People of Faith

My excitement about attending the Myanmar branch church services diminished a bit when my dad announced that my sisters and I would be the speakers during Sacrament Meeting a week before we left.

The only sign they are allowed to put up at the church is the LDS Charities sign. Of course, we are blocking it...but you get the point.

Knowing I had an entire talk typed out on my blog, I did little other than think about it until the day of. That morning, I printed out my talk and read through it with a horrible realization that I couldn't use it - it didn't work. The references made in it didn't really apply to any of these first generation pioneers in the gospel.

Not many people have used this font...yet:)

I also was aware that Jen and Sarah were relying on me with my printed talk to fill in the allotted time for us to speak. They had both told me their plans to give a few scriptures and then bear their testimonies. I sort of crossed out and scribbled in and left for the meeting not exactly sure what I was going to say.

Our reception was incredibly warm and friendly. As soon as we were in the door, faces and hands reached out and welcomed us. There is something about the intimacy of a branch that appeals to me. I know it would wear on anyone week in and week out, but to be huddled in a smaller room, creating the backbone for future growth in an area has sort of an old-fashioned romantic allure.

This small branch, with only about 30 in attendance in a city of 7 million, displayed great poise and strength. They come from all around the capital city and beyond, some having to travel several hours each way to attend. I found the different stories of their conversion fascinating and wanted so much for them to have the resources and support that is necessary for continued success. They struggle so much financially and I know a big concern for my parents is the temporal welfare of the saints in Myanmar.

Me and Susan. Everyone has an "English" name in addition to their given names. I don't think they call themselves or each other this, but it s kind of like when you take a foreign language class and adopt a new name. They all chose these names and some are creative...like a girl named, "Smile."

Joy and me. When I showed her this picture in the display of my camera, she responded, "You pretty. Me ugly" Can you imagine? I think she's gorgeous!

The main part of the house where the chapel is.

The Book of Mormon has not yet been translated into Burmese, so only those who can read and understand English or perhaps Thai have any opportunity to read the scriptures. The hymns that they sing are all in English and they sing out with gusto, even though I wonder if they understand the meaning. Regardless, sacrament meeting that day went smoothly as we each took our turns speaking and having it translated for the members of the branch. Having that lull between thoughts and sentences really makes giving a talk harder, though. I felt the spirit and felt like I gave the message I wanted to give, but there was a time I made eye contact with my mom and she mouthed, "speak slower!"

I also played the piano for most of the service. My dad usually does but I offered to give him a week off. They is no musical skill within the branch so my parents hope whoever they send to replace them can play and teach music. My mother has been teaching two of the young women piano. One of the girls played the closing him, "I am a Child of God" from the simplified hymns. I almost teared up thinking of her courage (just think about all of the people in your wards who can kind of sort of play but won't because they don't think they have the skills. This girl had only been learning for a couple of months and she accompanied during sacrament meeting! I was so impressed).

For Sunday School, they put on a DVD of Elder Ballard's conference talk. The branch president explained to the class that even if they couldn't understand English, they would certainly feel the spirit of the talk if they were receptive to it. Everyone was reverent and attentive and I couldn't help looking around wondering how they were feeling. I know it'd be hard for me to stay focused for twenty minutes listening to a talk in a language I didn't understand. But they watched anyway.

In Relief Society, my mother was called as the new Relief Society President, a calling I know worries her because of the saints there that do speak English, a higher percentage of those are men. She hopes to be able to fulfill her responsibilities in spite of the language barrier. The time was short, and she wanted to fill it by having the three of us sing some hymns in harmony for the rest of the sisters. We started with As Sisters In Zion ( I think) and then did How Great Thou Art. They like that hymn, as most were formerly protestant, so we had them join in on the second through fourth verse.

