Time and All You Gave

So the last time I cried in here (in front of this very computer, in a doughnut shop on Clay Road in Houston Texas--we used to check out email here on P-days) it was because the radio was playing Green Day's "Wake Me Up When September Ends" and the song drenched me with bitter memories. That song, while insipid, had significant sentimental value because it had been my pre-October MTC entrance love song with my boyfriend. I was lonely and a little lost and brokenly incompetent, it hurt to feel the words bring back a day that would never be again. Today I'm crying for other days that will never be again. My mind feels cloudy when I try to remember the streets and how they connect. I keep expecting Steele to appear beside me and remind me where to turn. I see ghosts of my little missionary self on every street, flitting from door to door, feeling brightness come into dark rooms and staggering under disappointment. We bought mangos from the street vendors and tracted with sticky hands. We marched over to the men who whistled at us and told them about Jose Smith. We were more than welcome in a few places--treasured--and far from home we gloried in that love. I lived a few blocks away from here for four and a half months, I can see us merry there in the nighttimes laughing about all we did, planning under early November Christmas lights, scurrying everywhere in the city trying to push the light we had into every door and through every crack. Last August when I was here I expected to feel this soul-aching nostalgia, but it never came...of course not, because I hadn't been home 5 months yet then. All the magic still belonged to me in those days, I knew all the faces on the transfer board and my new freedom hung like heaven. We turned the key and found the fairy kingdom again just as it was. Now the THM is someone else's story, starring an entirely new cast. I miss my friends and the years we spent as soldiers on the front lines. I miss the purity and power I felt pulling me forward. Still, still, still, last night I had family prayer with Los Serrano and Laura prayed, "Gracias Padre que tu nas has dado un dia de tantas bendiciones...gracias por traer aqui nuestra Hermana que nos enseno el camino..." I stayed up until 2 laughing with Mary Caroline and today I get to have a carne asada with Los Escalante and Davila. La Morenita has not been forgotten. :) But there is something sorrowful in the stillness of memories.
EDITED TO ADD: Fratello Kyle Kenny has brought it to my attention that I was being whiny and angsty in this post for NO REASON, since I have more contact with people in my mission than (a) most people do and (b) is healthy. I apologize to everyone for misleading them and making them think that I had a horrible and pathetic experience in Houston, when in fact I enjoyed it SO IMMENSELY that I went AGAIN a week later! Thanks Nawfside H-town for bein' so good to me!

Let's get it started in here!

I know that this is pretentious, and at the very least, cliche, but I've kind of been anhelando to start a blog for awhile now, so here we go! This is my excuse--I'm going to live in Puebla, Mexico for 6 months to volunteer with the JUCONI program (http://www.juconi.org.mx/). Whenever I am out of the country...or out of Provo, really, I feel the windows of my soul flying open with understanding and "the ears of my ears awake" like e.e cummings says. So this will be the documents of those experiences. I know I'm cheating and starting a little early since I don't leave till September 15th, but I was just too excited! Les dejo on the eve of this great adventure!