The Tender Mercies of the Lord

"To every thing there is a season, and a time to every purpose under the heaven:" -Ecclesiastes 3:1-

The reason why I started out with that scripture is that to ME, that's what the tender mercies of the Lord is, or that's how it's been manifested to me.

The first time I learned about the tender mercies of the Lord was at a scout camp. It was Sunday, I think, and we went around and talked about when we feel the Holy Ghost then my seminary teacher talked about the tender mercies of the Lord. He said that things happen for a reason and that's through the tender mercies of the Lord. I pondered about that for a long time.

Few years before I went on my mission, I realized that everything that has happened to me was not a coincidence. As Ecclesiastes says, everything happens for a reason. Me as a kid crying and asking some supreme being whether he existed or not, my grandma and uncle passing away, wondering what happened to them, moving to the US or more specifically to Macomb, Illinois, meeting a Korean family who were Mormons, etc. All these led my family to join the Church.

That's all about how I joined the Church. If I think about all of my companions, my areas, people I met, and so on, there are numerous times when I saw the Lord's tender mercies in my life. Nothing really happens without a reason. The Lord put everyone and everything in my life to help me know that He loves and knows me. How awesome is that!

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Possible Graduate Schools for Kyoo

I've been thinking about what I am going to do after I graduate. I want to get into Clinical Psychology Ph.D. program here at BYU but you will never know what will happen so I started looking into different schools I would like to go to:

University of Illinois

University of Minnesota

Washington University

University of Nevada-Reno

University of Nevada-Las Vegas

Brigham Young University

University of Utah

They are not in the order of preferences. All of them are stinking expensive other than BYU but I can get financial aids from all of them.

If I were to put them in the order of my preference, it would be following:

1. University of Minnesota

2. University of Nevada-Reno

3. University of Illinois

4. University of Utah

5. Brigham Young University

6. University of Nevada-Las Vegas

7. University of Washington

But it depends heavily on whether I get financial aid or not. If I get full scholarship in any of them, they would be on top of my list. Actually, they will be only options I will have. I can't afford to go anywhere else without full scholarship.

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Conversion

I was thinking while I was working and I was thinking about how I don’t want to be a hypocrite. I want to do all the things I taught to my investigators on my mission. I taught them the truth and promised them blessings for following the commandments. Those blessings apply to me too and I should be keeping those commandments as well. If I didn’t change through out my mission, my mission failed. It doesn’t matter how many people I baptized because if I am the same as before I left on my mission, I faked it throughout my mission and I’ve been telling lies. The gospel of Jesus Christ is about change; change to be more like Christ. Then I thought about something interesting. I thought about a scripture in Luke 22. It was Christ talking to Peter and He said, “When thou art converted, strengthen thy brothren.” Then a phrase from Preach My Gospel came to my mind: “You cannot convert people beyond your own.” I pondered about these two phrases and what they meant to me. What Christ told Peter felt like that’s what He wants me to do. For me to serve others, I have to be converted and be more Christlike. Unless I can do that, I don’t think I will be a good instrument in God’s hands. I think this applies to teaching children; if I am not worthy or don’t live the way I should, I can’t teach them the way they should live. What am I doing to be converted?

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Summer

Swedish Proverb

A life with love is like a year without summer.

Albert Camus

In the Midst of winter, I finally learned that there was in me an invincible summer.

Russell Baker

Ah, Summer, what power you have to make us suffer and like it.

Celia Thaxter

There shall be eternal summer in the grateful heart

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Recording My Thoughts

I thought this picture would be appropriate and I think it's cool. (It's not a picture of my journal. I don't have that kind of awesome handwriting.)

I do have a journal. (It's not a diary!!!) I've started writing on a journal since I was a senior in high school. I had a friend who would write his thoughts and feelings mostly instead of events and I thought that was pretty cool because since I had a lot of crap going on in my life, I thought I should do the same. It started out with a ton of roller coaster emotions then as I came to BYU and all, it changed to my thoughts and events happening around me. As you can see, I don't know what I would have done if I didn't write what I was thinking. I would have killed myself...not really...but seriously.

Growing up, I did have a journal or I should say a picture journal. What it is is that I would draw an event that happened then at the bottom, I would write about it. It's pretty cool. I kind of wish I had them still but I think we threw them away when we moved from a condo to a small apartment when my dad moved to here. (The rest of us were still in South Korea.)