Realizing that they probably only choose to sing hymns they are familiar with, I told my sisters and my mom that we should sing Come Unto Him so that they could perhaps hear something new. As it isn't something we've sung much together, my mom attempted to play the keyboard while we sang (the other two were a cappella) and at about the third line, she hit some sort of rhythm button and suddenly we were singing to a beat! Being technologically challenged and not knowing what button she pressed, she couldn't turn it off very quickly and we got the giggles. What do you do?

The Relief Society in Myanmar.

Afterwards, my mom handed out some of the clothes she had asked us to bring to help some of the members of the branch who don't have much money to clothe their young children. One of the women went and changed her little boy into a little polo and shorts that Henry wore this last summer. I loved seeing it on him and wished there had been more room in our luggage to bring more.

Kelvin and Mary. They named him after the the missionary who served before my parents. He actually reminded me a lot of Henry. He was a bit wild and loud. Their family came over to my parent's apartment after church and had dinner with us and I watched Mary chew the food and then sort of "kiss" it into Kelvin's mouth already chewed up. Kind of gross...but also like a mother bird. Different ways of doing things I guess. She also didn't have him in a diaper but put him on the toilet when they arrived and he went. That, I would like to copy (except not the no diaper thing. Just the going on the toilet so young thing)...but I don't think I'll attempt to feed Henry my chewed up food.

As the numbers above clearly show, there aren't many members of the LDS church in Myanmar. Interestingly, there is freedom of religion in this severely repressed country. But there is no proselyting and no welcome mat for foreigners to come in to preach. My parents are there as members of the branch that already exists, but they are not allowed to seek out and give discussions to anyone. Other members of the branch could do this, but with their limited resources and experience, it makes it difficult. One of the huge efforts from previous couples serving there and something my parents were able to be involved with, was sending five of the young men off on missions. One of them is actually serving in the same stake where my brother is serving as bishop. Isn't that interesting? I can't help but think what a strength they will be when they go home. When I mentioned that to my mother, she responded, "maybe. There isn't much here for them to return for. They might not stay." I can see how it would be frustrating either way.

Their missionaries. This was a huge effort on the part of the previous missionary couple and the branch in general. My mom said that for most of these men, it was the first time they had worn shoes, the first time they'd had a warm shower and the first time they'd worn underwear (men in Myanmar wear what is called a Longyi - or a tube of material they wrap and cinch at the waist.)

So, besides the 30 or so members of the LDS faith, about five percent of the entire population of Myanmar falls into the Christian, Muslim, or Hindu faith. 95 % of them are Buddhist. I understood extremely little about Buddhism before I visited the country and am only slightly less ignorant after weeks of questioning. Prominently displayed in any city or village are shrines to the Buddhist faith. Pagodas, Buddhas are everywhere you look. Yangon has one of the most famous pagodas in existence and it is the pride of their country. Covered completely in gold and having several thousand carats worth of diamonds and rubies at the top, is the mighty Shewdagon pagoda. It was built about 2500 years ago when the fourth Buddha was enlightened and two brothers received eight of his hairs and returned to the city to present them to their king. The pagoda was built to enshrine these holy relics of the holy man.

The view of Swedagon from my parent's hotel.

Up close. That is covered in all gold. Not paint.

My night picture. I thought it turned out pretty darn good!

After all of my questions, this is what I understand. One, there have been four Buddhas and they are waiting for the fifth to come. Two, when Buddha left, he left them with instructions to worship him by building Pagodas, praying to the statue Buddha and to Banyan trees.

A pagoda out at Lighthouse village - where we went to check out a previous water project (and basically visited so that we could see what a rural village was like)

One of the many side attractions at Shwedagon. Many, many Buddhas everywhere.

A Buddha in a cave off of the River Kwai

A Banyan tree. I guess the Buddha was sitting by one when he was enlightened.

Those are their holy symbols. All Buddhists follow five rules. Don't lie. Don't steal. Don't kill. Don't be unfaithful to your husband or wife. And don't drink alcohol. Buddhist monks follow something like 220 rules that are as detailed as only looking a meter ahead and not eating after eleven o'clock in the morning.

