Week 52: A Wonderful World
Dear Loved Ones,
Christmas highlights:
1. There's a pioneer wagon that does horse-drawn tours through Independence. As I was walking into our apartment, I heard a jingling in the background and looked around to see where it was coming from. And then the jingle wagon rounded the corner! They let the horsey jingle all the way!
2. I found a secret way to watch the Queen of England's annual Christmas speech. She noted the birth of her great-grandson, Archie, son of my hero, HRH Meghan Markle, Duchess of Sussex. And then she drew a comparison to the birth that makes Christmas Christmas:
"Of course, at the heart of the Christmas story lies the birth of a child: a seemingly small and insignificant step overlooked by many in Bethlehem. But in time, through his teaching and by his example, Jesus Christ would show the world how small steps taken in faith and in hope can overcome long-held differences and deep-seated divisions to bring harmony and understanding. Many of us already try to follow in his footsteps. The path, of course, is not always smooth, and may at times this year have felt quite bumpy, but small steps can make a world of difference. "
3. All the sisters put on a nativity and I made a STUPENDOUS wiseman costume.
4. Dragons.
My mission president has no chill on 99% of things and canceled our planned inter-Independence all-sisters-invited New Year's Eve party because it's "unsafe" to drive one minute down the street from my apartment to the visitors' center at 8:30 p.m. They care about our safety, you see. That's why they make white girls from suburban Utah knock on strangers' doors in the ghetto three hours after sundown. In other news, they found a body in the lake next to the apartments where I once almost crossed paths with a shooter. In other other news, my mission president's one leniency in life is allowing us to watch a movie on Christmas Day. One of our elders chose How to Train Your Dragon 3, and I'm glad he did. I have a heart for stories. I've missed wonder and fantasy.
The three missionaries I watched it with had very different reactions. The elder who picked it adored it, of course. My companion thought it had too much romance (it hardly had any) because she goes home in six weeks and there's a boyfriend. One Pharisee pulled out his phone and scrolled through scriptures forever. There are no words.
Meanwhile, I adored it and felt like just the act of watching something wonderful brought me closer to God. There's a song I like from the musical Children of Eden where Eve sings about her desire to create. She says, "I have a feeling that the Father who made us, when he was kindling the pulse in my veins, he left a tiny spark of the fire smoldering in me." Creativity and admiration of art in any form give us practice in looking at the universe through the eyes of our Creator.
I want to be a fantasy writer. I've written eleven practice novels sitting in my computer at home and my "study journal" here is getting fat. I think exploration of the marvelous brings you closer to the divine. If we're supposed to ascend and create our own worlds someday, I feel like the best job you could have right now to prepare for the eternities is writing. Creating fictional worlds is good practice. Just as the timeless function of monarchy on earth is to point our minds towards monarchy in heaven, I believe any pure media that rouses feelings of wonder draws us closer to the King of Wonder. In Luke 2:18, it says that "all they that heard it WONDERED at those things which were told them by the shepherds." He's been rousing this emotion since the day of his birth.
January 2nd will mark the anniversary of my mission. Oh how far I've come. My only New Year's resolution that mattered last year was staying on a mission, and now here I am, in a home stretch. I have spent all of 2019 on a mission except for New Year's Day. Now I'm going to ring in the new year with my fun sister-roommates as we hold a personal party in our little, mouse-infested apartment down the street from the Temple Lot in the city where Christ will return.
Merry Christmas and a Happy New Year's from Zion,
Sister Smith
Christmas highlights:
1. There's a pioneer wagon that does horse-drawn tours through Independence. As I was walking into our apartment, I heard a jingling in the background and looked around to see where it was coming from. And then the jingle wagon rounded the corner! They let the horsey jingle all the way!2. I found a secret way to watch the Queen of England's annual Christmas speech. She noted the birth of her great-grandson, Archie, son of my hero, HRH Meghan Markle, Duchess of Sussex. And then she drew a comparison to the birth that makes Christmas Christmas:
"Of course, at the heart of the Christmas story lies the birth of a child: a seemingly small and insignificant step overlooked by many in Bethlehem. But in time, through his teaching and by his example, Jesus Christ would show the world how small steps taken in faith and in hope can overcome long-held differences and deep-seated divisions to bring harmony and understanding. Many of us already try to follow in his footsteps. The path, of course, is not always smooth, and may at times this year have felt quite bumpy, but small steps can make a world of difference. "
3. All the sisters put on a nativity and I made a STUPENDOUS wiseman costume.
4. Dragons.
My mission president has no chill on 99% of things and canceled our planned inter-Independence all-sisters-invited New Year's Eve party because it's "unsafe" to drive one minute down the street from my apartment to the visitors' center at 8:30 p.m. They care about our safety, you see. That's why they make white girls from suburban Utah knock on strangers' doors in the ghetto three hours after sundown. In other news, they found a body in the lake next to the apartments where I once almost crossed paths with a shooter. In other other news, my mission president's one leniency in life is allowing us to watch a movie on Christmas Day. One of our elders chose How to Train Your Dragon 3, and I'm glad he did. I have a heart for stories. I've missed wonder and fantasy.
The three missionaries I watched it with had very different reactions. The elder who picked it adored it, of course. My companion thought it had too much romance (it hardly had any) because she goes home in six weeks and there's a boyfriend. One Pharisee pulled out his phone and scrolled through scriptures forever. There are no words.
Meanwhile, I adored it and felt like just the act of watching something wonderful brought me closer to God. There's a song I like from the musical Children of Eden where Eve sings about her desire to create. She says, "I have a feeling that the Father who made us, when he was kindling the pulse in my veins, he left a tiny spark of the fire smoldering in me." Creativity and admiration of art in any form give us practice in looking at the universe through the eyes of our Creator.
I want to be a fantasy writer. I've written eleven practice novels sitting in my computer at home and my "study journal" here is getting fat. I think exploration of the marvelous brings you closer to the divine. If we're supposed to ascend and create our own worlds someday, I feel like the best job you could have right now to prepare for the eternities is writing. Creating fictional worlds is good practice. Just as the timeless function of monarchy on earth is to point our minds towards monarchy in heaven, I believe any pure media that rouses feelings of wonder draws us closer to the King of Wonder. In Luke 2:18, it says that "all they that heard it WONDERED at those things which were told them by the shepherds." He's been rousing this emotion since the day of his birth.
January 2nd will mark the anniversary of my mission. Oh how far I've come. My only New Year's resolution that mattered last year was staying on a mission, and now here I am, in a home stretch. I have spent all of 2019 on a mission except for New Year's Day. Now I'm going to ring in the new year with my fun sister-roommates as we hold a personal party in our little, mouse-infested apartment down the street from the Temple Lot in the city where Christ will return.
Merry Christmas and a Happy New Year's from Zion,
Sister Smith
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