Winding Down

I'm starting to feel like we're at the end of the toilet paper roll. Everything is just going faster and faster. Am I worried/nervous/excited? Probably, but I haven't been letting myself think about South Africa much, so I don't really know. There's still so much left to do in Provo. Projects, presentations, readings, finals, cleaning checks, moving out, moving in, packing, storing, shopping, saying goodbye, and then finally checking out. In fact, I've had a really hard time writing about South Africa the past couple of weeks, because I just can't generate anything new to say.

I've been thinking a lot recently about serving a full time LDS mission in January. When most people think about serving a mission, they think of an opportunity to go out and teach people about what they have. But as I've been contemplating a mission, I've really been thinking about it as an opportunity to learn, to be shaped by the Big Man's hands into a more effective tool for accomplishing his goals. Does that minimize the importance of teaching people the gospel? Absolutely not. I am a HUGE advocate for missionary work, always on the look out to share my testimony with members and nonmembers alike. But I think I've surprised a lot of people when they've asked me why I want to go on a mission, and I don't say, "to teach the gospel."

If there is one thing I have learned so far in the field studies process, it has been the importance of learning as opposed to teaching. In my first 25 questions, I asked myself why I wanted to go on a field study, and one of my first answers was "to teach." I love teaching. I find it so satisfying to help people understand things they didn't before, especially when those things have great potential to improve their lives. But I've also learned that the one thing we have control over is ourselves. If our happiness relies on the willingness of someone else to accept what we have to give, we will always be unhappy. Especially if we are asking them to accept us without being willing to accept them. Doesn't that sound like hypocrisy? As well intentioned as I think we sometimes are, we have to remember that we can't force things on other people. We can place them at their feet and give them an opportunity to pick them up. We can show that we are willing to engage in an exchange by learning from them. But we can't force them to learn from us.

While I'm in South Africa, I hope I will learn how to do that. So far, all I have done is think about the importance of learning, but in a few weeks, I'll have three months to practice. And I think as I am willing to learn, I will also be able to teach. But it's like one of my best friends has always told me "people don't care how much you know until they know how much you care." Being willing to learn shows that you care, and as you are learning, people become more receptive to learning from you. I don't mean that I want to go to South Africa and Americanize the people there. I don't even think that the information I have to share with them about proper nutritional practices will be the most important thing I have to share. I hope that what I can share is myself. And again, not to be egotistical. This goes back to the posts I've written about serving others with your whole self. I hope I can learn from other people and their lives, experiences and perspectives, and be able to share what I have with them.

Now that that's over, sorry you had to read through it all. This was an exercising in writing as I thought, and it's a little bit scattered.