Letters to myself

So this blogging thing...obviously not up my alley. I'm not sure how to present my life in this format I suppose, and honestly am not always certain I want to share my life with everyone. But I've decided to today.

I came across some "letters to myself" that I wrote back in high school. They were both assignments from church. I wrote the first one right after my freshman year on 6-11-00. It was supposed to be written by the future me and included things to remember along the way, along with things I would hope to have done. I was allowed to re-open this one on my 18th birthday.

The other was an assignment from my seminary teacher David Hardy (now Judge Hardy), whose name and "for Justice of the Peace" are stamped all over the stationary and envelope. This one was written on 5-21-02, a few weeks before graduation and was meant to be opened on my wedding day, or after one year on a mission. The assignment on this one was to write about a weakness that I struggled with then, and how I would want it to be a few years down the road.

I keep these letters along with with my patriarchal blessing, a special letter from my father, and a letter that I never gave to Steven right beside my bed. Whenever I read them I usually tear up. For many reasons. One, they give me a clear sense of who I am, who I've always been, and who I can become. Two, they remind me of things I've always deemed important. Three, they remind me that God loves me. Four, they give me renewed strength.

Sometimes when I think back to the past I expect to find a girl who was much stronger than the person I am now. But by reading these, I am actually filled with the encouragement that I am on the path that I was always meant to be; even though I may not have overcome certain challenges as gracefully as I would have hoped. Sometimes I look at my life and feel like I've messed it all up. But when I read my goals and hopes, I find that many of life's challenging situations have shaped me into a person I hoped I would become.

This reminds me that somewhere I have a list of goals that I made when I was a kid. I will have a to find it and post it here so you can be entertained by how close I have actually come to accomplishing everything on my list, with slight variations.

I guess the bottom line is that for me, listening to my own words from the past, and hearing what kind of person loved ones know me to be is a marvelous treasure. I am so grateful to have each of these, and know that I need to continue to do things like this so I can have it in the future!