Impending

It was three years ago.

Or about that I reckon, maybe not exactly to the day, but it was pretty close.

I was in the last week of my three months at the missionary training center in Utah. I had just been through the most difficult time of my entire life. Even to this day, I can still say that those were some of the three hardest months of my life.

During the last week there, I sat outside on a park bench with some of the other missionaries that were going to go to Japan with me. It was a warm spring night. We sat and contemplated what it would be like to be in a foreign country trying to speak a language we did not know in less than a week. We were excited and terrified.

On the side of a mountain located to the east of BYU, a large "Y" that has been built into the side of the mountain to represent the school. Following the week of finals and graduation, it is common tradition to have a group of students hike to that Y and stand on the outer edges of the concrete letter holding lanterns. The Y stays lit for hours and glows in the sky like a huge floating ghost or the dark mark in harry potter or something. The time and effort it takes to do light that letter is incredible.

They lit the Y that night while we sat looking at the mountain, contemplating and praying. For a few moments, I felt like I was in a happy and safe spot. All the people I loved on the outside were done with school, my sister was home with my parents and I was a week from going to Japan.

I looked at my friends and said, "This place might not be so bad after all".

I was right, it wasnt really all bad.

They lit the Y again tonight. I sat in my car looking at it for a good long while thinking back to what I felt three years ago and what I feel now. I will be going to Japan three years to the day from when I went there as a missionary, and I ask myself simple and profound questions like how much have i changed from then and what i hope to gain from what im doing now as opposed to then.

I find myself just as excited and terrified now as i was three years ago. That never changes, the fear I guess. Its sad to become so used to something and then let it go. Once we become so accustomed to something, its difficult to leave it regardless of how bad the situation seemed at the time. This is high school graduation and going to college, this is leaving on a mission, this is coming back home, this is saying goodbye to a friend, and this is constanly growing and changing into a stronger person.

When I saw the Y lit three years ago, i felt like somewhere someone was doing something that was difficult, but meant something to them personally and they were with people they cared for doing it. I was in a training center for missionaries, but those people hiked a mountain along with others. They had so much freedom and I was envious of them. When I saw those lights, I felt like there would definitely be a time when I would have that freedom. It was serene and it was wonderful. I knew that there would be a time that I would have complete control and the imminent consequences.

When I was younger I once heard the story of a young boy who would look out onto a river and watch the barges floating into the middle of the night. No matter how lonely this boy was or how he felt he was alone in his sleeplessness, he knew that out there on thoser barges, those men were wide awake and hard at work. That thought brought comfort to that boy. He was not the only one awake at that time. He was not alone.

Thats what I felt three years ago looking at that Y when I saw those people lighting the edges with the lanterns. Somewhere, someone was doing something difficult but they were enjoying it. They were free to be there and that gave me the same comfort that boy felt looking towards those barges.

The lights went off at the Y at 12:23 tonight as I was writing. For a moment I felt alone again and empty sitting in that car by myself with nobody there beside me. I thought for a moment and realized that even if I didnt see the lights, those people were still there on that mountain, beginning the trip down.

Then I felt peaceful.