Instruments and Mums

May 13, 2018

Happy Mother’s Day (or in NZ-Mum’s Day). To our “Mum’s” and Moms everywhere, thank you.

We were invited last Sunday to have dinner with one of our great YSA’s Matt Yang and his family and several friends. His family is from Korea.

The Yang's home was beautiful to look at (loved this entry light) and felt beautiful too.

His delightful and talented parents are from South Korea and his sweet grandmother (who joined us but spoke no English) escaped from North Korea alone as a child, never seeing her parents or family again. Pretty fascinating stories of their lives and conversion to the Church. Lots of THOTL in their lives.

Dinner was Korean, Curry rubbed chicken, curry carrots and yummy food (as usual I forgot to

take the photo until after we ate).

A returned missionary from Los Angeles CA, Matt is going to Uni to be a doctor, but is also an incredible musician. He doesn’t just play instruments, he knows them. He re-tunes them to play in different ways in different keys (we “winged” it together, violin and guitar, on Pachelbel’s Canon-I limped, he flew!). He is a MASTER!

This past week our Lunchside devotional speakers were Elder and Sister Rowberry, former Tabernacle Choir members with additional Choir leadership responsibilities, as well as on general boards and multiple business organizations. They are now the executive secretaries in the Pacific Area.

They spoke about being Instruments, using our “gifts” and talents to be a part of a “choir” - a family, a team, a group of 1 or 1000 that might need us to serve, or play, or sing, or build something good.

John and Laraine Rowberry

Persimmons...everywhere this time of year, a new fruit for us, actually pretty good!

Still find flowers all year long, by the roadside and making outdoor restaurants happier.

Got to go to a greenstone factory and watch a MASTER cut and polish raw NZ jade. They use so many blades and drills, it's fascinating, but they know their instruments well and turn out amazing pieces...

Some of the beautiful greenstone Maori (Moana) fish hooks and koru's

Local wood and shells are used in the many Maori carvings they make.

These bags are woven from the local flax plants...used in years past for so many things from clothes, and grass skirts, to houses and sails.

These carvings are made from bone..originally whale bone. The designs are beautiful and again the MASTER carver uses some his amazing talents with the help of instruments to produce these.

We are all instruments with different purposes, different sounds and shapes and

different parts to play in the orchestra. But we are instruments....in THOTL

...and its okay not to be perfect now.

FOR MOM's

This past week after a lesson that didn’t fly like I’d hope, I thought about the “in-tune” part. Some lessons, some days, and sometimes even life doesn’t seem to flow much like the perfect symphony you had hoped for. But learn from your practice sessions, do your part to keep trying to be the best instrument you can, be willing to let the Lord teach you in practice sessions, and then to use you to play somehow in His symphonies.

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To Mom's (now and in the future and grandmas too), just keep trying, and enjoy those brief moments when you and your "little" or big charges catch the vision of what might be beyond.

Saw this...one of the largest vehicles we've seen here. Yes, "Noah" works if you use it for transporting pairs of animals, But we thought a better name (as we've seen it being used here) might be "Mom".

Mom/mums are powerful and amazing instruments. But most don’t see themselves that way. Every time Mother’s Day rolls around it’s seems for many moms it’s too easy to only remember the imperfect, hard and “out of tune” times, not the growing and refinement, the eventual wisdom and perspective, the love borne of sacrifice.

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In 2 Nephi 2:23 it says that if Adam and Eve had not had children they wouldn’t have had sorrow or misery (we know that), but they also wouldn’t have had joy. Looks as though there must be the heartache and struggle and “misery” to help us experience and feel the joy. Opposition not only gives us a choice, but gives us perspective.

How many Mother’s Day cards come filled with a note that says something like “thanks for all the struggle and heartache and pain you endured for me.” Haven’t read one yet that says “thanks for sitting back in your easy chair and watching me be a perfect child.

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