I am a child of God, and he has sent me here.
Has given me an earthly home with parents kind and dear.
Lead me, guide me, walk beside me; help me find the way.
Teach me all that I must do to live with him someday.

If you’re familiar with the board game “The Game of Life”, you’d know that you get “life tiles” at every significant landmark in your life, like graduating from college or getting married or when you have a child. Those tiles are worth BIG sums of money and life achievements written on the back like “Win a Nobel prize”, “Discover a star”, “Elected president” or whatever.

Today, I felt like I earned a couple of life tiles. Sunday has always been my favorite day of the week. When I was little, I got to wear my pretty dresses on Sunday and see my childhood boyfriend again. Throughout elementary to high school, I loved waking up and putting on something besides my school uniform. Now, I love dressing up and experimenting with makeup and my hair.

Of course, it’s not just the dressing up that makes Sunday great. If I miss church one Sunday, my week never seems quite complete. It used to be a very social thing for me. I would look forward to seeing my friends again. However, now that most of my friends are in college or someone else in the world on missions, I still look forward to church every Sunday. I love it so much that the worst punishment my parents had given me before was to ground me from church. Now they’ve progressed to grounding me from college. *sigh*

But that’s not part of my story. So anyway, because everyone including myself, thought that I would be in Hawaii this year, I got released from my calling as the nursery leader in church and they called Sis. Katherine Ritzie (who is Swiss) to take my place. She came in today – we were both there, to make a smooth transition. Already the kids LOVE her. She got them giggling so hard they turned purple, pink and blue. It’s really hard to let go of my nursery children. Every single one of those children started nursery with me. Making nursery a happy place for them and a place they want to be in every Sunday has been my achievement. Not one came in without screaming for mommy and daddy. None of them do that now. They grab me by the hand after sacrament meeting and practically drag me into nursery with them.

I remember when Lydia and Isaac the twins first came to nursery (they’re practically the reason why we STARTED the nursery again in our branch), they would cry and cry. When one stopped the other would set him/her off again. Isaac also had a problem, if he cried too hard for too long, he would throw up. I remember ignoring it and smiling and trying to calm them down (instead of myself) when I got it all over my favorite dress. *sigh* Great memories.

Today, Sister Whitaker, the primary president presented me with a gift: a clear folder with pages that some of my nursery children and their parents had put together for me. I have all their handprints, a couple of cute pictures and plenty of scribbles all over with little notes written or typed by mommy or daddy saying “Thank you” and “I love you”.

I nearly broke down in tears. It’s like winning an award. An award not just for being thrown up and peed on or changing diapers or teaching them about Heavenly Father or sweeping cookie crumbs off the floor after church – it’s for loving every minute of it, and touching the lives of little children who will some day be my age and hold callings just like me.

I got approached by 2 people today – Pres. Whitaker and Pres. Tan -our branch president and the counselor to the district president.

Pres. Tan came into the nursery to see me. Pres. Tan is fairly young (maybe about 35) and still single. I call him AP. He’s young, but he’s quite serious by nature and is given very responsible positions so has never quite fit in the singles crowd - although he always tries to be fun and cool (which bugs me sometimes. I think that’s worse than being serious). It was funny seeing him come into the nursery feeling very tall and awkward with the little people banging on cries and fighting for “Sister Fei”s attention. He finally sat on the floor and had the children poking at him and pulling at his tie while asking me how I have been doing.

We made some small talk. I introduced him to the children. Lydia pulled her skirt up, “Look at my pink panties”. (She shows me what color they are every Sunday – is THAT where I learned to do that from?) Hehe, I hope she doesn’t do that to they guys when she is older. She’s going to be drop-dead gorgeous.

Anyway, A.P. had an assignment for me. They are setting up a “CES Student Council” in our district. They’ve never had one before and they figured since I’ve been to BYU-Hawaii that I could promote the church school here. That’s what I’ve been accepted. More so after returning home. I’ve also had 5 years of seminary –I went one more year because I loved it so much. I’m the biggest fan of the Church Educational System. They want me to be the representative from my branch as a council member. I’m really excited. This puts me in the “in” on what’s happening in the district. I’ll get to organize activities for both the youth and single adults. I used to be very involved while I was in the Young Women. I was even co-chairman for the Youth Conference when I was 15. I love being involved.

