Finding Friends / / I Hope They Call Me On A Mission

Last night, it was 11 pm, and though I was tired, I did not want to go to bed. Now, normally, when I procrastinate my bedtime, I start feeling spiritually down, because surfing the web and checking social media does not bring the spirit, and neither does being tired beyond rationality. But last night, strangely enough, I did not have that feeling.

I was looking through some blogs I hadn't read before and I chanced on this one. Written by Emilee, it is one of the sweetest and inspirational blogs I've read. The atmosphere invited the spirit, and I found myself feeling uplifted as I read occasional spiritual thoughts and missionary experiences. 

Then, I came across a post which had copy/pasted this story. It's about missionary work. It's also about love.

Read this:

"The following event took place in a ward in Salt Lake City in 1974. It occurred during a sacrament meeting and was told to me by a Regional Representative of the Twelve who was in the meeting. A young man, just before leaving on his mission stood in sacrament meeting and bore in essence the following testimony:

Brothers and Sisters, as you know, the past two weeks I've been waiting for my mission call. During the time I was waiting I had a dream. I knew it was not an ordinary dream. I dreamed I was in the pre-existence and awaiting my call to come to earth. I was filled with the same anticipation and excitement that I had before I received my mission call. In my dream I was talking to a friend, and I felt a special closeness to him, even though I've never met him in this life. As we talked a messenger came and gave me a letter. I knew it was my call to go to earth. In great excitement my friend and I opened the letter. I gave it to him and asked him to read it aloud. It said: "You've been called to earth in a special time and to a special land. You will be born to the true church and you will have the priesthood of God in your home. You will born into a land of plenty, in a land of freedom. You will go to earth in the United States of America."

My friend and I rejoiced as we read my call, and while we were rejoicing the messenger returned. This time he had a letter for my friend. We knew it was his call to earth. My friend gave me the letter to read aloud. His letter said: "You've been called to go to the earth in circumstances of poverty and strife. You will not be raised in the true church. Many hardships will attend your life. Your land will be fraught with political and social difficulties - which will hinder the work of the Lord. You will be born in Costa Rica."

We wept, my friend and I, as we read his call. And my friend looked at me with tears in his eyes, and said, "When we are down on earth, you in your choice land and me in Costa Rica, my friend, please come and find me."

The this young missionary, with tears in his eyes, said, "Brothers and Sisters, I have received my mission call. I am going to Costa Rica."

There is a sequel to the story. About a year after the sacrament meeting, the bishop received a letter from the missionary in Costa Rica. The letter had one sheet of paper in it and on that sheet written in capital letters were four words:

I FOUND MY FRIEND"


source: http://www.comportone.com/cpo/religion/christian/motivate/testmony.htm
If you didn't already know, I am planning on serving a mission for The Church of Jesus Christ of Latter-day Saints. I am currently working on my papers and I am almost done. For a while, especially at the beginning, I wasn't sure exactly what my reasons were for going on a mission. I simply felt like it was right, like it was what I had been preparing for my whole life. I didn't know much more than that.
But, as I've been studying more seriously, I have been finding reason after reason why I want and need to serve a mission. And after reading this story, I realize the most important reason of all:
I need to find my friends.
There are people out there, I don't know where yet, who are waiting for me to come and find them. I have been so blessed, and it's my responsibility to share my blessings of the gospel with them as a full-time missionary, but also throughout the rest of my life. I can't wait to get out there, and serve, and love, and become a better person so that they can become better people and that my Heavenly Father's work can progress. It's daunting, yet exciting, and I can't wait until they call me on a mission. :)

I think I'm in love with my instrument.

Isn't that beautiful!? I love it. I listened to it like 5 times in a row and decided I MUST play this!
Also, you can tell you're really in love with a song when you want every one and their pet fish to listen to it. :) Thus, I will post it on my blog even though I have nothing else meaningful to say in addition. (but I WILL soon once I'm finished with my thoughts as of late; promise :))

Peace out!

* * *

I wish there was one word, just one word, that could perfectly describe everything going on. That could encompass every feeling of love or joy or heartbreak that ever occurred. That could sum everything up simply, yet completely, that I could whisper to myself late at night and calm my remaining fears. That I could shout at my whizzing mind that usually keeps busy concocting all sorts of dreams and counter-realities that are all-the-more-favorable to my own, one word to silence all of that. One word to explain all the guilt, all the pain, all the sorrow, all the regret, all the wishing, and all the hoping that somehow never dies. One word to put the rest to rest.

I only wish such a word existed. For if it did, I would never stop saying it. And the breath it would take could make all the ashes from our poor, burnt hearts fly far, far, away to where we could never again see them. We could never again remember. We would never hurt, never fear, never long, and never hope for anything more. We would simply be.

Love is Radioactive

They say love never dies. That deep down, any love you've ever felt or any hopes of love you've ever dreamed, still exist. And I believe them, whoever they are, because I believe that love is radioactive.

