Caminar a Bahia Week 5

It has now been 38 days since Austin has left on his mission. He has really been enjoying his experience in Mexico MTC and is picking up the Spanish language very well. He is so excited to be leaving for Argentina on Monday morning. He will fly into Panama City, have a four hour layover, and then continue on to Buenos Aires, Argentina. From there he will take a bus to Bahia Blanca, which takes around 8 hours, arriving Tuesday morning. I am thrilled for the things he has learned so far and ecstatic for what is to come for him in Argentina. It has made me reflect of the time when I was a new missionary in Japan and all of those similar feelings I was having as I journeyed to a new country while realizing I would be living there for the next two years and hoping to be able to share and impact the lives of the people I would meet during that time.

This period of time, as I have been working on walking my way down to Argentina on the #walktobahia has now brought me 380.2 miles from Seattle to Burns, Oregon. Thinking back, I am pleased I was able to hit the daily goal of walking 10 miles per day. Some of those days were much harder than others as relating to pain in the knees and some of the other chronic pain I have with the aftermath of the rectopexy surgery. The thing that would often keep me going is knowing that consistency is the key with this journey. I need to stay strong mentally, even if physically there are often those challenges. Just yesterday, I was ready to turn around after about 1 mile in since I felt so nauseous and awful. But coming to the understanding that the journey will often be hard, I sucked it up and pushed through. I ended up going seven miles, even though it was quite a struggle.

While continuing to add these miles to the total mileage for the #toddlingaroundtheworld journey, I hit a milestone of passing 9,000 miles, for a total of 9,065 miles since starting the #walktoprague (5,219 miles) back when Autumn left for the Czech Republic back on July 6, 2016. Crazy to think that over the past three years I have walked over 3000 miles per year. Looking at the #toddlingaroundtheworld map, this distance of 9,065 miles from Seattle has landed me in Bayingol, China

I'm very grateful for the journey so far and the dedication of Autumn and Austin to serving on their missions that has given me this challenge of walking to 'meet them' at the end of their missions. It has taught me about persistence, diligence, overcoming challenges, the benefits of continual exercise and the value of setting big goals and striving to drive them to completion.

I know that Austin also is learning many great things from his journey as a missionary, and cant wait to see him continue to grow and prosper as he helps to change the world of many people down in Argentina.