After that, Pres. Whitaker (he’s an equivalent to a pastor) came and asked to see me. I left the children at their snack time with Katherine and met him in his office. He asked me how I was doing like everyone else has. He’s one of the few people I can be really honest with, and has been very sympathetic ever since I was pulled home from college last Summer. I told him everything was getting better and that I’ve gotten used to it. On the whole, I haven’t been too bad. Dealing with a breakup has led me to forget how angry I am at my parents, I guess. Ok, sometimes, it all comes crashing down on me at once. Like today, I totally ratted Scott’s ear off. Scott is Mark’s best friend. I didn’t realize how bitter I still was towards my parents.

But to keep a positive outlook, I tell most people about what is going right and how things are getting better. President Whitaker had a calling for me too. I was excited. I thought about approaching HIM for a calling, having been released from nursery. They are calling my mom as the new Young Women’s President where she has served as a counselor for 2 different people who weren’t very consistent. Poor Mom couldn’t do too much without the authority, now she can! Mom – bless her! – asked that I be her counselor. Oh, you have no idea how EXCITED I am for that!!! I really wanted to be called into the Young Women. It’s the perfect organization. I get to teach lessons (I love to teach) longer than the 5 minute ones in the nursery, and organize activities. This may even be my chance to earn my Young Women medallion. Finally. I’m excited to get to work with my mom closely and forge a special bond with her. Su’s 6,000 miles away and still closer to her than I am. It’s time we fixed that.

After talking to Pres. Whitaker, the primary, desperate for a pianist, pulled me out of nursery again. There was a new kid in primary today. A visitor. About 4-year-old Chinese boy, with long hair and sideburns, like the men had in the 80s, sorta. Real cute. As soon as I sat down at the piano, he came over to me and gave me a hug. I pulled him over and sat him on my lap for a minute. It was wonderful. Heavenly Father has amazing ways to show us he loves us. I wonder what the child saw. I still don’t know his name – I asked him in 4 different languages and no reply I could understand. LoL! When I told mom, she said that there’s something special about me. Is there? It’s nice to think there is. I wonder what it would be like to have my own children. I guess being the eldest of 6 kids gives me a taste of that.

I also learned something interesting today. I asked Katherine in the nursery how old her son was. When she told me that he was 4, I commented on how mature he looked and she said, “That’s because of his cancer.” Apparently her son has some kind of disease that causes him to age faster than other children (mom said it is hereditary) and has had cancer since he was born, although they just discovered it when he was a year and a half.

We sang "I am a Child of God" in nursery and in primary today, a couple of times a peice. I noticed Steven, her son, singing with exceptional fervor. I wonder how much he knows about what is going on. Maybe he understand is better than anyone of us does. Children know so much. And simple and naive as they are, they truly understand what's important.

The first person I thought of when Katherine told me about her son was Amy. You just can’t run from cancer. It creeps up on you and turns your life around. I wonder how it’s like to love a dying child. I also wonder what I’m doing; getting attached to someone who is planning to die when and how she chooses instead of letting her cancer or God do it.

It’s so tempting to ask why. Why them. Why not me? Puts my troubles into perspective, doesn’t it? I guess it’s useless to ask why. Answers only can come with time. The only thing to ask is “what do I do now?” I ask myself “What am I going to do today” every morning so I add purpose and direction to my 4 months of being home.

I’m getting ready to leave too. I’m not going to die like Amy is planning on. I’m getting ready to grow up and leave my family again. But like everything in this life, I’ve been given a time frame. Four months. I supposed I should waste less of it on the computer.

Deadlines are important. They give us something we can grasp. I’d like to know when I’m going to die so I can prepare for that properly. But it’s true though, that I would procrastinate till it was too late. Better not knowing and spending every moment preparing.

Sometimes, deadlines get unexpectedly postponed. Don’t you love it when you go to class with a half done assignment and you are told you have 2 more days to perfect it? I guess we get them in life too. We live through expected death sometimes. Who knows what will happen.

I wish I could say something, anything, to help Amy rethink her decision. But, I’m not her friend, or family, and 10000 other people are already trying. Not working. The best I can do is respect her decision and not interfere. Like what the Ritzies are doing with Steven: just love him anyway. Love him as much as you can in the short time you are given.

Life sure is meaningless without love.