Friday, April 17, 2020

Chapter 7 Adjusting My Grip: Group 4: Those That Mourn


Chapter 7 - Group 4: Waiting for the Next Arrival of Jesus Christ

Imagine yourself a living house. God comes in to rebuild that house. At first, perhaps you can understand what he is doing. He is getting the drains right and stopping the leaks in the roof and so on; you knew that those jobs needed doing and you are not surprised.

But presently He starts knocking the house about in a way that hurts abominably and does not seem to make sense.

What on earth is He up to?

The explanation is that He is building quite a different house from the one you thought of: throwing out a new wing here, putting on an extra floor there, running up towers, making courtyards. You thought you were going to be made into a decent little cottage; but He is building a palace.
                                                                                   --C.S. Lewis, from Mere Christianity

We believe that our time on earth is a testing ground for our reward in Heaven. It's pretty straight forward; when you face a trial in life, your righteous response to that trial purifies you and gets you ready to take on the responsibilities and rewards you will have in the next life.

Thank you C.S. Lewis. I've stopped saying "when we get rich I want a house with a pool, a movie room and a dining table for 24" because I imagine God saying "She's asking for it!" and the next day we have another miscarriage or drive off a cliff, but our mansion in heaven will be fit for the St. George Parade of Homes (I’ll describe that later - don’t worry).

I love my life. I love my life....I love my....

I'm not a big believer that God reaches out and puts these trials in our path. I believe that he would like to reach in and stop the consequences of our choices, or other people's choices that may adversely affect us, but that's not part of the plan either. BAD STUFF HAPPENS TO GOOD PEOPLE.

I have spoken to many audiences now about adjusting our grip on the iron rod as we deal with the changing world in a seemingly slow moving gospel. In the many years it has taken me to write this book I have wised up too and decided that waiting is not the same as enduring. Enduring involves trust and it is in the little tiny, tender mercies that I have built my relationship with God. He has helped me lift my head and heart up after I have felt my dreams drift away. I have had to really pay attention and I make conscious choices to stay connected to the Spirit as those blessings make themselves available to me.

Carli Wright - my English 10 colleague, introduced me to Neil Pasricha's "The Book of Awesome" which was based on his blog A Thousand Awesome Things. It’s a book that makes me happy, a book on the bright side, entry after entry.

I introduced it to my English classes as the next book we are going to read together and it went over like a lead balloon because Sophomores only want to read for about six and a half minutes and then they are ready for a nap, or treats...or...whatever isn't words on a page.

So I introduced them to the author via the Ted Talk that Neil gave and the kids cried.

Kids. (Sophomores!)

Cried.

That was December 3, 2015, the day after the mass shooting in San Bernardino, California. The news was heavy that day and for the next few days the shootings magnified the flooding in Cumbria, the refugees leaving Syria, to mention just a few of the tragedies around the earth.

I thought it would be such a good time to teach a book in which the main theme was looking for the awesome things in your life.

Then one of my best students was pulled out of class via the intercom which connects us to the front office and I can tell you that is never a good sound - unless you are getting excused from class to go with your family to Disneyland. Thinking back, I could hear it in our sweet secretary's voice "Please excuse (this student) to come to the front office." Same as usual, but different. It struck me, the tone in her voice...after 25+ years, one can tell. 

At lunch, a dear assistant principal came in and told me that I might want to know that my student, the one that got called out of class this morning, won't be back for a few days because her 10 year-old brother accidentally shot and killed himself with a gun he found while he was waiting for the school bus that morning.

Now, I have this kid twice - once for English and once for debate. She is a great debater, one of the best. So, naturally, with the time I spend at tournaments with debaters, I am invested in her a little more than the usual tenth grader. A lot more. So when I heard the news I was stunned. I immediately thought of the new debate topic which is banning privately owned guns. I wondered how carefully we would need to tread in the coming days with her in class. I started praying to know what to say, how to deal, what to do.

