Resilience!

If there is one thing that this life has taught me it is that if you don't have this (resilience) you are in for a really tough ride.  My life has taken all the twists and turns I thought it would never take.  I have had experiences I thought I would never have, gone places I thought I would never go, done things I thought I would never have to or want to do.  I have learned things I thought I would never have to learn.  I have learned I am nothing if not resilient.

As I spend more time in this life that is new to me in a place that is new to me doing things that are new to me, I have learned that Heavenly Father made people resilient in order to just survive this experience that is not natural to their eternal spirits.  I have seen people here whose lives make mine look like a piece of cake even though it never has been one.  I have had my share of ups and downs, disappointments and heartaches, surprises and agonies.  I hear stories here that still blow my mind.  I find myself thinking often, "How do they stay positive after all they have been through?"  I have said to myself many times, "Would I be able to do that?"  Then I think about it and say, "Oh yeah, been there, done that.  I am resilient!"

We are constantly "going with the flow" so to speak.  We plan out a day only to find that as we pull up to our first appointment, we get a text saying don't come today.  At this time, we regroup, think it over, say a prayer and turn what could have been lemons into lemonade.  Lots of trite sayings here!  We pray and head to another house.  When we call they say please come and after we get there, the man of the house who is struggling with a difficult decision says, "I think the Lord sent you here today."  He is not a member and probably will never be one.  He is catholic and 84 years old.  We love him and his wife and he says we met because the Lord wanted it that way.  He wants us to tell the world that the end is near and he is very insistent upon it.  He has had a difficult life in the mines and lost one wife.  He is resilient.

We spent an hour this afternoon with an alcoholic.  He ranted, he cried, he complained and told us his pain.  When we arrived at the door, he said, "I was standing in my room thinking I might call you and I looked out the window and there you were."  He has been through so much.  He was put in a foster home at the age of 8.  It is the only real love he has ever known.  He is now 36, having spent many years in jail and much time in rehab.  He has a daughter 3 years of age who seems to be about all he lives for.  He said he would be all right as we left.  He is resilient.

We packed up a woman and her family who Ken baptized a few months ago.  I don't know how many times she has moved after a life full of misery and pain.  As we walked away, I thought of that old song with the lyrics, if it weren't for bad luck I'd have no luck at all.  She is not really happy to be moving yet again since she is just starting to make good friends here.  As we left her she commented that she would give this new town and ward a try.  Somehow, she manages to pop back in spite of everything.  She is resilient. 

I was commenting to a 91 year old woman at Tai Chi yesterday that she amazed me to be so active still at her age.  She said she had no choice.  That is the difference.  She has a choice and she chooses the better part.  My family and most of my friends look at things the same way she does.  They see only one choice and that is putting one foot in front of the other and moving forward.  That is their choice.  It is enduring to the end.  It is resilience!

One More Precious Soul

I sat in class on Sunday with a very important person.  All of the members of the class were of course important but this person makes me marvel.  He is one of our recent converts.  I have not written about him for reasons I have not known.  We met him in a most unusual way.  Ken spoke to him at an op-shop one day shortly after we arrived here.  It was a very brief conversation about how hard it was for big men like them to find clothing in these shops.  Ken did not even take much notice of it.

Three weeks later, while out contacting less active members, I picked a name from our list.  We drove up to the home, got out of the car and walked to the door.  Upon doing that, we could hear some very loud voices out back of the house.  Ken went around to find out who was there.  A man said, "It is Elder Jarvis!"  We had never been to that home, nor had we ever met it's occupants that we knew of.  After a few seconds, Ken recognized the man from the op-shop.  He had read the name on Ken's tag and had been trying to find us.  Interestingly enough, this man is named Ken, he is a big man and he was born on April 19, Ken Jarvis' birthday as well.

We soon began teaching all the people who lived in that home, Ken, a woman and Ken's son.  He told us that he and the woman had been arguing and it probably didn't help their conversation that he kept saying things like, "What would Joseph Smith do?" with a less than amiable attitude.  As we taught him though, he began to do everything we asked him to do.  He started to read all the things we gave him, including the Book of Mormon.  He began to pray.  He and the woman split and he began living laws that are so important to our progress in the gospel.  He stopped drinking coffee, a very important thing to him and he quit smoking.

