God's Hand today

I have been feeling so emotional about moving this week. Yikes.. All of my preparation has not prevented the waves of anxiety, sadness, excitement, fear.. you name it, from rolling over me this week.  My friend Emily taught me the work natsukashi.. a sort of a melancholy or state of reminiscing.  That's how I have been feeling all week.  Everything I do I think, "is this the last time I get to do this?" Everyone I talk to I think, "will I ever see you again?" My bishop stood up in fast and testimony meeting and got emotional about how he will miss all of the families that are moving.  I had to say goodbye to Anona since her family moved first. They left last week and it felt really weird to sit in our row behind her empty row on Sunday.  There is no way to express how much I will miss her. My sister in law Jeanette was in town this weekend and she asked me what I have been doing with my time. I told her that besides taking care of 4 kids and obsessing about moving and packing and getting rid of things I have been spending my time trying to spend quality time with the people I love.  I told her that I wish I could have brought someone to the gospel while I was here. I wish I would have seen someone become reactivated because of my efforts as Relief Society president or visiting teacher. I wish I could have lightened someone's load more while I was here. I would like to think that I am leaving Michigan better than it was when I got here, somehow. It is hard to know who I might have influenced and what good might have come from my efforts. I know I have loved a lot of people here and I have made many memories, but sometimes it doesn't feel like enough.
This weighty feeling has been on my mind for a while and yesterday the missionaries called me and said they had prayed and thought to call me and see if there is anything that I need. I was very surprised but said, "as a matter of fact, I do have a project I could really use your help on." They came right over and I put them to work digging out one of my square foot garden beds into wheelbarrows and they pushed two full wheelbarrows full of dirt over to Debbe's house around the corner and we built a square foot garden for her. They also helped me return some big items we had of hers at our house from the garage sale. They worked for several hours and then they came in and helped me by eating heaping plates full of leftovers of the food I have been making to use up the food in my freezer.  The best part about their visit though was when Elder Martinez said, "Sister Aanderud, Heavenly Father wants you to know that he is thankful for the hard work you have done in this ward. It is time for you to move on and he wants you to know that he will take care of the people here that you care about."  The spirit bore whitness to me that he was speaking as one of Heavenly Father's servants and that those words were really what the Lord wanted me to hear. It was a great blessing. Elder Martinez said that it was great that they got to come do service, but he really came to tell me what the Lord wanted me to hear. God knows us. Isn't it wonderful that He is in the details of our lives.  I was grateful for the whole morning because I was so glad to be able to share my garden and bless Debbe's life, and I was grateful to see God's hand in my life so clearly.  What a blessing!