Moving Onward and Upward

Hello, everyone! I'm back! It's so crazy to be back home again and to go back to the "real world". I loved being a missionary so much. It was an amazing ride! It was one of the hardest things I've ever done, but also the most rewarding. I got to meet so many amazing, wonderful people that have changed my life forever and that I love dearly. They helped me become more of who I want to be and continually are giving me the strength to be even better every day. I never wanted to leave, never wanted to stop being a missionary. Even through the hardest days. Which was why I was heartbroken when I found out I'd be going home early.
For the last 4 1/2 months of my mission, I was starting to have some health problems that just weren't seeming to go away and kept getting worse. I started making multiple trips to the doctor and taking multiple tests trying to figure out what was wrong. And everything kept coming back perfectly normal.... and it was so frustrating! On the 1st of October I got a call from Sister Russell (my mission president's wife) and found out that if my next test came back normal, it was recommended that I be released and go home. On Friday the 3rd of October, my test results came back and they hadn't found anything, so on the 6th I arrived at home. After another 1 1/2 months of several more tests without any luck, we finally found the issues. I was so relieved.
I'm sharing this because I learned something about myself. During the time I was trying to get things figured out, especially at home, I was at a point where I couldn't do really much of anything without being in intense pain. I pretty much had to sit around and be lazy, which I don't think before all my weight loss and before my mission would have bothered me, but now it was driving me crazy! I learned that I really did learn to be more active, and to have a more active and healthy life style. I was dying to get out and do something.... even go jogging.
Now things are getting better, and I'm able to go out jogging now. I still can't do very much, but I'm doing more every day and it feels so good. With the time it's going to take for my recovery, I have decided that I am staying home. It was the hardest decision I have ever made.
Through everything though, I have really come to a better knowledge that God has a plan for each and every one of us. He wants us to be happy forever. Sometimes we don't always understand why we go through what we do or what's in store for us, but it will always turn out for the best. I know that as long as I strive to be the best me I can be, everything else will fall into place.
And with that, I am going to continue moving onward and upward, because every day is a new day that will be better and brighter than the last.