The monks in Myanmar all wear this red saffron colored robe. The monks in Thailand wear bright orange robes. They are highly revered by their people.

It's more complicated than that, and I'm leaving lots of stuff out, but being extremely unqualified to present its finer points, I'll stop there. I enjoyed learning about the faith, but due to my lack of understanding, I grew weary of visiting pagodas. Especially after visiting the glorious Shwedagon, everything else seemed dim by comparison.

visiting Shwedagon with my parent's driver, Tun. He is a Buddhist and explained many things to me. You never wear shoes at a Pagoda or Chedi which worked out great when I was wearing my flip flops, but when I had worn my new Keens, which are quite possibly the hardest shoe in the world to get on, it was a much more difficult process.

We visited this Chedi, the thai word for Pagoda, on our last day there. It's the tallest one in Thailand, but we only stayed briefly because we were all pagoda-ed out.

Here is an ancient Khmer ruin pagoda. I asked our tour guide, James, many many questions about Buddhism here but still left frustratingly in the dark. But, I now understand that like Christians have different sects (Catholic, protestant, evangelical etc.) so do Buddhists. They don't all believe the same thing. Which....only made it harder to understand.

A pagoda in a traditional Mon village in Thailand. The mon people were originally from Burma, so they dressed very similar to the Myanmar people. As a tourist stop, they live in what is described as a "traditional village" only after seeing some real traditional villages, it just seemed like this depressing stop to see a people caught between two worlds. That of their old traditions and that of the modern Thai world. It actually reminded me of visiting some "Native American" tourist places, where you know you aren't seeing the genuine thing...because that way of life is long gone.

Lots and lots of different pagodas at the Grand Palace in Bangkok.

Visiting a floating pagoda built on a tiny island that you can only reach by boat.

I'm almost done blogging about this trip! The last two will be about the Burma-Thailand Death Railway and what I bought. And in one of those, I'll stick the pictures of our elephant ride. Stay with me:)

Mingala ba

One word.

I learned one word in Burmese. And I used it everywhere.

A smile from the hotel workers? "Mingala ba!"

Seeing curious faces in small villages? I smiled and said, "Mingala ba."

That one word got a lot of tread from me. I learned how to say, "Hello. How are you?" in Thai too - "Sawatdee Kaa". It's pronouced so-wat-di-ka and I could only remember it by thinking that it sounded an awful lot like, "So what the crap?"

Obviously, I'm no linguist. Which, thankfully, isn't required of an English speaker in many countries.

Speaking English will get you far in the world. Upscale hotels hire workers who can speak English. Shopkeepers and salespersons do better if they can speak and negotiate in English. Taxi drivers and tour guide get much better tips if they are able to communicate with the person hiring them to get them around their country incident free.

This is why teaching English classes is another big part of service my parents offer as part of their mission. They teach a class at the hotel for its workers. They teach at the church. They even teach the police at the Office of Home Affairs.

My parents used the opportunity of having three extra native English speakers (their daughters) to have their students practice listening and conversing in English in smaller groups. We went to their English class at police headquarters on Monday (kind of scary), and on Wednesday, to teach at the church (although most are not members...it is a "You scratch my back if I scratch yours" deal with the government to allow meetings at the church building without interference after they noticed a lot of comings and goings (especially on mutual nights) and shut it down for several weeks. Offering a free English Class appeases them) and to another class at their hotel later that evening.

Each class follows a format where one of the students conducts the class, everyone reads aloud the past, present and future date, they all sing a song (watching my dad sing Abba's "I Have A Dream" was priceless) and several students give one minute talks. Surely, another gift given to my parents while on their mission is the ability to understand their students' English through their accents. They'd get done with their talk and my dad would say, "Thank you for discussing your routine in the morning before coming to work." and I would have only heard the word, "bus".

