Remembering‏

Dear family and friends,

 

I hope you all had a safe and happy Halloween/Hurricane/Election week. I am assuming I will find out more of what happens with the hurricane aftermath and the election from my English Class students. We hold free English class at the chapel every Wednesday night. I teach the advanced class (because you have to know the least Chinese, since they are all already so good at English.) We always have really interesting discussions about culture, politics, business, history, and things like that. They all watch TV, so they keep me pretty updated on big world events. So big news will always trickle its way down to me.

 

Everything went as usual, this week, which is to say that every day went as unplanned, being full of both serendipity and disappointment. It's funny how much we plan, plan, plan, every night before we go to bed, every morning before we go out, with the ward council on Sundays and with our district at district meetings, but as soon as we leave the front door we are in a world where all our little plans have no inherent place. So we try to fix a small place for them, and sometimes we make an impact here and there but mostly we find things working out not the way we expected, and we learn so much more than we teach. Things always move forward, though, in their very imperfect way. I actually really appreciate the constant state of juxtaposition missionaries are in--of being required to take a firm stance on what change they want to see in the world, but in bringing this change to pass are required to be so flexible.

 

As a very small example, people always ask questions in lessons we didn't think they would ask. One investigator we are teaching, in particular, is really sharp and thoughtful. She is 21, studying Russian at a local university, and her english name is Joanna. I can't really say why, but I love her so much. Every time we leave a lesson, I think "Wow, I kind of wish I could hang out with her." I think she initially started meeting with us out of curiosity; she goes to the free English classes we hold to practice her English (which is very good) and got to know missionaries. But she has really made sincere changes in her life since meeting with us. She loves praying; she really believes God is there. Her prayers are really cute. She prays in English when she is with us and says things like, "Hey God, this is Joanna." And closes saying, "I don't really have anything else to say right now, so I will just talk to you later. In the name of Jesus Christ, Amen"

 

But anyway, her lessons really keep us on our toes--whether she's asking us about what God's name is, how our beliefs compare with Muslims, or sometimes things that are really important to think about--like why would she want eternal life? We taught plan of salvation and that was one of her concerns about it. She said she just wanted to live life to the fullest now, but didn't want to live forever. We talked to her about it. She had been through a painful break up recently, which may have had something to do with what she said,which was, "Feeling is just exhausting. I want to be done with feeling."  It had never, ever occurred to me to think that way. Sister Kang and I who have grown up being told the best gift Heavenly Father will give us is eternal life with our families could easily have been like, "She's crazy!" (Crazy is such a helpful thing to call someone when you are scared to take their ideas seriously.) But it just gave both of us a lot to think about it, and we've discussed the idea a lot since then in companion studies and a little bit in our lessons with Joanna. I don't know if she's come to any different conclusions, but it feels at least like there is openness and acceptance on both sides to the others' perspective, which is cool. We have learned a lot, for sure, just from the thinking. Joanna is extremely open to learning about everything, which sets a good example for me.

 

I often think throughout my week about whether I'm happy or not, about whether you all should be "worried" about me or whatever. And the question confuses me. There have been some nights when I am almost giddy with how happy I am to be a missionary. The down times are when I've been irritated at Sister Kang for something trivial but that for some reason is just difficult to purge from my heart. Then I get in a "poor me" attitude and start missing the family and school and my old life.  Both of these extremes are a part of my experience here. But really, life is just rich, and good. It is cool to feel like I am actually doing something with life, not just talking about like I did at school. And really, it just feels right to be close to God. Sometimes that comes in the form of joy, this warmth and goodness and enlightenment that floods me and that I want to give pick up in buckets and splash to the world. And sometimes it comes as a deep, somber humility for my weaknesses and acknowledgment of how undeserving I am of God's forgiveness of me. But feeling like my relationship with him is alive is definitely the best thing ever. I really have to work on having him close to me in my heart all the time, because it is so easy to get distracted and prideful and selfish. I am lucky to have spiritual ups and downs right now that are relatively narrow in oscillation, so that I within a few hours/days recognize when I have relapsed and the recent memory of God's goodness is clear enough to motivate me to pick myself back up. What I really fear is a day when the oscillations are wider, slower, and so deep on the side of far that I forget--I forget what it means to be close to him, to have him breathing through my thoughts and words and muscles. Forgetting is so scary to me because it means my desires will change, and I won't realize this is the goodness I seek.

 

So this is my life! Either this is "happiness", or I'm learning there are more important things than being happy. But I am definitely so grateful I decided to come out here.

 

So, a few people email me every week and I hear about their lives, but I am not sure how it might be going for everyone else. I really pray for you all, and worry about you all. I want you to know that my life in Taiwan is not anything special. It is just real, like all of yours are. All the challenges I have are the same ones you are having. It's all a matter of what we do in our hearts, the details are all that differ. Be strong! I really love you all. And if you are wondering if I remember you, just know that I do.

 

Diana