Before I left on my mission, I told myself that I would write on my journal everyday. I kept that promise. If I missed a day, I would write it the next day. I tried so hard not to get behind ever. I would even make some notes on my planner so I wouldn't forget what had happened that day. Now I am so glad that I did that because I can read my journals and remember many things that happened on my mission.

I have been pretty bad at writing on my journal for few months because I thought my days were pretty much the same everyday since my mission. I am still using the journal that I started on April of last year. OK, maybe it doesn't sound as bad to some of you but it's pretty bad to me considering that I would go through a journal every 6-8 months on my mission. I needed to find a way to write more consistently and record almost everything that happens everyday.

The solution was pretty simple with technology like this. I could make a GoogleDoc and when I am at work, I can start recording what happened during work or the night before if I didn't get to record it. Then when I get home from work, I can copy down everything onto my journal and make some changes or corrections if necessary. This way, I can have a daily entry on my journal again. :)

I am not a huge fan of typing my journal entries because I don't get to write them. I want others, mostly my posterity, to know my handwriting. I think it would mean more to them to know that I put effort to write each letter out so that they can learn about me. (It's not like my life is very interesting.) I mean, I am a first generation to be in the U.S. and a first generation to be an LDS. (I say "first generation" since my whole family came here and joined the Church together.) I guess it's like a pioneer thing to do. I don't write on my journal for myself; I do it for them. I am ashamed and embarrassed about what I've written but it's part of who I am. They will have to know how I really was and I hope they can relate themselves to me. When they look at my journals, they will be look like this picture at the bottom.

I think that's why I am so careful at choosing journals and pens I use. It takes me hours to buy a journal and another hour to buy a pen. I want to get journals that would last a long time and pens that would look cool...and wouldn't smudge all over the page.

I never know how to end a blog. I guess I just don't know how to wrap it all up. Whatever...

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Meaning of Love

This is what happens when I work till midnight and got nothing to do.

Another philosophy I will talk about is the definition of love. I don't know if I talked about this before but this is pretty important to me. I think this is like a sign that I grew up.

I don't know what I thought love was but I am pretty sure it's different now.

I will start with what I used to think what love was. In the past, I thought that love was just a feeling I get from someone. If I feel a little different about a girl than other girls, then I must've been in love. I could fall in love at first sight.

Now I don't believe in love at first sight. I don't believe that love is just a feeling; a feeling is a part of love but it doesn't complete love.

I think I need to start explaining what I believe love is by using the scriptures. John 17:3 says, "This is life eternal, that they might know thee the only true God, and Jesus Christ, whom thou hast sent." (Emphasis added) Also John 14:15 states, "If ye love me, keep my commandments." The reason why I used these two scriptures is that I think they go together. Here's my explanation. To gain eternal life we have to know God and Jesus Christ but also we know that to gain eternal life, we have to keep God's commandments. As we keep His commandments, we learn about His nature and about Him. As we keep His commandments, we are getting to know Him meaning we are gaining eternal life. Also when we keep His commandments, we are loving Him. Meaning loving and knowing are the same thing. In the Old Testament, it talks about "knowing" someone intimately. When Adam "knew" Eve, Eve was conceived, and so on.

I will try to put it in a simpler way. Have you heard older couples say that as they get older and spend their life with their loved ones, they love them more? Do you think that they didn't love each other before? Of course, they did, but I believe that they love each other more because they learn more about each other. As they learn more about each other, their love for each other grows.

Now bringing this concept to my life. I have told girls that I love them, but now I would never say that to a girl unless I know her sufficiently. I might care about her or be attracted to her but I would never say that I "love" her. It seems very sacred and powerful to use in the same meaning as "care" or "attract."

Does this sound way crazy? Like I said long time ago, you don't have to agree with me at all. You don't have to read this either. I am just stating what I believe.

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To be Normal or Not to be

I decided to make another label called "Kyoo's Philosophy" because many thing I write here will be my opinions and philosophies.

This one is called "To be normal or not to be" because we all (if not most of us) want to be normal or be like everyone else. Well, I don't. I subconsciously might do things that would be considered normal to others but I am just not "normal."

For one thing, I am Asian! I am not normal! Who the heck think that I am just like everyone else when people look at me they see an Asian instead of a "normal" person? No one. I mean, I admit that when I see Asians on campus, I see them as Asians instead of people.

I realized that I don't want to be like everyone else because I am not like everyone else. Am I white? Am I tall? Am I brunette or blonde? I am different. I doubt that I will be able to find anybody who is exactly like me. I am unique, so how would I want to be like everybody else? God loves me for who I am. I don't need to change to fit in the society. I can be myself.

