Ahh... Nimen hen xingku!!‏

Hello everyone!

 

Thank you for the emails and support! Congratulations to Natalie and John-Mark!! Official lawyers! That is so exciting! I met a lady on the metro this week who is an assistant to a judge, and I told her about you two. My condolences to the West Virginia football team. Garrett, how was California? I am jealous I didn't get to be at the Halloween party. Mom described all the costumes and food very thoroughly. I can't wait to see pictures!

 

This weekend we had two baptisms. One was a 15 year old who had been coming to church with her friends; she is really shy and was so nervous, but went through with it all. The other was a lady in her 40's or 50's who is was very sincere and serious about her decision--she was praying all day in church and wiping tears from her eyes as she sat through the service.

 

I got to play violin for the older lady's baptism. I just put together a short medley of I am a Child of God and Families can be Together Forever. (Those are some of the only hymns our investigators might have recognized, since they are simple ones that we sing as we start lessons.) People here generally do not treat musical numbers the way people do in the states states. A couple people started singing along as I played, and they clapped at the end. I thought it was really cute.

 

I am going to be getting lots of opportunities to play. My mission president is putting together a risky, but in-my-opinion awesome program for the Christmas season. He picked six sister and six elder companionships to form a traveling missionary choir/instrumental group. We are going to be putting together a 45-minute Christmas program of music for wards in the Taipei area to use as a Christmas party/fireside. The idea is that they can invite investigators, their families, friends, etc. to a place where they can learn about Christ and feel the spirit. Afterwards there will be food and opportunities to meet missionaries. I am so excited about it! Music is so wonderful, and so is the message of the Christmas hymns. It will definitlely cut into work in our individual areas quite a bit, though. Mom, I was looking at the proposed schedule and had flashback of Pizzicato Strings! How funny I can be a missionary in Taiwan and yet my life hasn't changed that much. Starting the second to last weekend of November, he wants us to be performing every Friday, Saturday, and Sunday night until the end of December. When you consider travel time in addition to the time of the program, that will probably be about 12 hours a week of some of the most convenient times for investigators and members to meet with us. But President Day really hopes the advantages will outweigh the costs. If it goes well, he might put together a program for Easter as well. Hooray for innovative missionary work!

 

This week I feel like mentioning some of the things I've learned about having a companion. It is such an interesting, rewarding challenge. IIt's not quite like a roommate because you don't just live together--you have to work really closely together every day. During companion study we share insights with each other from personal study, and then we plan lessons. All day we are together, talking to people, trying to express ourselves, all of which are opportunities for our visions of the world--how it should be, what we are aiming for--to manifest themselves. This can sometimes be painful and confusing, as it can be for all people who ever find themselves working one on one with a person who is different from them. (I.E., all of us every day.) I definitely don't want to be so arrogant as to assume I am the only one who occassionally feels misunderstood, lonely in my own thoughts, jaded and depressed at the blindness of the world to the fact that I have obtained enlightenment and know the truth all things. (Kidding, but seriously don't we all act that way sometimes? I know I do.)

 

One thing I have really learned the past couple weeks is that when little offenses or misunderstandings come up, to stay calm, let the moment pass, and keep an open, loving heart towards my companion. This isn't because I'm trying to be a martyr. It's because I always, always have a different perspective on the situation an hour later--both emotionally and logically. Whatever tiny thing that seemed a cruel injustice at the time later while we are laughing together, biking down a hill, seems totally silly. The emotional, moral and logical sides of it are inseparable. I have found if I bring up the offense at the time and try to win my case against her, I end up being way more focused on my need to be right than our need to resolve the situation. I can't see the situation clearly, because my pride is so wound up in things. And I can't see HER, at all--whatever hurts she might similarly be facing. Only little, lonely me.

 

Sometimes there really are consistent patterns of thinking and behavior that are difficult to deal with. Things that keep coming back up. Sister Kang is seriously amazing; she is so peaceful, hard-working, and strong in the face of challenging tasks.  But sometimes I find myself in complicated, confusing situations because of the different perspectives we have on the gospel. She is a very practical, stick to the rules, the schedule, the definition type of person and I am a I am totally not. I don't even know what I am, but I don't think I am that. I am totally not perfect at knowing how to respond, but I have found there is just this quiet grace that comes from accepting and loving her. Even though sometimes the way she chooses to do/think about things challenges the vision I have for the way the world should be. I wish I could express it. And I wish I could do it as well as I want to.

