Hey hey hey‏

Supfreshdudes, 

Things are always so up and down, so imperfect, and yet so good. 

The past few weeks, in and out of all our efforts and struggles, there has been this lingering, unspeakable joy. It's like a golden snitch, that quivers in the air between you and the investigators you love, work, and pray for so much. It quivers in fresh, bright afternoon air after a good laugh with your companion. It quivers in the spaces between words and the gaps bridged by faith. There are moments you see it so clearly, and all you feel is admiration and gratitude that such a beautiful thing can exist. But as soon as you reach out to grab it, it darts away--teaching us that joy isn't something to be possessed by us, or for us. It's never something we earn or deserve. It comes from a foreign world as a gift, and whether or not it stays with us depends on whether or not we remember that.

Really, things are so, so good. 

This past weekend I got permission to go up to XinZhuang (my old area) to attend an investigators baptism that Sister Kang and I started teaching. This is Lin Yu Ci, the girl who a couple of months ago traveled and found me in my new area to give me a Christmas card. She is so sweet, and down to earth. She had to wait until she turned 20 to get baptized, because her parents were really against it. (In Taiwan, f you are under 20, you have to get your parents' signature to get baptized, and they wouldn't sign the papers.) I never want to forget about her, or my experiences teaching her. Here is a cute story about her: one time she told us she and her boyfriend's weekend plans were to study the gospel principles book, because the topic in Sunday school had been the second coming and they didn't feel they understood it very well. (Who reads gospel principles books for fun? It was so nerdy and cute.) I love her so much. 

Thought for the week from my study journal: 

I was on exchanges with Sister Muhlestein last week. We went to a vegetarian place for dinner. As we were eating our bowls of purple rice with oily green vegetables that I don't know the names of, a tall, blue-eyed, blonde Polish girl came and sat by us, apparently very excited to talk to people who spoke English. (And who were also tall, blue-eyed and slightly blonde-haired). Her boyfriend is Taiwanese, so she moved out here to be with him and is studying Chinese. She was so friendly, and a bit ditzy. Our conversation inevitably led to what we were doing here in Taiwan, so we told her. (P.S. Do you know how WEIRD it is to talk about the gospel in English, instead of Chinese? Everything feels so backward coming out of my mouth.) Anyway, this girl, named "Kate", was very quick to tell us, like many people often do, that what we are doing is such a great thing;' they really admire that we care so much about something that we're willing to leave our families and countries and try to share it with others. 

But as soon as we started talking about what we actually believe in, giving her an opportunity to learn more, she shut down and said it was not for her. She said she believes spirituality is an individual thing and she doesn't discriminate between any different religions. She started talking about how great it is that there is Buddha and Jesus and music and tons of diverse ways to find God. I told her I loved that idea, because I do. I totally believe in Moroni 7:13, that all good things come of God, and that everyone's life is full of witnesses of God whether we realize it or not--in the sacrifices we make for our families, in the hope we feel when a friend comforts us, in the beauty we see in art, music, and literature. All speak to the idea that there is meaning in this broken world, that love, hope, and redemption can linger in the gaps of life, that change is possible. These are truths that have a million ways of being expressed. I also agree with her that spirituality is something we are all, individually, responsible for, need to work for, etc. 

But I've been thinking a lot lately about what a dangerous deception it is to think spirituality is MERELY an individual thing. It operates on the assumption that each of us is merely an individual, rotating silently in our own solitary universes. Not only is this not true--for we are made, shaped, and made responsible for others by our interactions with them--but viewing the world this way prevents us from fulfilling our moral responsibilities to each other. (Think of how many times we avoid the discomfort of being responsible for others by saying to ourselves,"What my brother does has nothing to do with me." 

A church, organized religion, whatever you want to call it, stems naturally from our moral responsibilities to each other. There is the beginnings of a church in every conversation we have with our friends, (and also in the silence where conversations should be). In each case, meaning is being communicated about how to live,how to respond to problems, about what the good of life is that we are all searching for, and how to find it. In a church we find tools and ideas that help us as individuals find God, (such as prayer, scriptures study, and ordinances like the sacrament). But an indispensable, crucial tool to finding God as individuals is found within the social interaction that the church requires--within what we learn through trying to care for others. Church requires us to teach others, to serve them and visit with them, to compromise, resolve disputes and differences, to sacrifice. All these experiences are ways of responding to the moral responsibilities we have towards others, just as God responds to his moral responsibility to care for us. We NEED these experiences to really know God, for how we understand a God if we don't understand his most fundamental attribute--which is that he loves us? And how can we ever comprehend what love means unless we learn how to love those around us? It is in all these experiences that we learn how to be like God and what it means to be like God, (what it means to really love and suffer and sacrifice for other people.)

As a side note plug for the restoration, we can see here the crucial importance of having a church that is continually led by a living God, so the system of the church can adapt and change to respond to the needs of people in the best, most-fitting way. A church, although inevitably needing to employ some rules/procedures/systematic things that may seem fixed, should always be open to change as it should always be open to doing what is truly going to help us know and understand God. Just as in our conversations with friends, we will need to sometimes change the the words we say and the actions we take in order to respond to their needs. We won't say the same words in response to every problem they present us with. A true, living church is not one that has the most accurate description of God; the true, living church is the one that loves God, the one that has a true, living relation with him. The one that is true to its purpose of showing us how to be God-like. We need his continual guidance and support to know how to do this, and thus the importance of a restoration that would give us a prophet, knowledge and instruction on receiving personal revelation, and a more effectual system for stewardship within the church. Just some thoughts.  

Anyway, I don't want to pretend as if what I am doing is a perfect work. I know it's not, because none of us are God-like and so really, we don't really understand what we're doing half the time. But I guess all of this is just to say that we are not saved alone. It is in our relations with others that we learn to be God-like, to love and to respond to the needs of others. And a church provides tools, opportunities, and wisdom to do so. 

Okay sorry if that was really preachy and long. I really hope I didn't offend anyone, I promise that wasn't my intent. I just like to share what I think about. Hopefully it was interesting. Love you all!

Sister Brown