That's why you still hold on to that girl you crushed on in second grade or that boy who kissed you in the rain. That's why you'll always love the someone who broke your heart and remember the someone who let you break theirs. That's why breakups still hurt and butterflies never go away, and even though we fall down so many times, we get back up and keep going. It's all for the sake of love.

Of course, we try to forget. We always do. It's human nature to hide your pain between layers of dirt whenever someone breaks your heart. But no matter how deep you dig, it will never be deep enough. Because deep down, beneath the soil and rocks and clay, that love--that radioactive mess of hopes and dreams--still burns. And as far as principles of physics go, we know that radioactive materials will decay little by little,  even when there are only two atoms left, and then one. After that, the quantum particles of the lonely atom will start to break down until millions and millions of half-lives are passed and it's almost all gone but never completely, because that's not how the universe works.

Each and every one of us seven billion people living on the Earth has buried our love at some point in our lives. And I think it'd be safe to say that the Earth relies on the love we create, and that is why it preserves a portion of it day by day. That radioactive love we make is the reason why the flowers are so beautiful and the grass is so green and the snow is so white in the winter. Our world needs our love, buried in the dirt or sand or rocks for mother Earth to use as fuel to keep on living, to keep on dreaming and becoming. We need our love, too.

So after millions and millions of years, the world has become so full of true love and fake love, of lost love and found love, of happy love and sorrowing love and tough love and  unconditional love and romantic love and unrequited love and brotherly love and lovely love and every other kind of love, of so many different kinds of love that maybe we'll say it's all just radioactive love, and that one day all that love is going to reach critical mass and light up this whole world in glitter and flames.

And I want to be there when that happens.

Because even when it's all over and only dust and dreams remain, love still just might.
And after all, love is what I live for.

Today

Living on my own is different than I thought it would be.
For one thing, it feels a lot like EFY. You know, trolling BYU campus with a hoard of freshman, terrorizing the bookstore, the creamery, and the volleyball pit, and partyin' it up Mo-town style.
For another, though I'm not living at home, I don't feel "on my own." Though I've been living here three days, already I've realized that I am not, nor ever will be, alone.

I have the best roommate and best friend in the world, a wonderful mom who will let me call her 20 minutes before church or late at night, incredible friends who unexpectedly and unabashedly stand by me even as I add another broken heart to the collection, and a loving Heavenly Father who patiently waits for me as I try to climb the mountain to where He's at.

Today is August 26th, and today I am not alone.
:)

Love This, Doctor

Sing, Sang, Swoon

Lately I have just been feeling so in love with that springy, sing-songy feeling in the air. It's my escape. I feel so grounded, so stuck in reality and trapped in my own cubby that the one thing that makes me feel free is that feeling I get once in a while. You know the one--that feeling that lifts me off my feet and makes me ungrounded, unbounded. It's an escape to some sort of summer fantasy, a dream world where everything is warm and exciting and romantic.

I get it when I smell spring, when I think of summer, when I hear the Samsung text ringtone, when I wear flip flops, and most of all, when I listen to songs like these whose beats bounce me into that separate world and whose melodies paint a smile on my face every single time, without fail.

Let's just say they make me swoon. :)

1 - Say You Like Me
2 - All About Us

3 - What Makes You Beautiful

4 - A Drop In the Ocean

5 - Keep Your Head Up
6 - I Should've Kissed You
7 - Without You
8 - Not Over You

9 - Meteor Shower

10 - Science and Faith

It's Just That Season

Today I got home from school and changed into a pair of shorts. I threw my hair in a ponytail, turned on the radio in the kitchen, and danced around because it's just that time of season

Can you feel it?

I felt something different about today. I went outside and felt the wind blowing and sensed the smell of spring in the air. I felt the excitement of school being {almost!} over and of the summer adventures to come. I felt the need to fall in love, and to run around barefoot in the grass, and to have picnics in the park every single day. It's just that season.

Can you feel it?

The Script For Every Occasion

Sometimes we ask ourselves why we put ourselves through the things that we do. We ask ourselves why we have to go through what others put us through.We ask, "Why?" "How?" "When?" and most of all, "What if?"

Life is just so crazy. Especially in high school, where the rules aren't written and the lines are hard to see. It's an entirely different world academically, emotionally, but most of all, socially. Relationships are everywhere, and yet they wreck friendships, hurt feelings, and complicate life. Sometimes I just wish that it would dissolve altogether, this craziness. After all, there seems to be no rhyme or reason as to why we put our hearts on the line time, after time, after time. We are loved. We are hurt. We stand. We fall. But through all the laughter and tears, the explanation still eludes us.

But it is there. And the answer is simple:

[  This is why we do it, this is worth the pain
This is why we fall down and get back up again
This is where the heart lies, this is from above
Love is this. This is love


Love is why we do it, love is worth the pain
Love is why we fall down and get back up again
Love is where the heart lies, love is from above
Love is this. This is love.  ]

This = Love
The Script