 

I am struck every day while reading the scriptures with the importance of love and sincerity towards God and towards the people around us the only true way to live. And yet how often I ironically use those same words to accuse other people I see who aren't doing it! Resenting/refusing to love others for not being able to love what I want them to love... Such hypocrisy, but it is the irony that eats its way into my life every day. I know it will be something I deal with for the rest of my life, as we all will. But I take hope, and I hope all of you similarly can, by knowing that I have at times felt able to pause its persistent chomping--enough to sit for a few somber moments in the peace and quiet of acceptance. The fact that I can't change the way others are but that they are good and worthy of being loved, anyway. The realization that the only real response to difference is compassion--sometimes heavy, lonely, burdensome compassion--for the fact that there is goodness to be had that isn't believed in, wanted, or accepted. (Again, I know that is really arrogant of me to assume I know what this "goodness" is, but it describes how I feel.) I think this is the kind of suffering that the atonement was made of. The ability to comprehend the potential, worth, and goodness of every human soul and simultaneously  accept the fact that none of us will never be fully open to it.

 

Resentment is just never, never the answer. I wish I were better at remembering this all the time.

 

Love you all!

Hello!

This week was so full! I never know where to start with these.

 

This week I have been thinking a lot about conversations I have had with Rachel and Jon about shame. There are so, so many times throughout each day when I feel clumsy and embarrassed. I'm at a stoplight and can't get my foot on my bike pedal fast or smoothly enough so people behind me have to wait, and watch me flail. I totally butcher the order words should go in and have to watch the person's blank face, wondering what on earth I was trying to say. Or I try to say what I feel about God and the person I'm talking to gets that holding-back-a-laugh, knowing smirk on their face. These are just snapshots of my broad experience of being thrown into a culture and language where I don't know how to get around--how to walk or how to talk. It's like being a helpless baby!

 

But you just keep going! It is really freeing to just stop caring about how imperfect and incompetent I am, and plow through to do what needs to be done. I feel grateful to be able to cast off a lot of the burden of shame, although it's a work still in the process. And I really feel grateful for the closeness with which I get to work with God, right now. I have never felt so personaly, and intimately tutored by him as I have on my mission. You know what I said last week about sincerity? How interesting it is that in the same week I also learn that despite all my good, noble intentions, there is so much of me that still needs refining. It's the process of a life time, to develop a true single-minded sincerity and love. I feel like I came out on a mission with good intentions, for sure, but everyday I am smacked with experiences that question that. "Yes, you wanted to serve people, but did you want to do it in this way?" "Yes, you believe in me, but do you even believe when this hapens?" It seems so silly to me right now that sometimes we classify people as having good or bad intentions, and sorting their actions accoridngly, as if this were a clean, doable process. The human soul is such a complicated mess! I believe in this gospel, I really do--but God is teaching me every day what that means, and I am constantly refining and growing in this.

 

Chinese is going a bit better than I want to admit to myself, at times. This past week was full of a lot of breakthrough moments. I still can't understand everything people say, but I can get by in lessons and street contacts without Sister Kang, if I have to. (Although she definitely makes things more smooth, less clumsy and awkward.) Last night, I participated in a whole conversation between me, my temporary companion Sister Finch (I am on exchanges), and an investigator about menstruation! Here, women talk about their periods by saying "Wo de hao pengyou lai le" (My good friend came). We talked about which days are the worst for us, how long it lasts, etc. haha. It was so great! I also told them that since coming to Taiwan my body seems to be doing what Mom's did to hers on her mission. I don't mind at all, except that it means Natalie's major coupon-coo at Walgreens a couple nights before I left has lost a bit of it's meaning. Sorry if this is TMI! But the conversation made me so happy! Haha.

 

I am trying to learn characters. Everyone in the MTC told us they weren't important to focus on, that we should just learn to speak. That is true--speaking is definitely more important than being able to read and write--but do you know how frustrating it is to not be able to read anything on a menu, or any of the street signs around you? Also, knowing characters definitely helps you understand the spoken language better. Mandarin Chinese connects and expresses ideas so differently than English! It is really beautiful. Someone struggling with choosing a major should consider Linguistics. Add that to the list of things I wish I could major in. So yeah. I can probably read a couple hundred characters at this point (which is nothing--you apprently have to know 3,000 to read a newspaper), mainly the easy ones and the ones they use frequently in the Book of Mormon or in hymns. But it is a start! Writing characters is a whole different story. So, so hard. But I am learning. Characters are not at all like an alphabet, they really are more like pictures that you have to memorize for every word. Sometimes there are clues within the picture that hint at the words' meaning, but I am just scratching the surface at being able to understand that.  

