Three Generations

Ever since I moved here two and a half years ago, I've been meaning to sit down with my grandparents and interview them on camera about their parents, their own lives, and my parents. Then both of my grandfathers died, and I lost that opportunity forever, something I still regret. The impending deadline of moving away for graduate school finally prompted me to action, and these last two Mondays I've taken my camera over to my mom's mother's house to interview her.

Last week didn't go too well, simply because I neglected to make sure my camera battery was charged. I still managed to get about twenty minutes of interview time, though, mostly about how my grandmother's parents met and a little bit about my great-grandparents. I had just started asking her about her mission when she began to feel ill and our session was cut short.

This week I remembered to charge my battery, and got some great stories about my grandma's mission, but halfway through my camera cut us off again. Not because of the battery this time, but because my memory card had run out of room! Thankfully I had my other card with me, but soon that, too was filled up. Not surprising, since I hadn't erased any of the pictures on either card since I got them for Christmas last year. Today I got more than a half an hour of interview footage. Next time I'll make sure my battery is fully charged and my cards are empty!

The three generations the title of the post refers to is the three generations of sister missionaries in my family: my grandmother, my mother, and me. When I realized that a few weeks ago I was so excited: what a wonderful tradition and heritage! Of course, I always knew my grandmother and my mother served missions, but I had never really processed how unusual that is. Up until last October, when President Monson lowered the age that sisters can serve from 21 to 19, sister missionaries made up a tiny percentage of the overall missionary force of the Church. Most women of my grandmother's generation in the Church didn't serve missions, and both my mother and I were far outnumbered by elders on our missions. I hope, though, that one day I'll be able to help add a fourth generation to that tradition, and that in my daughter's (or daughters'!) day there will be just as many sisters as there are elders.

Dear World...Again

My baby brother is going on a mission! After months (and months and months) of waiting, I woke up to his text saying it had finally come in the mail. After waiting several more hours while the family was rounded up, I got to see him open it on Skype. It's actually the first mission call I've seen opened -- in my family, at least, I suppose I did get to see Jordanne open hers. But I was at school when my other brother opened his, and I didn't actually open my own, since I had it sent to my house and I was in Annapolis working.

Yikes. I can't believe we're going to have another missionary in our family! I'm so excited for him to go, though I know his experience will be quite different from mine. He's going Stateside and English speaking, so he'll only be in the MTC for about a week and a half instead of the twelve I was there for.

Lots of big things happening in my family this week! First a baby, then a mission call. The only thing left is an engagement, but I have a feeling no one's going to be getting one of those any time soon.

A few words of wisdom

Just a few things I learned this morning from my personal scripture study:

"In whatever manner the Lord may choose to bless us during the course of a mission, blessings of missionary service are not designed to end when we are released by our stake president. Your mission is a training ground for life. The experiences, lessons, and testimony obtained through faithful service are meant to provide a gospel-centered foundation that will last throughout mortality and into the eternities."

Elder W. Christopher Waddell, "The Opportunity of a Lifetime"

"Two are usually better than one, as our Father confirmed when He declared that “it was not good that the man should be alone” and made a help meet for Adam—someone with distinct gifts who would give him balance, help him shoulder the burdens of mortality, and enable him to do things he couldn’t do alone. For “neither is the man without the woman, neither the woman without the man, in the Lord.”

Satan understands the power of men and women united in righteousness. He is still stinging from his banishment into eternal exile after Michael led the hosts of heaven, comprised of valiant men and women united in the cause of Christ, against him. In the chilling words of Peter, “The devil, as a roaring lion, walketh about, seeking whom he may devour.” Lucifer is determined to devour marriages and families, because their demise threatens the salvation of all involved and the vitality of the Lord’s kingdom itself. Thus, Satan seeks to confuse us about our stewardships and distinctive natures as men and women. He bombards us with bizarre messages about gender, marriage, family, and all male-female relationships. He would have us believe men and women are so alike that our unique gifts are not necessary, or so different we can never hope to understand each other. Neither is true.

Our Father knew exactly what He was doing when He created us. He made us enough alike to love each other, but enough different that we would need to unite our strengths and stewardships to create a whole. Neither man nor woman is perfect or complete without the other. Thus, no marriage or family, no ward or stake is likely to reach its full potential until husbands and wives, mothers and fathers, men and women work together in unity of purpose, respecting and relying on each other's strengths."

Sister Sheri L. Dew, "It Is Not Good for Man or Woman to Be Alone"

Awwww, aren't my parents so cute? Still in love after 27 years of marriage.

Two Years Ago Today*

*Note: Keep in mind that Korea is anywhere between 13-16 hours ahead of the US, depending on where you are and if it's Daylight Savings. So even though the date in the US is 5 January, "today" in Korea is 6 January.


This is what I wrote in my study journal two years ago today. At that time I was on my mission, in 서울 (Seoul) 강서구 (the district Gangseo), with Sister Kaitlan Marsden:

6 January 2009
Ether 6:4-12 --> This story is a clear illustration of the principle that "smooth sailing" (literally in their case) is not always the best thing for us; and the absence of it [smooth sailing] is not evidence that God doesn't love us or isn't taking care of us. The Jaredites faced many dangerous winds and waves, and yet, they were always safe, and they recognized that the Lord was guiding and blessing them. Yeah, it wasn't exactly a pleasure cruise, no matter what happened, but no matter how violently they were buffeted by the winds and waves, they were still safe, still being guided and protected by the Lord. Sometimes the fastest way to the "promised land" is not always the most pleasant; but if we, like the Jaredites, "thank and praise the Lord all the day long" and "not cease to praise the Lord [when the night comes]" we, too, can "set [our] feet upon the shores of the promised land" and know "the multitude of His tender mercies over [us]."

