Last post

I wish I could be back in my tenth grade English class. For a assignment we had to bring in a song that we felt had a deep meaning and read it as a poem to the class and explain it. I chose "Blowin in the wind" and my explanation couldn't do it justice. I was too preoccupied with the thought of a Jamba Juice and my boyfriends lips once this was over. 

I wish I could stand there with a Cat Stevens song by my side and speak passionately. But I guess that's what growing up is about. 

I wonder a lot what the husband is doing right. now. Serving a mission? Preparing like me? Home now, and awkwardly trying to adjust to the realities of life? Has he met me? Does he think I'm strange? Does he know that we are going to be sealed for eternity and make one another very very happy? 

Wherever he is, whoever he is, I hope he knows that I love him. That I pray for him that his testimony may grow so we can lift one another up. That his faith will never faulter so we can be prepared when trials come in our path. That at the end of this mission I can be the woman he has always dreamed of. 

I think I switch my emotions too often during the day. In one moment I can be worried about an exam or an assignment, then the minute someone asks about my mission I can be excitedly jabbering about Spanish and the Guatemala MTC. I hope once I'm in the field I can stay this excited. I wish I could bottle up this emotion I feel: pure happiness. And love. And on days when I feel lonely I can always just feel this way again. 

Sometimes the only reason I put milk in my tea is to see the beautiful pictures it paints. I love seeing it swirl around in a combination of hot and cold.

This is my last post for 18 months and possibly forever. Thank you for following me and encouraging me to write. If you want to follow my next adventure you can go to: http://hermanasnelson.blogspot.com/

LOVE YOU ALL! 

Fruit Cocktail

I've really been meaning to write here for a while, but as it often happens in my life, the more I put something off, the more scared I am to start it again because I've been gone for so long.

But let me say, it feels good to be home.

The following is going to be everything that is in my heart right now, everything that I want to talk about. I hope it's sweet and delicious like fruit cocktail. There might be pieces you don't like (like what the heck are those white things?) and pieces that are wonderful and you savor every bite. (maraschino cherries. Every. Time.)


One of the things that most influenced me in my youth was the examples that my papa set for me. From a young age, I have seen my dad on countless occasions praying in his closet and reading his scriptures in the front room. I don't think Daddy has ever commanded me to pray or read the scriptures. Rather, it was through the example he showed to me of righteous consequences of righteous actions that planted that desire in me. 

Yesterday we were on the bus for two+ hours riding into town. We got on and at the next bus stop about fifteen people got on, ten of them being from BYU. Then the next stop more got on and more and more. The bus driver was too nice; she just kept picking everyone up. It got to the point where there were probably fifty or so people in our small little bus and at one point the driver said, "Hold on hold on! I don't want cha to go surfing!"
Needless to say, we were pretty happy when we got to Kaneohe and half of the bus unloaded.

I can't wrap my mind around the fact that Heavenly Father knows all things. He knows every course taught at every college. He could perform surgery, interpret law, or build a rocket ship. He knows everyone's names. And that small part alone is an overwhelming amount of information. He is incredible. His knowledge is vast and his love is infinite.

I was with Jen and Abram when Jen looked at me and asked, "Are you okay? Are you happy?" I had my water bottle in my mouth, so I responded by clapping. After receiving weird looks from them, I took my water bottle out of my mouth, and said "...if you're happy and you know it..." Abram got really excited and said, "Oh! Clap your hands!" And then we proceeded to sing the entire song.

This week was one of those weeks that couldn't have gone better even if I had planned it myself. It was filled with family prayers, friends birthday's, ice cream, vegetarian meals and the cafeteria worker being especially sassy. It was full of saying the words, "Tegucigalpa, Honduras" over and over and also, "Yeah, I'm speaking Spanish." It was full of happyness and the realization that this my life, I get to serve a mission for the Lord and that I will be in Guatemala in the MTC in a few short months.
I came to the conclusion that there is no way I can completely prepare for Honduras. Of course I'll still work hard in my Spanish class and read all I can and talk to all of the people I can. But no amount of research can add up to all of the wonderful and unique experiences I will have there.
There is no way I can be prepared. And that's why this mission has to be the Lord's. I know that by relying on him I will be able to have the strength I need. I will know that I need to do and He will help me serve the best way I can.

It is going to be an adventure and I can't wait for it to start.

A whole slew of exciting things

What is so exciting about this post, you may ask?

It is my 200th published one!
Also I turned old today.
But that is besides the point!

As a... present to myself, I'd like to ask you all a favor.

Ask me a question.

Really, truly, anything. 

Something silly, something serious, truly, I want to hear (read?) whatever it is that you have to say.

I often tell people that I have no secrets, and with that being said, I will answer your questions as honestly and in the very best way possible.

Thanks everyone! Loves!

Thoughts from Devotional

"I have yet to find a verse written that says, 'Thou shalt be mediocre.'"

This was said at a devotional last week. Everyone laughed as the speaker continued with his talk, but I just couldn't stop thinking about it. 

There is so much truth spoken in this simple sentence. How often do we sell ourselves short. And more importantly, why?

I was thinking about this the other day. Thinking of how, essentially, we are all programmed the same. Yes, we all have our unique consciousness, but we all have two arms, two legs, and we all have a brain composed of different loves and synapses.

Some are shy, but the potential to be out going is there. They can be outgoing, but it just isn't a dominate trait, and they choose not to exercise it or act that way.

