And none too soon, I can’t believe just how happy I was for my week off of school to be over. I guess in America when I had breaks I had more to do with friends, and I always had the option of doing some work if I wanted to. Here if the few friends I have were busy and I had finished all my homework I really had nothing that I could do. Sad I know.
Sunday was wonderful because I was able to listen to conference. It was so good to hear the words that the prophets had. I certainly had many things reaffirmed to me. It is amazing how many simple things I forget and need the prophets to reminds me of.
Monday itself was a really tiring day. I got up at to go to class and fell directly back to sleep. I don’t know what it is, but I just can’t seem to get enough sleep. This whole week I have readjusted my sleep schedule, maybe this next Monday my body will finally be okay with waking up at 6:30.
At night I went to the gym again. I haven’t been able to a while and so it was really nice to be able to really exhaust myself physically. On Tuesday I also went to the gym, that also left me exhausted, but it also left me slightly embarrassed. I was tiring out way faster then I should have been. Towards the end of the workout I was feeling my old stamina start to return to me, so I don’t think that it will be too much longer until I am able to get a good work in again.
The pool here is also nice. I have to admit that I was worried it was going to be kind of of icky, and initially walking into the building with the pool didn’t do anything to help. When I got in the pool I could see that it was a five lane pool with pillars in the middle lane, so really only four swimmable lanes. There were no lane lines, so some people were swimming the short sides too, really strange. The pool was freezing cold, but it wasn’t too bad once I just jumped in.
The best part of the pool though is the great facilities available after swimming. When we went to shower I found that they were nice hot showers where they provide soap and shampoo. On top of that not only is there a hot tub, but there is also a really nice sauna. Maybe if I get really hammered while I am here I will go and have a good “workout” in the “pool”, some high-tenacity swimming as some people would say 
Tuesday itself was also a really nice day because I got to sit and talk with my tutor during our first tutoring session. I am always amazed at just how closely the two of us view the world. That day we talked about the importance of mothers in the home and how the world tries to destroy this by telling women that only being a mother is below them. It was amazing to hear him agree with me, and to hear how he feels the need for mothers in the home. We talked about other subjects as well, and I must say that he believes parts of the gospel more than many members in our own church. If I only I could teach him the gospel, sigh…
Wednesday saw me teaching English again. Overall I think that I am slowly becoming a more effective teacher, at the least I could hold there attention better. This time I taught with Aaron, someone who substituted for Lars and Spring who couldn’t make it. It was his first time so in the middle he lost the kids attention for a couple minutes. I have to admit that this was really annoying to me, but just like last time the kids did nice things for me that made me appreciate teaching them Chinese. One of my favorites was that one of the kids made me some silly stuff our of paper. It might have been silly, but I still loved it.
Thursday was just another normal day of class. I spent most of the day at school either writing papers or attending classes. I really feel that I am now in the rhythm of Chinese class, so hopefully everything will work out. Friday and Saturday turned into my rest days. I had tutoring with Shen Dayu in the morning, but other than that I just read stuff online and watched TV. I have to admit I feel bad about being so lazy, but Chuck is just that fun =p
While this week might not have been the most exciting for doing new things it was a veritable feast of the word of the Lord. I feel so blessed that I could watch conference this week. While most of what I gained didn’t come directly from the speakers it definitely came because they had prepared themselves to teach and I had prepared myself to learn.
Probably the most important thing that was burned into my soul was the importance of perfect obedience. I love when President Monson said that it is easier to be 100 percent obedient then 97% obedient. Lately there have been so many things that I could just slightly give into, they wouldn’t be evil, but nonetheless they wouldn’t be perfectly obedient. I cannot always see how these little acts of obedience affect my life, but I can honestly see how it is easier to always choose righteousness.
When we are perfectly obedient we are in full control of all our choice, but for every little mistake we make we lose a little bit of our freedom to act. While it is true that we can repent and return, it becomes harder and harder to do. An example would be the observance of the Sabbath, in fact this is probably a great example. At first it is really easy to justify little exceptions to our Sunday observance, and little by little these little things stop being exceptions and become norms. It gets harder and harder to return to correct Sabbath observance because we love these other things so much.
In fact I am very grateful that my mom taught me this principle when I was young. I remember when I was young and I went away for 10 days to a technology conference. One of those days was Sunday, I had no way to go to church and there was no food in the hotel so I decided to follow everyone to the activity. While there I started off just eating, but then I justified that I could keep a reverent attitude and still enter the various stores, besides I would spend more time reading scriptures at the hotel that night, so I felt that I was still holding the spirit of the Sabbath in my heart. I was essentially trying to keep one foot in the Sabbath and one foot in the world.
Of course I justified all this since it was an exception, “and I had no other choice”. When I told my mom about this she didn’t yell at me, but just asked me if I really needed to do all those other things. It was then I realized what I had done, I had let myself take the exception I needed to make, namely eating outside that day, and of my own expanded it to allow myself to do activities that were not appropriate for the Sabbath. Thankfully my mothers reminder helped teach me that I needed to be perfectly obedient to the law of the Sabbath, and not let those little “exceptions” creep in.
This teaching has blessed the entirety off my life. Because I decided at that time what my stance would be about the Sunday I have never had to work on the Sabbath, or do anything else that was not worthy of that day. By being perfectly obedient I have found it easy to continue following the Sabbath in China, and place where it would be very easy and convenient to explain away parts of Sabbath day observance. I grateful for both my moms teaching and the power that comes through obedience.
I also thought a lot about gratitude. It is just amazing how much we have to grateful for in this world that we take completely for granted. I also was reminded about the importance of walking on the road the Lord has prepared for us. It can be dark and therefor all we can do is following the promptings the Lord has given us. We must do as Adam of old, we most obey not knowing why we do it, just knowing that the Lord has commanded us. This is the meaning of taking the Lords hand and walking the path he has prepared for us.
Lastly I was thinking about why no one thing can truly bring us joy. This came from me thinking why I am not happier then I am. I thought about how I have nearly everything the world deems as important, the only things I am missing are things that the world says can wait longer to obtain. I realized then that it was because joy is the commutation of things that give us happiness. Having success at work or school does bring us happiness, but by itself it can never bring us joy. Joy is brought about by filling our lives with all the little things that bring joy. Sin can never bring joy, because while sin can bring us temporary happiness it lacks the ability to combine with other things, thus sin gives us happiness, but then leaves us empty of joy. On the other hand righteous actions take happiness and build it line upon line until we truly have joy.
Wow, I said that kind of weird, I hope you can understand what I was trying to get across. Well, I guess it is time for me to go. It looks like I am finally writing shorter blog posts, so now maybe I can get people like Jason to read my blog I love you all and hope that you things are going well in all of your lives.
I know you can't teach the gospel, but you do talk with your tutor on how you feel about things. Your thoughts, along with your example, will teach more about the gospel to this young man than you realize. When the time is right, the Spirit will bring back memories of you, and he will seek out the gospel. All you can do in the meantime is to love and pray for these wonderful Chinese people.
ReplyDeleteObedience is so important--you have to obey all the way. Fudging leads you gradually downhill without you realizing. You start carrying a chain one link at a time until you are bound. Sunday observance is actually a perfect example of what can happen if you fudge. You will sign yourself out of the gospel and log on to the world. You can't have one foot in Zion and the other foot in your summer house in Babylon.