Welp. This is Embarrassing.

I don't know what happened when I went to college, but I somehow went from being a person who rarely cries to being a human faucet at least once a week.
And this week was even worse than the new usual.
I still haven't wrapped my brain around the fact that I've left it all behind.  Not for a few weeks or even a few months, but for two whole years.  My heart is heavy with missing my friends, the dearest, most wonderful friends I've ever had, but at the same time it is light with the knowledge that I'm going to be exactly where I should be, doing exactly what I ought to be doing.

But I want to say to all of you who have listened to me, supported me, succored me over the last few years; THANK YOU.  You are of more worth to me than I think you probably ever realized. Every time you confided in me or I confided in you made me that much stronger.  You are amazing and courageous and each one of you has blessed my life more richly than I can express.

My best friend and I have a tradition of writing each other letters (which is convenient for now, yes?) and so she wrote me yesterday.  I sat down in the airport and unfolded that page and then realized it was probably a dreadful idea.  Within a few seconds I was sitting in a corner of the Salt Lake City airport, crying hard enough that I couldn't see the page.  Which is a little embarrassing, considering there were people all around me.

I honestly think I am one of the most blessed people in the whole world.  Which isn't to say that my life has been easy or free from worry or simple.  Rather, it's the friends I have who have made the difficulty and trouble easier to bear. It's the gospel of Jesus Christ that has given everything a divine purpose, that reminds me that every tear and every knot in my heart has been there to teach me something.  I still love the quote from Elder Jeffery R. Holland: "Surely He matches with His own the tears His children shed."  I know that He rejoices every time I rejoice, and mourns when I mourn, and cries with me in times like this, when I am "half agony, half hope." *  I don't know what I did to be so blessed so very much, but I know that I am, and in spite of what I have struggled through, I wouldn't ask for any other life but my own.

I just love all of you so much!  Thank you for being there for me and allowing me to be there for you.


*I mean in no way to compare my life to that of Captain Frederick Wentworth.  My brain just runs on Jane Austen programming, and the sentiment seemed appropriate when taken out of context.

I'd Say I'm Most Definitely Ready for This

It’s at times like this that I feel small.  Not necessarily unloved or lonely, but just small. Because out of all the people I would recognize as I walk across campus, how many will miss me?  How many will even notice I’m gone?

It’s a bittersweet thought that my place in the hearts of the people I’m leaving here probably won’t last too long or bleed too profusely.  They’ll probably be patched up by someone new, someone who’s around to listen and to laugh and to cry, while I’m off doing something utterly terrifying in a faraway land. 

And it fills me to the brim with excitement and contentment, because this is where I’m meant to be, right now, when my life was stagnant and uninteresting.

But still it’s sad to think that place I have in at least a handful of hearts is going to be taken up by someone else.  I like to think that my departure is going to be something like a non-competitive enzyme inhibitor; my leaving will change the shape of the place I took in your heart, and no one else can fit back in exactly the same way I did. 

It’s good, I think, that those empty spots don’t stay empty.  That’s how humans are—we can’t leave gaping holes or even little chinks missing from our hearts without finding something to patch them with.

I want to tell you, anyone who’s really going to miss me (and you know who you are) that I want you to be the happiest person you can be for the next two years.  Take chances.  Do scary things.  Laugh a lot.  Smile even more.  Cry.  Never lose hope.  Never feel like you have nothing to hold on to.  Remember that your Heavenly Father knows you.  He knows exactly where you should be and who you should be with and what you should be doing.  Grow as much as you can in as many ways as you can. 

Wow, this really feels like a huge dramatic final goodbye.  I didn’t mean for that to happen.

I’ll still talk to you until March, guys. And then you can write me letters!  We won’t be completely out of touch.

But I know when I do get back, I’m going to be different.  First off, I’m going to have a hard time remembering how to English, and I’m probably going to have a weird lilting lisp.  (According to my roommate’s boyfriend, I’m going to sound like a gay man.)  I’m going to think Europe is the best place in the world (even more so than I do right now.)  I will be one of those obnoxious RM’s who starts every sentence with “When I was on my mission…”

Chances are I will have shed more tears on the terrain of Spain (see what I did there?) than I have in even the lovely Utah Valley, and I will have felt more love from my Heavenly Father than I’ve even known was possible.  I will have known the bitterest disappointment and the most poignant success.  I’ll come back in tears because I just wanted to stay longer.

