Hello, 2013

Do you remember when the US Mint started issuing the states quarters, way back in 1999? Like probably most every other family in the US with kids, our family started collecting them, albeit a little late -- maybe late 2000 or 2001. I remember my mom bought a case-book-thingy for each of us to keep ours in. I remember sitting on my bed in the attic of our house in Tennessee and looking at the slots for the year 2009 when the series would be complete and thinking it was so far away.

Oh, Time, how fast you fly! It's now been more than ten years since I was sitting on that bed, four years past so-far-away 2009. Just the other day while I was home for Christmas, my barely-8-year-old little brother announced, "People born in 2000 are old." My parents and I were sitting in the same room engaged in various other activities, and we all just laughed and laughed. But the evidence that the people around me are starting to be old is mounting. Both my grandfathers died in 2011. Neither of my grandmothers are as hale as they used to be, and both are facing ever-increasing health concerns. My father's beard has much more "salt" in it than it used to, and both he and my mother are a little more creaky than I remember. I have four younger brothers, but only the youngest can properly be called my "little" brother, and my youngest sister will probably stop being my "littlest" sister in just a few years. Craziest of all is that in just a few weeks my parents will be transformed into grandparents and my sister -- my baby sister, the one who is still always just barely 14 in my head -- will have a daughter.

Tomorrow marks two years since I moved to Utah, and that fact sets my head reeling, just a little bit. It seems impossible that it could have been that long. It seems like not too long ago that I anxiously prepared for my first day of "normal" college in more than four years, worried that somehow I wouldn't do very well or have problems adjusting. Now, two years later, I smile a little at my anxious past-self. I wish I could tell her she'd be fine, that she'd fall right back into the rhythm of class-homework-quiz-presentation-paper-test. I also wish I could tell her to start thinking beyond her all-consuming goal of just graduating and getting her undergraduate over with, and spend a little more time (seriously) planning for the future and discovering what exactly it is she wants out of life.

Which brings me to the cliched part of this post.

Ah, resolutions. They have such a bad rap, for an admittedly deserved reason: we're almost universally horrible at keeping them. We set lofty goals and then fall off the wagon by mid February. Sometimes we make it to March if we're diligent. I've been pondering off and on over the last few weeks how best to approach making the changes I want to make in my life. I've read a couple of great posts from some good friends (Autumn here and Kelsey here are lovely examples) that have inspired me to try approaching making resolutions from a different angle than I would normally. I've sat down and tried to work through things logically, attempting to hew to the wisdom that you need written goals broken down into manageable, accomplishable steps to actually change. I've tried just spontaneously writing down whatever came to me. The problem is that there are just too many darn things I'd like to change in my life.

I want to learn to enjoy cooking. I want to be more active and eat healthier. I want to improve my mind and learn new things. I want to take up new hobbies like photography and rock climbing. I want to be a  kinder person. A more organized person. A more financially responsible person. A more-fluently-Korean-speaking person. A better dressed person. A person who does her hair in more ways than just a ponytail. A person who can shower in less than half an hour. And I'd really like to finally not be the person that becomes paralyzed and gives up on any change in the face of feeling overwhelmed by all the things she thinks she needs to change.

Really, how do you choose only a few things to resolution-ize in that long and not-comprehensive list? Not to mention the discouraging reality that making permanent changes in our lives and habits takes an incredible amount of energy, time, and patience. It's almost enough to resign yourself to being a hoodie-and-jeans-wearing, ponytail-sporting, longer-than-20-minutes-showering, often-sarcastic person for the rest of your life. (At least if you're me.) Almost.

Honestly, I'll probably never really learn to shower in less than 30 minutes. I'll probably always prefer wearing a hoodie and jeans to wearing a blouse and skirt. I might never learn to French braid my own hair and wear a ponytail every day for the rest of my life. I might always have to grit my teeth a little when the time to make dinner rolls around each day. Thus I have decided to not resolution-ize any of those things -- not because I'm likely to fail, but because I see a larger theme in what I want in life.

My resolution -- or goal, if you'd rather -- for 2013 is to love myself. To forgive myself. To respect myself. To be kind to myself. To be understanding with myself when I make mistakes, and to encourage myself to do better next time. To rejoice with myself when I do succeed, even if the success is small. To not undermine myself and set myself up to fail. I want to be friends with myself, and to enjoy spending time with myself. After all, the one person you're stuck with the rest of your life is yourself, and if you're not particularly fond of yourself it won't be a very fun or rewarding rest of your life.

