#94 xiàng, tángbǐnggān, shèngdiàn (Elephants, Sugar Cookies and Temples)
This week has been absolutely crazy, It started on a wonderful note however when I was able to receive my Endowment Tuesday morning at the Draper temple! It was one of the most wonderful experiences of my life. Thanks again to those of you who could come! For those of you who have not been through the temple yet, you are in for the best experience of your life. After Tuesday morning however it felt as though I was dumped straight back into my normal routine. Which includes lots of study, lots of zoom meetings (About 8 hours a day), and even more chinese. These days can be hard and discouraging and I often find myself wondering how in the world I am going to do this for another 102 weeks. It is at this point that I fall upon one of my Fathers favorite sayings.
"How do you eat an Elephant? One bite at a time". This saying of his has helped me through many difficult times but none as difficult as right now. This saying helps me remember to just take everything one day at a time, and if that is too much take it one hour at a time, and so on and so forth. The point is that sometimes when we become overwhelmed with life's challenges we must break them down into smaller, bite-sized obstacles. Doing so can help us stay motivated and remember that life is not a sprint but a marathon. Sometimes though you feel as if life is just against you. Sometimes disaster, or sickness, or bad things just happen. This is called life. Accepting that sometimes we are a "sugar cookie" and there is nothing we can do about it
In a book I read recently called Make Your Bed. Admiral William H. McRaven describes what a sugar cookie is. becoming a sugar cookie is a punishment used in Navy SEAL training used for rule violation. The process involves running in full uniform into the ocean and then rolling around in the dry sand until you are completely coated in sand, hence the name "sugar cookie" The recruit being punished must then spend the rest of the brutal training day as a sugar cookie. Admiral McRaven describes the following: "There was no rhyme or reason behind becoming a sugar cookie, you became a sugar cookie at the whim of the instructor, for many SEAL trainees this was hard to accept... Those striving for perfection often found their only reward was becoming a sugar cookie" Sometimes we become sugar cookies for no reason. But those who shoulder the sand and soldier on are the ones who truly change the world. In conclusion, sometimes bad things happen, In these moments we must shoulder our "sugar cookie" status and keep going.
https://www.youtube.com/watch?
Funny story of the week: So back in the earlier days of chinese missions the translation from "Book of Mormon" to chinese was a little messy, and in Chinese this messes things up pa lot, so for about 40 years the front of the Book Of Mormon read "The Devils way". So too this day people will approach you and say "Are you those devil people?" we all got a good laugh out of that.
Here are this weeks pictures
1. My endowment
2. Frisbee with the Elders
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