I’m going to have an immense love for people none of you have ever met.  I’m going to know beyond anything I can comprehend right now that this blessed gospel is true.  I will have seen it change lives, and I will have been utterly changed by it myself.  

I hope you will be too, my dear friends who will be here in Provo, or in Brazil or Pennsylvania or California or Portugal or Russia or Jamaica or wherever you may be going.  I hope you find the courage to let the gospel change your heart, your life, yourself, because I’ve felt the process start, and I know it can’t go wrong.

An Army of Angels

The day I caught a glimpse of heaven, it started with the snow.

It fell harder and harder the closer we got, wrapped up in a little blue car, safe from the chill and the tufts of snowflakes cascading down from the sky.  We drifted along, warm and content, and then it appeared just out the window over my head.  I could see the six beautiful spires, and they seemed in that moment to reach closer to heaven than any skyscraper could possibly reach.

The walk was rushed, snow assaulting our faces as we pushed through the weather towards the crowd we could see gathered already.  As we got nearer, I could hear them: voices slipping delicately and yet powerfully through the falling blanket of snow.  "As sisters in Zion we'll all work together, the blessings of God on our labors we'll seek..."

I blended my voice with the hundreds of others as I stood by these sisters, all holding flags and wearing brilliant and faithful smiles.  "We'll build up His kingdom with earnest endeavor, we'll comfort the weary and strengthen the weak."

And then the song merged into another, a medley that was familiar to all of us.  "We are as the army of Helaman.  We have been taught in our youth.  And we will be the Lord's missionaries to bring the world His truth."

The icy wind and the snow still being pelted from the sky at my face seemed to suddenly stop as I realized that I was standing among the ranks of an army. These hundreds of sisters, all about my age, from all over the country, about to embark to all over the world.  We were an army.  We had been prepared for this, for the call to stand as ambassadors of our Lord and to teach to the whole earth the goodness of His restored gospel, since before we were born.  Every one of these beautiful girls was strong and courageous and we had all been able, at a moment's notice, to drop everything and turn a year and a half of our lives over to the Lord.

It was suddenly clear to me that, right now, He needs a force like none other; and we, his young and trusting daughters, are to be that force.

For the thousands of times I had heard that song, this was the first time I had heard it sung only by women, and it seemed to me more potent than ever before.  I hardly noticed the cold for the fire blazing in my heart, for the gratitude to be a part of this marvelous work, for my love for my Father in Heaven and all these His righteous daughters.

As we sang, strong and confident, I could not hear my own voice, nor the voices of the girls beside me.  I could only hear angels.

(For the full story, you can watch this.)

O Permanece, Salvador

I happened across this video yesterday and watched it twice in a row.  Not only is the music BREATHTAKING, but these images of the Savior's life left me nearly glowing with gratitude and happiness.

And also, this video, which made me cry, a lot, and quotes one of my absolute favorite scriptures. It's not necessarily a "Christmas" video, but I find it entirely appropriate for this time of year. Can you guess which scripture is my favorite?

Merry Christmas, everyone!  This is really my favorite thing about Christmas.

Bajo la Misma Estrella

I have eight tests in the next ten days.
During which time I have to say goodbye to all of my friends for the next two years.  ALL of them.  I will not see any of my friends again for TWO YEARS.
AND I have to somehow fit everything I own into A SINGLE suitcase.
HA.  HAHA.  No.
I can tell you right now that this is not going to be fun.  In fact, it's going to be downright awful.

Basically, I want to crawl under a blanket and never come out again until a magic fairy has taken all my tests for me and gotten 100% on each one and packed all my things.


But on December 15, I get to see my family again! And then I will have NO tests and NO homework for three months.
And then? I'll be in Spain!
And most exciting of all is that on December 18 (probably) I'm going to go through the temple for the first time!

Not to mention it's Christmastime and so I can listen to Christmas music while I try to absorb my textbooks via ocular osmosis.

Now I'm going back to study for my exam tomorrow and my exam on Wednesday and my exam on Thursday.
It isn't even finals week yet.

But first, have this quote from one of my new favorite books, The Fault in Our Stars.

“’Always’ was a promise!  How can you just break the promise?”

“Sometimes people don’t understand the promises they’re making when they make them,” I said.

Isaac shot me a look. “Right, of course.  But you keep the promise anyway.  That’s what love is.  Love is keeping the promise anyway.  Don’t you believe in true love?”

I didn’t answer.  I didn’t have an answer.  But I thought that if true love did exist, that was a pretty good definition of it.