IT'S ALL ABOUT PERCEPTION

Yesterday I was driving Gio up to Rock Canyon. He was going to do some hiking. I had errands to run, so we figured it was better to use one car and I could get him on my way back a few hours later.

We were talking about Robert and when he will come home from his mission. Who should come with the us to the airport to meet him. (We have a small family here and some dear friends). Should it just be the three of us, should the grand parents come too...aunts, cousins, friends, etc. ...

While we were having this discussion, at the stop light we saw a college kid on his skate board riding down the road. About the same time he came to crosswalk there was this big car passing through the intersection. Gio and I both gasped at the same time. It looked like the car was about to hit the kid. When in reality the skateboarder passed right behind the car. But from the direction that we were looking it seemed as though a serious accident was about to happen. It took us both a moment to catch our breath after the incident.

Today Robert has been gone for 500 days! Doesn't that seem like an eternity. For a mother, father, and brother it is. We miss him dearly. But when I say he has been gone 18+ months it doesn't seem that bad at all. It is like he just left.

It is all in the perception of how we view something. Our attitude. What we choose to see and what really is. Sometimes we need to step back or maybe closer to get a better view to make the right choices.

I would write Robert asking him to go more in detail about the people that they teach. I thought that he wasn't writing in detail because he didn't want to take the time or didn't have the time. I finally wrote him about it last week, and his response was something that I hadn't thought about before. But looking at it from his point of view made so much sense to me... he wrote, " I want to protect the confidence and privacy of our investigators" that is why I don't write much.

I understand now so much better. He has a mission blog where we post his letter and he doesn't want for personal things to be written there. I so respect that...but I needed to see it from his point of view to understand better. It was a learning moment for me. And now as I read Robert's letters I won't think that he doesn't want to take the time to write, but I will realize that he loves and respects the people he is teaching and is considerate of them.

500 days is still a long time and 18+ months is too...but if I look at time with an eternal perspective then he really hasn't been gone long at all and he will be home soon.

And when I am quick to judge a situation by just what I see I will remember the skateboarder and the car and realize that maybe I need to look from a different angle.