A New Beginning!

The Managers for 2010-2011 & our ACs

It has been SUCH a crazy past couple of weeks!! But it's also been some of the funnest (yes, I said funnest) I've had in long time! I moved back to campus on the 13th, the day before my 22nd birthday. I was going crazy with excitement! I was SO ready to come back to campus! I had Hall Manager training which started on my birthday, the 14th. Not the most fun birthday I've ever had, but I still managed to have some fun and laugh lots. The following week we were in training all day every day. It got exhausting, very, but again, it was a lot of fun! I loved getting to know the other managers on campus better and we all have such a great time together! The manager staff is fun and crazy and great! I just love it!

Prucha Staff
Monica, Jubilynn
Kylene, Dani
Jacklynn, Brittney
Me

After manager training for a week, my staff arrived!! I was soo excited to see them again and to start building our team!! The week, again, was super long. We had training literally all day every day, and it got exhausting, but we still managed to have TONS of laughs and TONS of fun! Our staff has been getting along SO great! These girls crack me up so much! They're so funny and fun and crazy - a perfect fit! We have a great time together! Prucha staff sure is gonna shake things up this year!

Prucha Staff on move in day! Ready to meet our residents!

So that brings us to today: Freshmen Move In Day! It's been an incredibly long and tiring day (the ridiculous heat didn't help anything) but again, as always, super fun! haha. It was super exciting to see all the new residents move in and to meet their families. It was even more exciting, for me at least, to watch my staff. I loved watching them interract with their resident and the parents. I loved watching them get excited. I loved watching them do their wing meetings. I am so excited for the year - I can just tell it's gonna be a great one! We have more students that will be moving in tomorrow. We had about 60 first year students move in today, and we will have around 100 returning students move in tomorrow. We already had about 20 residents that had moved into the hall early for sports and on campus jobs. In total, Prucha houses 200 residents, and after tomorrow, most will be moved in with the exception of a handful. I am super excited!

Along with being super excited and super pumped for the year, I feel a little weird. Yes, I guess weird is the right word I'm looking for. I'm just a mix of emotions at the moment. Perhaps it's because I'm running off of five hours of sleep, and I am completely drained after training. Maybe it's legit, the way I feel. But it kinda broke my heart today to watch everyone move in. It hit me that I'm not an RA anymore. Don't get me wrong, I am loving being a hall manager so far and I think it's gonna be an amazing year, but it kind of makes me sad. It hit me that I don't have my own wing. I don't have my own residents. Sure, technically all 200 residents are my residents, but no one is going to call me their RA. I am trying to look at the positives (as I am so skilled at doing). For instance, I no longer have to make 60 door decs every month. I no longer have to research bulletin boards and put them together every month. But I think when all is said and done, I'm gonna miss those moments. I guess time will tell, right?

I am  excited for all the new experiences I'll have as a hall manager. I am excited for the change, for challenge, for the excitement. I am excited to work with my staffs: my RA staff, my fellow HM staff, and the Professional Staff. My involvement in residence life the past three years has made such an impact on my life and who I am, so I am very ready for this fourth (and final) year to make just as big, if not bigger, impact on my life. I am ready to change and grow for the better!

Perfect

Words cannot express how deeply I am in love with Tom. But I'll be completely honest: through the mission, you forget things. You question if the love you think you have is as amazing as you remember or if your mind is just exaggerating because you miss him, and, as we all know, absence makes the heart grow fonder. There are times where I don't remember how much he loves me. We don't talk mushy gushy in emails. I guess at the end of each email we tell each other we love each other and miss each other, but that's it.

Well, last week we were talking about our testimonies, and my Thomas blew me out of the water, made me cry, and made me know that our love really is as magical and real and deep as it feels. Our emails are very personal to me, very special, and I don't share them with anyone. But this one, this part of this email, just made me feel the most wonderful I have felt since he left, and I would like to share it. I would like to show off my amazing man and our amazing love...

"Your love for the Lord is one of the bigger reasons why i KNOW i am meant to be with you forever. I need someone strong in the gospel, i need someone that i know i can lean on during my times of trial and who won't turn away from the truth through the hard times. I NEED YOU. I knew i wanted to be with you forever before the mission, but i didn't think i deserved you. I still don't think i deserve you but i think that we are perfect for each other, there is no one in this world that could do for me what you've done for me. You amaze every companion i've been with so far. You are amazing, and continually amaze me. I love you Katie!"

People ask me how I can spend two years waiting for him. They ask "Why is he worth the wait?" I think Tom nailed it perfectly when he said: "we are perfect for each other."

Sooo Ready

Well, summer is over. I move back to campus tomorrow. And I couldn't be more excited. I want to get back to school sooo bad, I need  to get back to school. My life at school is so different than my life at home.

