Sometimes every day I say that to myself.
About bacon.
And other things.
But mostly bacon.
But a fair percentage would be 73% bacon.
27% other things.
But it all refers to metaphorical bacon.
Example: I quote it because I'm mad about a taxi passing us by.
"AND NOW IT'S GONE AND I HATE EVERYTHING."
The taxi brought it on, but all of a sudden I'm thinking about bacon, and I'm quoting Ron Swanson with about 27% devoted to the taxi whilst the other 73% refers to bacon.
Anecdotal time-wasters aside, what I'm TRYING TO SAY IS I love China with all my heart, but things are extremely difficult right now. The first week in Beijing was comprised of absolute bliss. I was thrilled to be here.
But then I got to my city, and things got hard.
Instead of getting easier, though, the hard things got harder.
Isn't it bizarre how the difficult things in our life always seem to surpass what you ever thought you could physically and mentally handle? I wasn't concerned about coming to China. I'm definitely a traveler and an adventurer, and I certainly haven't had to deal with culture shock because of the amount of love I already had for the people (thanks Kelsi) and the customs.
Before I left, I felt very strongly that there were going to be some difficult trials I'd go through during the next four months, and I thought to myself, What could possibly go wrong that I can't handle? I won't have to deal with culture shock more than likely, and I'm good at comforting people who are dealing with crap themselves (at least in my head) so I'll be fiiiiiiiiine.
OH yeah. Confidence is key. Confidence is key to getting a whole different set of trials in a way you didn't anticipate.
Without going into too much detail, my school is crazy. We still haven't started teaching. They show us off like trophies, like literal trophies, and push us around and won't let us leave and have creepy pedophile crushes and they haven't figured out our meal stipends yet and they made me learn a stupid dance and BOYFRIEND HAS A GIRLFRIEND AND WE DON'T HAVE WARM WATER (which I actually am fine with until it gets cold outside) AND ONCE UPON A TIME I USED TO HAVE FRIENDS AND NOW IT'S GONE AND I HATE EVERYTHING
(73%)
The problem is that I've never encountered anything like this before. How do you fix something when you don't have the means to fix it?
The beautiful thing is that God will find a way to give you a strength in something you didn't know was a weakness.
No, things aren't fixed. But things are okay.
So then I started reading about this guy named NEPHI.
In chapter 4, it starts out with "..let us be faithful in keeping the commandments of the Lord; for behold he is mightier than all the earth, then why not mightier than Laban and his fifty, yea, or even his tens of thousands?"
First of all, it's a hidden gem in the scriptures because it's in the first verse of a chapter which people (myself included) usually skim because it's generally exposition. BUT.
We were invited to go to Shanghai this weekend for a district conference, which means a four hour train ride, and trying to coordinate it is impossible without help from the school. Everything wasn't working out and I was super stressed and I finally just sat down to read my scriptures for the night and came across this scripture.
It immediately calmed my heart because even though I feel extremely isolated here, with no one that speaks English, and maybe two people that can barely speak, I truly have nothing to worry about. I was given a blessing before I left that promised my safety and my ability to comfort others, and who is God if he cannot give me comfort or find a train ticket for us to Shanghai somewhere?
But He IS God. And He is more powerful than anything. He divided the Red Sea for Moses. He delivered Laban to Nephi. He has created worlds without number, and Spirits that outnumber the sands of the sea. In verse three, it goes on and says, "wherefore can ye doubt?"
I can't doubt. None of us can afford to doubt when there is evidence of His hand all around us. He is with me, even in China, and He will make sure everything works out. In the Book of Mormon, there are 34 times that it says "Inasmuch as you shall keep my commandments, you will prosper in the land." And maybe it doesn't specifically refer to money, but we will be happy and find joy. Because this IS a plan of happiness (1 Nephi 8:10).
And though I now feel like I am "led by the Spirit, not knowing beforehand the things which I should do, nevertheless I [will go] forth" (1 Nephi 4:6-7). And I fully intend to.
SO SHANGHAI
and thingzzzz.
