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Ok, Zac and Sophie literally made me laugh out loud. The idea of some punk kid getting chewed out by Roy sounds hilarious! Sorry about the yard, but at the same time it is sort of worth it for me.
I feel like I'm putting what I can into the language, but I'm still behind most of my class. Remembering random vocab that I can throw into sentences is easy enough, but I struggle with phrases, grammar, conjugation, and dipthongs. Which, as you may have guessed, has solicited a decently high amount of jokes from me.
Ok, so I'm still me right? When we decided on character titles for ourselves (no worries, we follow rules and call each other Chongnonim (elder), but we wanted to set things in order) I was given the title of the Joker. Less for my psychopathology and sadism and more because, lets face it, I'm hilarious. Especially when people are quick and can pick up on what I'm saying. Which my district is. We've been told that we live in the Celestial Branch, but that sort of makes my district the Archdistrict. We kick...something appropriate. Other nicknames include the One Downer (my companion), Captain Protein, the Socialist, the Pur (not a perfect transition but I don't know how to type in Korean. Means fire), Ginger, and the Australian. Anyways, I am still the guy crossing the line to the pleasure of everyone else in the room.
Don't think that I'm not taking my job here seriously. We follow the rules to a T. (Which makes sense how? Is there some sort of silent "t" in rules that I've just always forgot to put in there? English makes about as much sense as Korean sometimes.)
The last week has been one of the most spiritual in my entire life. I don't always feel the spirit, but he's never more than a query away. I've recieved a lot of revelation, ranging from life changers to the minor practical things. In fact, I've sort of been running on the Spirit. I haven't been able to get to sleep very well for the past few days. What usually happens is we'll turn the lights off at 10:30 and everyone will go to sleep besides me. I'm laying on my bed tossing, turning, cramping, and thinking. Often my thoughts are turned to murdurous topics surrounding one of my roomates clocks that ticks all night long. It really is just a tick-tocky sort of sound, but after the first hour and a half it sounds more like Kim just got kidnapped again in 24.
The surprising thing is that despite an average of 4ish hours of sleep for the last week, I'm still functioning like normal. Better even, because of my closeness with the spirit.
I will share one quick revelation I recieved. For the past couple years, there has been someone that I hated so deeply I could feel it in my bones. More recently, that hatred intensified as new information came to my attention. And that waste of flesh is coming here soon enough. After what he did, I didn't think I could restrain myself if I saw him. When he came into my mind, I completely lost the spirit for an hour. I felt empty and hollow, except for a fire that I didn't think I could contain. How could someone who doesn't deserve to walk anymore dare to walk into people's homes and ask them to live the better life? But I needed the spirit back. I needed the fire put out so that I could do what I came here to do. So I spent ten minutes just praying that somehow God would take away my rage, somehow fix the problem or at least move it to the back of my mind so I could focus on my studies and teaching. Instead, I actually heard words in my head for the first time. If you were at my talk, you heard me describe how I recieve revelation and it had nothing to do with words. I would (and still largely do) ask yes or no questions and hope for spiritual confirmation. This time, the Lord told me, "Josh, it is not given unto you to hate. Vengeance is mine. All is well." With that chastisement, I felt the spirit flow back into me and I was at peace for the first time that hour.
If I could leave you all with some sort of message, I would encourage you to be better at forgiveness than I am.
I know from ample personal experience that if we let grudges fester inside of us, no matter how justified those grudges may be, we are the ones that are hurt. We are cut off from the spirit and stranded in a wasteland of our own hate, a hate that no one feels but us. We need to trust that God is a just God, that he knows better than we do, and that in the end, all will be well.
I know from ample personal experience that if we let grudges fester inside of us, no matter how justified those grudges may be, we are the ones that are hurt. We are cut off from the spirit and stranded in a wasteland of our own hate, a hate that no one feels but us. We need to trust that God is a just God, that he knows better than we do, and that in the end, all will be well.
In answer to various queries, on P-days, "when [I'm] not prepping" is a false notion. Laundry takes an hour and a half or so to do, we are required to work out everyday (although we can't use the gym on P-days, so I'm forced to die---I mean run), and after lunch we have a two and a half hour block for temple attendance, after which we go back to a normal day. I try to write letters and whatnot in between all of that, and when that isn't happening, chances are I'm studying for something else.
For food here, there are three main course options, plus salad bars, a leftover stand, and as many drinks as you can imagine.
In an attempt to maintain some semblance of health, every morning I'm back on my college ration of Raisen Bran. Lets just say it keeps more than just the Spirit flowing, yeah? Plus I hate it and it is pretty healthy, so I don't really get a lot of it. The other two meals I don't care so much what I eat as I do how much I eat. I limit myself to one main dish, one treat thing, and juices for drinks. I get one cup of chocolate milk with breakfast as a reward for Raisen Bran. They offer basically anything that you can desire, but I think they just cycle on a weekly basis, so I might end up hating the food here. But that day is not this day.
Brenden, good luck with the beach body. Zac, I think it's crazy that you played that many games. I'm sure you did awesome. Sophie, get feeling better and this week if you want to learn a fun Korean word, then my favorite of today is Ohsakhamnida, which roughly translates as awkward.
Thanks for all the love and support, please send letters via mail or whatever you can, and I'll be back next week :)
Daumey gaypepsumnida! (See you next time!)
Whitlock out.
