Krie´s: 4th Anniversary

It´s strange how the perception of time can work: four years ago Dani and I got married and it really doesn´t seem like four years at all, more like 4 months. We moved here right after our wedding and it seems like a million years since we´ve been here. I think time is never just time it just feels longer or shorter, depending on where you are and what you´re doing. Like back at school, when Math class never ended and Art class was over way too soon. Every time.
Life here has been a challenge for me, living rather isolated out in the country, with a very small branch with very different mentalities and practices, and without many friends close by. I miss my old job, my old ward, and the opportunities I had living back in my hometown. I AM a countrygirl, I´ve never lived in a large city for a long time, but I´ve never lived so isolated with no larger town around, either. It´s just little villages all over. And a beautiful countryside. And it´s not that all is bad here. I´ve made some friends and have been exposed to learning opportunities that I don´t think I would have ever experienced anywhere else in the world like that. Life is for learning and growing and there are enough little trials here for me to get over ;).
I keep telling Dani that I´d go crazy here without him... and at the same time I´m reminding him that it´s because of him that we moved here... he found the job here, I quit mine and we got married and moved. So I tease him about it a bit sometimes. I´m doing fine most of the time, but every once in a while I can´t fight the feeling of isolation very well and I think of all my friends and family spread accross the country and globe and I miss you guys so terribly! But then I think of the things I´ve been blessed with since we moved here and there´s a whole lot I tend to overlook sometimes.
One thing that I really love here is the beautiful nature. You´re surrounded by it, and you don´t have to go far. Just walk a few minutes and you´re in the woods or on meadows on the hills. It´s so immediate. I love to see the cycles of nature, like right now, when the leaves are starting to turn and the sunlight has that special golden glow during daytime, a richness that´s only there in early and mid-autumn. The air is getting crisper already and leaves crunch beneath your shoes as you take a walk. It was such a little walk that made our day special last week. Dani had taken the day off work and we walked down the large hill we live on, into the small village, where we ate at a little Chinese place. We stopped for ice-cream on the way and hiked back up the hill. It was sunny and warm and wonderful that day and I´m treasuring it as one of the good days here :).