Of course, that's a pretty broad goal. To be honest, I'm not even sure how to go about tackling it. Any ideas or suggestions would be welcome, particularly if they're things you've discovered working in your own life. Right now I think I need to start with establishing good habits in place of old, entrenched bad ones: going to bed on time, waking up early to pray and read my scriptures daily, being more active, and eating more regularly and better. Not all at once, but one decision at a time. It's overwhelming to think about overhauling your entire life all at once, but deciding to make one good choice at a time, independent of past or future failures -- that I can do.

A Journey Without a Destination Is More Like Aimless Wandering, Part II

Here I am. I'm 26, barely graduated from my undergrad, working two part-time jobs (but thankfully with insurance), and I've got a GRE Analytical Writing score that could very well keep me out of grad school. (At least this year.) The kicker is that when I checked, I saw that I only needed another half-point (or a 4.5) to jump all the way to the 73rd percentile. Basically, the difference between my reader being in a good or generous mood and s/he being anxious to get home or go to lunch. When there's a-- wait, let me do the math...29 percentage-point difference in just a half a point on your scale, you need a new scale.

Mostly I'm just mad. But there's another part of me, a not-very-small-and-in-fact-growing-increasingly-larger part of me, that wonders what the heck I do now. To be honest, I decided to apply to grad school more because I'm not too keen on continuing to do what I'm doing now more than because I finally know what I want to do with my life. Having an MA at least means I can start looking for work in my field, or I could move on to a more prestigious program and get a Ph.D. I figured the U would be a good choice; I could finally take some formal Korean classes, deepen my understanding of the culture and history of the region, and yet the tuition wouldn't totally break the bank and I'd have a decent shot at a fellowship, not to mention friends and family who live in the area. And the U is thankfully in a bigger city than Logan. It would be a leap of faith, but not a huge one.

So...now what? I could take the GRE again, but that's another $175 and I'd have no more time to prepare than I did last time. Not to mention, because I waited so long to take it the first time, now I have only about two dates I could even take it -- and that close to the application deadline, there's no guarantee that they'd receive my scores in time, anyway. I could call up the ETS people and keep squeaking until they give me some grease and take another look at my writing score, but let's face it, the probability of that happening is slim to none. I could throw myself on the mercy of the admissions committee at the U and try to explain my way into getting them to admit me. Or I could just give up.

Honestly, that last option was my first inclination. Just throw my hands up and say, Oh well, there's nothing I can do about it and resign myself to being a 26-year-old BA working two part-time jobs in a small city with no real job prospects in her field (but thankfully with insurance). But isn't that too pathetic? I already feel like I'm a pretty amazing failure, but that would really take the cake, no matter how much I just want to sit down and have a good cry. It's hard to feel upbeat when I look at so many of my friends and peers and they're working on their Ph.D.s or Master's, or traveling the world, or living and working in other countries, or gainfully employed and have cars and houses and kids.

Even worse than the (not inconsiderable) blow to my pride is the lack of direction, the shattering of expectations. I don't know what I want to do with my life. The pointlessness of it all is inciting an existential crisis. I want to do something, but it's eternally frustrating that I just don't know what. I wish I had that clarity of purpose and utter conviction I had as a three-year-old who wanted to be a ballerina. I'd settle for the naive confidence of the high school sophomore who was convinced she wanted to be a biochemist. (Whew, dodged that bullet.) Heck, I'd love to even have the optimism of the brand-new college freshman who wanted to become an English professor.

What am I doing with this time I'll never get back? Nothing very fulfilling. Please don't mistake me, I am so grateful to have a way to support myself, somewhere warm and dry to live, good food to eat, a little expendable income for fun things and to pay down my student loans a little faster, a family who loves and supports me, and an education. I am tremendously blessed, and even if that was all I had I'd still be one of the richest people alive. I've been trying to concentrate on those things, and I've been glad to be here in Logan for some things happening in my life and in the lives of people around me, but I feel like I'm stagnating here. The problem is I don't know where I want to go, let alone how to get there, to get myself moving and cease stagnating. I have no idea what the future holds or why this happened to me when everything suggested it wouldn't. I don't know what I want. I don't know what God wants me to want. I feel like every time I think I do know, it turns out not to be the case...? At this point I just want to stay in bed all day and stare at my ceiling.

