October 21, 2007

Rachel Mildenstein
Sunday, October 21, 2007
"Business as usual then?" asked Rebecca Redd on the morning of Sunday, October twenty-first as we shuffled into breakfast. "Indeed," I replied with a sigh. "Business as usual." The usual clothes we've worn, washed, and re-worn umpteen times since our arrival. The usual faces groggily pretending to be conscious during archaeology. The usual classes, the usual study rooms, the usual freezing air-conditioning in the forum (that I must admit I am a huge fan of, even if all the other girls' fingers turn numb.) Also the usual schedule; only one field trip per week for the last month, which was quite a change after the rushing September blitz of here-there-and-everywhere. Even the breakfast fare is usual: porridge, muffin, cereal, and/or crispy deep fried French toast that's just begging to add a few more inches to your waistline. Oh, yes. The utmost usual activities.
If we were in Provo we would never have seen the same faces everyday during classes. We would never have had a breakfast like that laid out for us, if we ate breakfast at all. And all complaints aside of having the same breakfast every day, I thought it was hilarious when one day Brandon walked in to breakfast and said, "Again? But I don't want to eat manna today!" We furthermore would never have seen the old city out the window while cramming for a midterm that was supposed to be the next day…until Bro. Huntington so obligingly postponed it till Friday. The usual? I think not!
How is it that we can have forgotten where we are? To think of our lives as "usual" or common? So few have our privilege, so few have our chance to see what we see, to go where we've gone and where we've yet to go. As I heard Rebecca say "business as usual," I agreed with her, but then realized what I had said and repented.
I will be forever grateful to God for the opportunity I've had to come here and learn and feel; to learn how much I look forward to the day when the peoples of this Holy Land will come to know (what I oddly began to learn in an Old Testament class…) the purpose of the Book of Mormon: that they might know the great things He has done for their fathers, that they are not cast off, and that they might again know the covenants.
As we have studied in Old Testament, the three stages of the gathering (attitude, knowledge, and belief,) are in motion still. And surely as other prophecies come to pass this shall as well, in its time: "when the fullness of my gospel shall be preached unto them…they shall believe in me [3 Ne 20: 30-31]" and "when they shall believe me, that I am Christ…they shall be restored in the flesh upon the earth to the land of their inheritance [2 Ne 10:7]." I believe that it is happening, and shall happen; and I look forward to that day with ever more anticipation…because I was here! And there is nothing "usual" about that.