Today, after signing some job papers, I decided to go to church to look for my iPod that I thought I had lost. After walking around for a couple of minutes, opening drawers and lifting pillows, I sat down in the hallway and waited for a while, since I’d rather wait there than on the bus stop. When I was about to leave, I saw an older woman standing outside. Turns out that she was too scared to go inside after her last visit, when the church’s cat guy who spends most of his days in the attic denied her access because the church was - and I quote - “for members only”.  Me, being the good hearted girl I am, told her not to worry about him and let her in. Apparently she was there for the last meeting with the sister missionaries before her baptism on sunday, and seriously, I had never seen that woman before … I’ve heard them mention an older investigator, but I thought she was just looking for something to fill her retired life with, without being too serious about it …

Anyway, the sisters weren’t there yet, and I could see that she wasn’t too comfortable with the thought of being left alone with the attic cat guy who could kick her out any second, so instead of catching my bus I decided to stay and wait with her, since I’m such a nice person and all, haha … I told her that I was very excited for her and the choice she had made and how many blessings it has given me in my life, which led to a very interesting conversation about the church, as well as the teachings and values of the gospel. Some things she said really got to me, like; “I’ve been to many churches and experienced a lot of different religious communities, but this church confirms everything I’ve always believed in. It makes perfect sense to me. This is the one church I really feel like I can go to.” 

Hearing that from her kind of gave me a little flashback to what I felt the last days before my own baptism, about the church being “the one” and stuff, and kind of made me want to go out there and introduce others to it as well, people who might need it and are just waiting for someone to walk up to them with a reason to keep trying, answers to their billion questions and something to hold on to. The woman insisted that she didn’t need it to “heal her”, unlike me, because she wasn’t emotionally torn apart, but that she just knew that “THIS is how I want to live my life.”  and it made me realize that some day, I want to be that person who walks up to someone who’ve waited for you their entire life and watch them change their life to the better. 

If that makes sense?! Oh well, it kind of does in my head, so … 

2012 - Upper secondary school (which I’m in right now lol) + hopefully a summer job to save up some money (I’m 17) 

2013 - Graduate upper secondary school and used the money I saved up (^) to go to the States and visit some people and go crazy on Walmart , and then get a job to save up some extra cash (I’ll be 18)

2014 - Get a full-time job, work as a freelance journalist and sell articles to magazines and stuff to save up money for higher education (I’ll be 19) 

2015 - Study creative writing, photography, psychology and journalism at either Long Island University, University of San Francisco, BYU or Southern Utah University … I think they’re the only schools in the US that offer all of the above (I’ll be 20)

2016 - continue my education and go home to Norway during summer to work and save up some extra money (I’ll be 21)

2017 - _MAYBE_, if I managed to get 60 000 kr, take a tiny little break from my education to serve a mission for 18 months (I’ll be 22) 

2018 - same as above, hopefully (I’ll be 23) 

2019 - continue my education and try to get a job (I’ll be 24) 

2020 - settle somewhere and get a REAL job, maybe establish and get a family, Idk, a place to live or something (I’ll be 25) 

At least I have “the first years of freedom” all figured out, I’ve lived my life and done everything I’ve always wanted to do, and after that I’ll always save up some money for travels, so I can go to places like India, Amsterdam, London, Brazil, Japan, China and Italy to take pictures and get inspiration to write. I don’t know exactly what I want to do for a living yet, but I do know that I want to spend my life doing something that I enjoy, like with photography, music and writing. Hopefully also get one of my books published. I don’t know where in the world I’ll settle down either, like if I’ll be living in Norway or in the States or in Antarctica and party with the penguins or whatever, but I guess I don’t have to worry about what’s gonna happen like 40 years from now either haha