I hate people who say, "Oh, I could never wear that." "Oh I can't do that." It's ridiculous! Each of us can do, can be whatever we want. It's just a matter of want. It's a matter of wanting to do that thing.

Exercise those things you want to grow and they will grow more than you ever thought.

"Have you lived your vision?"

My vision is me being a missionary. Working as a nurse. Married happily to someone who loves this gospel as much as he loves me. I want to be sealed in the temple. I wan to travel the world. I want to act and dance and sing. I want to be in a musical. I want to be a writer. I want to be an EFY counselor. I want to offer myself for humanitarian work. I want to save someone's life. I want to have those days where when you lay in your bed you feel every single ounce of tiredness on your body. But still feeling success in all the tasks that you were able to accomplish that day.

I want to smile.

Attention boys: are you taking notes?

I realize I haven't been here for a while.
Yes, I've been posting, but not quite... writing.
I have so many thoughts to share with you, but for now this beautiful piece I just found will have to suffice.

loves.

"Date a girl who reads. Date a girl who spends her money on books instead of clothes. She has problems with closet space because she has too many books. Date a girl who has a list of books she wants to read, who has had a library card since she was twelve.

Find a girl who reads. You’ll know that she does because she will always have an unread book in her bag.She’s the one lovingly looking over the shelves in the bookstore, the one who quietly cries out when she finds the book she wants. You see the weird chick sniffing the pages of an old book in a second hand book shop? That’s the reader. They can never resist smelling the pages, especially when they are yellow.

She’s the girl reading while waiting in that coffee shop down the street. If you take a peek at her mug, the non-dairy creamer is floating on top because she’s kind of engrossed already. Lost in a world of the author’s making. Sit down. She might give you a glare, as most girls who read do not like to be interrupted. Ask her if she likes the book.

Buy her another cup of coffee.

Let her know what you really think of Murakami. See if she got through the first chapter of Fellowship. Understand that if she says she understood James Joyce’s Ulysses she’s just saying that to sound intelligent. Ask her if she loves Alice or she would like to be Alice.

It’s easy to date a girl who reads. Give her books for her birthday, for Christmas and for anniversaries. Give her the gift of words, in poetry, in song. Give her Neruda, Pound, Sexton, Cummings. Let her know that you understand that words are love. Understand that she knows the difference between books and reality but by god, she’s going to try to make her life a little like her favorite book. It will never be your fault if she does.

She has to give it a shot somehow.

Lie to her. If she understands syntax, she will understand your need to lie. Behind words are other things: motivation, value, nuance, dialogue. It will not be the end of the world.

Fail her. Because a girl who reads knows that failure always leads up to the climax. Because girls who understand that all things will come to end. That you can always write a sequel. That you can begin again and again and still be the hero. That life is meant to have a villain or two.

Why be frightened of everything that you are not? Girls who read understand that people, like characters, develop. Except in the Twilightseries.

If you find a girl who reads, keep her close. When you find her up at 2 AM clutching a book to her chest and weeping, make her a cup of tea and hold her. You may lose her for a couple of hours but she will always come back to you. She’ll talk as if the characters in the book are real, because for a while, they always are.

You will propose on a hot air balloon. Or during a rock concert. Or very casually next time she’s sick. Over Skype.

You will smile so hard you will wonder why your heart hasn’t burst and bled out all over your chest yet. You will write the story of your lives, have kids with strange names and even stranger tastes. She will introduce your children to the Cat in the Hat and Aslan, maybe in the same day. You will walk the winters of your old age together and she will recite Keats under her breath while you shake the snow off your boots.

Date a girl who reads because you deserve it. You deserve a girl who can give you the most colorful life imaginable. If you can only give her monotony, and stale hours and half-baked proposals, then you’re better off alone. If you want the world and the worlds beyond it, date a girl who reads.

Or better yet, date a girl who writes."

Because this can always bring a smile to my face

Beautiful things

This one is stolen from Lauren

"If there is no God, then God is incalculably the greatest single creation of the human imagination. No other creation creation of the imagination has been so fertile of ideas, so great an inspiration to philosophy  to literature, to painting sculpture, architecture, and drama. Set beside the idea of God, the most original inventions of mathematicians and the most unforgettable characters in drama are minor products of the imagination: Hamlet and the square root of minus one pale into insignificance by comparison."

-Anthony Kenny

From lovely Lydia

“So many words ge

t lost. They leave the mouth and lose their courage, wandering aimlessly until they are swept into the gutter like dead leaves. On rainy days, you can hear their chorus rushing past: IwasabeautifulgirlPleasedon’tgoItoobelievemybodyismadeofglass-I’veneverlovedanyoneIthinkofmyselfasfunnyForgiveme….

There was a time when it wasn’t uncommon to use a piece of string to guide words that otherwise might falter on the way to their destinations. Shy people carried a little bunch of string in their pockets, but people considered loudmouths had no less need for it, since those used to being overheard by everyone were often at a loss for how to make themselves heard by someone. The physical distance between two people using a string was often small; sometimes the smaller the distance, the greater the need for the string.

The practice of attaching cups to the ends of string came much later. Some say it is related to the irrepressible urge to press shells to our ears, to hear the still-surviving echo of the world’s first expression. Others say it was started by a man who held the end of a string that was unraveled across the ocean by a girl who left for America.

When the world grew bigger, and there wasn’t enough string to keep the things people wanted to say from disappearing into the vastness, the telephone was invented.

Sometimes no length of string is long enough to say the thing that needs to be said. In such cases all the string can do, in whatever its form, is conduct a person’s silence" (Nicole Krauss).