Thursday 26 May 2011

Translation Day

My task lasted more or less 2 hours. I always love to be a volunteer but only if I could. Yesterday, the couple of my branch, President and Sister Wieland invited me to help them translate their messages and teachings into Malay and Cantonese. I was once a translator for university news. That time was actually a semester break and almost everyone was going back to hometown to have a getaway. My brother and I were coming back home also after a week long exam but as earlier on the air tickets that we bought did not coincidentally correspond to the schedule of our break, hence we got to wait for about more or less two weeks. Instead of wasting time staying at my house, I decided to ask for a temporary job in my area. Then, out of sudden, there was a vacancy for the data entry, so to speak. I went to apply for it and immediately, they arranged me for quick interview and tasks to do. Of course, may be I hadn't worked before, instead of compliment I had, it was the way round, complaintssss.......but that's fine with me, because I just planned to work there until the day before the flight.

All in all, those works were mainly related to editing and posting of university news, that's all. Anyway, I really love to translate, because we can find enjoyment from within! It sometimes calls for skills to interpret the message that someone else hopes to relate. That's the most enjoyable part, I supposed. Pres & Sis Wieland, and the rest of the missionarries are always so warm. They don't care how the places like for their visiting destinations. This is the biggest problem as I was dragged in also to do the translation. There are lots of our branch members are illegal immigrants, that is a constant trouble to our church because they have been degrading our reputation because they do not have legal documents to walk around. Not very long before, one of the local missionarries was caught by the authority and I cried over this matter once. It's sad but what can I do for him? The family we went visit teaching was another illegal family. The husband is a chinese, but is obviously not literated enough and his wife is a Phillipino, together with them are 6 to 7 children and the wife's mother. It's a very broken, old wooden house that was erected above the sea shore next to the other wooden houses to form a big village. That place, because was dwelled by illegal immigrants, was called also squarters area. I was not surprised that the place we were heading was this area but the dark pathway which was made up of shaky wooden planks was quite scarry, even a slendor size was I also got to be very careful on every step. Sis Wieland was amazing as she walked very fast without having to worry a lot! Her husband was not even a rival to her!

We reached there and I was like being punched on the head until the stars coming out of my sight after a long walk (it was not a long path either, but may be it's a bit scarry). We went in and the head of the family was there but was taking nap and we apparently woke him up to talk about gospel and to teach how to pray. I think every member before joining the church must have all the prequisite done before getting baptised but probably the rules and have been loosen nowadays......sad part of it. However, the children were so happy and sang a few hymns.

After that, we went to another member's house and found that the mother was busy sewing there. She was quite tough on her stand not to do any reading as Sis Wieland suggested for only a few lines. Of course not to frustrate her, we ended up just making a closing prayer and chucked off.

Anyway, anyway, anyway, I love to translate!

Sunday 15 May 2011

Spiritual Belief

From many resources I collected, heared, saw and even touched, I do know that the world has changed tremendously, from its preliminary face until now. I do sometimes wonder if this talk about revolution did exist. But I am so sure, from my personal experience, man does come out from the mother's womb, live, grows, becoming old and dies. I had neither a chance to attend my grandpa's funeral, nor my grandma's funeral too. I did not attend my grandpa's because I was too small to witness the entire process (said my mother) and I was not supposed to attend my grandma's because our Chinese horoscopes are the same. Of course, for a typical Chinese like me, I did follow exactly what was instructed lest this will bring bad lucks to myself, to the dead and to the family. A lot of time, it sounds so stupid to blindly follow this culture but for harmony, I compromise.

Next, talking about baptism, it is so much related to personal feeling to the belief we hold. If we believe, we definitely won't regret to be baptised to the church where we are associated to. But how if we, after baptism, do not follow exactly what the teachings and covenants we made during the baptism? Of course, all that we know, there is always exception to the general rules. But how if this is directly the relationship between Heavenly Father and ourselves? I personally believe because we do believe Father does exist, so as his teachings, I am definitely grateful for that, even proud of. But because lots of time, we live just because somebody needs us to, we do somethings just because somebody told us to, we follow this and that just because somebody hopes us to......It is certainly almost incredible to change this somebody's thoughts but to compromise hoping that this peaceful and harmonious state does continue. Although I am not from the Royal family like Prince William and Prince Harry, but I always find that my status quo always exists and I could hardly find room for further development.

Well, we can say "Time" can change everything, from bad to good, but there is alaways Plus and Minus as my dad always say. Weather would not stay fine for 365 days, so does the human's mood. Finally, this happened to my sister. She's the only one left in our family yet to be baptised, but because we do attend church activities, she's apparently one of the members. Can anybody kindly tell me, is baptism involve any worldly things, especially status in the society? spiritual escape? or even skin colours? Father does not differentiate human based on skin colours, but the humans do. I can tell that this somebody must be so confident in herself that she thought whatever done by her is always correct but I do know she has made a mistake. I do respect her but I do protest. But what I could do is only to constantly provide admonition to her. Sadly to say that most of the things I have said are not accepted, becaused this somebody has been so self-centred. Anyway, anyway, anyway, I will pray that Father will always pick us up from the drain.

Spritual belief can be compared to Harry Potter's story. Whoever acts evilly will be punished, even if this involves endless sacrifices. Sometimes, what we see is not what we are perceived. There are lots and lots of possibility. What we could do at the otherside is to guess and guess and guess, until it might turn out to be a useless piece of findings. What we could learn from is the process, the experience from it.