 

Ths week was full of food adventures! I had kimchi pizza, duck, and tons of squishy textured things that may have been tofu or fish sausage, I don't know.You just eat whatever is in your soup, and don't think to hard about it. But my tastes have definitely opened up to this culture! Last night for dinner I had a cold soup made of soy, soggy peanuts, green beans, black tapioca balls. And I really liked it! (t probably had a lot of sugar.)

 

Have to get going. I get to go to the temple today and I am so excited! I really love the temple.

 

Love you al! Hope all is going wel!

 

Diana

Tender Mercies

Thanks so much for everyone's letters this week. They were amazing to read. I am so lucky to have such thoughtful, caring, sincere family members. I wish I could reply to everyone, but I was trying to reply to as many as I can so this week's letter will be a little shorter. Which probably isn't a problem because usually they are really long. (SORRY!)

 

Before I forget: We get to go to the temple a week from Wednesday, so next week my P-Day will be Wednesday instead of Monday. Don't freak out when I don't write.

 

This week was full of mercy and MSG. Does anyone know what the ill effects of MSG really are? I never thought to look into it. There is a suspicious but not-unwelcome sweetness to most things I eat here. Food here is so cheap and generally pretty good. But sometimes it seems like it's all carbs and meat. Rice, noodles, sandwiches, dumplings, steamed stuffed buns, bakery foods... Many things are served with an egg somewhere in the mix (something I'm developing a fondness for), either a fried egg sitting on top of your noodles or cooked into a crepe-type thing, or a hardboiled egg that was soaked in soy sauce. It's all good but I'm one who likes to eat more rabbit food, so to speak. I try to have fruit for breakfast or whenever someone offers it to us, and vegetables whenever I can. But I really miss fresh vegetables, and salads. The only time I eat veggies are when they are offered (cooked and flavored) with rice. Dad, I am so envious of the garden crop you must be enjoying right now!

 

So much happened this week, so much that I am grateful for. We got to listen to general conference this weekend. The six of us XinZhuang missionaries set up tables in the chapel and thirstily took notes while eating all the snacks we brought. Really, conference was like a drink of cold water after a run, for me. It was in English! And so many good, beautiful ideas and things to think about. At some points I felt like bursting with the goodness of Christ and his mercy towards me.

 

Being able to feel that was so important and dear to me.

 

The question that always rings through my head as our bikes slide to a halt at stoplights and we awkwardly begin conversation with the people on scooters next to us, or as we put together lesson plans for this handful of special people we get to teach, or as we stumble into our elevator at the end of a long day and words to describe it fumble out of our mouths, is the question of my own sincerity. Maybe some missionries never think of this, but to me for every person I meet I feel I need to answer the questions again, "Is the gospel REALLY what this person needs? Why? How? And how am I going to convey that to them?" My biggest fears as a missionary are routine and habit, poisons that I sometimes feel tempted to indulge in but which I never want to. The gospel is so alive in me when I choose to let it be, and that spark of life, of hope, of goodness, is the most precious gift I have ever been given. I never want to take it for granted, I never want to say "Jesus Christ loves you" and not feel it at the same time. There was a talk in the MTC about repentance that gave me so much comfort, on this topic. The speaker urged us to always, always remember our moments in which we felt saved, redeemed, forgiven by God, etc. To never let the goodness and life of that die in our hearts. It is what sustained Alma the Younger and allowed him to bless so many people's lives. He said at the end of the talk that if we can always do that, "Your cries will be sincere". And those words follow me everywhere I go.

 

There is so much hurt in the world,. I really believe this gospel is the answer. I struggle to communicate with people and sometimes it feels like I'm sreaming at them from the other side of a transparent, sound proof wall. Not just because of my language inabilities--(sometimes I feel the same communication gap with my companion.) But because no one will ever hear what they are not open to. But I remind myself of the goodness and reality of what I have experienced through my relationship with God. I remember moments like last night when we were biking fruitlessly around South XinZhuang for some person we had never met before and never actually did find. And I started singing "How Firm a Foundation" to myself, in a voice so dim and timid above the push and pull roar of the traffic and the people talking. But I felt God's love for me and for the people around me so strong and pure in my heart. And what a gift it is to be able to say that "my cries are sincere."

