Post-Mission Reflections

Three years have transpired since i first laid foot on campus as a freshman here at BYU...and can i just say that things have changed so much? My biggest memories of freshman year are probably comparable to many freshman and colleges across America (sans the alcohol): Late night adventures, late night burrito runs, and very VERY few late nights doing homework. And then i made my mind up to go on a religious mission for the Church of Jesus Christ of Latter Day Saints...the "mormon" church..if you didn't make that connection with my being a student at BYU in UTAH. Yeah, i can't say i really knew what serving a mission entailed, but i really felt like my life had been changed for the better through my membership in the church, my faith in Jesus Christ, and the spiritual foundation it had provided for me. So i filled out the application and got my call to..drum roll please....ITALY! Northern Italy to be exact, where i lived for the last two years. During that time i learned and grew in ways that i never had before. I developed a love of service and a love of people in general (with a special soft spot for italians!). I discovered a reality that is so lacking in our modern society...society that is in love with the immaginary...with the immaterial. I could write for hours about all that transpired during my italian escapades, but i'll save that for a future post. Since i've been back, however, life has been starkly different than the faint memory that still lingers of freshman year. The 4AM adventures are all but unexistant, i have a job...and i'm currently writing from the campus library. 'Nuff said?
Can i just say that it feels so good? i know it's not the typical college experience...but in the end, that's not what really brings happiness anyway. The 4AM excitement was so fleeting, and so outweighed by the tiredness, sickness induced by lack of sleep, and the less than stellar test results. It feels so weird to be back...as a different person...but i'm talmente grato for the situation in which i find myself...and the times when i sit back from my 500 pages of humanities reading, and realize,

I'm happy.

-Roscoe

currently listening to: "Breath of Heaven" by Amy Grant (never to early for Xmas)