Nov 2007 Ensign, Elder Wirthlin ["The Greatest Commandment"] --> Love is a purifying, unifying, sanctifying power. When we love God, we love ourselves, because He loves us and not loving and respecting ourselves would hurt Him. When we loved God, we love our neighbors, for exactly the same reason -- because we want to serve Him and make Him happy, and we do that by loving and serving others. As we do that, the Lord ours out HIs Spirit and His blessings upon us, and we become gradually more like Him, and increase our capacity to love Him. And so it becomes a self-sustaining cycle, if we put in the work, the energy to keep it going. Thus, we are transformed by the gospel of Jesus Christ. "It takes us as men and women of the earth and refines us into men and women for the eternities."

Matthew 22:39 --> There is an idea here that gets overlooked, I think. The second [great] commandment is to "love thy neighbour as thyself [emphasis added]" -- obviously, this is meant to mean that we should love them greatly. But if this is meant to mean that...surely that implies that we should then love ourselves as much as we love our neighbours? The Gospel was never intended to degrade the individual, but instead to lift him up -- we are each, individually, God's work and glory [see Moses 1:39], and as such, we should have great love and respect for ourselves.

What great weather we've had lately

Mom and I finally figured out my financial aid situation, and frankly, it's not all that hot. Mom submitted all the paperwork that was required before I even came home, but it wasn't until about five months later -- in the middle of June -- that they calculated my award and sent it to me. I'm not sure why that is, but sadly, even though tuition and housing costs have risen and our family has more kids in college now (three! plus my dad's doing his doctorate), they gave me less aid than my original award my freshman year. That leaves me with about a $6000 gap between my aid and my expenses, and I have to find it before August. I might end up just having to take out a personal loan and start working two jobs to cover everything. If you could spare a couple of seconds to send up some prayers on my behalf, I would greatly appreciate it. 

This week marks the fifth week of work, with two more left in the summer program (it ends the last Friday in July). School doesn't start at SJC until the end of August, so I'm seriously thinking about going out to Annapolis a couple of weeks early, crashing on someone's couch, and spending that time hunting for a job -- or two. Mom and I haven't talked about it yet, really. For sure, though, I won't have a job here after the 24th. I can't believe how fast June went, and now July is speeding along, too! Speaking of July, this last weekend was the Fourth of July. As much as I love Korea and want to go back, it sure was nice to celebrate the Fourth in the good ol' US of A. :D Our family, at the invitation of (and with the generous support of) a couple in our ward, spent a wonderful three-day vacation at Reelfoot Lake, about 45 minutes from home. They went last year, too, but as I was in Korea, I didn't get to go. We went on a three-hour pontoon boat tour of the lake and got to see lots of herons, egrets, some turtles and ducks and even a copperhead! Some of the braver among us (not me, in other words) had froglegs for breakfast one morning. Surprisingly, they're really huge! I thought they'd be little and spindly, but these frogs much be the size of small chickens -- either that, or they did a lot of leg presses prior to being cut off and fried. We went swimming in the lake, went fishing, and watched part of a History Channel documentary on the Revolutionary War, and Friday night we had an awesome time shooting off lots and lots of fireworks. Growing up in Utah, you associate fireworks that explode in the sky with stadiums and big crowds, and only get to shoot the ground-bound ones off with your family or neighborhood. But when you live in a state that is 3/4 water, they let you shoot off all kinds of fireworks! And of course, I got completely devoured by mosquitos despite liberally applied amounts of bug repellant. (I think at last count I was over 30.) Thankfully, I've avoided sunburn for the last couple weeks, so at least I didn't have to suffer that.

Last night we had the missionaries and my boss over for dinner. It was a really great time. I'd been warning Mr. Robert about the craziness of dinner at our house...only to bring him home to perfectly behaved children. I swear, it's a first for our entire existence, and I know they did it out of spite. My mom made a great meal, and the elders shared a message that really seemed to touch Mr. Robert. He even chimed in after Elder Teuscher (that's too-shur) had finished presenting his message about serving Christ as we serve others (Mosiah 2:17) with a great insight of his own, and we had a lovely discussion about changing our attitudes towards the efforts we make for other people. My dad even sang part of "A Poor Wayfaring Man of Grief" a cappella. I'm grateful for the member missionary opportunities this job has given me. My testimony of the importance of member missionary work is growing every day -- and now that the mission president has whitewashed the ward next to us and put in sisters, maybe I'll even get to go on exchanges with them! It's only an hour drive, after all. :)

That's about all there is of interest, really. Rick came home at the last transfer, so we FINALLY, after almost two years, get to talk on the phone to each other without obtaining permission from President. It's been fun to hear the latest news from the mission and hear about his experiences with some of the people I got to serve with as well. Interestingly enough, I'm having just as hard a time transitioning back into calling him "Rick" again as I did trying to remember to call him "Elder Murphy" when we first went to the MTC. I am sad to admit, though, that he knows more Korean vocab than I do -- probably due to four transfers with a native companion instead of my one and only. I spell better, though, so it's not a complete loss. :)