 

But don't think I'm a stellar missionary. I am so weak and have so much to learn.

 

Love you all Got to go.

 

Diana

No time to think of a title!‏

Nihaoooooowdy,

 

Thank you to everyone who wrote me! You all are the best. There is so much I want to say in response to your thoughts and experiences but there isn't time. Just know I really appreciate hearing about them all. Every morning to start personal study I like to read a letter I have saved from a family member or friend. It helps me to remember real life and hear other perspectives than the ones my companion and I feed ourselves every day and also to feel compassion, connection, and the complicatedness of things. Unfortunately I sent most of my letters home after the MTC to save so I don't have as many as I'd like. If any of you ever want to send me snail mail, I would absolutely love that. You can send things directly to my mission home; I will probably get it within a week of it's arrival there.

 

So they lowered the mission ages! The word spread like crazy among missionaries. We had a fireside last night in Taipei for new converts and all missionaries in the Taipei area were allowed to go if we had a new convert to attend with. (We had three who wanted to come, and it was great getting to know them better on the metro. I can't really hold a real conversation, but I find ways to bond and communicate anyway. Last night Pan Jiemei and I started teaching each other Chinese and English words for things. I taught her, "Umbrella" and she pulled out her phone to show me the Rihanna song. Then we bonded because she really likes Rihanna, Mariah Carey, and Lady Gaga. And she started playing a Lady Ambe...(something?) with the lyrics, "Soul Sistah, Soul Sistah..." And I told her about Mary, "Wo de shaungbaotai" and how we called each other soul sisters sometimes when we're pretending to be ghetto. It was a very broken conversation that required props and sign language, but there was a merciful, timid connection there.)

 

Anyway... the point of that was to say that the missionaries heard from members about the lowering of the age to go on missions, so there was a lot of buzz about it at the fireside. My first feeling was complete delight. More sisters will serve missions! More sisters will get to have this experience, which will really strengthen them and strengthen the church. I also had this huge feeling of gratitude and love at the thought that the Lord and the leaders are really aware of the problems and complications we face and are trying to respond. I'm sure this change took years of thought, prayer, and planning. I am really hoping this will change a lot of the stereotypes about missions. Girls who choose to serve will no longer be the ones who couldn't get married. I am also hoping that the lowering of the age for boys will disrupt our engrained "Age 19 Age 19 Age 19" idea enough that there will be more openness to choosing when people feel ready to serve. I am hoping it will be more like a door is opened at age 18 that will remain open for several years rather than you are kicked out the door. But who knows? I fear time will likely settle it into the old pattern, because we are imperfect and like routine and structure and control. But I really do hope it will improve things.

 

No pressure Bill, but if you feel like putting in your papers earlier.... I'd love to see you in 2 and a half years instead of 3. :) Just kidding, though. You need to work that out between you and God. Definitely not my place to say when you should go, and freshman year holds a lot of fun, important experiences. There is an elder in my district who got called to his sister's exact same mission, and they were both out here in Taipei for six months. Ever since then I've been crossing my fingers you'll come! Or at least go to the Taichung mission. (Taiwan is the best country in the whole world to me, right now.) Or at least Mandarin speaking. So I can help and console you. Ha, I know the chances are so slim, but you never know!

 

What a week! It started out rough. This was the first week of my mission I have really experienced loneliness/homesickness. I was so spoiled in the MTC by getting Dear Elders nearly every day, by being able to run into cousins and friends, and by having such a good support group around me constantly. My companion is amazing (sometimes I feel like I want to be good and happy for her sake alone), and my district is actually still pretty close, (we see each other multiple times during the week, and hang out on P-days), so for a missionary in-field I actually have a very solid support group. But it was still hard this week. I can't really put my finger on a reason. But probably just because every day really just requires so much effort, hard work, concentration, and spiritual strength that when I don't feel strong or willing enough to meet those demands I sink inside myself and start dreaming of elsewhere. But I look back on this week and even though there were so many weak, selfish moments, there were so strong moments. Those times when I summoned a courage and will from deep within the well of me, and found an ability to do things and keep going that in my weak moments I didn't believe was there. To talk to people when I knew I might not understand their replies. To wake up in a cheerful mood instead of a sour one. To find words when my companion didn't have any. To have faith! To turn outward instead of inwards. To make that miniscule but crucial change of heart that Christ's character epitomizes. I am grateful for a mission if for no other reason than for requiring me to do this. Sacrifice is so, so soul-stretching and good.

