Gone but not forgotten...

In June this year I will have been home from my mission for 10 years. It is a shocking length of time, I can't believe it!
One of you reading will know that there are several traditions and superstitions in the Baltics. Many of them seem very strange to us when we first encounter them. However, they very quickly become part of one's every day life and they fit, no matter how peculiar they may have seemed at first.
A strange thing happened to me this morning. Ricardo's lift arrived to take him to the General Priesthood session of conference, he was upstairs, so I answered the door. Upon exchanging morning pleasantries with the Brother on the doorstep he leaned forward to shake my hand.
I recoiled! Imagine, after ten years I still found this action strange and out of place! I watched from a surreal point of view as he stepped across the threshold to shake my hand and my brain froze. It felt like it took me ages to respond, but I did, although hesitantly!
Totally bizarre, I didn't even realise what was happening until I found myself wondering what calamities would befall me for having allowed such a social faux pas!

My mission often seems like three lifetimes ago. I think about some part of it almost every day.
I miss the places and the people and the experiences. I miss the missionaries that I served with and around. I often find myself wishing that I could have lived closer to some when I returned, but that was not to be.
I am glad that it will always be there; a little part of me will always be Baltic and I will always love and treasure it. The scripture that prompted me to go and serve a mission is found in Mosiah 5:13, "For how knoweth a man the master whom he has not served, and who is a stranger unto him, and is far from the thoughts and intents of his heart?" For me, this was truly fulfilled as I served, Jesus Christ became a real person to me, I knew him and I felt joy in the fact that he knew me. There are not words to express what that relationship has done for me and how I seek to deepen it now. It anchors me and I feel blessed for the sacred experience that serving a mission can truly be.
And, I love the fact that it will cause me smile as I do something as totally trivial as shaking someone's hand over the threshold on a random Sunday morning for years to come!