A Journey Without a Destination Is More Like Aimless Wandering, Part I

The annoying thing about life is that it's impossible to do perfectly.

As much as I would like to be able to, I can't. And sometimes, Life throws you a curveball just to drive that home.

When I graduated earlier this year, I had no idea what I was going to do next. I'd kind of decided to move to Korea to teach English, and so I hadn't worried about doing silly things like taking the GRE or filling out a FAFSA. Well, Korea didn't pan out, much to my disappointment, and so I spent the summer pretty much lollygagging around until I finally got my act together and found a job. Then I got a second job because the first job was only half time. I vaguely figured I'd work for a year, pay down some of my student loan debt and regain my sanity, then plunge back into school the next fall.

It was a good plan. Okay, at least it wasn't a bad plan.

The only problem was, I forgot that grad school is not something you decide to do and just do in the spur of the moment. You have to plan ahead, waaaaay ahead, and do silly things like take the GRE and fill out a bunch of applications and ask a lot of people to write letters of recommendation and fill out the FAFSA. By the time I realized, Crap, I have to take the GRE and start looking at schools stat if I want to go to grad school in the fall! it was already early October. But the whole thought of that (and all the money it would require) was so overwhelming I procrastinated dealing with it. Finally, in early November I bit the bullet and went for it...but many of the places I was looking at had application deadlines on 1 December or in the middle of the month. If I wanted to even have a shot at applying to them I'd have to have my GRE results in to them by then, which means I'd have to take it in the middle of November at the latest. So I registered, paid my money (watching $175 go out of my bank account just for the pleasure of taking a test hurt a little bit), and took the test on 15 November at 8:00 in the morning.

I spent the lion's share of what little prep time I invested reviewing math concepts I was supposed to have mastered in middle school and the first couple years of high school. I'm sure this will not come as a shock to any who know me, but my mastery of math concepts basically stops at multiplication...if that. My grasp of even basic math was pretty rusty at best. I was not terribly worried about the vocabulary sections, since I knew about 90% of the words on the vocab lists in the prep book I borrowed from the library. (Let's face it, with my parents and my bookworm childhood, I'd be worried if I didn't.) Likewise, I was pretty confident about the analytic writing portion; if I managed to procrastinate every single paper I'd ever written at USU (some pretty spectacularly) and still not lose any points, I figured a half-hour to write one one-page essay was not going to be terribly taxing.

What's that scripture again? "Pride goeth before the fall"? (More accurately, "Pride goeth before destruction, and an haughty spirit before a fall. But it still applies.)

The morning of the GRE I wasn't feeling too bad about life. Nervous, but confident. I'd said my prayers, and I figured any Asian Studies program probably wasn't going to look too closely at my math score anyway so I'd be okay. The analytical writing section came first, and I felt like I did a good job on the two essay prompts I'd been given. I asked the Lord for the inspiration and guidance of the Spirit and for His help in doing my best, and I felt like I'd received it. I moved into my first math section feeling confident. (I didn't end it feeling confident, but that's a whole 'nother ball game.) The rest of the GRE went pretty quickly, especially the verbal sections -- I finished those with almost half the time to spare. The new computerized version of the GRE tells you your raw scores for the math and verbal sections as soon as you're done taking the test, so I knew I'd done okay with a 163 in verbal and a 154 in quantitative. I left feeling pretty upbeat, which was only confirmed when I looked up the table that converts your raw score into the percentile score grads schools use for admissions. I was 91st percentile in verbal and 60th in math, definitely good enough to satisfy admissions requirements. I was sure that when I got my writing scores I'd get a 5.0 or a 5.5 (out of 6.0) and be fine.

I realize that sounds incredibly cocky, but nothing in my education to that point had ever given me reason to disabuse myself of that notion, so you can imagine my utter shock when I opened my official scores Sunday morning to see a glaring "4.0 -- 49th %ile" staring back at me. I've never been hit with a 2x4 before, but I imagine the feeling of stunned bewilderment and disorientation is somewhat similar to how I felt at that moment. In case your math is as bad as mine, the 49th percentile is 21 percentage points shy of the 70 I needed to be admitted to the program I was most seriously considering, the Asian Studies MA at the University of Utah. The 49th percentile is average. Average. I went down to my room and sobbed.