 

Yesterday was such an interesting day. We have an investigator, Deng Jiemei, (won't use full name) who comes from a (very) rough backgound but has a solid desire to learn the gospel and be baptized. She soaks in our lessons like she is thirsty, always has tons of questions, and amazes us by asking things like, "How can I get my friends to accept the law of chastity?" when we were afraid she might have problems with it herself. Always at the end of lessons she says, "Xiexie, xiexie Nimen" (Thank you, thank you) and asks us to kneel with her in the closing prayer. On Saturday, she confessed to us that when she was 17 she was involved in a crime that required her to go to court and wanted to know if that would interfere with her baptism. We weren't sure, but said we would look into it. And during that meeting I was filled with so much love and amazement for her. Her background involved years of abuse and pain but she was pulling through it, and the gospel seemed to be providing a sense of safety and love she had never known before.

 

Yesterday during relief society, she was sitting in the back row with me and another investigator. She mysteriously disappeared halfway during the meeting and didn't come back. After the meeting, the other investigator realized her phone was missing. There are too many details to the story to explain why, but we basically knew it was Deng Jiemei who had taken it. The police were called. They told us that she had a record with them. Sister Kang and I walked home feeling absolutely sick about it, for so many reasons. But we called our mission president because we weren't sure what to do (Deng Jiemei still wants to get baptized) and he gave us an incredible, empowering opportunity. He asked, "Why do you think you should do? Have you asked the spirit? Go say a prayer, talk it out, and call me back with a plan." And so we did. And while we talked, this peace and sense of compassion came over me. I don't know about Sister Kang, but I was able to feel genuine love and forgiveness and hope for Deng Jiemei. It was an amazing moment to feel my faith tested and confirmed in the truth I speak multiple times every day, "God loves you." I say that to strangers at stoplights and inactive ward members and and to my family and to myself. And in all of these cases, including myself, I don't know the extent of the person's sins/unworthiness before God. But it is still true. It really is. We were able to think of a plan of action we felt peace about, taking into account all the various ways the situation could go dependant on ward members' and Deng Jiemei's decisions. And something that I felt sick and depressed about facing yesterday afternoon right now seems like a joyful opportunity to better understand the atonement.

 

I felt really grateful for my sociology background, during this whole situation. I was able to see our investigator not as untrustworthy or bad but as someone who has unhealthy patterns of behavior and thought that are going to be very painful to break, but can be broken. Not all of sociology would agree with my first or second clause. A lot of sociology would perhaps agree but have a million different ideas about how that could be done. The gospel has it's own ontology of human beings, though, and I feel grateful to say all my study of the other theories has brought me back to this one.

 

Life is good. Taiwan is an amazing, beautiful place. And so is the place that surrounds you right now, wherever you are. There are people around you who need help and tiny miracles going on around you that you aren't aware of. Let's try to notice them more this week. I am working on it, too.

 

Love you all so much! Thanks for all the love and support!

 

Diana

Guang (Light)‏

Hello everybody,

 

So I just finished my first full week in Taiwan. How do I sum it all up? I think usually when we write letters/blog posts/journal entries that supposedly summarize a period of time, they are more revealing of our current thoughts and emotions than what we may have actually experienced during the period of time. The past is so fluid, and always subject to being cast in a different light if something new comes our way and we start to look at things differently.

 

It makes me think about the importance of keeping things alive. Keeping the questions of what certain experiences are and who certain people are perpetually unsettled, rather than killing their potential and susceptibility to multiple interpretations with labels and routine phrases of description.

 

For example, my old companion and I, as all companionships do, ran into difficulties every once in a while. I feel a bit of guilt for how I handled things. I still think I could have loved her more and handled things differently in certain instances. There is a huge temptation now that we're not companions anymore to try to point to her quirks, flaws, and moments of weakness as evidence that she was just a "Tough Companion." Everyone had a "Tough Companion" on their mission, right? We all know or can imagine what they are, and what it's like to work with them. It's so hard, right? And we tried, we honestly tried, to make things better, but sometimes you just have a "Tough Companion." You know? (haha). But reducing her to that totally kills what our companionship experience meant every day. It makes to forget all the goodness, laughter, love, and support that filled every day, and how patient and merciful she was with me. And it makes me forget the responsibility I have to still love her, all because I don't want to admit that things were complex and that I am imperfect and probably harmed her a lot.