I don't have to listen to the same music as everybody else. I don't have to agree with whatever people think. I don't have to try my best to like something everybody likes. Why can't everybody just be who they are instead of trying to be like everybody else? Why can't people accept others for who they are?

I don't want to be normal because I am not normal.

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Hiking to Squaw Peak and Climbing Down

Today, I woke up at 7 am to get ready to hike up to Squaw peak with few of my friends. I got to their apartment and we got ready then got up to Rock Canyon trail and started hiking.

It was great until we got on the Squaw peak trail. It was so steep and muddy. That wasn't the worst part. The worst part was about three feet of snow on top of the mountain. We didn't expect to see so much snow up there but it was fairly warm, so we just enjoyed getting sunk into snow every time we walked and get all scratched up around the ankle because snow was pretty hard from melting and freezing which was not the condition for guys with shorts on.

When we finally made it up to the top. We rested for a little bit and started to take pictures.

The most fun part was going down because we saw a trail on the other side of the trail we took. It was farther away and didn't see any trail leading to it from where we were, so we decided to just start going down and try to get to that trail. That was a bad idea (but still fun). We got to some places where we almost slip on the pebbles and roll down the hill. Our own trail was made up of pebbles and rocks. All I could think was...something. I also thought about how I had to work at 4 where I am now. Now you know I didn't die there.

Anyways, it was pretty fun coming down because we got to climb down some rocks and see a deer or some kind of animal bone. Our legs and arms got all scratched up too. Now, I am dead tired and I have no desire to show people that I am all happy and crap. It's not like there's anybody here anyways.

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"Choose Your Friends Wisely"

"Choose your friends wisely" is what my Patriarchal blessing says. I never understood what that meant. I had friends in high school who partied every weekend drinking, smoking and doing drugs but that never affected me. I didn't have desire to do all those things because my friends did.

I didn't know how much I have changed or how I got higher standards until few weeks ago. I was hanging out with some people and I realized that some of the things they were saying were kind of bothersome to me. They would have been funny if I were in high school but now I didn't find them funny but stupid. Have I changed that much on my mission? Have I matured? I guess I have. I still like to have fun and joke around but there are some things that seem pretty inappropriate to talk about in a public setting. Don't get me wrong. These guys were fun to hang out with but I just didn't feel comfortable listening to their conversation.

Since that day, I've been thinking about people around me and a quote by Ezra Taft Benson: "One good yardstick as to whether a person might be the right one for you is this: in her presence, do you think your noblest thoughts, do you aspire to your finest deeds, do you wish you were better than you are?" Of course, he was talking about finding your eternal companion but I think it applies to your friends also. Do my friends make me want to become a better person? Do they make me want to have higher standards? Do they strengthen my testimony of the gospel?

My current roommates do that to me. I feel good when I am around them. They have high standards. They have strong testimony and they show it. I want to be around them. I think that's what my Patriarchal blessing is saying: I need to find friends who strengthen my testimony and help me become a better person.

The same goes for girls I date. As President Benson said, I want girls to influence me to do better and become a better person. If I have doubts on whether I want to date this girl or not because I feel like she has lower standards; she hangs out friends with lower standards; or what not, then perhaps I shouldn't date her.

Making friends is a tricky thing but finding the right friends is more difficult.

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Past Haunts Me

Don't you sometimes wish that you could go back in time and change something? Don't you sometimes wish that something never happened to you? Don't you still think about that day when everything just fell apart?

There are many times when this applied to me. One of them still haunts me though. Actually all of them do but this one particular incident affected me so much that I am not the same as before the incident.

I am going to give a short version of the story.

When I was in high school, there was a girl I liked. I told her I liked her and she told me that she liked me too. (Awwwww, cute...) But on one weekend, I asked her to do something with me but she said she had something to do. I was an idiot so later I jokingly told her that she "ruined" my weekend. She got mad at me ever since then and we rarely spoke to each other. Even now we don't acknowledge each other's existence and don't talk to each other.

It doesn't sound bad when I tell this story but it affected me so much. It might not have had any effect at all to her but I still suffer from it. I have this fear now that if I ask a girl (whom I am close to) out and it doesn't work out, it might get really awkward between us and that she will never talk to me again. I've gone on dates with girls but I have never gone out with them on a second date. It's not that I am afraid of being rejected but I am afraid of losing a friend.

I don't know if I will ever be able to overcome it. Wait, yes I do. I know I will overcome it but I don't know when I will be able to overcome it. Maybe someday I will.

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