First off, I have more friends and better friends. It's not that I don't have great friends here, because I do. I have amazing friends at home. But I never get to see them because we're all so busy working and what not. But at school, not only do I have more friends, but we all work together. Basically all my friends are other RAs or HMs or else they are residents. They are people I live with and work with 24/7. Which brings me to my second point on why I'm excited to get back to school: my job.

I love my job. I absolutely love being in residence life. I have had such an amazing experience and a fun time being a resident assistant and I cannot wait to take on this new role as a hall manager. I feel like with my job, I am making a difference. I am leaving an impact. It may be a small difference, but it's still there. I love what I do. I love the relationships I build and the memories I make. My job is social and fun and life changing. At least for me, it's definitely been a life changing experience. I feel like my job has not only given me wonderful memories and made my college experience worthwhile, but it has also changed so much of who I am and has made me a much better person.

The third reason why I am soo excited to get back to school is the spirit. I don't really feel the spirit at home. I don't feel God in my life as much. But when I am at school, I feel like my faith is so much stronger. I live in such a positive environment and it helps me stay strong. It also helps that the branch I attend at school is AMAZING, to say the least. I love my church at school and the people in it. I miss it very very much and cannot wait to go back and see everyone again.

The fourth reason why I am very excited and ready to go back to school is because of time. Time has been crawling at home and I can't seem to stay busy enough to keep Tom at the back of my mind instead of the front. This summer has been soo hard because I can't escape Tom. Being in Maple Grove is heartbreaking because he's just everywhere, and missing him, living without him, is soo much harder here at home. When I get back to school, I'll be too busy to even breathe and that's just the way I like it. Tom will be pushed to the back of my mind where it won't be so painful. I'll pretty much never be alone which means that I will be unable to have breakdowns and spend hours crying, which is definitely a good thing.

As much as I love summer and being home away from readings and essays, I am bursting at the seams to get back to River Falls. This summer has been fun and busy, and I have definitely had some amazing times. There's been several trips to the zoo, a handful of Twins games, trips to the cabin, vacation in the Dells with my cousins and aunts, tanning on the beach, shopping sprees, picnics, dancing in the rain, girls nights, and so much more. But as fun as it's been, I am sooo ready to go back to River Falls.

All About Tom's Mission

I just realized today that I have never once done a post about Tom's mission. I write about how much I love, and I whine about waiting, and I talk about the fact that he's a missionary, but I've never posted how his mission is going. And I think I'm going to start posting updates. I wish I had been all along.

So! Tom's been out for a little over a year now. August 8 marked 13 months out in the mission field. He has been serving in the Boise, Idaho mission which means he covers Boise and the surrounding cities. As a missionary, he teaches people about the gospel of Jesus Christ. He teaches, performs baptisms, does service work, and all the while grows closer to God and builds a stronger testimony. It will be the best two years of his life.

Tom's been doing great. He absolutely loves being a missionary and serving a mission. He has met tons of great people, seen many lives changed for the better, has grown so much, and has built amazing friendships. But he has also had hard times. He's seen people grow close to God but suddenly pull away and abandon the faith they had briefly found. He has sicknesses and injuries. He's had to deal with "Mormon Haters" who harass and hassle him and his companion. But overall, without a doubt, it has been an amazingly wonderful experience for him.

He's had several different companions. Most of them he's gotten along great with, but there's been a couple where they really butt heads. Some have become his best friends, others he probably won't ever speak to again after the mission. Recently he became a trainer and has been training his current companion, Elder Garcia. Elder Garcia is a "greenie" - a missionary fresh out of the MTC. They get along extremely  well. Tom says they are best friends, and they want to go to school together when they both finish their mission. And now, now Tom's been called as a Distric Leader. The mission is divided into companionships, distics, and zones, with companships being the smallest (that's the pairs of missionaries you always see) and the zones being the largest grouping of missionaries. So Tom is now the leader of the district he is a part of. 

His area he is in right now is doing great! The last couple weeks he and Elder Garcia have had many many lessons. Usually, as companions they do about a dozen lessons a week. The past couple weeks they've had over 30 and two weeks ago they had 41! The work is progressing at an incredible rate! It's amazing!

It's always so great to hear from Tom. You can just hear and feel all the excitement and passion and joy in his letters. It really is an amazing experience, the experience of a lifetime. He is growing so much, in his faith, in his character, in patience, in honor, in every way possible.

Stuck

Blah. Blah blah blah. That's how I feel. Just blah.

I feel stuck. Like the world around me is moving fast-paced and I'm just sitting there, stuck. Ya know, like in movies? Where there's the character just standing there, and the camera moves around them and all the people moving in the background is a total blur? Yup. That's my life at the moment. Or so it feels anyway. And it makes me feel blah. Very blah. I hate waiting. Hate it.

