All Good Things Must End...

I am missing this place even though I'm not technically gone yet.

Today was really difficult. It's so complicated, my head. Thinking about the future, thinking about the past, the things I did, the things I learned here...

I read a really useful article about breaking up recently. It made me feel a little bit better about this whole situation. I don't know how to explain this, but I feel like not only did I break up with a dear friend, but this whole country.

The worst part is that I haven't left yet. It's like going through a giant ceremony over and over and over. I've never done anything remotely compared to this before.

When I left France, I was extremely excited. The excitement and shock completely overshadowed my pains and grief over not seeing people.

This time, I fell in love with a culture, a people, a religion, a boy, a way of life - it would be so much easier to just think that, "Hey, I came here to meet these people and become one of them." But that's not true. I will marry in the temple. I will not settle for anything less.

It's almost comical, every five minutes or so, one of my arab sisters takes me in their arms and hugs me, in tears. I cried in my Arab mom's lap last night, and in Sanaa's today. Everybody is being extra-special nice these days.

It will be fun to go to Lebanon, but this parting, this saying goodbye, this breaking apart totally completely sucks.

It doesn't matter that we only have one bathroom and nine people. It's not the bathroom that makes a home, or the culture, or the language - I feel so completely overwhelmed. It's pretty much guaranteed that there will never be another person out there who will fully get this complicated emotional mess of a brain...

Thoughts about Marriage

I am a member of the Church of Jesus Christ of Latter-day Saints. I am Mormon. I was born, raised, and decided of my own free will that I believe in this faith. I know that Jesus Christ is the son of God, and that he died for me. I know that, even though there are many good people on the earth with many good and righteous ideas, there is ONE complete gospel of Jesus Christ, meaning there can only be one completely true church. I know that this the gospel was restored to the earth in the latter days by the Prophet Joseph Smith. I have the full and complete gospel, and it is true.

The gospel teaches us who we are, and the plan God has for our lives here on earth. From the scriptures, I can learn what I need to do in order to return to Him someday. I need to have faith in Jesus Christ, keep the commandments which have been given to us by all of the prophets including those of our modern days, and I need to continually pray and repent.

I want to marry for love, but love is not enough. When I put my hands together, the space all the way to the left from infinity onwards is the premortal existence, and the space all the way from to the right from infinity onwards is the life after I die, but the space between them is the time here on earth. What I do in this life will determine what I will be able to do in the life to come. Marriage for love is just not good enough.

I have to be able to marry somebody who can be with me in the eternities. I have to be sealed to my husband for time and all eternity, which is an ordinance that can only take place inside the Holy Temple. I can't marry somebody just because I love them; it would be better for me to never marry anybody than to marry somebody outside the temple.

Besides that, the man who I marry will be the father of my children. I want to raise my children the way my parents raised me, knowing about Joseph Smith, and the Book of Mormon, and the Restored Gospel. If I were to marry outside of my faith, religion would always be a conflict in my home. It is not only something I do not desire, but something that is just completely intolerable for me. Imagine always being against the one person who is supposed to be my supporter, my protector, and my friend? It cannot be.

I don't know what the plan for me is with Arabic. I don't know why I study it, why it interests me, or how it will help me in my future life. I do know that I am not here to find a husband, especially one outside of my faith.

I have a testimony of eternal marriage. I'm not exactly sure why I felt so strongly about writing this - maybe mixed feelings about dating somebody outside my faith, maybe mostly because this feeling is new and important to me. I mean, it's one thing to always be raised with these ideas, and quite another to KNOW them for myself.