Stories you may have never heard before

It's ironic that last week I talked about my communication struggles with my companion. Maybe what is needed is just patience and time. We had a lot of those incredible, soul-bursting talks that I wish I could live inside forever. 

I never thought I could love a companion as much as I love Sun Jiemei. I wish I could grab all the things she says and just splash them to the world. I can't, but today I want to try. 

She is a demographic anomally, so I find myself totally intellectually interested in her perspective. Last week for P-Day we went to eat at a pricey Curry House, (about 7 US dollars for our meal). The room was bordered with several fish tanks, had a swamp cooler blowing at us from the ceiling, and had this humid, salty taste in the air that she said reminded her of trips she took in her childhood to Indonesia, where her Mom grew up. People are so poor, she says,  and so incredibly HAPPY.  She has memories of sitting with about a dozen of her cousins in a tiny room, all crowded around a tiny television as if it was the best thing in the world. She told me stories about the old, crippled lady who lived in their neighborhood who all the children and teenagers alike would go and visit, on a daily basis. As she talked, we ate yellow coconut rice and I watched the fish in the fish tanks, and I had this strong desire to leave the boxes of clothes and the facebook comments and my pretentious potential for a college degree waiting for me in America and just join the people she was talking about. Are we really so smart, do we think? Maybe happiness is something much more simple than we think it is. 

Sun Jiemei  has lived a very silent life. She told me that in all her relations with people, including her parents, her role has always been to listen, not to talk. She has never felt like she could trust people, or like they would want to hear what she had to say. Her parents, she said, never seemed to care much about her thoughts. 

I asked her about her companion in the MTC, because with me Sun Jiemei is actually quite talkative. That was when she told me about how she often feared her MTC companion was too judgemental, so she didn't trust her much. She talked about how even though she believes in the church, she knows that a lot of things are really complicated. Some of the first people who reached out to her and welcomed her to church are less active now. She knows that the gospel blesses families and that in her reality, it has more driven a wedge between her and her parents. She has faith in God, and yet she fears that if she expresses these thoughts to some people they will judge her to be a bad church member. (I think a lot of us can relate to this feeling!)

She told me about how she has also always been terrified of reading out loud. Her reading of Chinese characters was never strong--she is pretty sure she had a learning disability all growing up--but reading the Book of Mormon magically changed that, and she is able to read competently, smoothly now. 

She told me stories about all the missionaries that influenced her on her four-year path to baptism. One of the most touching stories was of an elder who she said was tall, always had a blank expression on his face, and who she said affectionately over and over again was a total idiot. His Chinese was terrible, and his sense of humor really childish. He loved to say to Taiwanese people, "Do you pick your nose?" in English and laugh at their confused expressions. I  can just imagine how immature he probably was, and probably depressed to be on  a mission, and probably terribly irritating to his companions, but Sun Jiemei said that it was because of all of this that he had an especially profound impact on her--he noticed the simple things. One day at church he asked her, "Do you have money to get to church?" And this girl, my companion, who had been saving money and pinching on meals to have money for the bus fare to this church that her parents would forbid her to go to if they knew, found that simple question exactly what she needed to hear, to know that God loved her. 

We didn't get to bed until 12 last night because we were talking about all of this, and other things--like her love of recycling and her favorite elements on the period table to elements. (She is really such a nerd, I love it!) But one of the last things she told me was, "Thank you for listening to me talk." She said she has never told anyone as much as she has told me, And I wish I could explain to you all how my heart bursts at the thought of this. 

I only have a week and a half left until our two transfers together are up, and most likely one of us will be moving. It hurts so much to think about. 

At the same time, when I pray about my love and admiration for my companion and my reluctance to have a new one, I get this feeling that I should have this type of curiosity and acceptance about EVERYONE in my life. Whether I have grown up with them at my side or whether I just met them, whether their demographic and background characteristics are identical to mine or totally foreign. I think I am totally a respecter o persons, sometimes. I think 

I want to love everyone in my life as I love Sun Jiemei. I hope we all can do that. 