The thing is, I realize that I'm being compared to other takers of the GRE, who are on average a smarter  bunch of people (or at least better test-takers) than your average US citizen. I know that, I do. Yet I find it utterly incomprehensible that my math score could be higher than my writing score, ever. Maybe back when I was two and learning to count but couldn't read yet. Definitely not now, not after not taking any math class for more than two years and not having a "real" math class since my second semester at UTM taking college algebra (and I got a B, by the way) more than six years ago. I felt like calling up ETS then and there and demanding to know how the heck this had happened. But I'm a chicken so I didn't. Now I'm desperately scrambling to find a way to fix this and I feel like my life has just been knocked into a flat spin. This post, however, is getting long, so I'll talk more about that in my next post.

Stubborn

I'm a little mad at the world right now.

Doesn't that sound so petulant? Sadly, I think petulant -- "childishly sulky or bad-tempered" -- is the most appropriate word for my attitude right now. I shared yesterday about my "compelled to be humble" experience, but apparently I'm still struggling with the humility, because the logical and grown-up part of me is rather appalled at the bad attitude of the rest of me. And it isn't that impressed with stupid excuses I'm making, either.

See, the thing is, the solution to my current situation is simple. It involves getting a job. As it was pointed out to me yesterday, people who are much less qualified and much less intelligent than I am have jobs, so obviously my hang up is not getting a job, but getting a job that I want to get. The humility part of this is in acknowledging the truth of that statement. Admitting it's true puts responsibility for my current state of unemployed-bum-hood squarely on my own shoulders and breaks up the little pity party I'm throwing for myself. People will feel sorry for you if your woes are inflicted on you by the Universe or the vagaries of the economy, but they tend to be much less sympathetic when it's your own fault.

The cause of all this stubborn pride is an assumption that's been lurking in the back of my brain for years and years -- probably since I was old enough to realize that "one day" I'd be grown-up and out of school -- that my life at 25 would include a husband, a kid or two, a house, and me at home taking care of all of them. I went through a "I want to be a fighter pilot / astronaut / ballerina when I grow up" phase, but by high school I knew I wanted to be a domestic engineer -- a stay-at-home mom. It wasn't that I didn't have any dreams, or that I was somehow less ambitious than girls who wanted to be doctors or the next president of the United States or small business owners. (See this for a fantastic post on the topic.) I firmly believe that the greatest good I'll ever do and the highest calling I'll ever have is as a wife and mother. That doesn't preclude any other contributions to society, of course. But all I have to say on that subject is a post for another day. The main point is that I never expected to find myself in this position. I don't really want to be in this position, either. 

It's not that I don't want to do other things, because I do. I'd love to be able to travel all over the world. I'd love to live in a big city here in the States for a while, maybe NYC or DC, and explore all it has to offer in the way of food and museums and parks. I'd be ecstatic to move back to Korea and eat all the Korean food I ever want and finally become fluent. I want to have an environmentally friendly car, a small but nice house with a yard someplace safe and quiet, all my student loans paid off and a nice cushion in the bank, a fantastic bed, and one room in my house devoted totally to books. I most definitely do not want to stay here in Logan and work some boring job that isn't very stimulating, rewarding personally or financially, or likely to set me on the fast track to some amazing career if I don't end up getting married and having a family. I don't want to be paying off my student loans until my oldest child is 16. I don't want to live 1.5 hours from the nearest city and have no car. I don't want to live in any more apartments or in someone else's home. I want my life to follow my plan for it.

But it just doesn't work that way, and sulking about it isn't going to change anything. The AnnMarie I dreamed up when I was 12 doesn't exist. She never existed. She's never going to exist. Sometimes you have to do things you don't want to do, and being jealous of someone else's opportunities is not very becoming. Neither is refusing to deal with reality. It's one thing to realize all that intellectually, and quite another to actually believe it and act accordingly. Of course I knew all this, I'm not stupid or totally ignorant of the way the world works. I certainly don't lack examples of these principles. If I came to me with my attitude, I'd've given me the same dressing down I got yesterday. Quit whining and just get a job, moron. Unhappy with a paycheck is better than unhappy without one. (I paraphrase.) At least then you'll be able to pay your bills and be independent. 

