Diana Leaney López Ruano

Forgive me and my yearning heart. Forgive me and my burning emptiness.   Forgive me for having this song on repeat Once, Falling Slowly since I arrived at work today at noon.   Let me play it one more time.   Forgive me for I'm emotionally unstable today and may just flirt with a stranger shamelessly.   In order to show that I am independent and need no one.   That I am strong.  That I am happy.   That we were nothing.   That I do not miss you.   Forgive me,  love,  because I miss you more today than any day before.   I miss your hat,  your accent,  your smell.   I wish you were here as I spin around my room.   In that careless way you loved to watch.   Shining that glow of letting go and then taking your hand to pull me back to earth.   I wish you were here as I don my stilettos because I can't reach the sky without a few extra inch...

I stood alone for a long time.  Alone in my beliefs and alone in my culture.  I stood,  stumbled,  tripped,  and with my Heavenly Father's help got back up again.  I discovered that  I could not actually stand alone.   It is difficult to be the only sober person in a room,  just like it is difficult to be the only Obama supporter in a room full of white republicans.  Standing alone is next to impossible.  That's where Heavenly Father comes in. During my time in China I missed home.  I missed the feeling of being home.  I missed feeling like I belonged somewhere.  I missed being with people that were similar to me and understood me when I switched to Spanish in order to be able to express myself completely.  I missed La Region Hispana. Belonging to this group is what got me through college and has helped shape me into who I am today.  Serving my brothers and sisters in my respective callings helped me di...

Spending the past year in abroad has changed me.  Its like everything that used to be normal,  isn't normal anymore.  I see things with a different perspective,  different humor,  different ideas and feelings.  Yet some things never change.  Its amazing how I see friends again and its as if no time has passed at all.  We hug and things are right back to where they were.  Family is still family.  Friends are still friends.  Home will always be home. I didn't think I would miss China this much.  Some days my heart yearns for what was.  I've always been that person,  the one that dwells on possibilities and dreams.  Its nothing to me to sit for hours on end and forget myself in my own delusions and impossible notions.  Yet here I am.  Wondering and thinking and wishing for something more. I guess I miss the sense of self I had in China.  The independence of living alone and depending solely on mys...

Have ten months passed by already?  Has it been six months since last General Conference?  One year since Irina & Sergio's wedding?  Time flies,  yet somehow it creeps along and sneaks up on you when you least expect it.  I've been waiting for this day to come,  the day I leave China,  yet now that its only twenty-two days away I don't know if I'm ready for it.  Am I ready to say goodbye to my second home?  The only other place I've more than merely traveled to besides Utah?  Am I ready to say goodbye to those who have influenced my life in so many ways?  Those who have taught me more than I could ever teach my students...   Gemma taught me how to love myself and that "Its okay to be different!"  She taught me to be strong.  Claire reminded me to be a child and embrace glitter again:) Andy showed me what English Gentlemen are made of!  Adam taught me how to spin around like ...

Things that happen in the news should stay on the tv screen.  They shouldn't happen in real life.  They shouln't happen to you.  China and Japan are fighting over some islands.  Who the islands really belong to,  I'm not sure.  Who they should belong to,  thats not up to me to decide.  I'm not Japanese and I'm not Chinese so I can't speak from a national's perspective.  However,  as a foreigner witnessing a Chinese mob destroying the building where I live?  Pardon the pun,  but it hit home .  This is where I live,  this is where I do my grocery shopping and have lunch with the girls.  Completely trashed because it represents something the Chinese are taught to hate.  Fighting over land is as old as it gets,  yet I don't think these people are really even fighting over land.  Its the idea of the Japanese owning something that could be theirs.  Its the idea that China is not the gr...

I was afraid that my testimony was dwindling...  I had been thinking about all of the devotionals I had missed out on and institute lessons I hadn't attended in these past seven months.  I was worried that I wasn't the same person I had been,  that being in China had pushed me away from what I knew and loved,  the Gospel of Jesus Christ.  Maybe I have changed... -I haven't taken sacrament since I've arrived in China.  I don't have the blessing of having a preisthood holder here to do the ordinance.  -I am so far away from the Hong Kong Temple that I haven't attended,  just that is so different then SLC where I'm used to having a few within a fifteen minute drive from my home.  -I don't even know what my Bishop looks like because "church" is a conference call with members around mainland China.  All of these things have changed for me.  I'm the only member in ZhuZhou,  a city of two million....

Amazing. Absolutely Breathtaking. Wonderful. Inspiring. I have said it once and I'll say it again.  There is no way that God is not an Artist.  He is.  And Zhang Jia Jie proved it. ZhanJiaJie was one of the most beautiful places I have ever had the blessing to step foot in.  I was astounded by its sheer magnificence.  Just think of a green heaven.  Clouds and mountains,  I felt as if I was in this special place,  reserved just for those adventurers that could scale mountains.  Except we really didn't hike that much did we? "hiking" in china would be disgraceful to the outdoorsy people of the midwest.  I saw plenty of girls in high heels as they stepped on the rocky steps and along the rocky paths of the mountain.  To each their own right? Rivaling my Rocky Mountains,  Moab,  the jungles and beaches of Mexico and Guate... I love visiting small towns.  People just seem to be so much ha...