Soul Roots

After a long respite from posting, I am revitalizing my blog.  Little did I know on the day that I last posted that the next May 29th would bring me to the Provo Missionary Training Center!  Less than two months from today, I will begin wearing a name tag that says "Hermana" on it, and after my six weeks of language training, I'll be making the long and arduous journey (two hours in a comfortable car) to Ogden, Utah, which will be my home for a leetle while.

This year of school (which will be over in three weeks!) has been a kind of quiet adventure.  Making the decision to serve a mission after the general conference announcement was huge and exciting, and will bring great adventures over the next year and a half.  Just as influential, though, have been the little Adventures called Friendships.  The best thing about friendships is that they never stand still; just like every human being is perpetually changing and developing, relationships between people are always moving, deepening or fading, living.

One of the best feelings in the world is that moment after you really talk with someone or really laugh with them or really see them for the first time (or for the first time--again), and you leave them and your heart is yelling to your mind, "Hey!  I just grew a little soul root because of them!"  I've felt that "soul-root effect" again and again as I nannied last summer--when the little boy smiled so happily when I came in to pick him of from his nap, when he tried to read me a book and sang the lullaby just like I sing it, when the girl laughed when I finally "found" her under the pile of pillows.

I've felt it at chance encounters with different people in my ward or classes, when I took the time to have a real conversation with them on the walk to campus or church and discovered that this stranger was actually a kindred spirit.  When someone else goes to kiss their hand and slap the ceiling of the car when they go through a yellow light at the same time as I do, or when someone plays "Slug Bug."  When letters come from friends that are serving as faithful missionaries.  Every time I talk to my mom or dad or one of my brothers or sisters.  When my baby nephew sleeps with his head on my chest, and when my niece climbs onto my lap while I'm doing homework and smiles and laughs when I first see her in the morning.

Something that I've experienced and noticed more this year is that when I'm trying to live the gospel of Jesus Christ--reading the Book of Mormon and other scriptures, praying often, trying to serve, going with an open heart to church, having faith, repenting--the first and strongest feelings that come are gratitude and love for God and for all of the people I see and have relationships with.

I know that so many of the people for whom I've grown "soul-roots" don't know, don't particularly care, don't remember me, or think I don't remember them.  I think one of my dearest hopes is that somewhere, there is someone who has felt the same grateful joy from knowing me as I have felt from knowing so many people.  And there have been so very many beautiful people in my life, from my mom and dad to my best friends through the years, to the random dad that cheered the loudest and best for every cross country runner and to the little old woman that couldn't see and thought that I was a boy when I wore my hair back in a ponytail.

And the best part is, it never has to end!  Life is a beautiful thing.  Frances Hodson Burnett says wonderfully:

One of the strange things about living in the world is that it is only now and then one is quite sure one is going to live forever and ever and ever. One knows it sometimes when one gets up at the tender solemn dawn-time and goes out and stands alone and throws one's head far back and looks up and up and watches the pale sky slowly changing and flushing and marvelous unknown things happening until the East almost makes one cry out and one's heart stands still at the strange unchanging majesty of the rising of the sun--which has been happening every morning for thousands and thousands and thousands of years. One knows it then for a moment or so. And one knows it sometimes when one stands by oneself in a wood at sunset and the mysterious deep gold stillness slanting through and under the branches seems to be saying slowly again and again something one cannot quite hear, however much one tries. Then sometimes the immense quiet of the dark blue at night with millions of stars waiting and watching makes one sure; and sometimes a sound of far-off music makes it true; and sometimes a look in some one's eyes.
        The Secret Garden

There are a lot of things in the world that cause people to wonder if life really is that beautiful.  The only thing that can always bring a conviction of beauty is trust and love in God.

Wherefore, whoso believeth in God might with surety hope for a better world, yea, even a place at the right hand of God, which hope cometh of faith, maketh an anchor to the souls of men, which would make them sure and steadfast, always abounding in good works, being led to glorify God. 

Ether 12:4, The Book of Mormon

Who can help but smile?