Brrr...

Well, this week was the first time I saw snow actually sticking to the ground this season. I saw snow falling last month, and I saw snow on the mountains as early as September, and in September I saw snow on picnic tables in Great Basin National Park, but this was the first time I saw it snow and stick at the same time.

Because of the lack of snow, November seemed very Novembery, but it seems like the weather has jumped from November to January. Not only did it begin snowing, it got really cold. People think that snow makes it feel like Christmas, but when it's so cold out, to me it seems more like post-Christmas depressing January.

After breaking my teeth in January, I have become terrified of ice. On Tuesday I went home earlier than I had planned because I wanted to get home before snow became ice. I've worn ugly shoes because they had better traction. I've worn really bulky gloves because then I can hold on to snow-covered railings without getting wet. I've joyously crushed and kicked ice and snow around so that it will melt faster. I chose a running route that I thought would be less icy, although there still were some icy patches. (Running in fifteen degrees was surprisingly easy, but probably because I was going slow so that I wouldn't slip.)

On November 30, I hit my four-year mark of being home from my mission. The length of a mission ago, I had been home from my mission for the length of a mission. The anniversary passed and I didn't think about it until the next day, when someone asked me how long I'd been home. I've had some reminiscing of the mission.

I've been listening to my Christmas music intermixed with my regular music, and one song that came up was on a MoTab CD I brought on the mission--the only CD I had when I entered the MTC. As the song came up, I had flashbacks to my very first week in Spokane, riding around in our car in Mead, WA. I had just moved in with the Welshes, an elderly couple, and their home teachers had given us some cookies. I really didn't know what was going on. I didn't know the area, and I didn't know anything about missionary work. It was kind of an odd time to remember.

The next Christmas, my companion, Elder Love, had lots and lots of MoTab Christmas CDs. But our favorite was the one I bought that year, Rejoice and Be Merry! with the King's Singers. When I hear that album (and lots of other MoTab songs), I remember driving around Davenport, WA, and all the other tiny towns.

The cold has also helped me reminisce, as the gloves and boots I've been wearing were ones I wore on the mission. My snow boots are way too big--the Walmart in Airway Heights, WA, didn't have any in my size (either that, or we got tired waiting for someone to help us).

It took me two years of being home before I was no longer sad not to be on the mission. I've moved on with my life. But once in a while, when I hear a song that I associate with my mission, I get a little twinge of sadness that that part of my life is over and will never come back. If I were to go back, I know that hardly anyone, if anyone, would remember me, especially since I look very different. It's a little sad.

This week is the last week of classes! All of my finals are final projects, rather than true exams. I'm just worried about groundwater, because it's a really big project, and I don't remember how to do it all. But I have two whole weeks, and I can work with other people, assuming I can get a hold of any of them.

I thought that this semester was going to be relatively easy, since I had three credits already out of the way, but it didn't turn out that way. I'm so glad, though, that I did have those credits out of the way, because I don't know what I would have done otherwise! I'll be glad for technical writing, groundwater, and Old English to be over (even though I'm taking Old English 2), but I'll be sad for swimming and corpus linguistics to be over. (I could take another corpus class, but I would have to drop French next semester, or at least take a different section, but I want to stay in the current section because I'll be with my roommate and have a built-in study buddy.)