Two years and not a day goes by.

I have this nifty ten year journal that tells me today is the eve of my Two-years-since-arriving-in-Texas (I'm always looking for cause for celebration). I only just figured that out this morning, but It's as if my inner self already knew that because I've been feeling all kinds of nostalgic symptoms this week. I'm telling you, mission references just find their way into my life!

Beaumont, TX found it's way into my casebook. Now, I didn't serve in Beaumont, but I drove through there plenty of times and it was actually the first city I knew about that was in my mission because a pre-mission coworker knew a family that lived there. Naturally, I had to highlight and commemorate the casebook reference in a special way.

We talked about Louisiana & Texas today in Property & my heart swelled with love and a yearning to go back.We talked about oil & gas rights and I could see the refineries in my mind. I remembered driving alongside Exxon Mobile at night in Baytown and how the refineries twinkled like a glistening city (& of course, today just so happened to be the first day I got called on in Property). I don't know if I'd say that I have Texas pride, but I do have a Texas shaped space in my heart.

I miss it.

All of it.

The way the humidity made my skin always feel damp, the way the refineries made the flames atop look like birthday cake candles, the way frogs and other trinkets lined the front lawns of the homes, the way people found a way to include y'all into every sentence, the way the rain poured like the sky could hardly contain it all.

My MTC Branch President also happened to call me during property (impeccable timing!) and asked if I would go over and visit with him. If you remember, this was one of the many great surprises of my mission, to discover that my MTC Branch President was from my hometown, and that his father had baptized my grandmother many years ago.

^^Pres. Tyler & I in the MTC^^

Visiting with him made me feel like I could conquer the world! We sat and chatted in a room that reminded me so much of Hna Hernandez's (Baytown) "Celestial Room" and Hno Pomeroy's living room. Speaking with him made me feel like I was talking to my grandfather and I felt so loved by my Father in Heaven because of it.

^^The best picture I have of Hna's Celestial room.^^

^^A glimpse of Hno. Pomeroy's living room^^

Heavenly Father is so involved in our lives! He is intimately concerned! He plans all these amazing details and works them in to the fabric of our lives. We are all more connected that we could possibly realize. I am sure of it.

Not a day goes by that I don't think about my mission.
I may or may not have texted every single one of my mission friends today because I was feeling so nostalgic about it all and maybe written a letter to a companion.
& I also kind of played my mission CDs.
& I may be listening to Kalai's A Pauper's Hymnal (One of my favorite mission CDs) right now, but you won't ever really know...