Uma Década

My life is like my shoes—to be worn out in service.

– President Spencer W. Kimball (He Is at Peace, Ensign, Dec. 1985, p. 41)

Those are my mission shoes. Not the most stylish of things, but since my arches had fallen, they were the only things I could walk in. The sole of the left shoe came loose on 27 March 2001, when I got home from my last appointment as a missionary in Brasil. My shoes and my feet wore out in my missionary service.

A decade is kind of a milestone. A decade is two whole place values away. A lot can happen in a decade.

28 March 2001. One decade ago yesterday I got on a bus probably around 8am. I rode that bus for two hours. And then we had some meetings and interviews. We ate a delicious dinner of beef stroganoff and the best lemon meringue pie I’ve ever had. And then we drove to the airport. The flight was delayed by an hour because of a storm that arrived right as we pulled into the airport. Flight number one was an hour, but included a meal, and then we hurried to make our next flight. Flight number two was 13 hours. I had a window seat. The flight wasn’t full. Before take-off the man next to me got up and found a different seat and I was able to lay across the two seats and sleep for the whole flight.

29 March 2001. Then there was customs to get through. An airport attendant picked me up on his cart and took me to the gate for flight number three. My mom had a bright orange sign at the end of that flight. Lunch at Chili’s. Buying new scriptures because my old ones were moldy. A session at the Louisville temple. And then a four hour drive. Arriving after midnight.

And that’s how I arrived back in the United States after serving a mission in Brasil, one decade ago. My hair was bleached by the sun. My arms and face where tan. My feet were falling apart. And I was tired.

In the decade since I have:

• Student taught in Mexico.
• Graduated with a B.S. from Brigham Young University.
• Taught elementary school for 6 years.
• Been recognized as an outstanding teacher.
• Performed in several community theater shows.
• Learned to belly dance.
• Graduated with a M.Ed. from the University of Utah.
• Moved to Arizona.
• Run two marathons.
• Started a Ph.D. program at the University of Arizona (and I’ll soon be formally submitting all the paper work to start moving on the research projects for my dissertation).
• Taught college as a graduate student.
• Got married.

And many other things (including going to Disneyland), both wonderful and hard, both big and small. And my mission, which ended ten years ago, has been part of it all.