That night after school I was prompted to go out to her house, half hoping that they wouldn't let me in, because I really didn't know what to say. I'm too smart to ignore a prompting. Learned that lesson the hard way so many times. I had to go. I stopped by the school and picked up her copy of  The Book of Awesome and I didn't know if that was lame, like read-this-and-everything-will-be-all-better kind of lame. But I felt that she would like it...she is a straight A kid and so very upbeat. 

I was invited into the house by her little sister who looked like she herself had been run over by a train. Her little 12 or 13 year-old face was bright red, her eyes sunken back into the hollows of her face and her frequently wiped nose looked chapped and raw. I was invited in with a croak and an apology. No apology needed.

While she was retrieving her older sister, I looked around the big house. I felt as though I was walking into a very crowded room. The Spirit of comfort was so thick I felt ten pound lighter. There was obviously a multitude of angels surrounding this house today. There was a familiar picture of Jesus Christ prominently hung above the fireplace. There was a religious magazine on the table and several sets of scriptures in piles around the bottom of the couch, perhaps left there from morning scripture study with the family. Had that little boy sat there this morning among his family? 

The house was filled with people, but it was silent. There were people bustling about cleaning and doing laundry. There were several young people in the back yard raking leaves. I could smell dinner starting, everyone was working...and crying. While I was waiting, I noticed my student's mom wrapped in a blanket and sitting in the front window being consoled by a neighbor. "I feel so bad, everybody is doing everything..." she said quietly. Then, noticing me, she smiled so big! She looked me right in the face and said "She will be so happy that you came." All I could say was "I'm so sorry" to which she replied, "We know we will see him again. Think of what we have to look forward to!” Then her neighbor added "they also lost a two year-old last year."

I have honestly, never, in my prideful, pitiful life ever thought of the wait for my son as a period of time full of anticipation. Anticipation seems like something...fun. Right? I was aghast. Like, I cannot breathe aghast. What to say, what to say...please Heavenly Father, help me think of something to say that didn't sound trite in the moment. Nothing. I just nodded in horror. I thought about the Christmas Eve when we lost Noah and how it destroyed the entire season for me from that moment on. I wanted to tell her how I knew how she felt, but she had her son for ten years, her daughter for two, she got to know them, to raise them, and my empathy paled in comparison. She had just schooled me so hard and she didn’t even know it. I was being taught. That was the reason I was supposed to come out and see her. It wasn’t for my student. It was for me. Gah!

Then my student came down the stairs, saw me, ran across the room and threw her arms around me. She sobbed, wracked with sadness and loss. I wondered how long they would all cry and the kinds of headaches they were all earning. After the most awesome hug ever, I lamely told her that I brought her The Book of Awesome and she said "I'm so glad! I need this book today." I was relieved and grateful. Not so lame after all. 

So today I announced to my Sophomores what happened to their classmate and her family. I told them about the accident and that the debaters were collecting money for a gift. I did not make it back to my desk - which was about 15 feet away, before two kids stood up to deposit money in the envelope. And it wasn't just change - it was $5 and $10 dollar bills and one lumbering kid said "I can go home for lunch today" and gave all his lunch money. And all day long kids contributed money as word got around.  I was in that lifted, purified air we get when we do things that we know are driven by the Spirit in His knowledge. It’s the exact same feeling I get when I’m sitting in the celestial room in any temple. You know that feeling - when it feels like Sunday but it’s only Tuesday, third period?  

Purifying. Humbling. Awesome.

I will never forget that experience as long as live because of the purified feeling I had as I walked into my student’s house and saw her mom smile at me - freshly grieving the death of her second child in two years. Her testimony of the atonement racks my soul to this day.

One of my favorite scriptures is Hebrews 12:1, “Let us run with patience the race that is set before us.”  That’s the kind of waiting that I’m talking about, the kind where you have to run. I just love this verse because it advocates energy in waiting.

In Thailand, our mission president was famous for saying “there are 50 million people in this country and only 50 of you. You’d better run.”

