Wow, so many things have happened in the last week. I'll have to pick and choose... Sister Nelson, Sister Son and I are figuring out this threesome thing. Sister Son is great; I love her, and I think I love Sister Nelson even more now that we've got Sister Son. It's still complicated to coordinate everything together, but definitely worth it. One of my favorite memories of the MTC will forever be the day I had to explain to Sister Son what the phrase "Who's your daddy?" means. Our elders have delighted in their Chinese translation of the phrase. After being asked the question several times (in Chinese), Sister Son asked me why they kept asking her--after all, explaining the identity of one's father is a bit difficult. With some help from an elder, I tried to convey the idea of a triumphant sports moment or something along those lines. She has since found several useful applications for the phrase (e.g. "I don't want Satan to be my daddy"). However, her most significant contribution to my life is definitely the feeling and spirit that brings with her. She is very patient and helpful with us, and also willing to express her gratitude. I think going out of our way to thank each other for things has been the best thing yet for our companionship.
In another amusing adventure this week, one of our elders accidentally thanked God for giving us death. He was praying in Chinese, and with just a little bit of confusion over tones and consonant pronunciation, he said "death" instead of "hope." I was actually quite impressed that no one laughed mid-prayer; we managed to contain ourselves until after. Fortunately, he was equally amused by his mistake.
I reread this really great talk by Elder Dallin H. Oaks (Elder Oaks is one of the apostles, a very important part of the general leadership of the LDS church. It's the same calling as that held by the apostles in Jesus' time). The talk is called "Why Do We Serve?", and it's all about our motives for giving service. He lists a few possibilities, from least to most desirable. The most desirable is charity. I've been thinking about the whole idea of being motivated by charity (defined to be the pure love of Christ). I've been thinking about it actively for about 24 hours now, and it's pretty interesting what things I do and don't say or do when I'm trying to keep that principle in mind. I think the exercise has helped me understand better why patience is so relevant to love, because really trying to be motivated by love all the time requires a lot of patience. In some ways it's easier to do one-time dramatic acts of service than it is to let sincere concern for others and God seep into every little action and thought. I think that's probably one of the more significant things I've been learning about, which is why I thought I would pass it on. If I only wrote about physical experiences or events, that wouldn't do much to reflect the most important part of my life experiences.
Well, I must be off again. Take care!
Love,
Sister Andersen
P.S. I leave the MTC July 28--exactly four weeks from today.
2 comments:
Your SYL experiences remind of Tagalog missionaries saying "The prophets killed the people." instead of "The people killed the prophets." Or Tagalog missionaries teaching the investigators that Christ crucified the people! In both instances just one word made the difference. :-)
It was good to see you the other day. You look really great and I could tell from your posts that you are growing in numerous ways. ~~Sandy
First lesson in the MTC for me (and I'm not kidding): how to be sure that we prayed for "Bless this house with love" rather than "Wound this house with death." Amazing what pronunciation can do, and that wasn't even a tonal language. I also called sunsets "diapers of the sun" for a good chunk of my mission until a kind member corrected me. This is why YOU are going to a tonal language mission and I did not.
Keep doing great work!
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