Mom, Cultural Contributor

My mom is amazing. We lived in some pretty out-landish areas while I was young, and she always made the tremendous effort of making lemonade out of whatever lemons she was given. I remember American women in Tonga who HATED being there. They hated everything about the place - the heat, the humidity, the oversized cockroaches (lots of those), the 2+ inch gecko lizards on the walls, the "natives" different ways, etc. Mom on the other hand embraced the differences, (and swatted the cockroaches.) (I remember being in Kiribati and watching & listening to the chirping geckos on the walls - it was even like watching a slow sporting event. It was especially interesting if they'd lost part of their tails...they grew back, but not while we were watching.)

Anyway, back to Mom. She was one who threw her whole self into whatever situation she was in. She allowed us to be immersed into the culture. Adam, three year old, pretty much became a little island boy while we lived there. (But that's a whole other story for another day.) She did insist that her kids came home for dinner every night, which was a good thing for keeping us unified. She participated fully in church work (she was the RS President in the Kiribati branch), and LOVED everyone. She never judged anyone. She welcomed the willingness of the locals to help care for food and home. In Tonga we had househelp the whole time we were there, and she made friends with each. (Gee...maybe we need to move there...) She engaged in the local customs. She learned a local dance to dance with the RS sisters when President Spencer W. Kimball came to visit Tonga for an Area Conference.

She made friends with our yard helper in Tonga, Taiti, and we quickly became friends with all of the Kiribati students there in Tonga. Somehow a tradition was started that the Kiribati students gathered at our house every Thursday night to sing and dance on the floor in our living room. We LOVED it, and they surely loved the opportunity to be together with their fellow countrymen, far from home. I'm sure that was largely because of Mom's charitable heart. That led to our eventual opportunity to serve a mission in Kiribati. Most of the Gilbertese students joined the Church while in Tonga, and I know my Mom's love for them helped.

I guess what I'm saying in this post is that when living in a foreign country, a person either chooses to engage in and become a blessing to the new situation, or they draw into themselves and become smaller from the experience. Mom chose to engage, and became a better person, and a much contributing one for it. She made a difference wherever she went, and continues to do so still. I see that tradition continuing in their newest mission, this time in Germany!

Really, that lesson continues in all of our life's opportunities. We move to a new area - we can choose to become involved and contribute, making us happy in the process, or we can choose to be disagreeable and refuse to become involved, and we will be miserable. That is a great lesson I learned from my mom!