Ganen! (Gratitute)‏

Hello everyone!

 

Thank you so much to everyone who wrote to me! Including cousin Heather--your letter came in the mail just at the time I needed it. Thank you so much.

 

All of you will be together with family having Thanksgiving this week, I assume! How lucky. I really miss you all, and the connections and convesrations I had with family and friends back home that I sometimes crave for out here. But if there is anything I have learned, it is that you can really get used to anything. And if I choose to just accept my situation--such as the fact that I only communicate with you all once a week--and just go on with life, it really isn't that bad. So don't feel too sorry for me. :)

 

Besides, I actually did get a sort of Thanksgiving dinner last Saturday! The XinZhuang ward put together a "Ganenjie huodong" (Thanksgiving activity.)  The advertisement for it mainly came in the form of "Women hui yiqi chi huoji!" (We will eat Turkey together!) Most people have never tried turkey, here! And wow, seeing the turkey come out in the kitchen at the chapel was hilarious. There were dozens and dozens of people crowding around the tables, which had turkey, mashed potatoes, rolls. sweet potatoes (which are very plentiful and amazing, here in Taiwan), gravy, stuffing, and then countless other Taiwanese foods--noodles, vegetable dishes, fishball soup, readbean soup, etc. After the blessing on the food a really loud man yelled, "Wait! Before we eat, we need an announcement on how to eat the turkey! We don't know how!" The turkey was not in turkey form at this point, it was cut and shredded and put on plates. I was thinking, "Um, you just put it in your bowl and eat it, like you do with chicken and pork." But the bishop's wife then proceeded with a demonstration of how you could cut open a roll, put the turkey inside, and poor gravy on top of the turkey for a sandwich. Or you could put all the Thanksgiving food in your bowl and poor gravy over the top of it. Many people opted for this alternative, and had so much gravy in their bowls that it looked just like soup. Probably more people, though, just went straight for the Taiwanese food. It was hilarious. I thought it was so cute.

 

So yeah, it was a little different--eaten with chopsticks from a bowl--but I got a little Thanksgiving dinner! It was actually really good, and it was the homiest thing I have eaten since I left for the MTC. It reminded me so much of Mom's food!

 

As for non-homey things, this week I ate squid (including the tentacles) and octopus balls. (Sort of like octopus sausage. It was very chewy, and bounced off my teeth when I tried to bite it.) I was so proud of myself!

 

This week was a harder one, for me. It's always hard to articulate why. It wasn't exactly that, but it wasn't that, either... Really, when I'm being honest with myself I think whenever I have problems, the root of it is that I am focusing too much on myself. Last week I just crashed with exhaustion, I started asking myself things like, "When do I get a break? I have been working so hard, I think I deserve a break." And as soon as entitlement creeps in, it recasts the world around me into something that cries injustice. The wet narrow streets of Taiwan are no longer full of wonder but are a lonely, trapping landscape. My companion is no longer an interesting friend who I want to serve and get to know better, but someone who has done X,Y, and Z to hurt me. Even those early morning between-sleep thoughts which are sometimes filled with excitement and joy at a new day start to be so heavy and burdensome.

 

And how interesting that sometimes I even take it out on God. It's interesting to think about the ways that I do that. Henry B. Eyring's talk in the last conference explained a really deep philosophical point in religious terms, that I think is so true of me. He talked about the tendency, when there is a pavillion between us and God, for us to think God has forsaken us, is terribly-displeased with us, and if we take it far enough--perhaps that he doesn't even exist. But the cause of the pavillion is never God, it is our own weaknesses, prides, and sins that prevent us from seeing him clearly. I know that for me, the more selfish I am, the more prideful I am, the more I insist that all the ways I am currently making sense of my world are correct and will never change--the less clearly I see his hand in his life. The less I even seek his hand in my life!

 

I am not afraid to admit that doubt creeps up at times, as it did a couple of times this week. Okay, actually sometimes I'm very afraid to admit that but right now I'm feeling brave. I think it's important to admit--because the idea that our current beliefs/view of reality are static and fixed, (i.e. that because I have experienced God and have had a testimony of him in the past, I always will) is an ideology of knowledge that leads us to misunderstand our relationship with God and stop seeking continual light and knowledge from him. I really, really believe that our vision of reality--including our vision of God, and what type of person he is--is dependent on our current moral way of being. And just like selfishness and entitlement can recast my entire world into something that speaks to how I deserve better, turning away from God will of course cast our world into one in which he has a smaller place. We are constantly remaking our worlds with the thoughts and desires we choose to pursue.

 

So is there any right way? Well, I think the answer is in Moroni 7. All of us are given the light of Christ. He tells us to search diligently in the light of Christ. Gosh, I really believe that. I really believe a relationship with God is one of searching, of openness, of seeking out more light, goodness, guidance. I am reading the New Testament right now and one thing that strikes me so much is how often Christ repeats the message, "Ask, seek, knock." This is the answer, I think, to how I can keep my missionary work from being routine, to how all of us can keep life as something new and fresh and full of opportunities rather than as something burdensome, old, fixed, dead. 

 

I am so glad Deanna and grandfather are doing better. I love you all so muh!