It's a good thing I've got a heavy-hitting lineup for my team.

Well, the day of my greatest adventure of my life thus far is fast approaching. Throughout all of this pre-mission time, I have been ridiculously excited to get out into the field. Excitement is not the only feeling that I am experiencing now though. Don't anyone worry, I am still ridonkulously excited for my mission; in fact, I'm getting more excited every day. I'm also getting more and more terrified each day. I don't know why this last month has me getting scared of my mission, but it's happening. I don't think that it's a bad thing that I'm getting scared. Maybe it will help me prepare more. That would be a very good thing indeed. I don't know though. All I know is that the idea of me going out into the complete unknown is fairly scary. I'll be leaving everything that I've ever known behind. The only thing that will be familiar to me is the Gospel. The spiders will be as big as my hand, I'll see snakes that could probably swallow my car, and I'm fairly certain that at one point I'll probably encounter a less-than-sane person with a machete. What isn't there to be afraid of?

...And I've just realized how incredibly genius the whole mission process is. By sending me out into the mission field with only 9 total weeks of training, I will have to entirely put my life in the hands of the Lord. I won't have the luxury of calling my mom whenever something difficult presents itself. I can't call up my girlfriend when I'm feeling sad or depressed. If I need answers to something, I'll have to pray about it and trust that the Lord will provide me with those answers. I'll be assigned a companion who I will have never met before, and who could very well be from Russia and not speak a word that I'll understand. If that happens I will just have to ask the Lord to give me the strength and the courage that I need to keep doing His work, and to actually do as much as I physically and mentally can to do His work. When I do that, the Lord will provide for me.

You know what? I'm not really that afraid anymore. I mean, the Lord created the earth and all that is on it. Since He was able to do that, and I will be completely devoting my life to him, I am positive that there is nothing to be afraid of. As it says in 1 Corinthians 10:13, "There hath no temptation taken you but such as is common to man: but God is faithful, who will not suffer you to be tempted above that ye are able; but will with the temptation also make a way to escape, that ye may be able to bear it." The words "tempted" and "temptation" could also be replaced with "tried" and "trials." It's a great comfort to know that I will never be tried more than I am able to bear, and that there is always help on hand. This thought is also echoed in 1 Nephi 3:7; "And it came to pass that I, Nephi, said unto my father: I will go and do the things which the Lord hath commanded, for I know that the Lord giveth no commandments unto the children of men, save he shall prepare a way for them that they may accomplish the thing which he commandeth them." Since I am commanded to serve a mission, I know that the Lord has prepared a way for me to do just that. It may have been delayed several times, and I may be going out much later than I would have liked, but I am finally going out. There is no possible way that if I put all of my faith and trust in the Lord and our Heavenly Father that I will not be able to serve a mission. There is no way that I can't do this, because there is no way that Heavenly Father and/or Jesus Christ is a liar. Such a notion is laughable. So I will commit myself entirely to them and to doing the Lord's work, and all will be well. I cannot wait for the next 20 days to fly by.

Ciao!