My parents teaching at police headquarters. It's debatable whether or not teaching the police helps or hurts the people of Myanmar. My parents believe that it helps them, by putting a positive face on Americans and members of the LDS church. I don't believe many benefit from the ideology of absolutism. The country is starving for change, but by ignoring it completely or shutting doors, the government only gets more kooky and suspicious. While they admit, especially after the violent crackdown on the Buddhist Monks earlier in September, that sometimes it's like there's an elephant in the room they are not discussing, they keep their lessons non-political and neutral and friendly.

Some of their students. They started with close to 50 but as the lessons get harder and more advanced, only the dedicated continue to come.

After the formalities were completed, my parents would have each of us daughters stand up and introduce ourselves. My dad either started youngest first or oldest first so I was always the second to go...a good place to be. I never got too many questions that seemed to be reserved for the last to go (the ice had broken) or the blank stares that come from going first.

We got special badges to allow us onto the police headquarter grounds. And we were told not to walk around areas we were not invited to. Um...no complaints from me there.

Jen went last and by then, the students were much more curious. One student in particular wanted our email addresses so that he could correspond with us so Jen wrote them on the board. Nothing from him yet!

Each time, my sisters and I would break up with the students and facilitate conversation. I really enjoyed this and had some really great experiences with a myriad of different people. From government workers to some of the more wealthy teenagers, I loved the opportunity to find out what they knew and thought about America and to share my feelings about Myanmar. The universal questions asked by all was, "Is this your first visit to Myanmar?" and "How do you like it?"

The feelings I would get in return was that they were frustrated with their country because there is so little opportunity, but they are also a proud people and delight in their traditions and heritage. The unemployment rate is around 75% so when I had one conversation with a group at the church, and tried to get them to use sentences beginning with the future tense, "I will", I realized very few could say, "I will go to work tomorrow."

Certainly they could hire people to fix their roads. This is what a typical sidewalk looks like. No breezy strolls here. It's mission accomplished just to walk somewhere without injury.

The tragedy lies in the unbelievably rich resources found within their borders. They have beaches and coast line that should attract tourists from the world over. They produce 90% of all the world's rubies and almost all of its jade. They produce oil. They produce 75% of the world's teak. All of this wealth produces one of the most frustrating Catch 22s possible. As a country with no regard for human rights, forced labor is used to cultivate most of these resources. Those human rights abuses and other decisions by the government to limit freedom lead to trade sanctions from the United States and European Union. Moreover, human rights groups discourage tourists from visiting the country to support the nobel peace prize winning Aung Sung Suu Kyi, who is under house arrest. However, all of those restrictions and sanctions, while intending to hurt the government by limiting its economic possibilities, also hurts the majority of people as there is no employment and very limited opportunity for growth.

The day we left in the airport. It's a shame more people can't and won't come to visit. The country so desperately needs to participate in the world and they have so much to offer.

The situation there is complicated. What I valued, was the chance to speak to the people, even if at one point, we were sadly talking about Britney Spears (isn't that the most embarrassing thing you've ever heard. They get limited and censored information, but they know about her? I just about cried). I think conversation, dialogue, the ability to communicate is an important part of any answer to problems. And because most of the world isn't studying Burmese...they will learn English.

Next up...buddism and going to church.

Clean Water Project

This is the sign that is hung anywhere they do a water project

By far my favorite thing about this entire experience, was the opportunity to see, first hand, the country and people of Myanmar in situations not catered for tourists. They day we flew into Yangon, we traveled to a nearby village. As we exited the van, we could hear music playing and not knowing what to expect, we simply followed our parents down a dirt road.

Only a little ways down, we saw this group assembling with a row of women holding flowers and several men videotaping our promenade. The three of us were kind of giggly, because we didn't know what was going on, but after seeing my parents graciously accept some flowers and do a little bow saying, "Mingala ba", which means Hello in Burmese, we did the same.

The band. They were having a good time.

The jester person. My parents say somebody dances like this at every ceremony. Tradition, I guess. The crowd liked him.