Miraculously, we got tickets set to leave at 7:48 p.m., which was fine. They were pricey, but oh well. We needed to get out of that place. The headmaster makes us do another public appearance (out of retribution for us leaving, I'm SURE), and we depart to Weifong to the train station. It takes about an hour to get there, and Sunny, a translator accompanying us, asked to see our tickets to make sure everything was good. She looks at them and gets a funny sideways face and shows it to the driver.
My stomach fell and dug a hole all the way back to K-Town. She pointed at some numbers and said, This time is wrong.
You're kidding.
You are KIDDING me.
We missed the train that we paid $75.00 for. We can't leave crazy Pooptown. I can't handle this.
But then she said they'd get us there on time. Apparently, the music teacher who took us to buy the tickets told us the wrong time. How the cuss are we supposed to read the ticket that's in Chinese? It's unfathomable to me that she told us the wrong time. Not even close to the right time. But. We had an hour and twenty minutes, and it takes an hour to get to Weifong.
Yes, I lost about nine million brain cells holding my breath the entire hour and twenty minutes and spent what little breath I had saying prayers we'd make it, but we really did make it. And I've never been more grateful in my life. Miracle. An absolute miracle.
We hop on the train and we're going to our seats and these two ginger men sitting in the two seats in front of us. They joked about how we could sit next to them since all four of us were thrilled to see other white people (ALMOST AS THRILLED AS ASIANS SEEING WHITE PEOPLE FOR THE FIRST TIME IN THEIR LIFE), but then we ended up sitting behind them due to assigned seating of the seating gods.
Furthermore, they were Irish.
Furthermore, they were witty.
Furthermore, I finally had the capacity to use colorful words like amalgamous.
Furthermore, they were definitely a bit drunk, and constantly buying more pijou (alcohol).
They offered to buy us drinks, and we kindly refused. Best thing, though? They were foreigners. They were passport holders. So naturally we steer that conversation right to the gospel.
Oh, we don't drink.
I respect that! I know a bunch of people that don't drink. Is it religion?
Yes it is!
I assume you're ChrriiisssMussssllli-
Christian.
EXACTLY.
Oh, just two Mormons casually refusing a drink on a train bound for Shanghai.
Wait, you're Mormon?!
Yes, yes we are!
So then the conversation progressed to an incredible discussion about our beliefs. We showed them our Book of Mormons which we conveniently had stowed away in our backpacks and talked to them about the things that set us apart from other gospels. It's quite a paradox, really. As I bore my testimony to these drunk, ginger, Irishmen (the stereotype radar is off the charts), I realized the fullness that we truly do have.
I know I talked about this before, but religion is very additive. Other churches are good, and there are pockets of truth in all of them, but they don't have my favorite parts about the gospel, namely the Book of Mormon, the all-encompassing power of the Atonement, the priesthood, and modern-day revelation. Keep in mind this was a seven hour train ride, and we spent about two and a half hours talking about our beliefs and explaining why they made sense and hearing their take on religion and God.
They were very open, which was something I was extremely grateful for. And I certainly felt the Spirit strongly. And as we spoke and talked about the intimacy with which we can come to know our Savior, one of them, Mark, looked somewhat startled. He was enthralled by the idea that a church believes so strongly that you can have a friendship with God. But he said it made sense to him. We talked about Joseph Smith, the personal revelation we can receive daily from the Book of Mormon, the pre-existence, foreordination, family, the sense of community, general conference, President Monson, missionaries, the Atonement, Christ's ministry, the contrast between Catholicism, Protestantism, and our church, the priesthood, eternal marriage, and lots of other things.
Then they got much too plastered to take it seriously anymore. But it was incredible. I am so grateful for that opportunity. We exchanged contact information, and I really enjoyed them as people. Meaning, before they got super drunk. It definitely made the train ride a lot easier! And it was refreshing to talk to someone who knew 19 different ways to say 'good.'
Shanghai, by the way, is incredible. :)
And to this day I still have not brought myself to proofread my writing. So I'm sorry. Forgive all my imperfections. :/
Bye.
No comments:
Post a Comment