Life is unpredictable. I think that's been pretty well established, and shouldn't be a surprise to anyone. It shouldn't come as a surprise, either, that sometimes the best experiences of our lives grow out of other experiences we might not be so thrilled about having. We lack the perspective to see, in the moment, how our difficulties and challenges will make us better people and perhaps even bring us greater blessings than we could have ever imagined. I am reminded of a Chinese proverb I learned in some of my classes at USU: 塞翁失馬焉知非福 (Saiweng Shima, Yanzhi Feifu). Since that probably means nothing to 99.9% of you, I'll share the story of the old man who lost his horse. (There are several different versions of the story, but the one I quote here you can find here.)

     "During the Han Dynasty—in the third century B.C.—an old man living on China’s border one day lost his horse. His neighbors all said what terrible luck that was, and sympathized with the old man. But Sai Weng said: “Maybe losing my horse is not a bad thing after all.”
     Lo and behold, the next day the old man’s horse returned, together with a beautiful female horse alongside him. All the neighbors exclaimed: “What great luck!” But the old man responded: “Maybe this is not such good luck after all.”
     The old man had a strong young son. The boy fell in love with the new horse and rode her every day. One day the new horse got spooked by a wild animal and threw the boy from her back. He broke his leg very badly and was permanently crippled.
     All Sai Weng’s neighbors said: “What a tragedy, your strong son will never walk without pain again.” But the old man again said: “Maybe this is not such a bad thing after all.”
     And so it went that when the New Year came, the emperor’s army passed through the border region and recruited all able young men to fight in the frontier war. Because the old man’s son was crippled he could not fight and was left in the village to farm with his father.
     Sai Weng said to his neighbors: “You see, it all turned out okay in the end. Being thrown from the horse and breaking his leg saved my son from fighting in the war and almost certain death. So it was in the end a lucky thing after all.”"

I admit, I don't like it. I'm not thrilled about possibly having to get a job doing something I don't love. I'm not excited about staying in Logan. I'm not happy at maybe having to spend the next ten years of my life making small payments on my student loans and worrying about insurance and living in rented apartments or rooms. I'm mad at myself for not doing unpleasant things earlier that would have put me in a better position right now, financially, physically, mentally, emotionally, spiritually, educationally. I hate the thought that I might never get the life I think I want right now. I'm still feeling stubborn about it all. It's not like my attitude about all of this is going to change overnight, but I hope some of the compelled humility will worm its way into my perspective and I'll be more willing to do what I need to, rather than stubbornly holding out for what I want.

"Blessed are they who humble themselves without being compelled to be humble"*

*Alma 32:16

Today I had one of those "compelled to be humble" moments. It was painful. And rather uncomfortable, too. And I feel monumentally stupid.

The thing about "compelled to be humble" moments is that you are usually fully aware of what it is you need to be humble about -- you're just not being humble about it. Such it was with my moment today. There was nothing new about the smackdown I got, nothing in it I hadn't told myself over and over again...except this time someone else was saying it. It's funny how hearing it all coming out of someone else's mouth has a way of making it all just that much more painful. And embarrassing. ~sigh~

The other thing about being compelled to be humble, besides it being decidedly less comfortable than humbling yourself, is that it's much harder to ignore the magnitude of what you need to be humble about than if you just give yourself a little lecture and then fix it. It also has a way of ruthlessly illustrating just how stupid you've been and how inane your excuses sound when you say them out loud.

The upshot of my being compelled to be humble is this: I'm going to stop wallowing in self-pity (because as much as I try to deny it, that's what it is), stop expecting things to magically go the way I want them to, stop turning my nose up at jobs that aren't quite (or at all, ~sigh~) what I want, and give myself a schedule each day. I'm going to only set goals that require my agency to achieve them -- things like "I will submit 20 applications this week" instead of "I will have a full-time, benefitted position by the end of August". And I'm going to get off my bum and get active instead of moping around and eating a lot of ice cream and cookies.

Here's hoping. ~crosses fingers~

Resume Writing and the Atonement

I'm currently on the hunt for what seems like the world's most elusive prey: a good job.

It's been more than two months since the day that I walked out of my last (undergraduate) final and pumped my fist victoriously. At that moment I was on top of the world, and though my confidence was tinged with a little niggle of concern, I pushed it to the back of my mind and focused on savoring the moment it had taken me seven years to reach.

