chouxiang de dongxi‏

Zao An,

This week was possibly even more full than last week. I went on exchanges every day from Tuesday to Saturday, basically getting a tour of all the cities on the Northwest coast of Taiwan. This week was really tiring, but good. So much traveling, so much thinking, so much talking to strangers.

Most missionaries hate what is called "finding time"--when we don't have lessons planned so we go contact people outside strip malls or at metro stations, or go knock on their doors. I used to not like it much, but now even though it is still certainly uncomfortable, I find it so immensely rewarding. I have to be so intellectually and spiritually on my toes. I have to be constantly thinking about who the various people are who I meet, and how to make the gospel make sense to them, and how to say that in Chinese. But it isn't just about rhetoric and translation--I have to have my heart right, to do "finding time" well. I have to feel in my heart the existence of God and his love for the people I meet. If my heart isn't right, I can't think of anything to say, or else whatever I say feels so hollow.

Remind me to tell you all about this man I met this week, named Vic. I will never forget him. I hope not, at least, because I promised him I would never forget him. Next week I will tell you about him, okay?

Sometimes I am so compelled by Buddhist philosophy. When we are contacting, it becomes apparent how differently they see the world. They are so perfectly okay with multiple realities existing--with Christ being my God and Buddha being theirs. They aren't on the quest for the one true phenomenological reality that Westerner's are on the search for. While missionaries in America probably discuss whether or not Joseph Smith's first vision really occurred, here the question is not whether it occurred but whether it matters.

Buddhism is appealing to me because I hate telling people they might be wrong. I hate being so arrogant as to assume I know how this old man should think about the pain he's seen in his life or what this young girl should dream about before she falls asleep each night. Adopting a single narrative of what life is about and what things are good in life is a scary, brave, bold thing to do.

And yet... The alternative isn't pretty, either. Last night I was praying about this question. And It really is so beautiful to me how God can guide my thoughts and I can learn things from prayer that I literally did not know before I started speaking to him in my heart. As I was pondering, I came to two conclusions that seemed so important to me at 11:00 at night that even in the dark, I grabbed my journal and a pen from off my desk and wrote them down in extremely messy handwriting. Here they are:

1) Buddhist thought renders my daily actions meaningless. Whenever I am most compelled by Buddhism, I also tend to be the most relaxed/lazy in my actions.  Why does it matter whether I talk to this person on the street about the gospel, or write a card to this ward member whose Mom died, or comfort my companion who is in a bad mood? Aren't we all just on different paths to nothingness? Service becomes really meaningless because there isn't any agreed way to serve, any need that we agree should be fulfilled. Even though I get scared when I think of the big picture, and what it means to have such a singular perspective on life, I really can't honestly agree that the small picture things--like whether I scowl at my companion or tell her I love her, right now--don't matter. They do, and they make such a difference.

2) Buddhist thought severely limits our experience of happiness. (I guess that is the point; it escapes suffering by escaping all judgments in life about what is good and bad, what is happy and unhappy.) Why does it matter whether or not my companion and I get along, whether or not this tired mother finds comfort in the scriptures we share with her, whether or not our investigator receives answer to her prayer? I am not able to find joy in even these simple things, as a Buddhist, because none of those things are REALLY good, they are just one dialogue among many for what good is. From a perspective of a God who wants us to experience happiness, it seems that we need to one extent or another to adopt a singular perspective of what happiness is, and that reach for that.

The other thing that just gets me at the end of the day is that I love God. I really, really believe in him, and that goodness is closeness to him. I have learned on my mission that faith has nothing to do with the strength of our rhetoric when we are bearing our testimonies, (I always personally feel more comfortable with the word "believe" rather than "know"), as it does with the moment to moment trust we put in him to show us how to live well. Sometimes I trick myself into thinking that if I can figure out the big picture of life somehow I can escape the vulnerability of living day to day by faith. I can't. But that's okay! Because nothing is sweeter than living by faith with him. It's a kind of happiness I never understand or really experienced before my mission, and I hope I can always sustain it in my life. I get scared of saying I know what happiness is, because of the reasons I stated above, and yet in my life I am so sure I know what has made me happy and made my bad moods shorter and my relationships with others better--and it really is the gospel of Jesus Christ. I wish I could express to you all the tiny prayers answered and the little thigns that just click, but it's impossible to express it all. Just know that even though I have my lost moments like we all do, in the end I really, really do believe.

Sorry for once again sending you all a really long and abstract letter. Hope it was at least interesting.

Sister Brown