Turning my head‏

Hey, 

 Rachel and Chai, happy birthday! Where is everyone? So many of you who I haven't heard from in so long. Jeffrey, your letter was so interesting, about Chile's history with the church! I think things have definitely, thankfully improved. That's also really cool that you get to be companions with Ron Weasley! Thanks for sending the picture. 

This week Sun Jiemei and I saw a lot of joy and a lot of suffering. 

On Wednesday we sat in a member's house and just held her hand and rubbed her back while she cried and cried. Her Dog recently died, her daughter and her have a very strained relationship, and her husband works in mainland China. She is about 60 years old, joined the church in her 20's, and I think is experiencing an incredible loneliness and confusion about why lifelong membership in the church does not necessarily the care-free life we are all longing for. 

I thought a lot about that question this week. Why should we have faith when there is still so much suffering ahead of us? 

I think, because faith is a reward in itself. The reward we are really looking for. It makes us able to live a freer, truer existence, and after we realize that it does, ever so slowly, bring progress into our lives. 

I had a lot of happy moments this week. But there was one night this week when I was so sad. We had just met at a member's house for dinner. The woman had gone all-out. Her house was immaculately clean and decorated. She had champagne glasses laid out to sip out lemon water, and several different courses, the healthiness and required preparation of which she kept wanting to discuss. She was so simultaneously brimming with delight that her little party had arrived and also insecurity. I could tell she really wanted to be some sort of magazine house wife, and it made me really depressed. It also made me uncomfortable--I felt like I couldn't talk as easily and be myself around her like I wanted to. 

We were biking to a lesson, after this visit, and I thought about this and other things and just felt so, so sad. As I pedaled on I just felt like crying. And while at first my sadness was directed towards this poor, insecure ward member, it turned into a selfish sort of sadness. A more hopeless one. I wanted to cave into myself, and close my mouth--not talk to anyone. At stoplights there were people on their scooters who I am usually eager and excited to talk to, but I just didn't want to. 

One of the interesting things about being on a mission is that the choice between a dead and a living existence is so clear. In my heart I uttered a prayer I have given countless times on my mission. Something like, "Heavenly father, this really hurts. What do I do?" And I felt this gentle, warm, but all the same hard-to-accept answer of, "Love. It is your choice." I knew that to really hang my head at the stop lights instead of turn it cheerfully towards the person on my side was to choose a sort of death. It was to say, "Okay world, you win. I don't want to be a part of you anymore." To let the pain roll off of me, however, and to turn my head in spite of my grief, was to say, "World, it hurts, but you are still worth it." Turning my head was so hard to do, but I knew it was the better choice. I would keep on existing anyway, whether I chose to live in the cave of my disappointments and confusion, or whether I chose to live in the world with others I am trying to love. I want to always choose the better type of existence, and the existence that involves others. 

Faith and love give us the ability to swallow pain that would otherwise swallow us. Christ's atonement is the source I go to for inspiration and strength, when I realize my own amount of faith or love is insufficient. 

But faith is not just a way of avoiding pain. I really believe that faith betters and beautifies, as well. It produces results that are real in the world. For example, after I decided to turn my head at the stoplights and start talking to people, some wonderful things happened. One of the first people I talked to was a man who had absolutely no interest in the gospel, but so clearly had compassion on me. He kept saying, "You need to be careful biking out here on the streets. Good luck!"  (How true it is that sometimes when we finally just decide to LIVE, we receive some tender mercies and it becomes easier than we thought it would be.) And when we finally got to our lesson, I was able to laugh and smile and give genuine affection for the people we were meeting with. That impact on them was real, and it wouldn't have existed without the choice to love, to have faith and hope in the world around me. 

There is a lot people could criticize about missionary work, and yet the moments of really being able to help a person are innumerable and so precious. This week we were eating dinner with one of our recent converts, who is lesbian. She seemed like something was on her mind. As we chatted, our conversation grew deeper, and she came out to us that sometimes she has a problem with looking at pornography. I was filled with so much compassion for her, as I saw her frowning, self-disappointed face. I asked how she felt about it. At first she was a little self-defensive and started saying, "I only look occasionally, and it's mainly just because I'm curious."  We didn't really say much, but let her keep talking. After a while she admitted, "I do feel... uncomfortable about it. It seems like after my baptism I shouldn't be doing that." We talked to her about how sometimes those feelings that something is wrong are hard to trust but will lead us to make better choices. She confessed that she really does want to stop. We built her up, told her we were confident she could do it. We talked about the tactics she used to quit smoking, which she has done successfully, and that really boosted her confidence in her ability to quit looking at pornography. After dinner, she seemed so much more happy, and light. She kept saying, "Thank you, thank you so much for talking to me about this. I feel like a huge burden has been lifted." She left but twenty minutes later came back with drinks she had bought for us, in gratitude. 

These experiences wouldn't happen without those inner-heart decisions to love and to have faith. Living a life of faith is not a guarantee that everything will be good and beautiful, or that the outward circumstances of our lives will be magazine-worthy. But really, every time I make that terrifically difficult decision to swallow my pain and to keep going, little things are made better. No one can take away my testimony of that--I have seen it far too many times on my mission! 

And I think an example of that is just that... In general, I am really, really happy out here. Sometimes it is lonely, I will be honest, in regards to you all. I really miss all of you. I'm sorry my emails are so long and boring and poorly-written. I think Chinese really has taken a toll on my writing skills. Do any of you even read these or would my time be better spent writing personal emails? The experiences I have out here are so big. I totally get what Bill said, about how he can't write to you a fraction of what really happens. It is lonely to want to communicate with you all but not know if I adequately can or if you even want to communicate with me. It is something that sometimes makes me want to cave in on myself. 

But the thing is.. As soon as I leave our little internet cafe, Sun Jiemei and I hop on our bikes and pedal in the hot morning air back to our little apartment, and I don't forget--but I let go. I focus on her. She is one of the best friends I have ever had in my entire life. I focus on God. He is THE best friend I have ever had. The most faithful, the most willing to forgive. I focus on this limited time I have here in Taiwan. And there are hard things, but there are also so, so many happy beautiful things! I feel lucky to say I feel lucky to be here. 

I love you all so much! 

Diana