But Life has a harsh way of making its presence felt. So here I am: 25-going-on-26, newly graduated from college, out in the "real" world for the first time, anxious about finding a job that will afford me a little self-respect along with my paycheck and benefits (hopefully), worried about paying off my students loans and saving up for a car, and really just wanting to be in Korea. Suffice it to say that this is not exactly where I saw myself in five years five years ago. To be honest, it's not even where I saw myself in five months five months ago.

A few weeks ago I thought I'd found the solution to my employment woes, but it turned out that I wasn't offered the position. A while after that I came across the position at Utah State that I'm currently working up an application for. It's not exactly my dream job, but it's a good starting point, and I'm confident I can do it well and contribute as well as learn. The downside to being really excited about an opportunity is that I tend to freak out about making everything "perfect". In real life this translates into obsessing over every word, comma, and bullet point in my resume, and don't even get me started on my cover letter. Despite what some might say, resumes and the whole process of getting a job are 90% subjective. What one person advises another decries as the most ludicrous thing ever. It makes people like me get stress headaches from trying to reconcile it all and turn out the "perfect" resume, the "perfect" cover letter, and the "perfect" response to any conceivable interview question. This afternoon one such stress headache was in its early stages when I decided to walk away from my application and go make some ramyun. I was contemplating this whole crazy mess over a boiling pot of water when I had a quiet but profound realization.

This whole resume-writing experience is a microcosm of my whole approach to life. I stress myself sick trying to do everything "perfectly" while ignoring the fact that "perfect" is not within my capabilities. And it's not meant to be. The whole point of life is not to achieve perfection on my own merits, but to do the best I can and then leave the rest to the Lord. No matter how much I try, I'll never be perfect on my own. I can stress and spend as much time as I want on my resume for this position I want so badly, but no amount of stress or time or revising is going to guarantee me the job. At some point I have to consciously let go of my desire for minute control over everything, turn it all over to the Lord, and trust that if I do my best and live righteously it will all work out in the end. Maybe that means I don't get this job. Maybe that means that I will. In the long run it probably doesn't matter if I do or not; of far greater importance is learning the lesson to let go, trust the Lord, and seek perfection through my Savior and not my own strength.

I Wish I Had a Camera

Photo here

We got quite a bit of snow the other night. In fact, it all came down in the space of just a few hours -- when I went in to volunteer at the English Learning Center, it was raining lightly. Two hours later when I left, the snow was above my ankles and it was covering my car faster than I could brush it off. I couldn't find my fuel door, even. I wish I had a camera, a nice one, so that I could do the beautiful scenery justice. It's been years since I've seen mountains covered with snow. Photography is one of those things that I wish I was good at, because I love pictures; but I'm just not. I especially love light in both photographs and films, and good lighting can make the difference between average and amazing. Maybe one day I'll take a class and improve my skills, even if I can't be great.

Recently I've started volunteering at the English Learning Center here in the city (which was, coincidentally, founded and is run by one of my neighbors from my old neighborhood when I lived here before) and also as an English conversation partner for a USU international student. As you'd expect, most of the students at the ELC are from Spanish-speaking countries, but there are also quite a few from other places; Wednesday night there was a boy from Somalia, a girl from Myanmar, and another girl from Georgia. My student is Korean (yay!) and through her I've gotten to meet other Korean students. There are quite a few more than I thought there would be, though not as many as are at BYU. It's nice to have people to talk to about things like dramas and music and TV shows that no one here watches or listens to, and they think I'm cool instead of weird for doing it. But anyway. The point of all that was to share how much I'm enjoying helping people learn English. I think I'm pretty good at explaining things understandably, mostly because my parents always taught me about my own language when I was growing up, and so I have a greater awareness of it than most people. Plus, I know what it's like to be on the other end and be the one learning rather than the one teaching. I think it makes me more patient and understanding. Or at least I hope so. Learning another language is hard, and there's so much you have to learn from experience and hundreds or even thousands of hours of listening and speaking. But I love seeing the light of understanding in people's eyes when they finally understand something they've been struggling with for a long time. I love teaching for that reason. Because as admirable as it is to help people attain stuff, if you help someone attain understanding, you've changed their life forever and given them the tools to help themselves. 