Love you all! 

Sister Brown

the in between parts‏

Dear Everyone, 

It was great to get to talk to most of you this past week! Sorry we never got to say goodbye, my phone card must have run out of minutes!

Last P-Day we went to the Taiwan World Trade Center because we had an investigator who works there, and we had a lesson with her. It was such a cool place! They had this organic foods convention going on with samples of mildly sweet bean drinks, hand-made breads, vegetarian fake-meat, healthy noodles, etc. For about an hour, we winded through aisle after aisle with the crowds as people shoved samples cups in our hands, yelled out to us special deals, and excitedly, nervously practiced explaining their products to me in English. It was like being a celebrity at Costco!

On the way home, as we were walking to the bus stop, we saw this place where a shop was totally under construction, and a guy was digging up the floor. We thought it was pretty lovely, and took a picture. I love to see the in between and before and after parts of life that aren't really supposed to be seen. 

So, lately I have been thinking a lot about communication. 

My Companion, Sister Sun--there is no one in the whole world like her. When you first meet her, to call her shy is a huge understatement. She has this extremely quiet, stoney-faced, will-not-say-a-word demeanor in public, much of the time.I will look her in the eyes and there is something so guarded about them. She said she struggled a lot after joining the church feeling like she didn't have the outgoing, warm personality that seemed required of her, and sometimes wondered if going on a mission would even be possible for her, because she so seldom likes to talk. 

And yet that isn't really true. With me, alone in our apartment, while cooking red bean soup or fried-egg sandwiches together, she is a chatterbox. She is so funny--one of the most sarcastic people I have ever met. And she loves science. Lately our lunch conversations have thoroughly covered to what extent what we are eating is the process of physical or chemical reactions. She loves to tell me stories about the people she knew in college, or her family, or her favorite professors. 

Talking to her about her feelings? That is another story. 

I come from a Western background that totally believes in self-expression, in speaking your mind, with the assumption that to repress your thoughts and feelings is to be oppressed. Sister Sun will share with me her thoughts on investigators, and is often quick to correct me if she thinks I am misjudging others or forgetting certain things. But when it comes to herself, she is largely a closed book. She says, "I'm fine," whenever I ask her how she feels about things. The couple times I have seen her cry, she has gotten so embarrassed that she would quickly change the subject and refuse to talk about it more. I try to pry her open, but to say things like, "Tell me the truth; tell me what you really think," sometimes cuts me off from her rather than bringing me closer.  

I've found that sometimes in these moments, even though it is obviously her who is hurting, I get irritated about my own hurts. It is really painful to feel like I am perhaps her oppressor, but don't know how because she won't talk to me about it. I want to accuse her of not communicating the way she should, as if we could easily solve all the problems if she would only open her mouth. 

I never realized before how much self-expression through language is a moral good I am very committed to. I think a lot of us are very committed to it. You all are probably all thinking right now that you feel very bad for my companion, and thinking of how I need to get her to trust me more so that she will feel comfortable sharing her feelings, etc. To us, self-expression is politically correct, it is culturally required, and to self-express and encourage other's self-expression is supposedly the moral thing to do. But Sometimes the most politically correct, culturally appropriate, supposedly moral things to say and do in order to express love are exactly the opposite of what we need to do to really show love. Sometimes we use what is culturally appropriate to shove our hurts on other people, or to accuse them, evidenced every time I get irritated because she won't open up to me. Am I really loving her then, or am I annoyed at my lack of control? I think the latter.

What does it really mean to communicate? It isn't about words; it isn't about the details at all. It should be about love, about meaning. 

To really communicate with my companion, I am learning, means to learn her own methods of communicating meaning. Language is certainly not the only one. Loving her means to spend those lunch times together cooking together and talking about science, and laughing, even though I sometimes want to spend that time reading. It means learning her facial expressions, her mannerisms, what seems to make her happy and why and when, and trying to do whatever increases the frequency of her happy moments. It means not making her cry in front of me if she really doesn't want to! It means encouraging her in her own talents. She plays guitar, and recently an investigator gave her an extra guitar they had lying around. We now bring her guitar and my violin with us to visit people, probably about two or three times a week, and we use music as a way to bring us and them together. In missionary work, too, I encourage her to be herself in how she expresses love. She isn't one for small talk or warm emotional hugs, but she writes cards, she remembers small details of people's lives, and when she isn't feeling too shy, she cracks jokes. She is great the way she is. 

