Butterfly Wings

Since coming home from my mission, I've had a bit of an identity crisis. I have had a hard time trying to figure out how who I have become fits in with who I am, and how to present that to my friends from before and after the mission. The best example of this would be in my name. When I went to college I started calling myself Kate instead of Katie, so all my friends from college know me by that name. However, of course, on my mission I was Sister Leonard. Then, one of my friends suggested that I go by the nickname Kitty and has started introducing me as such. So, I have four names floating around for myself and have no clue which I actually feel like I want to be called by. I feel like Sister Leonard still, and the missionaries and people from church call me that, while my family calls me Katie, some of my good friends call me Kate, and some new ones call me Kitty. I don't know which one fits me the best, and part of the problem is I am not sure how I want to come across to pe...

This week I was pretty sick. That is not much of a surprise to anyone who knows me because I get sick quite often, especially when I am going through a transition. And coming home from a mission is definitely a transition. I don't know if any of you have ever experienced this, but when I get sick life seems to get even harder, and it can make a difficult but doable situation seem impossible. That was the case for me this week. Adjusting was difficult, but I was handling it well. Then I got sick. Suddenly it felt like the world was ending because I could not only not do everything perfect, I couldn't do anything. It kind of makes me feel more understanding of all the people on the street in Austria that I met on my mission who, when asked what in the world was most important to them, answered health. While I still don't believe that it is the MOST important thing in the world, it does make doing things a lot easier. And that it something we do not understand until we are si...