My first companion was a native Thai. She was about 4’10” tall. They called us “The Monster and the Mouse.” She told me in broken English that her dearest life goal was to go through the temple one day. Full-time native missionaries were not endowed before their missions back then. It was too expensive. That realization was heart-breaking for me! I had only recently been endowed myself, but had already visited all of the temples in Utah! My blessings had been taken for granted! I felt an instant empathy for my Thai brothers and sisters. I peddled faster, I studied harder. They needed those blessings and I was going to dig the hole for the temple myself if I had to. The mission had been open since 1966 - it was 1986 and there were just 10 or 12 little branches in the entire country when I was there, and with a Buddhist temple on every corner, it felt as though Satan was sticking his tongue out at me from every direction. My expectations were high and in the 110 degree daily heat, I didn’t peddle fast enough. After 18 months, I left discouraged and felt beaten up.

So for years after I returned - 27 years to be exact - every Spring and Fall general conference I would say a prayer that the Lord would announce a temple opening in Thailand for the Saints there. I was disappointed 53 times.

Then on April 4, 2015, I was watching the Sunday morning session of conference and President Monson stood and announced that there would be three new temples. “Only three,” I said to my husband in dismay. I closed my eyes anyway to start my bi-annual chant “Thailand, Thailand, Thailand…” In my head, I thought about my amazing trainer - Sister Ratana, and her dearest goal. It had become my dearest goal too. It was one of the reasons I stayed faithful over the years, a reason to pay my tithing, a reason to pray, a reason to go to the temple. I had her face in my mind when he said the words “Bangkok, Thailand.”

I have never cried so instantaneously and to that intensity. My husband bolted out of his chair to put his arms around me. I was either very happy, he said, or I had been shot. I could not control my sobbing. When I regained myself I ran back to our bedroom and fell to my knees. “Praapidaa Bon Sawan, “ I began and poured out my thanks to my Heavenly Father in Thai. I had not spoken that much Thai in 27 years, but it flowed out of me in gratitude. He had answered sooooo many prayers with that announcement.

The Bangkok, Thailand Temple will be the first in this Asian nation. There are now approximately 18,000 Church members in 38 congregations in Thailand. The Bangkok Thailand Temple will serve Latter-day Saints in Thailand, as well as all of Southeast Asia. Currently, the nearest temple to Thailand is Hong Kong, more than 1,000 miles from Bangkok. More than 700 members and friends attend the groundbreaking ceremony for the Bangkok Thailand Temple on January 26, 2019.[1]

There were about 700 members of the church when I was there in 1986. Maybe some of the hundreds of Books of Mormon that I delivered on the back of those old bikes were actually read! It took 54 General Conferences for me to feel that all that pedaling was finally worth it. Imagine that! You know where we will be when the Temple is finished? Right! There.

You remember the famous conference talk in which President Uchtdorf spoke of patience by telling the story of the “marshmallow experiment” at Stanford University? We call it the “marshmallow talk” at our house. We have never looked at marshmallows in the same way since that incredible talk. Anyway, he said, “God’s promises are not always fulfilled as quickly as or in the way we might hope; they come according to His timing and in His ways.”[2]

That’s not what we people with children on the other side, or small groups of members desperate to receive their temple ordinances want to hear.

But he continues telling us that “Patience means accepting that which cannot be changed and facing it with courage, grace, and faith…” I think about all the faithful Saints in Thailand that prayed for decades and decades for a temple to come to their country and still served missions, serve the church, serve God without those blessings. Even with 162 operating temples on the earth now, there are still people in distant countries that save and serve all their lives that will wait for their temple blessings until the next life. I will wait to raise my son in the next life! I will! Remember blessings don’t have an expiration date! How exciting life can be.Think of all the things we have to look forward to.  