There are so many ways to communicate love and meaning other than language. Sometimes language just gets in the way. I shared all this with you because I think it is very interesting, not because Sister Sun and I are having problems. I actually think my companionship with her, while the most absent of verbal communication of our feelings, is the happiest I have had. 

I have to go, but I love you all! Thanks for all your love and support!

Diana

Thoughts on stuff,

Dear Everyone, 

I am talking to my family in a few minutes! YAY! But for fun this week I thought maybe I would just share with you some of my notes from scripture study. This is something I wrote back in March, that I was rereading last night and thought was interesting. Sorry if I used words that aren't really words and made references to things you haven't read, or if you think this is stupid. But hopefully you might find it interesting. 

"What limits we put on ourselves when we consider ourselves to be primarily and most importantly, individuals. As if we have nothing to do with each other. Or as if all that is in the scriptures must refer to us specifically in some very literal, tangible, positivistically credible way. After reading about Faulconer's description of the difference between Hebrew and Greek thinking, particularly the difference between assuming Adam to be a discrete individual (Greek) and assuming him to be a name for all of humanity (Hebrew, see Genesis 5:2), it is really changing the way I look at things. 2 Nephi 2 says that "all men are instructed sufficiently. I often look at that and think, "No, what about the kids who grow up in orphanages, and have no opportunities to learn right and wrong ways to live? They aren't instructed sufficiently." But I don't think God thinks of it that way. He has given to man, at large, his truth. Moroni 7 describes this process--through angels and prophets and "diverse means", God reveals the truth of his existence and love for us to the earth. They then relay it to more people. And we are all connected, one and the same--that orphan is a part of me. I can't conceive of me--the light and truth I have received--as separate from him. It implies that all of us have an innate responsibility to share the truths we have with others--not as a kind, voluntaristic thing to do, but out of a natural, necessary response to who we are. Which is why 2 Nephi 2:8 says, "Wherefore how great the importance to make these things known unto the inhabitants of the earth'. 

It is interesting how in the scriptures people talk about how God will bless their 'seed'--simply because several hundred years after an apostasy of sorts, he will reveal to them his gospel again. To an American, western, individualist perspective, this doesn't make any sense. how can a good God consider this fair, when there are so many people in those in-between years who never get an opportunity to know the gospel? From this individualistic perspective, the individual is the fundamental social unit of society and thus a good God must give to every individual the same opportunities/experiences. But in the scriptures, it seems families are the fundamental unit. Sometimes even very large families, including hundreds of years worth of ancestors. What an interesting concept! Because God has been good to the family group, when looked at as a whole, all the parts can consider themselves blessed. This a beautiful truth that is really evident in the restored gospel, with its emphasis on the family and belief and practice of temple work. And it is a probably a truth that we need to understand in order to gain salvation." 

I think by that last part I just meant that in order to gain salvation we need to understand our relation to others for what they are. 

Love you all! 

Diana

May 5

Hello Everybody!

I hope you all had a great week! Jon, congratulations on graduation! So exciting! 

I can't wait to talk to you all next week! 

People will sometimes say cheesy things about how people you meet on your mission were people you knew in the pre-existence or were somehow destined to meet. I don't know that I really believe that, but I have to admit sometimes the connection I feel with people is very strong and beautiful. This picture is of me and my beloved Taiwanese alter ego, Xiao Jiemei. I can't tell you guys how much I love her, and how strangely similar we are! We share the exact same birthday, February 7th, and we are both twins, we are both the younger sister of the twinship, and we both have more quiet, introverted personalities while our older twins are more outgoing and bold. (I love you, Mary!) 

