last to leave. We watched Avatar slightly after that and now I feel like it's "our" movie. I can't remember if it was July 3rd or so but that started when we did so much together from watching movies to doing a puzzle or going to the bike shop or going swimming or preparing for festivities. I even had the crazy idea of bringing her her chap-stick when I had no idea where she worked. I walked around to 4 or 5 different businesses asking them if they had an employee by her name haha. Finally I found it. I still had that unstoppable feeling of missionary work. We took a big group down to Goblin Valley. What an insane idea by Chip made possible by all our friends. Both our wind shields got cracked. I was introduced to frozen yogurt. Yum yum. A great many many things have happened since then. The ward had it's super activity. That's when I started feeling inadequate again. I turned to the scriptures. I remembered who it was that I needed to please. Without His help, I am nothing. I eventually had work again. Oh I totally forgot Matteo who lived with us for a couple of months. That provides stories all on its own.

Then school started again. It's been an amazing semester. I never had a crunch time. I didn't procrastinate. I do need to work on elaborate encoding however which is making connections between what I learn and what I previously knew instead of trying to make a new spot for every piece of information. Amber and I broke up. I went on quite a few dates. I was a pretty busy bee and I always needed to remember who I was. It gave me the strength to keep going. I read quite a few books in my own time as well as at work. The Thief, Artemis Fowl, Sea of Trolls, Fellowship of the Ring, Hunger Games, Ender series, Sherlock Holmes. I even started rereading the wheel of time but out of fear of breaking the binding had to change books. Maybe I'll buy them digitally so that I don't have to worry about it.

I was able to dress up for halloween. Haven't done that in years. I took a date to the Forgotten Carols. I saw divine comedy for the first time and man it is hysterical! Eventually christmas has rolled around and the new year. I was able to participate in Bethlehem. That was fun but I'm sure I'll have better ones. There was nothing super special about these or maybe I'm just being a pessimist at the moment. Sure, there are little points of super happiness but of course they cannot last. The point is to keep pursuing those little points so that everyone can be happy together and that when sad times arise of course it's fine to cry. There are times to be sad and times to be bored and dull and exciting and outgoing. There are times to be angry. Let's just never let our anger control us.

I'm Doug. I'm 21. I'm 6 foot with red hair and can still do a lot of good. Let's do it.