¡ Adios California !

DH and DD moved Herculean mountains this past weekend. They flew back to California, rented a 26 foot Uhaul, loaded it with our stuff out of storage. Then they drove it over to our friend's house who was storing what little furniture we had left. Then they UNLOADED the Uhaul, and re-loaded it in to a semi- (moving van) did I mention all by themselves? And then flew back to Texas. Poor DD didn't even have time to get the massage I'd promised she could have. We were finally in a position where we could cash flow it all: the flights, the moving costs (including short rent and long haul), and have enough left over for DD to go to a massage and medical visits with her doctors for a checkup. It was a lot for them to cram in, in only three days.

The moving company called Monday after they picked up. They asked, "wouldn't you like your things this Wednesday evening?" Holy moly that was fast. We opted "NO," and went for Black Friday AM instead. Where it promptly rained, all day. (I've learned when Texas meteorologists say it's gonna rain, it's gonna rain.)

Still, even with the rain, the four of us (DD, DH, DS20 and I) managed to get the truck unloaded in about 4 hours. Our third bedroom, which used to be a one car garage, is back being a "garage" again: we put all our boxes and crates in there, so the three kids are in the 'master' bedroom now, DH and I in what was formerly DD19's bedroom. DS20 is hardly here anymore anyway, so it's not a big deal.

It feels weird: all of our belongings are out of California. Like, forever. Like, we're really moved. After so long (six months) it doesn't quite seem real--almost like we've forgotten something or left stuff behind. I still feel bad about not getting a chance to go place flowers one last time on all the various family members' gravestones. Maybe that's it. I mean, I even had DD go get our medical records for all the kids while she was there this time, along with DH and DS20's birth certificates so they can apply for a Texas driver's license.

It's nice having all my canning and dehydrating stuff here. It's nice having what little remains of our food storage here. It's nice having a four day weekend where we can get the bedrooms and living areas situated. I'm looking forward to getting rid of even more stuff. After six months of living without it, it's amazing what you really don't need. I wish this had been our last move, rather than our second to last move. Maybe then it would feel more final.

But that's ok. We're here our stuff is here and we are doing amazingly well here. Here is where we will make our stand and start rebuilding. ¡ Adios California !

The Road to Righteousness

I had an interesting, special experience yesterday. I debated about sharing it with anyone, let alone a cyber audience, but the nagging feeling that I should won't abate, so here we are.

It's been a hectic week or so. At work, we let the temp in our department go, and my bookkeeper quit without notice last Thursday, just as I was starting the re-build of our computer system. On top of that, my DH announced Thursday night (after he had forgotten about our anniversary...again...) that he was quitting his job the next day. I am grateful that I can recognize that all of these are not my problem. They may impact me, but they are not my problem. Here's why.

A few months ago, my BFF Wendi sent me a set of tapes/workbooks from a seminar she had attended. It's entitled "Becoming Spiritually Centered and Overcoming the World," by James B. Cox. At its core, its basic premise is that all of our problems are created, live and thrive in a "temporal," mortal world. All of the solutions to those problems, can be found in the "spiritual" world. 

The temporal world is where you eat, work, exercise, watch TV, go to church, pay bills. He points out that it takes very little effort to be(come) temporally centered. All problems are found in the temporal world. 

Bridging the two is your (personal) world: a physical body and a spiritual body, your temple (1 Cor. 6:19). The physical body is part of the temporal world. Your spirit is part of the spiritual world. The two faculties of this world are your heart and your mind. One can focus his/her thoughts so you you can become spiritually or temporally centered.

The spiritual world is where your best friends are: Heavenly Father, Heavenly Mother, the Savior, the Holy Ghost, angels. In this world you find the powers of the priesthood, high feelings of self worth, peace and joy, forgiveness of sins. The Holy Ghost, the revelator and comforter, operates in this dimension. All solutions to all problems are found by accessing this world.

His encouragement: when we are faced with difficulties, injustice etc., the faster we are able to shuck using the temporal world to obtain solutions, and seek the spiritual dimension to find solutions, the sooner we will be at peace and back on the road to righteousness. 