"Have miracles ceased? Behold I say unto you, Nay"

Moroni 7:29


Two weekends ago I went to Busan to visit an old companion of mine. She was my only Korean companion, and she was also my first junior companion. She's literally an angel -- I've never known a sweeter, more generous and giving person in my life. I was sad that I was with her for only a transfer before I got transferred to another area.

Busan is about three and a half hours away from Jeonju by bus. We decided that I'd take the 930 bus and she'd meet me at the terminal and we'd figure out our plans from there. No big deal, right? My first stroke of bad luck was getting to the bus terminal in Jeonju and realizing that my phone hadn't stayed on after I turned it on that morning. The battery had died the day before, but I'd been sure to plug it in that night, and hadn't bothered to drop my charger in my bag, because I was only going to be gone for the weekend, right? It turns out that my phone hadn't charged, I'm not sure why, and I was headed to Busan to meet my companion without any way to contact her -- because, of course, the only place I had her number was in my phone. I didn't have anyone else's number memorized, either. I got on the bus and hoped that she'd be there waiting for me when I got to the station like she said she would be; otherwise, I wasn't sure what was going to go down.

I made it to Busan and into the terminal. I walked along slowly, looking all around me: no luck. I headed upstairs, looked outside, waited for twenty minutes; no sign of her. I started panicking slightly. The only person I knew in Busan was her; and unlike Seoul, I didn't know my way around, I'd never been there before, and I didn't even have her address so I could try to make my way to her house and wait for her there. I prayed. I looked around some more. Still no luck. I prayed again, a little more earnestly. Dear God. I know this is my fault for ignoring that little niggling in my mind this morning that said to put my charger in my bag. I know this is my fault for not having the presence of mind to keep a written copy of her number with me. But God, I really don't know anyone here, I have no way of getting in touch with her with my phone dead, and she's not here. Help. Please.

I tried turning on my phone, to see if that would be the answer to my prayer. Maybe it would miraculously stay on long enough for me to retrieve her number, and then I could call her from a payphone. After a few tries it wouldn't even turn on anymore. Strike that idea.

Before I could completely abandon myself to despair, a tiny little thought niggled its way into my brain. What if I called the missionaries? My companion was a return missionary, and missionaries love return missionaries. Surely they'd have her number. The phone book would probably have the number for the church, and it was lunch time so maybe they'd be at the church making copies or something...it was the best shot I had. I went downstairs and found -- miraculously -- a phone book in one of the phone booths. I looked up the name of the church -- 예수 그리스도 후기 성도 교회. There were some fifteen entries, at least. I had no way of knowing which was her ward, so I just started from the first one and decided to work my way down the list. No one answered at the first number, so I tried the second. Success! Someone answered, but I could barely hear him. I asked if the number was for the Haeundae Ward. He said no. I asked if he knew the number. He said yes, but asked me why I wanted to know. I explained what had happened, and added that I was trying to get ahold of my companion. He asked who it was. I told him. Ah! he said, I know her. Would you like me to give you her number?

I gave her a call, and after a few minutes of searching for each other, we discovered that we were in competely different terminals. Turns out there are more than one, and which one you end up at depends on where you leave from. I left from the only one I knew about, and she went to meet me at the only one she knew about. If I hadn't been able to get in touch with her, I would have had to turn around and go home -- I never would have found her, no matter how long I waited, and she never would have found me, either. I have no idea who it was I called on the phone. I found out later, after I told my companion the story, that it really was miraculous that I was able to get in touch with her -- a little while before, she had switched phones and her number had changed, and most people didn't have her new number. Even if I had reached the missionaries, for instance, they would have had the wrong number. Somehow, I got in touch with one of very few people who had the correct number.

We had a great weekend together, even though it did rain. (The area she lives in is very famous in Korea for its beaches. We walked along one for about five minutes, and then the heavens opened in a very Noah-like fashion that lasted all weekend.) I was able to charge my phone and got home without any further incidents, but now I have a really cool story about personal revelation and listening to the Spirit and a firmer conviction that God loves us even though we're pretty much always screwing up. There was nothing I did that made me deserving of the miracle I received, but I took God at His word that if I asked in faith, I'd get an answer, and He did. I hope all of you will have an occasion to do the same -- but perhaps in a less dramatic fashion.