We were escorted into a small concrete covered area where a table and microphone were set up, as well as 30 or so chairs. In the front row on both sides were tables covered with fruit, soda and water. This would be a familiar sight everywhere we went with my parents. We were constantly treated as VIPs and given a generous refreshment, wanted or not. At first it felt rude not to eat and drink what they offered, but my parents told us that what we left, they were able to eat. It made it easier to say no to the sweet women bringing us a plate of sliced apples and oranges. And after having to use a squatter out in the public sector, I quickly learned the benefit of saying "no" to the beverages as well. It's best to be dehydrated when visiting poor villages getting clean water for the first time.

My parents...Guests of Honor

My view from my seat through a hole in the wall.

My dad giving a speach being translated by Dr. Win

Cutting the ribbon. The building contai the pump is behind them.


So you can hear the great tunes at the ceremony

The children were always and happy to be in pictures.

What my parents do, as humanitarian missionaries for The Church of Jesus Christ of Latter-Day Saints is act as country directors for LDS charities, which is the only official organization the church has in the country. There is a small branch, but there are no proselyting missionaries, and the building they use as a church is actually a home so they are unable to put up a church sign anywhere. LDS Charities is able to work with NGOs which stands for Non-Government Organizations which is why they work so closely with Dr. Win who stared Community Development Association, or CDA, which is an NGO.

Dr. Win and one of his assistants, Thandar, after taking us to one of several meals. He was a very gracious host, but my mom pointed out that he was basically paying with their money since he gets a cut of what the church gives to fund his projects. But he was a very educated man and we learned a lot through talking to him.

Dr. Win hires the engineers and builds the pump and sheltering building that is erected in these villages that have had no clean water to drink. The church insists on these ceremonies so that the people can put a face on where the support is coming from. So, the whole ceremonies really recognize LDS Charities, CDA and usually USDA which is a group whose function I never really understood, but they were always there, showing us around and videotaping us.

We were actually given a DVD of this day. I wish I could upload it but I'm sure it'd be too long.

After the ribbon cutting ceremony and taking pictures, we walked through the village to the school and were treated to some songs and flowers from the school children. Watching them was a delight and prominently displayed was the large water container with the LDS charities sticker on it. There was a blue cup for the boys to use and a pink cup for the girls. They are so grateful to have something that I have taken for granted my entire life.

A woman in the village doing her laundry.

A newborn baby on the front porch of a house. The baby was underneath mosquito netting but as I was taking a picture, the mother came and lifted it off so I could get a clearer picture.

Women selling fish. Click to enlarge. I bet you wouldn't buy these fish.

The children waiting for us at the school. The uniform for education is green and white, so teachers, as well as students, are required to wear these colors.

The clean water filter. You can see the pink cup for the girls.

We took a bunch of group photos afterwards and I have absolutely no idea why we had to be in them. Somebody has us up on their wall:)

My dad showing a classroom where we lived and how far we had come.

Them performing a song for us.

Eating their lunch. Everyone brings these tin containers of cold rice.

That is the bulk of what my parents do. They provide the means for water projects to happen throughout the entire country. They travel around and meet the people they are helping drink safe water(well...safer....you'll notice that most of the containers used to gather the water are old paint drums and diesel fuel containers).

Old paint drums to collect the "clean" water.

They have also been involved in a wheelchair distribution project and a neonatal intensive care training project. They both work hard and take the responsibility seriously, for they are the face of the church in Myanmar.

On our way to a rural village the next day. The cow wouldn't move.

Walking out to view the Andaman Sea which touches the Indian Ocean.

The hospital in the village.

A small crowd gathered at the pharmacy to watch my dad get a band-aid after he tripped and skinned his hand.

Getting first-aid.

My mom and I on the coast.

I don't think the church could have sent a better couple to make the decisions that have to be made and to represent it. It was an honor to be there.

Next up...teaching English to the Burmese.