What he teaches is not something new to me, but the mechanics and logic of "why" you would want to do so, was eye-opening. I had a lot of opportunities to put this in practice this week. I opted for example, to not remain in darkness (anger) when the employees quit. I opted (consciously) to bask in anger Thursday night when DH told me he had quit his job, but I also made the conscious decision that I was only going to wallow until the morning, at which time I would let it go, and seek a spiritual solution. During those 12 hours, I also made a point of being in constant mini-prayer, expressing gratitude for the solutions and kindness the Almighty had already given me. I am grateful to apply the lesson I have already learned: DH has stewardship issues, meaning, a general inability or unwillingness (and I don't judge which it is) to fulfill stewardship assignments given to him by God. It doesn't matter whether he is asked to visit families in our church, teach a class, or provide for a family, he has developed a habit of dropping the stewardship ball. That's not my problem. That's his problem with the Lord. I don't ask him to shoulder those stewardship assignments, the Lord does. Therefore, the solution to fixing those issues is not mine, it is DH's and the Lord's.

Do you see the difference?

Friday morning as I was ready and prepared to let it go and Let God, of course, the Adversary did not want me to. He wanted me to stay in his world: anger, depression, 'righteous' indignation. But I knew that solutions to my problems aren't found there. I chose to start back to peace by expressing my gratitude. I am keenly aware that my God is aware of my DH's stewardship issues. Consequently, He blessed me with work in California which allowed me to fulfill my righteous goals of being a stay at home Mom, but also fulfilled my righteous desires of getting out of debt. He inspired me to look for a job in Texas while we were still in California, and then fixed it so that I could get that job (seriously, the guy made two other hires who came and went before he decided it was worth the spend (I'm not cheap) on me.) This job pays enough to support my family, and has some flexibility so my kids can continue to do homeschooling.

I choose to focus on the Lord's hand in my life, rather than Satan's. I am grateful to be able to discern the difference. It paved the way for the blessings I received yesterday.

Saturday (yesterday) we went to Oklahoma city to visit the temple of the Church of Jesus Christ of Latter-day Saints. It's on my DD's bucket list, and since she just turned 19, we went as her birthday present. It's a bit of a drive: 4+ hours if mapquest doesn't send you on the back roads (5 if it does. Our drive took 5.)

Satan would have me believe that my life as a SAHM compared to what I could accomplish "in the world" has been a failure. After all: 3 of my 5 children are not where "I" would like them to be in life if I was writing their script. God wants me to know the truth: that "I" am not writing their script: they are, and the Lord is, but not me. It's easy to buy into the lie that "I" am a failure as a Mom, especially as a Chinese mom.

At the temple, I met a 70 year old woman who was attending the temple for the first time. At 70, she made the decision to travel a better road to righteousness. As I pondered my apparent failures as a mom, and also the fact that I am now out of the home for the majority of the day, the truth was revealed to me that I am not a failure in the Lord's eyes. I understood that in a few months, my daughter will also be visiting the temple for the first time; the scripture Luke 2:22-38 came to my mind. This is where Joseph and Mary present Christ to Simeon at the temple. I understood in just a few months I will be presenting my daughter, and escorting her back into the Lord's presence. Within the next few years, I will repeat this with both of my sons.

I am grateful for the revelation that the Lord is pleased with my efforts to be a righteous mother. Could I have done it better? Can I do it better? Of course. But my efforts to be a righteous parent do not go unnoticed by the Lord, and they are appreciated. I am grateful for the vision that in a temple we see life go full circle: I will be able to bring my children to a temple, just like Mary and Joseph, present them to the Lord's representative just as they did, ask for them to return to the Lord's presence, and have that wish granted. What greater gift can a mother have?

They say the road to hell is paved with good intentions. I say, the road to righteousness is paved with good decisions. I am grateful for the chance to choose better ones every day.

TEOTWAWKI? Thoughts on the "new" LDS Church gay & straight family policy

This LONG post (more of an essay really,) may not sit well with the vast majority of people who read it. That's ok. I''ve been called worse than what I anticipate some will say. It needs to be said.

Why are you here on this earth? Is mortality all there is, or did you live in a cosmic existence somewhere else in time before you were born? Will you live in another dimension after you die? These are questions people have asked throughout time. 

This is the doctrine of Jesus Christ: we lived before we came to mortality with our Father in Heaven (God.) He created our spirits, our souls. (Jeremiah 1:5) In order for us to grow and progress, we would come to earth, gain a physical body, re-learn about God and His ways, learn to be obedient and faithful to God; learning how to consistently make right choices, and in the process, become Holy. Because we would make mistakes, some of them grievous, He would provide a Savior and Redeemer for us to help us return to our Father in Heaven, and perfect our path of Holiness. This plan, is called the Plan of Salvation. 