There Are Worse Ways to Put Yourself Through College

...but my feet sure do hurt.

Yesterday marked my week anniversary of starting my new job at a shoe store in the mall. This is my first time working retail, and let me tell you, it is a different experience.

I was really lucky to get this job, seeing as how I have no experience in retail at all. I am even luckier because my manager is a really great guy who genuinely cares about what he's doing, loves his job, and is concerned about his employees. Plus he has really cute kids and his wife is adorable. They're from Thailand, actually, though he's Chinese and they've all been in the States for awhile now. I'm also lucky because I actually enjoy doing what I do -- helping people find shoes that fit their needs -- most of the time. It's just when I've been there for five hours, listening to the same CD of Brittany Spears, Shakira,*Nsync, and the Backstreet Boys (which is better than the alternatives, believe me) for the fifth time, standing up the whole time, and no one's come in the store in at least an hour that I start wishing I had a little more interesting job. Or when I hobble home on aching feet and finally collapse on my bed and wonder if $8.50/hour can possibly be worth it.

But, as I said, there are worse ways to put yourself through college. I try not to think about the job I had freshman year, before I left for the mission -- student circulation aide at the Naval Academy's library. It was easy, it was 15 hours a week, and it paid $3.50/hour more. Not to mention it was within walking distance and I didn't have to stress out over the unreliability of the public transportation. And I never had Brittany Spears stuck in my head.

Then again, maybe the Lord doesn't want me to take the easy road. I'm certainly learning things I wouldn't have learned at the library, and I can't help but think of Calvin's dad (in the comic strip Calvin & Hobbs) saying, a little superciliously, "It builds character." In this case I think it is. And who knows, maybe three years down the road I'll look back and see clearly that this was better for me and served some greater purpose in helping me develop into who I need to be.

But my feet really do hurt.

Three Days Out

*AnnMarie collapses onto the floor in a heap* Today was my third day at my new job, and let me tell you, it's wearing me out! You'd think that with all of us helping out it wouldn't be that bad, but despite having six 20-somethings on staff, as well as three older adults, those forty kids run us ragged every day. We only have them for four hours (10:30 to 2:30)...but they are four very long hours indeed.

Despite being exhausted, I do love my job. They're really great kids who have less-than-ideal situations, and despite a certain amount of attitude and lip, they're very loving and eager to do well for us. We spend our days doing various planned activities, like martial arts with a local instructor, visits to the library, and swimming at the pool. We play outside on the playground, eat lunch, and play board games and color. Today, we had a visit from a dentist, and tomorrow the First Baptist Church will take some of our kids fishing. It's a great job, and I'm really lucky to have it. I very much dislike working at jobs where I don't feel I'm making a difference, and working with these kids I can feel that I am. Plus, I love working with the other staff members, especially Mr. Robert. He's the director of the program, and in actuality, he could be doing five hundred other, more "profitable" things as a career. But he loves these kids so much, and it shines through everything he does, and it's reflected in every child's eyes. The kids can't get enough of Mr. Robert; they always want to be around him, and they're constantly hugging him and tugging on his hands. It's the most adorable sight. :)

This experience is helping me in ways I'm beginning to see even now. Despite my (quite vast) experience with kids (for my age, at least), I've never interacted with kids quite like these. A lot of these kids have authority problems, along with all the other problems you'd expect kids growing up in the projects to have. As a result, we spend a lot of time calling kids out for their attitudes and reactions toward our authority. You'd expect that, but I was surprised and mildly upset by how severe and angry our reactions to their reactions were. I'm not saying I'm perfect by any measure, but unless I was very upset and at the end of my chain, I wouldn't react that way to a similar outburst by one of my siblings or a child I babysat. As I thought about that in the shower this morning, I decided that I wasn't going to let myself be molded to the situation; rather, I would try to mold the situation to be more Christlike. I don't want you to think that the other staff members are being unusually mean or rough, but I didn't think that Christ would necessarily approach the situation in that manner. So I gave it a try today. I failed quite a lot, but I do think I succeeded as well. As I keep working at it, I hope it will help me practice patience when my temper is short, as well as helping me to work on my communication skills and other skills that will be of value when I ultimately become a mother to my own children. All in all, I'm very grateful to my Heavenly Father for giving me this opportunity to both help these great kids and learn about myself.