Leaving tomorrow for MMIIAAMMII

After one week of being home back in California, you would have thought I would be fully packed, ready to go to MIAMI! 

Surprise, my room currently looks like a bomb exploded.  Clothes everywhere, boxes everywhere, trash everywhere, things I did not even know how they got into my room everywhere.  I was way too hopefull to think I would be fully packed the day before I left for two years - can you say, procrastination at its finest?

But, I have been out and about, seeing the people I absolutely love most, saying my goodbyes, and I have surprisingly not cried once.................... yet.  It is hard for me to wrap my brain around the concept that after tomorrow, the next time I see any of my friend from California will be in June 2012.  There is no feeling to describe how difficult it is to process that, however I am sure my fellow YAMs know exactly what I am talking about.  

This process of packing up and leaving is so incredibly difficult.  It is emotionally, physically, and mentally draining.... My dear Mother Father God has been protecting my spirituality on a new level, so that has not been quite as affected.  If anything, my spirituality is growing in this process, rather than being tested, and that to me is pretty awesome.

I did realize yesterday that today is the last real day I can talk to some of my fellow YAMs on a regular and easy basis before they go forth on their mission in other countries.  Text, skype, phone calls, emails, facebook... Will all now be 234576890765432 times harder to connect.  But thats OK, right?  Its a challenge that is necessary to get through, and once we have made it to the other side, we will be 100 times stronger in the friendship....  Yup, that is how it is going to happen.

I thank our Mother Father God each day that I have been blessed with this opportunity to go forth in my call to mission.  This door was opened for me, and I could not had resisted it.  As scared/anxious/nervous I am about moving, I am looking forward to my new job, my new home, my new friends, my new church, my new sense of faith, my first time seeing wild crazy alligators, my first time being in a wild crazy Florida hurricane.  Wwooaahh lots of new things and new experiences will be happening, how can I not be super excited?!

Pray for me as I make my way with my daddy across the country.  We are leaving tomorrow (exactly once week after being commissioned as a United Methodist missionary... Heck yes!), and it is going to be an extensive 4-5 day trip.  Also pray that I get my packing done :]

Love you all

Till next time,

Rachel