That’s right. Two weeks from today I will be entering the MTC. That’s crazy. I had my farewell on Sunday, which went really well. People definitely pay more attention when you tell relevant stories (which makes the things you’ve learned more personal) and bear your testimony from the heart. I’d like to think that the only people not paying attention were screeching children. Actually, a lot of people couldn’t be there for one reason or another. My best friend Allison’s knee went out (she showed up at my house later in a knee brace…which just shows you how much she loves me ). One person had a migraine (poor kid!). Lots of people were out of town or had a simultaneous commitment they couldn’t get out of. And that’s fine, because a farewell’s not supposed to be some big pageant anyway. It’s just a missionary speaking in church before they leave. It’s nice to know that peoples’ lives will go on without me while I’m gone.

I’m just tying up loose ends—like calling Wells Fargo and telling them I’m going to be in Sweden for a year and a half so they shouldn’t worry when purchases start popping up on my card over there—and gathering a few more bits and bobs from my list. I bought towels on Monday, for example. And today I’m going to Costco to order new glasses and contacts—the contacts for the first time ever except for my trial pair, the glasses with a brand new prescription. I think I’m getting emo-type frames so that’ll be fun. I thought my old glasses were cute when I got them, because I thought they looked like little granny glasses (I must have been the only 18-year-old in the world who thought it’d be cute to look like a grandma), but now they’re just kind of blah. Not to mention the right lens keeps popping out in the occasional mad break for freedom.

I also think I’ve more-or-less got the luggage situation figured out. I’ve decided to use my brother’s old suitcases after all. They’re used-looking, but no worse than brand-new ones would look after a few transfers (with an Elder. I think “normal use” by a Sister and “normal use” by an Elder constitute entirely different things). He left his carry-on behind in England, but those are easier to acquire (in my opinion) than a whole big new set. Cheaper too. We have some laying around the house, and I’m not picky about my luggage matching, so I think it’ll be just fine. As long as I don’t go over the weight limit.

You know, and it still hasn’t really sunk in that I’m leaving so soon, and that I’m going to Sweden, of all places. I think that every time I start to feel excited, I squash it down and go back into denial mode. I wonder why that is. Am I worried about being too excited, so I repress the feeling? And why would that worry me? Do I think it’s too good to be true? Or am I getting swallowed up in fears and worries and stress? Stress, in getting everything ready, fears and worries that something will suddenly come up to not let me go, or that I’ll get out there and go back to my lazy habits and fail?

And yet, as I’m typing all of this, I’m completely, totally calm. More emotion-squashing? Who knows. Jitters have always affected me in weird ways.

So the knitting excursion to Green Planet Yarn yesterday was a success! I have brought another convert to the world of knitting, and she loves it too! I also made quite a bit of headway on my own scarf; I’ll have to put a picture up soon. And it was fun to see all the regulars as well as some new faces. I always like making friends! And I got to tell Gunilla the Swedish employee that I’m going to Sweden for a year and a half! She was jealous because she hasn’t been there in sixteen years but she was happy for me.

Plus it was fun to get to know my coworker better. We stopped at her house and I got to meet her parents, and I guess I’m not the typical friend she brings home (I’m like, clean-cut or something?). She got a kick out or saying “bye, we’re going knitting!” to her parents. Haha.

Good times!

Knitting update: I finished the cable scarf a couple weeks ago and promptly gave it to Tashina as a birthday present. I also completed another checkerboard scarf, quite like my first one—same yarn and everything—except narrower, and gave it to my mom. See, she coveted the first one I made and kept hoping I’d change my mind about giving it to Allison. But Allison’s birthday came first. Game over. Anyways, now she has her own Haley original to keep her neck warm and fuzzy.

And I have finally started my own scarf with that delicious Inca cotton I bought. It’s got some fat cables and some skinny columns, which I’ve considered making into cables as well, going the opposite direction, but I’m not sure I want to think that hard. My goodness that cotton is soft! Someday I’m going to make me a sweater out of it.

And if all goes well, I’ll go back to Green Planet Yarn tomorrow with a coworker who wants to learn how to knit, and I promised her I’d teach her before I leave on my mission. We’d better get ‘er done soon, because I’m T-minus 30 days and counting!

I also think I might be getting a carpal tunnel flare-up in my left wrist from knitting so much. Well my wrists will get a nice long vacation in Sweden, because I won’t be doing TOO much typing, or piano, or knitting, or guitar. Mama’s got bigger fish to fry!

Well I am now back from a two-week trip to Utah. My purposes for going to Utah were threefold: going to my roommate Laura’s wedding, shopping for my mission, and seeing as many friends as possible before I ship out to Sweden. My mom’s purposes were also threefold: helping me shop for my mission, seeing her grandkids Phillip and Maddy, and taking care of her mother, who was just diagnosed a few weeks ago with breast cancer.

Isn’t it interesting how so many things seem to happen at once? All summer I’ve been waiting, waiting, waiting, and then BANG! everything starts going at once. Three of my friends got married within just a few weeks of each other. I got my mission call and had to start preparing right away because I’m leaving in a month. My grandmother has cancer.  And it all gets mixed up in a big ball of emotion that often makes me think I might be getting an ulcer. I have so little time left here at home; what do I do with it? I know that I need to go and I want to go and the Lord wants me to go, but all the same I worry about things I’m leaving behind. People’s lives will move on without me. I’ll come back, expecting everything and everyone to be the same, but they won’t. Who else will get married? Will anyone have children? Will anyone drop out? Will anyone die? I just don’t know. And it scares me. I’ll be changing too, but apart from the rest of everything I know. When you change alongside everyone, you don’t notice their gradual day-to-day changes. But a year and a half is enough time for anything to happen.

It’s bittersweet. Sometimes I have fun predicting who will be married, who will have a baby bump when I come back, where people will end up. And that’s happy. But it’s sad to think of the challenges people I love may have to face, and I won’t be there.

Number one: A friend of mine moved away yesterday. I’ve known him for years, but we never really hung out until this summer. Goodbyes are sad.

Number two: No mission call yet! Two weeks and counting…I don’t care where I go, I just wanna know!

At least there are more happy things than sad things in my life right now.