Xiao Jiemei is just about the cutest thing in the world. She LOVES hearing people's testimonies in church, and gets so emotional about little stories of people's answered prayers or acts of service that we kind of take for granted in the church. She is studying to be a nurse and wants to move to the US after she graduates to work. I have a secret ambition to convince her to be my roommate so we can be friends forever! But first I have to help her with English. She is getting baptized next week!

Also, as you can see in this picture, I have been getting to use my violin a lot lately! Wow, I am so glad I brought that thing. I have played in a funeral, at firesides, baptismal services, and lately just street performing while contacting. I will play while my companions or other missionaries contact people around us. It's funny how all my experiences with music previous to the mission come into play. Robby and Mike and I used to street perform a lot in Salt Lake, so I pretty much over came all my nerves of playing on the street in front of strangers, through that. While I am playing, I always remember Peggy Wheelwright telling us Pizzicato String kids to "smile" while we perform, so we don't look so gloomy. That seems particularly important now since I am supposed to be inviting people to want to hear more about the church, and I want it to be a happy thing! Another cool thing is how fluidly all the different music I love comes to me, while I am playing. I will just close my eyes and play what I feel like. Sometimes it is hymns, sometimes it is classical music I played in high school or college, sometimes it is Searching for Celia, sometimes I just jam. No one on the street knows hymns, so I don't feel confined to playing them. I just try to play beautiful music. 

Yeah, life is good. Here is the other thing I want to say about life, though. Even though life is good, it is still constantly filled with little disappointments and sometimes big ones. It is constantly filled with all those little inner-heart decisions you have to make to be happy and loving. It is interesting being on a mission; sometimes I remember what I thought of missionaries before my mission, and I sort of just imagined them to be continually pure, holy people. I feel like overall,  I am more pure and loving than I was before my mission, but I have learned that the lived experience of being pure is not one of just basking in the light of the spirit all the time. Rather, it is one of continual questioning and self-reflection. It requires being continually spiritually on your feet, aware of all your impurities, and willing to fix them. I have probably never been so aware and understanding of the selfish motivations and desires that drive so many of my decisions, even though I probably have less now than I used to.  Isn't that interesting? The take home point is that if you feel like you are not basking in the goodness of life like everyone else appears to be, you are normal and okay! The road to discipleship is one of continual activity, and when you get to one level God bumps you up to another. Just keep going and trying to do your best, and realize that awareness of your weaknesses is the first step to making them strengths. 

And... just have hope. Believe that life is a beautiful, not discouraging thing. Because it is! The more we sacrifice and give of our hearts and minds, the more our lives are filled with this sense of peace, love, ability to appreciate and enjoy, and faith in God. Even though I believed in God before my mission, it is incredible to me how much my faith in him has grown. I had this experience while while watching conference that caught me off guard in how much I have changed. The apostles were speaking so boldly of their testimonies, and so boldly making declarations about what is right and what is wrong. I used to hear their talks and think, "Wow, how will people respond?" or "Wow, how do they get the guts to say stuff like that?" This time, as I was watching, there was just this  understanding that came over me, that seems so trite when put into words, but settled into my soul as the loveliest truth. It was just a feeling of, "Of course they have to say that, and be that bold. Because it is true." 

Like really. I am not saying that because I say it every day to people on the street and investigators. I am not saying it because I feel I am supposed to, to save face or anything. I really, sincerely, genuinely know that God is there. I have really experienced his hand in my life, I have experienced him teaching me very personal things through scriptures, prayer, and my own experiences. I have experienced how much he LOVES people, and wants to help us but so rarely we give him that chance. I didn't think I could be this strong, before. And of course I am not strong enough; I always need to keep going. But seriously. 

And among the million things I have learned about testimony, here is the one thing: It is connected to obedience. All the commandments and teachings are designed to teach us to love, and that's why we need to be obedient to them. It's when I start being selfish and resentful of my situation or other people that my faith starts to fade--because God is one we can only see when our hearts are open in love. 

I love you all! Can't wait to talk to you next week!

Sister Brown