It seems like everyone else I know is moving forward with their lives. They are dating, getting engaged, planning weddings, getting married, starting families. It's all totally normal. That's the age I'm at now. People get married and start their lives. They move forward. That's what happens. Only that's not happening to me.

I get to listen to date stories from other people. I get to be excited about other people's engagement while I "ooh" and "ahh" over other women's engagement rings. I get to help other people plan their weddings. I get to go to other people's bridal showers, and bachlorette parties, and other people's weddings. I get to watch everyone else around me move forward.

I don't get to plan my wedding yet. I've been with Thomas over four years and we're not even close to that point in our lives. We still have a whole flippin' year till we're even back together! Okay, it's a little less than a year now, but still. I have a year until my life gets to start moving again. I'm stuck. Frozen in time. I don't even get new dating stories. I don't get to make new memories of us together.

I truly do love hearing about stuff. I don't mean to sound bitter. I love hearing my friends getting engaged or dating a new boyfriend or girlfriend. I love "oohing" and "ahhing" over engagement rings. I love going to bridal showers. I really do love it. But I get jealous. I get jealous and bitter that I have to wait. I've been waiting for forever it seems and I still have forever more to keep waiting. And it makes me bitter. At least this moment, right now, it makes me bitter.

It's Tom's 13 month mark today. That's a big day. Today marks the point where we've been apart more months than we have left to go. It's truly all downhill from here. And next month marks the point when I can count down the months left on my fingers. And the month after that marks when we're in single digits for months left to go. And the month after that marks the point where we're 2/3 of the way done and only 1/3 left to go. The upcoming months are big milestones. And I'm excited. That's what I get to be excited about. Not about a date with my Thomas, or our engagement, or our wedding. I get to be excited about waiting. *sigh*

Oh, the life

Oh to be a missionary's girl. It is quite the life. Some days a beautiful gift, others an incredibly long nightmare you can't wake up from. And the latter is what it feels like most of the time. Unfortunately. Life as a missionary's girl is very much a rollercoaster.

It's starts on his Pday. A missionary's Pday (short for prep day - I think...) is their day to get things done. It's the day they write letters and emails amongst other fun things like go golfing, or bowling, or play sports. So, that's the highest point of the rollercoaster, the tip of the hill. Pdays are when you get to log onto your email and see his name in your inbox, and your heart flutters and the world stops - for the three minutes it takes you to read it. Then it hits you like a brick wall: that's all you get. For another week, those three minutes, that page, those words - that's all you get.

Unless you get a letter midweek. The letters are awesome, and you live off those letters. Words cannot explain the excitement and anticipation you feel every day you run to the mailbox with your fingers crossed and your heart racing hoping against all hope there will be an enveloped covered in his writing waiting for you. And when there isn't one, and you were really dependent on there being one, it is completely disheartening. Your heart sinks to your stomach and you just mumble to yourself: "Maybe tomorrow..."

When you are reading his letters and emails, you feel every emotion so strongly. You are filled with happiness, excitement, pride, sadness, love, longing. You hear his voice as you read, you can feel the passion he has, the excitement, and the joy he feels. You are more connected in those minutes you read his letters than at any other moment. It's as if he's right there speaking to you himself. You survive off of those letters, those words.

As much happiness and joy the mission brings you, and as close as you grow to your missionary, with the bright comes the dark. There are days where you don't want to get out of bed. You don't want to paint a smile on your face. You don't want to hold back the tears. There are days where you question what the heck you're doing, and if you really can make it all two years. You get lonely and depressed. You miss everything about him, your very best friend. You miss having him to talk to, to laugh with, to hold, to kiss, to play with, to be silly and have fun with. You miss everything. And it's as if you can truly feel a physical hole in your chest, a pain in your heart.

Those days don't happen often, but they do happen. And maybe, just maybe, you question if it's worth it. You start to doubt everything. You question if the amazing memories you have really were that amazing, or if your mind is exaggerating. You question if he really does love you as much as you feel he does, or if your heart is exaggerating. You worry if he's changing or if you're changing. Will your relationship really be the same when he comes home? You don't know who to turn to. Who would understand your doubts? Your fears? Your pains? That's the low of the rollercoaster, the bottom of the hill.

But then his Pday rolls around again, and you find your heart racing as you log into your email account. And those doubts and fears and pains you felt during that week, they all fade away. And the joy, happiness, and giddy feelings return. Your heart swells again with pride and love for this amazing man in your life. This amazing man who is so strong and has such an unshakable faith, that he is dedicating two years of his life to serving the Lord. And not only is he receiving amazing blessings because of it, but you get to have an amazing experience with him. You both get to grow stronger in your faith and much stronger in your relationship. If as a couple you can make it through a mission, you can do anything together.