Stuck in a Moment - More Like Two Years

Where's Shelly? Why isn't she blogging anymore? What happened? Did she get lost? No, not really. Just stuck in the years 1995-1997. Let me explain. For over the past year Matt has been painstakingly creating a book of his experience as a missionary in Sao Paulo, Brazil for the Church of Jesus Christ of Latter-day Saints. This has involved transcribing every journal entry (he wrote one almost every other day without fail for two years) and every letter he wrote to his parents (his mother actually kept every single letter) and photoshopping every picture he took (as many as 400). As you might imagine, it's taken him quite a long time. Now that he is nearing the end of his project, my job has been to proofread all of it to find typos and situations where he needed add background information to make it understandable for an outside reader. (As you might guess there were many instances of inside jokes, etc.)

Plus I really only had less than a week to do it because we want it done in time for his parents to see it when they come later this month. It's more than 400 pages long! Single spaced! Small print! It will be a definitive memoir of his time as a missionary and certainly a treasure for him and our descendants, so I really wanted to make sure I did my job well.

I finally finished last night. Whew! And I'm tired. And my house is way messier than usual, and my girls watched way more TV than usual, and I didn't really get anything else done and my blog, my own journal, was completely ignored.

But I am back. So watch for more regular posts to come!

As a side note, I have really enjoyed doing this. I have learned so much about Matt by reading his letters and journal. It was really neat to see the kind of person he was. By the time we met, he had been home from his mission for four years, so I never knew him as a missionary. He was so focused on being a good missionary and really gave himself to the work. I feel in many ways, we are closer just because I know a little more about that pivotal time in his life.