On December 1, 2012, he was baptised by Elder Jarvis.  On December 2, 2012 he received the Aaronic Priesthood and baptised his sweet 12 year old son.  His son now holds the Aaronic Priesthood which his dad confirred on him a couple of weeks later.  I have never seen such a visible change in a human being take place in such a short time but then again, I have never seen the Spirit work on anyone like it did on this man.  He is now happy, relaxed and moving forward with his life.  He is determined to make a better life for himself and his son.  He sat in class and tried to help others who were there see the direction they could take to live happier, more productive lives.

I am beginning to understand why the Lord wants us to help people reach his love and kingdom one step and one person at a time.  Each soul is precious and the Lord and the Father know this.  They are just hoping that one day, all the rest of us will discover this truth for ourselves.

The Parable of the Beachcomber and the White Stones

In a certain city there dwelt a woman who frequented the beach.  She grew very interested in the polished stones that covered the beach and began to collect them.  After some time, she realized that the stones she was most drawn to were the white stones.  They came in so many shapes and sizes and varieties.  Some were very smooth and appeared very nearly perfect.  Others had imperfections that were ever so small.  Some had large cracks and particles that covered various parts of their surface.  To the beachcomber, they were all beautiful and so she gathered them in and took them home.  The waves and the tumbling were no longer polishing the stones.   They looked lovely on her shelf but they grew no lovlier. 

I began collecting stones from the beach when I arrived here.  At first I collected many different kinds.  There were grey and green and red ones.  There were amber and yellow and black.  The ones that fascinated me most were the white stones.  To me they represented people and their many varieties.  I found a "rough stone rolling" which to me represented Joseph Smith.  I found a fairly large tear drop shaped semi-transparent quartz which was almost perfect.  That became Christ.  There are a huge variety in between.  As I collected I thought of the white stones that provided light for the people of Jared.  Then Ken reminded me of the new name written on a white stone.

I became an observer and the stones became various people in my mind.  They were in various stages in their life processes.  The sea and the other stones on the beach became the means by which the stones were polished much like a tumbler that people who polish stones use.  The action of the sea and stones rolling in and out again stressed the stones but it also made them more beautiful and interesting.  To my understanding, this became a very important process much like the one we all go through in life.  A black stone will never become a white stone nor does it need to.  A green stone will never become red but each stone becomes an integral part of the whole.  This fact gives variety and joy to life.

I will probably keep collecting because of what they mean to me but at some point in time, most of them will be returned to the sea to continue their polishing process.  I will always carry in my heart the sound of the waves rolling those stones and the image of them getting more and more polished by the action of the tumbling,  They then will have the opportunity to become even more beautiful for another beachcomber to collect and marvel over.

Worth the Wait?

Friday night we got an interesting call.  It was from two sisters in our branch, Sis. Weeks and Sis. Paea.  They both know that we have been wanting to see a penguin to take pictures of for our grandchildren.  They wanted to know if we would like to go with them to "see the penguins".  Well, the answer was not too hard and since we were only a few blocks from Sis. Weeks house at the time, we consented to meet them there and follow to see the penguins.  We arrived shortly on the pier near Caroline Bay and began our wait.

I had asked Sis. Weeks if we would actually see a penguin and she had said, "If you go with me, you will!"  Her confidence inspired confidence in me.  I knew they had both seen penguins in this place before so we just waited patiently.  A succession of people began to come and go and gather and talk and laugh and "wait".  We started the wait about 8:45 and people continued to come and go.  It was pretty noisy for a while and we began to wonder if any self-respecting penguin would want to come out but still we waited.  Luka Paea went to play on the beach.  Ken and Sis. Weeks were having a quiet conversation several feet from Sis. Paea and I as we conversed as well.  Still, we waited.  People began to leave as the dusk became more and more dark.

After a while it was pretty much the four of us and a couple of other strays who also eventually left.  I asked Sis. Paea, "What do you think."  She said, "Let's wait a few more minutes."  We were at the car getting ready to leave when Sis. Weeks took one last stroll and began to wave frantically.  One little blue penguin had finally come out to show itself.  I took a lot of blind pictures of it in the shadows of the rock but some turned out well and I was so excited that we had waited.

Especially to my grandchildren but also to the rest of you, it is worth the wait.  Whatever you really love and care about is worth the wait.  It is worth the confidence in yourself that, yes, you can achieve that goal.  "If you go with me, you will!"  Believe in yourself and believe in your goal whether it be a prize, the gospel, a school achievement or whatever.  You really have nothing to lose and everything to gain.  I only saw one little blue penguin but that is more than I have seen in the rest of my stay here in NZ.  It was worth it!