swallow stuff and don't worry about where it goes‏

Dear Family and friends, 

Thanks so much for your kind letters and support! I really am sorry for being so whiney last week. I know you all have a lot on your plate, too. 

This week I was moved out of my beloved city of YongHe into TuCheng, another suburb of TaiPei. I was sort of wistfully thinking of moving to the countryside where you see wildlife and the green jungle, but it seems like I am destined to be a city girl. My new apartment is probably the nicest place I have ever lived. It is an eleventh-floor apartment with lots of windows, overlooking the city. The window next to my bed is level with my pillow, and every morning the first thing I do is lift the shade and watch the sun rise over the quiet towers and still-sleepy streets. At night I lift it and look out at the million blinking, moving lights of cars and scooters and apartment windows. Next week I will send pictures. 

I am loving it here and I feel a freshness and energy that seemed to be waning under the weight of responsibility, in my old area. At the same time, I miss my old area and my old companion so much in hurts. I didn't ever know, before my mission, what it meant when you switched areas. It is kind of like breaking up with someone you really cared about. Or having someone you love move far away from you. And you remember all the good and the bad times you had together-- all those mornings of lifting my heavy head from my pillow or lifting my heavy heart to God, and swallowing the hurts and letting them just be swallowed forever, resolving not to puke them up. All of the hard times are coated in a blissful haze of nostalgia, because I gave my whole heart to that place. I think moving to a new area helped me see what it will be like to move from Taiwan altogether, in about seven months. The experiences that fill every day are so so precious to me. 

I had a small riff with another missionary last week, which made me reflect a lot on who I was in YongHe and whether I did a good job. His thoughts on how I handled things didn't completely jive with my own, and I felt so burdened with regrets and wondering if he was right--maybe the story I had been telling myself about my life was wrong, and his story was right. I was praying so hard and despairingly over this one night, to know whether I had been a good missionary or a bad one, whether I should carry these regrets or let them go. And all of a sudden I reached this point where my pride collapsed, and I said, "Okay God, I can't do this anymore. I can't stay in control. Just take me where you want me to be and I will do it the way you want me to do it. I will give everything." The spirit washed over me and something clicked in my soul about how the past and all our silly dialogues for it really don't matter. The point of the atonement is that all of that can be washed away if we will it; all we need to do is grasp the moment we have and decide to bear it with love. Let all our resentments and fears go, and determine to let the love of God and our love for him guide our days.

Sometimes we talk about progression in the gospel as if we really are supposed to progress from one basket of charity to ten baskets, one bottle of patience to three bottles. Up ladders, up elevators, climbing our way to heaven. But I think real progression is just towards that inward state of realizing that we are way too crippled to climb that ladder. Our experiences are of course to try to teach us how to better handle problems and how to be a better, more pure person, but beneath all the stuff that really happens, the most important thing is just to realize that we need the savior's mercy. 

I love you all a lot! Seriously. And life is so good. Look at all the beautiful places and people around you. I think when we leave this life it will be a lot like me leaving YongHe, and we will just see it all with nostalgia. We will be so proud of all we gave. 

Have a great week!

Sister Brown