Recipe for Chapter 7

Second Coming Curry (Gang Matsamaan) the Easy Way

This recipe isn’t for sissies. There are some ingredients that are on the expensive side in our little neighborhood. Nevertheless - we make this a couple times a year because it is DELICIOUS. This is my version of the Thai recipe.

2 lbs cubed protein of your choice (we usually choose chicken or stew beef)
4-15 oz cans of coconut milk
7-8 small potatoes or larger ones cut into chunks
4 - 5 medium-sized carrots, sliced into bite-sized disks
2 small onions cut into 4 pieces each (big chunks)
3 T Matsamaan curry paste
Note: I just buy S&B Golden Curry in our traditional grocery store’s international section. We use the mild yellow curry and add spices individually after it’s served.
1 tsp lemon juice
2 T brown sugar
½ cup roasted, non-salted peanuts

Brown your protein in olive oil in the bottom of a deep dutch oven style pan. Add the coconut milk and curry paste and bring to a boil. Cover and simmer on low heat for two hours. Then add the rest of the ingredients. Cover and cook for 30 minutes on medium-high heat or until potatoes and carrots are tender.

Serve over jasmine rice.


Homework Assignment for Chapter 7

  1. If you have not read Russell M. Nelson’s 1995 book called “The Gateway We Call Death,” you should. Call me if you need a copy, I have two.

  1. Go to the temple after you have read Chapter 7. If you do not have a temple recommend, find an LDS chapel. Sit. Ponder. Allow the spirit of the House of the Lord to bring you peace. It’s so important that we find time to sit in holy places

3.                    Here is a 2019 check list of all the LDS temples in the world. Circle all the temples you have done temple work in.

