Actually, I am kind of sorry about that because so many super cool things have been happening in my life during that time. The good news is that, as I kinda mentioned in my last post, I've been writing in my journal a little more regularly (the last entry was probably a couple weeks ago or so), which for some reason translates to blogging less. But hey, at least stuff is getting written down somewhere, and to be honest I'd probably rather have it in a book than on a blog. But whatever works.
Prepare yourselves.
So GUESS WHAT? I'm way behind on life. I should fill you in, but I'm not sure where to start. This will hopefully become a series of catch-up posts, but let's just mention a few points here first:
- I love school. I have 6 classes left before I graduate: 1 major, 2 generals, and 3 minors (I know I'm an editing minor, and I know that you shouldn't mix numerals in non-technical text, but it's for emphasis). I still feel a little bit like a poser in my major because I still have to check some major things off my list of preferable to-dos before I graduate (like score an internship, maybe?), but at least on paper, I'm SUPER close to being done. Crazy.
- My roommates and my ward are the greatest. Well, technically I guess I moved out, but I still love them and visit...especially since I haven't moved my records yet. Oops.
- I toured Central America (Guatemala, Honduras, and Nicaragua) with Living Legends this spring, and it was the best thing that has happened to me thus far. Like, seriously. I did NOT want to come back to the States (although I did miss some things like carpet and toilets that flush toilet paper). I loved the place, the people, the language, the spirit...yeah. A blast and a half. I've been working on posts about that trip for months now and I haven't posted a thing. My bad.
- Within a week of getting back from Central America, I opened my mission call. You know, that thing I meant to tell you about almost a year ago. Oops. Anyway, having just gotten back from the best experience I could've imagined in Central America, I was really crossing my fingers that I'd get sent back there (particularly Guatemala), my friends in Central America were crossing their fingers for the same thing, and then when I opened my call...turns out I'm going to Nampa Idaho in exactly a MONTH. Well, now it's in exactly a month. I got my call at the end of May, so I had a little bit more of a heads-up. I'm headed to the Mexico City MTC on an early-morning flight, and I'll be speaking Spanish in some of the most rural mission boundaries I've ever imagined. This also deserves its own post, so I won't say too much more right now.
- My brother received his mission call while I was in Honduras, and because of the magic of Facebook and a lobby computer with internet at our hotel, I found out later that evening that he had been called to serve in the Texas Lubbock mission. He's also speaking Spanish, and he just left for the Mexico MTC last Tuesday. Dad was the only one to openly weep, though. I'll admit it was weird to see him go and to know that we won't all be together for another couple of years, but at the same time, I think it's cool that we'll overlap a few days in the MTC together and that there's a chance we'll run into each other. Maybe I'll give him a high five or something.
- Tota Girl passed away on July 1st, just over a month ago. We were on vacation in San Diego, and we had just gotten to the zoo when my dad got a call from one of his friends saying that there was an ambulance outside his mom's house. Let's just say it wasn't the best day we've ever had at the zoo. Even while things were still up in the air, I somehow knew how things would turn out about an hour later, and I felt for my dad, being so far away from his mom and his siblings during this crisis and knowing there was absolutely no way to get there before they let her go. He didn't talk much except on his phone, which was dying and couldn't hold a charge, but I just stuck with him, waited, walked around the park absently, and sat on benches for a while.
- We cut our trip a little short to make it back a day early, but we still got to keep one of the three temple appointments we had: the San Diego temple. That was a great experience for sure. We all got to be baptized for family names that my sister had worked on, and then my mom, brother and I did initiatory work for some of those names. I've always loved the San Diego temple (my birthplace, its beauty, whatever the reason), but after being in the celestial room of that temple, it is officially my favorite place to be. I really believe that the temple was the perfect place for us to be the morning after such a tragedy, and it made things better. Just so you know, the plan of salvation is so real. Isn't that great?
- Good things have a tendency of happening more often than you think, especially during hard times. We had 13 relatives from the reservation who were able to fly out here on the same plane, only 3 days after my grandmother's passing. They are serious when it comes to family, and it was good to have the extra help and support that week. Because I hadn't seen most of them in years and years, I felt embarrassed to admit that I couldn't name them or even recognize these people who were supposed to be my family. By the end of that week, though, I had a much stronger bond with them, and I'm planning on going back to the reserve after I come home from my mission. That's the funny thing: once the person who connected us all together passed away, it became our job to stay together, and so far that's what we're doing. It's time to grow up, I guess.
- Other great thing: about a week before we left for San Diego, my brother and I went through the temple for the first time, and Tota was able to be there too-- for the first time in years. She said she felt so good being there, and she didn't seem to be hurting at all. That memory of meeting her in the celestial room and seeing her smile and embrace me there is surely a cherished one now. I think I know why things worked out so perfectly now when it came to getting my recommend; I mean, I somehow got both interviews in the same night when there really should have been no way. But if I'd waited and just walked home after talking to the bishop, I would have missed out on the special opportunity to go through with my brother and of having both grandmothers and a grandfather there to support us. It's a very good thing I don't run the world, because God does such a better job than I ever could.
1 comment:
It wasn't THAT long.
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