A key element in this plan is one of agency. You have to choose to follow Christ and the path of holiness. In the pre-earth life, you chose to follow Christ, or at a minimum, accept that you needed to. Not everyone did, in fact a third of those living in Heaven did not. They chose a different plan, with Satan as their leader. A war broke out, and those following Satan were cast out of heaven, and will never gain a mortal body or have the chance to return to Heaven. (Revelations 12:7-17) But YOU voted to follow God's plan. YOU can still vote to follow God's plan with your faith and your behavior, and in the process, become Holy.

To give us a better chance at returning to our Father in Heaven, we have been organized in Family Units, with a mother and a father who have been charged with the responsibility of leading and directing their family unit in the way they should go. Look around you. Throughout time, how has mankind been organized? Singularly? Or as a family unit? That's not an accident, that is design. Regardless of religious affiliation (or any at all), the family is still the vehicle which gives us the best chance to learn, grow and progress. To be sure all sin and come short of the glory of God (Romans 3:23) and this is reflected in families too. 

Why a traditional family unit? What's so important about it? You intuitively know that it is important, even if you can't put your finger on why. Logic would tell you it must be super super important, because Satan works night and day to destroy it. 

I believe it is because the traditional family unit mirrors the doctrine of the Plan of Salvation. That we lived there and live here, with a Father and Mother. We learned/know there and here that we are their children. There and here, our parents love and care about us. They taught there, and parents teach here, by listening to, and following the counsel and example of, our parents, we can succeed. If we choose wisely, as a family unit here, we have the opportunity to return to our eternal family unit and reunite with our family unit there.

Enter the not-really-"new" policies of the LDS Church on same sex "marriages" and its impact on those families. What the haters will ignore is that this is not new policy, rather it is an expansion of policy already in place. Children who reside with polygamous parents are not able to be baptized until after they reach the age of majority etc. Yesterday, the Church expanded this to include children residing with cohabitating parents (gay or straight) and children residing in same sex "married" households. Lest the haters forget: the children of a single gay parent are not impacted. It is solely the households whose parents are modeling parenting and households which are contrary to doctrine. The same standard it has been for 100 years, for straight households.

Haters (in and out of the church) are going to scream how mean and vile it is "to the kids." So here's what I don't get:

1. How do you (as the parent engaging in sinful behavior) flip the bird with one hand to the Church ("you can't tell ME how to live, screw you") and simultaneously demand with the other fist that your underage children be allowed to baptized? In the Church you're saying bite me to. 

2. If you're actively participating in a behavior (gay or straight) which "your" Church holds is contrary to doctrine, and you're proud of that...um, I'm sorry, why do you claim to be part of that Church? Further, why would you want your children to be bound by covenant to something you don't want to follow yourself?

3. Baptism, missionary service, ordinations to the Priesthood...they're not checklist items people. They mean something because they mean something: like, THIS is the Church of Jesus Christ. You get that right? What sets LDS/Mormons apart is that they believe that Jesus Christ (not Joseph Smith etc.) established this Church. As in: it operates under His (God's) authority.

So if it's God's church, again I say, why exactly are you modeling an unGodly parenting pattern? The whole point of this life, is to mirror and pattern our lives to God's holiness, not demand God mirror our decadence.

4. "It's mean" when the kids reach majority to have to choose between God and disavowing an unholy lifestyle.

That sentence is self explanatory right? It's not mean to demand an adult to choose (for real) whether they are going to commit to follow God's plan to holiness, or not. In fact, it's rather the whole point of this journey we call life.

5. It's odd one demands access to priesthood ordinances (baptism, sealing) while simultaneously rejecting that priesthood authority. A same-sex "married" couple can not enter into a temple and be sealed for eternity, neither have their children sealed to them. This is also true for a cohabitating straight couple. Guess what? Neither can a straight couple when one is LDS and the other is not. But the fact that you and your choices put your family at risk is your decision. Sometimes our choices have serious consequences.

To be clear: children caught up in this situation are not being "punished" no matter what the haters say. Their blessings, should they choose to get them, are being deferred until they are able to make that decision on their own.

6. In case you were wondering if it's TEOTWAWKI**, you shouldn't be surprised: God promised he'd start cleaning in his own house first (1 Peter 4:17):

"For it is time for judgment to begin with God's household; and if it begins with us, what will the outcome be for those who do not obey the Gospel of God?"

