I am going to Germany.  Wow!  To serve a 23 month mission for my church.  I'm happy, right?  

In preparation I have started sorting through memories and spent some hours reading my journal entries. One in particular made me feel happy.

June 19, 1979

I'm at girls cam now and as usual it is a special experience.  We sang our theme song last night "Happiness Is..." and had each unit write their own part of the song.  The stake leaders wrote "happiness is wakint at dawn to the stake leaders' beautiful song".  This morning to prove it we wore bills and sang birdy songs.

1979 in Michigan: "going to girls' camp, meeting your leaders, seeing them smile"

My thoughts then went back to "Happy" which we listened to many times at girls' camp this year - and I felt happy especially when I watched a couple of videos with young women dancing to this song.

2014 in Kentucky:  "Clap along if you know what happiness is to you!"

The idea that "happiness is an inside job" is one that makes me happy!  So let me say again:  I'm going to Germany.  Wow!  To serve a 23 month mission for my church.  I'm happy, right!  But as I am exploring memories in preparation to leave, I am reminded that over a period of 42 years many things have happened:

July 2 - Jason's birthday - happy; July 29 - son was stillborn - sad; August 9 - Tanya's birthday - happy; August 28 - my birthday - sort of happy; August 29 - wedding anniversary (would be 46 years!) happy/sad; September 3 - Shauna was born and died - sad; Fast Sunday in September - met Roger, Tanya was blessed, Jason was blessed - happy; September 16 - Tanya died; November 3 - Roger's birthday - happy/sad; November 5 - Roger's death - sad . . . 

I could go on and on but as I am in the midst of this "season" of bittersweet memories I sometimes have to remind myself that I am Happy!  This doesn't mean that I don't cry or get frustrated, anxious, sad, discouraged, etc. etc. etc.  Over the years I have tried to avoid these difficult feelings; however, they are real and need to be acknowledged.  When hard things happen and I wonder why and what next and can I handle it, I take a minute, look inside, and realize that I am happy. 

As I complained about not knowing more about my mission and my seeming inability to find out NOW I realized that I had promised to go where I am called to go and do what I am called to do.  I felt happy - I don't have to know everything right now.  

When I head for the MTC and then Germany, I will have a smile and my smiles are rarely fake.  They are a true indication of how I feel about life:  I Am Happy.

Note:  if you'd like to feel happy for a few minutes here are a couple of videos that might help.