One Step Closer

I did it.

I submitted my mission papers. Today. Tonight. 5 hours ago. They're in; there's no turning back now. I'm going to be a missionary. A real missionary. One who wears a name tag and carries extra Books of Mormon and talks to every person they see and rides a bike and wears ankle-length skirts and only communicates to the outside world via letters. That's going to be me.

Today, I spent a lot of time reading my old blogs, looking at pictures, and thinking about my life and how much I have changed over the past few years. I feel like I've been doing this a lot lately. My freshman year of college is coming to an end, and I'm about to leave on one of the grandest adventures of my entire life. It's fun for me to look back at things I used to talk about and worry about, and I especially love observing the fact that my nerdiness was just as prominent back then as it is today. One thing I stumbled upon today that made me laugh out loud was the description box on my oldest blog, one I've had since I was a freshman in high school. About myself, I said: "My name is Michelle. I like to play outside and look for shooting stars. I'm a windows-down music-blasting kind of girl, and someday I will live in Texas - but first, my destination is Maine. I love people and I love to talk. I tend to live my life without shoes and my favorite color is green. I am young; I have a whole life to live and a lot of things to do before it's over." It's funny how all of those things are still 100% true. I will live in Texas someday, but Maine is my first love when it comes to adventurous destinations; my favorite color has and always will be green; I'm a star-gazer and live for shooting stars. It made me smile to think that some of the big things, and even the little things, are still the same. I still have the same strange quirks, and I still have the same dreams. I'm still me - I've always been weird and awkward, and I've always been super sensitive and slightly prone to push-over-ness. I've always loved old people and singing in the shower and walking around barefoot and dancing in the rain. I've always loved to learn and take chances. I haven't always known that Jesus Christ is my Savior and that Joseph Smith was a prophet that restored the true church back to the earth. These things came later; it took a little bit of digging for me to find these things. They're not just simple concepts that you memorize for a test and forget later - these are things that have changed my life, and the way I see myself and others. I feel like I'm a new person - no, I know that I'm a new person, in so many ways - but I'm still me. Does that make sense?

Maybe not. But I feel so much comfort knowing that from the very beginning (I mean, the beginning) God knew I was going to make a whole bunch of dumb mistakes, do a lot of weird things, and hang out with people that maybe weren't the best influences. He knew I would have a ton of weaknesses (e.g. Always being late, laughing at inappropriate times, and getting occasional C's on tests, among many others) and that it would take me a while to get to know Him. He knew that after 17 years of arrogance and stupidity (but thankfully a solid 17 years of good looks), I would eventually meet  a couple of handsome missionaries, get baptized, end up at BYU, and meet a thousand incredible people along the way that would encourage and uplift me. Not just encourage and uplift, but pray for me, teach me, help me understand big concepts and little details, drive me to church activities, make dinners for my family, help me pay for college, play basketball and ultimate frisbee with me, and help my testimony to grow stronger every single day. He knew I needed them, so my little path on the Big Plan had to cross all of their paths as well. He knew that I needed help. He knew that I was lost. He knew all of it. And still he put me here, said "Go ahead," and let me just be me. Plain old me.

I don't know if all of this makes sense. But just to clarify --

I'm Michelle Christine Scott. I love wrestling with dogs, watching Spongebob, and drinking lemonade while reading a good book in the sun. I like to jump off of things and catch crawdads in relatively slow-moving streams. I am late to most things and I love to go on adventures. I have the best parents and a brother who doubles as my best friend and partner in crime. I really like to wear mid-calf socks and strongly believe in second chances. I've made it pretty far in life, and I've learned a lot. I love people, and I will treasure my friends until the world stops spinning. Right now, though, and most importantly:

I'm a missionary in the making.