                Aba Nigeria Temple
                Abidjan Ivory Coast Temple
                Accra Ghana Temple
                Adelaide Australia Temple
                Albuquerque New MX Temple
                Anchorage Alaska Temple
                Apia Samoa Temple
                Asunción Paraguay Temple
                Atlanta Georgia Temple
                Barranquilla Colombia Temple
                Baton Rouge Louisiana Temple
                Bern Switzerland Temple
                Billings Montana Temple
                Birmingham Alabama Temple
                Bismarck North Dakota Temple
                Bogotá Colombia Temple
                Boise Idaho Temple
                Boston Massachusetts Temple
                Bountiful Utah Temple
                Brigham City Utah Temple
                Brisbane Australia Temple
                Budapest Hungary Temple
                Buenos Aires Argentina Temple
                Cagayan de Oro PPI Temple
                Calgary Alberta Temple
                Campinas Brazil Temple
                Caracas Venezuela Temple
                Cardston Alberta Temple
                Cebu City Philippines Temple
                Cedar City Utah Temple
                Chicago Illinois Temple
                Ciudad Juárez Mexico Temple
                Cochabamba Bolivia Temple
                Colonia Juárez Chihuahua MX
                Columbia River Washington
                Columbia South Carolina
                Columbus Ohio Temple
                Concepción Chile Temple
                Copenhagen Denmark Temple
                Córdoba Argentina Temple
                Curitiba Brazil Temple
                Dallas Texas Temple
                Davao Philippines Temple
                Denver Colorado Temple
                Detroit Michigan Temple
                Draper Utah Temple
                Durban South Africa Temple
                Edmonton Alberta Temple
                Feather River California Temple
                Fort Collins Colorado Temple
                Fort Lauderdale Florida Temple
                Fortaleza Brazil Temple
                Frankfurt Germany Temple
                Freiberg Germany Temple
                Fresno California Temple
                Fukuoka Japan Temple
                Gilbert Arizona Temple
                Grtr Manila Philippines Temple
                Guadalajara Mexico Temple
                Guatemala City Guatemala
                Guayaquil Ecuador Temple
                Halifax Nova Scotia Temple
                Hamilton New Zealand Temple
                Hartford Connecticut Temple
                Helsinki Finland Temple
                Hermosillo Sonora MX Temple
                Hong Kong China Temple
                Houston Texas Temple
                Idaho Falls Idaho Temple
                Indianapolis Indiana Temple
                Johannesburg South Africa
                Jordan River Utah Temple
                Kansas City Missouri Temple
                Kinshasa Democratic Republic of the Congo
                Kona Hawaii Temple
                Kyiv Ukraine Temple
                Laie Hawaii Temple
                Las Vegas Nevada Temple
                Layton Utah Temple
                Lima Peru Temple
                Lisbon Portugal Temple
                Logan Utah Temple
                London England Temple
                Los Angeles California Temple
                Louisville Kentucky Temple
                Lubbock Texas Temple
                Madrid Spain Temple
                Managua Nicaragua Temple
                Manaus Brazil Temple
                Manhattan New York Temple
                Manila Philippines Temple
                Manti Utah Temple
                Medford Oregon Temple
                Melbourne Australia Temple
                Memphis Tennessee Temple
                Mérida Mexico Temple
                Meridian Idaho Temple
                Mesa Arizona Temple
                Mexico City Mexico Temple
                Monterrey Mexico Temple
                Montevideo Uruguay Temple
                Monticello Utah Temple
                Montreal Quebec Temple
                Mt Timpanogos Utah Temple
                Nashville Tennessee Temple
                Nauvoo Illinois Temple
                Newport Beach CA Temple
                Nuku'alofa Tonga Temple
                Oakland California Temple
                Oaxaca Mexico Temple
                Ogden Utah Temple
                Okinawa City Okinawa Temple
                Oklahoma City OK Temple
                Oquirrh Mountain Utah Temple
                Orlando Florida Temple
                Palmyra New York Temple
                Panama City Panama Temple
                Papeete Tahiti Temple
                Paris France Temple
                Payson Utah Temple
                Perth Australia Temple
                Philadelphia PA Temple
                Phoenix Arizona Temple
                Portland Oregon Temple
                Porto Alegre Brazil Temple
                Preston England Temple
                Provo City Center Temple
                Provo Utah Temple
                Quetzaltenango Guatemala
                Raleigh North Carolina Temple
                Recife Brazil Temple
                Redlands California Temple
                Regina Saskatchewan Temple
                Reno Nevada Temple
                Rexburg Idaho Temple
                Rome Italy Temple
                Sacramento California Temple
                Salt Lake Temple
                San Antonio Texas Temple
                San Diego California Temple
                San José Costa Rica Temple
                San Salvador El Salvador
                Santiago Chile Temple
                Santo Domingo Dominican Republic
                São Paulo Brazil Temple
                Sapporo Japan Temple
                Seattle Washington Temple
                Seoul Korea Temple
                Snowflake Arizona Temple
                Spokane Washington Temple
                St. George Utah Temple
                St. Louis Missouri Temple
                St. Paul Minnesota Temple
                Star Valley Wyoming Temple
                Stockholm Sweden Temple
                Suva Fiji Temple
                Sydney Australia Temple
                Taipei Taiwan Temple
                Tampico Mexico Temple
                Tegucigalpa Honduras Temple
                The Gila Valley Arizona Temple
                The Hague Netherlands Temple
                Tijuana Mexico Temple
                Tokyo Japan Temple
                Toronto Ontario Temple
                Trujillo Peru Temple
                Tucson Arizona Temple
                Tuxtla Gutiérrez Mexico
                Twin Falls Idaho Temple
                Vancouver British Columbia
                Veracruz Mexico Temple
                Vernal Utah Temple
                Villahermosa Mexico Temple
                Washington D.C. Temple
                Winter Quarters Nebraska

(I know we can't attend the temple right now - let's pray that they open SOON!)

  1. If you don’t have a temple recommend, what do you need to do to become worthy to receive one? Make a list and a PLAN NOW! Right here. (I’m bossy! Sorry!) Here is a whole page just for us to set some temple goals….








[1] The Church News, January 28, 2019
[2]Continue in Patience,” President Dieter F. Uchtdorf, Ensign, May 2010