Conversion

Yes, it's been a year almost. I'll have to come back to that later. For now, I need to get this down.

Today in church Bro. Kim spoke. He is from Korea and can be hard to understand, but he always has the most amazing stories from his life. He opened by telling that his daughter from the time she was age 4 or 5 wanted to be a violinist. In time he and his wife sent her to a violin music school in Korea, but this school was expensive. He said eventually they didn't feel it was fair for them to spend so much money on this school when they had three other children who needed to go to school too, and they couldn't afford both. They told their daughter of this dilemma. She did some research and found a violin school in Siberia that cost half as much and she wanted to go there, so when she was 13 years old she said good-bye to her family and moved to Siberia to go to this music school. I don't think Bro. Kim knew about the conditions there in full until he went to visit her a few years later. The weather was often 30 degrees below zero! Very, very cold. The sun didn't come up until 11am or noon. Her first year there, she was the only Korean student.

Bro. Kim explained that his daughter decided when she moved there that she was going to attend church. She looked for a Latter-Day Saint church and found out how to get there. She would wear her fur coat with her Russian-style fur hat and walk 30 minutes in the very, very cold weather to get to the bus stop, where she would have to wait another 20 minutes or so for the bus to arrive. Once she arrived, it was another 15-minute walk to the church building. To get there in time she had to leave very early, but she did it. For the first hour of church, she was the accompanist. For the second hour, she taught her own age's Sunday school class. And after the three hour block, she stayed to lead the choir. Then she would walk to the bus station, wait for the bus, then walk back to the dormitory, where she would have missed the lunch time and have to wait for dinner. She was often very hungry. But she did this. Why?

Within a few years, there were 20 Korean students. There were 3-4 Korean Presbyterian churches nearby. The pastor would pick up this group of students (aside from Bro. Kim's daughter) later in the morning and drive them to the church for the one-hour service. Then the pastor's wife would cook them a full Korean meal, after which they stayed and played games together. There was also a computer there, the only one in the area they had access to, where they could chat and email their families. All this, Bro. Kim's daughter missed because she went all the way to the LDS church.

Today's Sunday School lesson was on Helaman and the young warriors who were so strong in the faith of God. This is from Alma Chapter 56: 47-48.

Now they never had fought, yet they did not fear death; and they did think more upon the liberty of their fathers than they did upon their lives; yea, they had been taught by their mothers, that if they did not doubt, God would deliver them. And they rehearsed unto me the words of their mothers, saying: We do not doubt our mothers knew it.

We often think what amazing young men these were, to express such strong belief because of what their mothers taught them. We wonder, 'What kind of homes did these young men come from that would make them that converted?' Today, after hearing Bro. Kim speak and then hearing this Sunday School lesson, I couldn't help but wonder, 'What kind of home did this girl come from that would make her that converted? That she would be willing to sacrifice so much at such a young age?' And then comes the voice in my head, the question we all ask ourselves at times--Would I be willing to do that? Would I have faith sufficient to trust in God that much?

What a privilege it is for me to serve each hour of church, blessing others because the Lord has blessed me with talents. I hope I never will again complain at the load I feel I carry, when thousands of others across the world sacrifice so much just to be there and then fulfill callings that over here would be filled by five or more people. I am so blessed.