 

In some ways loving people really is just to have this kind of openness as to who they are and what our responsibility is to them. To always keep them alive in our hearts. Definitely hard, though.

 

Sister Kang is my new companion, and my trainer. She is a really beautiful Korean who grew up in Utah, but lived three years in Korea. She also took two years of Mandarin before coming on her mission, and she speaks the most naturally and natively of any of the American missionaries I've heard. I am so lucky to get to train with her! She has a very calm demeanor and is very patient. Sometimes I feel like I wreak havoc on lessons whenever I make comments because my Chinese is so choppy but she always smooths it over and keeps things on track.

 

I felt on and off about my Chinese this week. Progress comes so slowly. Also, I feel like I get less practice speaking than I did in the MTC, because my companion takes care of most of our interactions with people. Since yesterday, I have been a little more frustrated with it. Nothing special happened, I was just sitting in church with a feeling-sorry-for-myself attitude, and that always makes things worse. It takes so much concentration to understand people, and if my mind is distracted by how extremely special and pitiable I am, then it is really hard to concentrate. And it makes me miss opportunities to learn and practice speaking. Yesterday afternoon in studies I said a prayer to help me know what to do/feel/think, and I stopped to think about it and there was this clear line of logic that came that was something like, "Chinese will come as you focus on other people/your purpose." I definitely know that's true. The times when I've felt most comfortable with my weakness and also most confident in my ability are the times when I'm worrying about other people rather than myself.

 

This weekend was Mid-Autumn Festival, and the past few nights the air has been filled with barbecue smell. We passed dozens and dozens of family and friend groups huddled over their grills cooking shrimp, pork, fish sausage, tofu, corn on the cob, and just about everything else on skewers. A couple of random families we passed while street contacting invited us to join them. We were like, "Can we just have a bite?" But once you get invited to the party, they will keep giving you food until you have to leave. We even got offered beer! One lady gave us shrimp skewer after shrimp skewer, then fruit, then coke, and then was stuffing packages of pineapple cakes in our bicycle baskets as we were leaving. And she didn't even know us. People are so hospitable, here. We went home that night so full, and happy. It was fun to get to take part in the celebration a little bit.

 

Oh, I need to tell you about my biking experience! Ha. Well, you should definitely pray for my life every day, but maybe not as much as you might think. The first day of biking was basically terrifying. Throughout the day, I had to force my reflexes and nerves to forget a lot of the rules engrained in me since I was a child about how you deal with cars and traffic and roads. You sort of just have to play chicken most of the time. One piece of advice another missionary gave me was, "Don't look behind you." And it's true, usually it is better to count on them seeing you and moving around you because if you look behind you and think about how you really should be more than a couple of feet away from a car or scooter when you're going at that speed you will just start freaking out. Sorry Dad, you are probably really scared for me. But to be honest, I think doing that here is in some ways a lot safer than being ten feet away from cars in America. People expect to have pay constant attention while driving. There are TONS of people on bikes and scooters in XinZhuang. And the lanes are so fluid, so people typically have no trouble sliding back and forth on the road to not hit you. I also pray while biking and do (despite the missionary's advice) look around me and try to be safe.

 

There is still tons more I could say about life here. It is definitely hard. One of the surprising things about a mission is that you never are suddenly transformed or translated into a missionary. Or at least if was translated, I don't think I was translated correctly... (Haha... Mormon jokes.) You have to decide to be that person in every moment--to think about the spiritual needs of the person across the table from you rather than your own insecurity in the language, to think about the person whose house you are headed to rather than your own fatigue, to think about the beauty of the place around you rather than the people you miss back home. It's the tiny decisions I make nearly every moment in my heart that are the hardest, the ones that determine whether I will really be here now with the people around me or be somewhere else. I struggled a lot with having my whole heart in the work this week. But God is so good and patient with me. I read about Christ in the scriptures and I want to be able to "take up my cross" and bear the needs of others the way he did mine. He really is real, and in many ways more real than this tangible keyboard I have beneath my fingers. He enables me to do and bear and overcome so much--to really be alive and awakened to the world around me. He really is the "light and the life of the world."

 

I hope you all are doing well! Please email me or write me letters if you have time! And listen to good music on my behalf!

 

Sister Brown