Do I feel bad for children caught in this situation? I sure do, just like I felt bad for my daughter who was caught up in my bad situation. But just because I thought I was doing the right thing didn't mean I was doing the right thing. My daughter would have been better served by someone waking me up sooner, setting me straight, and helping me get back on the path. 

I hope this is a wakeup call for us all. The time is short, the Lord is cleaning His house, and we need to remember that the Plan of Redemption requires us to walk in His Holiness.

**The End Of The World As We Know It

A screen shot of changes to be made to The Church of Jesus Christ of Latter-day Saints’ Church Handbook of Instructions

A screen shot of changes to be made to The Church of Jesus Christ of Latter-day Saints’ Church Handbook of Instructions

What a Wonderful Miracle !!

What a wonderful miracle to wake up to.

Some of you may not know that I am bi-racial. One of those halves is Chinese (my dad's). Most of you will not know in my non-genealogy life I worked for decades for organizations which operated on a need to know basis. I'm more comfortable in the shadows: my email account doesn't have my full name, my twitter account has a complete pseudonym, it took a lot for me to adjust to having a full LinkedIn profile. I didn't let my kids have Facebook or Instagram until they turned 18, and even then, they are prohibited from having their full names on their accounts, and they stress to their "friends" not to tag them in photos.

I am also a fervent genealogist, for my own lines as well as assisting others (probably more than for my own) in hunting down their ancestral lines. I am skilled, talented, advanced, and don't even try to hide how genealogically skilled I am anymore. Yeah, I'm that good.

In my travels I have researched and assisted (usually for free) people from all walks of life and occupations, including academic researchers, the casual inquirer, others who live far far away and need a vital record transcription etc. I have volunteered as a Beta tester for every genealogy rollout the LDS church has ever put out for FamilySearch as well as third party software systems such as PAF (yes, I'm that old), FamilyInsight etc. Like many of you, I have volunteered as an Indexer for the 1940 census transcription, still volunteer as an Indexer and as an Arbitrator.

I tell you all this not to brag or give you proof that I'm paranoid, but to set the stage. While there is always more work to do on my mom's side of the family tree, it's leaves look nice, green and full. On my father's side however, it looks a lot like a tree in winter: bare, brown (lol), the occasional dead leaf attached to a branch (that's a pun!) 

My father's grandfather was the "mother" of the Republic of China (that's what they call him!) While Sun Yat Sen was the military face of the Republic overthrowing the empire, my grandfather was the political face and arm, equally well known in and out of the Chinese and white communities. I have been fortunate to gather snippets of information here and there about him. I was able to gather documents on him at NARA in San Bruno California before they locked the facility down and made research all but impossible. I found a Chinese organization which connected me with articles written about my great grandfather. 

Unfortunately, 97% of these articles are in chinese, and my language skill is a shadow of what it once was. I have longed for the day when I could research the chinese side of my family, and my great grandfather particularly. 
  Then I found that he had written a book (in Chinese) written to the Overseas Chinese people, but geared toward the President of the USA promulgating the reasons why the USA should support the overthrow of the Chinese Emperor. UC Berkeley has the lone surviving copy. They would not interlibrary loan it to me, nor make me a copy. A professor at the University of New Mexico, for whom I had done some research, managed to get Berkeley to scan and send a copy to him. So now I have it. (Haven't gotten it translated, but it's at least in hand!)

Getting this copy ignited my desire to research this line. My children and I traveled to the Bay area just before we moved to Texas. I ran into people who actually knew who my great grandfather was; found a picture of him hanging in the Sun Yat Sen museum; hit a major roadblock at NARA (we could help you but we won't, we don't have to, we're NARA.) 

THEN THIS MORNING, THE MIRACLE. I got a TWEET, a TWEET mind you via my "my real-name-is-not-attached-to-my twitter-account" Twitter account from an academic in China which said:

"Kathryn. Just to say hello and tell you I'm preparing a Ph.D. thesis on your great grandfather Tong, King Chong. Will tell you more later."

A total stranger, PhD candidate, in China reached across (practically the dark-in-China) web, to call me by name, and tell me they are writing a thesis on my great grandfather. I am so excited by the thought, and even more importantly, am thrilled to find out there is enough material out there, surviving the communist purge, to even withstand defending a PhD.

It gives me hope. It brings home the reality for me, that there is more to eternity than this life. That our ancestors are as keenly aware of us, as we are of them, perhaps more. 

I wait with baited breath to receive and share any and all information which will help expand my knowledge of my family, and bring us closer to each other.

God is great.