a bond between mothers

---------- Forwarded message ---------
From: Ting Zhang <zhangting0345@gmail.com>
Date: Sun, Dec 22, 2019, 8:53 AM
Subject: Re: a bond between mothers ^_^
To: Sawyer Halverson <sawyer.halverson@missionary.org>
Cc: Jeremy Mo <Jeremymo2529@gmail.com>

Elder Halverson,

Please pass along this letter to your special mother for this Christmas.

Dear Sister Halverson,

This is Ting, a member of the Chinese ward in Sydney that Elder Halverson serves in. Pardon me for my abruptness in writing a letter to you. Ever since Elder Halverson introduces you as "my mother is very special" and I noticed the blue t-shirt you made for him writing "Forget Yourself" in Chinese, I have this burning feeling in my heart that I want to connect with you somehow. 

I am a mother of three little boys, to the modern Chinese culture and a convert to the church, it is an out of norm thing. When I see Elder Halverson and his companions' dedication in service and wisdom in teaching and faith in God, it gives me hope that my boys one day can become like them. And when Elder Halverson mentioned about his tender love and gratitude towards you, it just naturally melt my heart. I want to become a mother like you whose boys would become strong spiritually and I will indeed make a positive influence on their growth.

Originally I wanted to write this letter by hand which I prefer to do when expressing personal feelings. From that, you can tell I belong to the older generation. But I have been cowardly giving myself excuses not to act on my inner excitement of writing you a letter. With the convenience of emails, I do not have the excuses anymore, so I only need to focus on if it is good to act on it or not. My more developed left brain win the debate that this would be a cool and special thing to do for the Christmas of 2019.

We call Elder Halverson "Hai" zhanglao (zhanglao means elder) in Chinese. "Hai" refers to sea or ocean, It is a very cool surname in Chinese.

We recently finished our dream house which I managed the whole construction. Elder Halverson said maybe I can share some experience with your coming project of building yours. I do not have the knowledge or talent in interior design or in aesthetics in general. I grew up like a tomboy, started training table tennis from 6 years old for 10 years. Since then I had not worn a dress until I joined the church in 2008. I am grateful that I work as a geotechnical engineer so that I do not need to dress nicely or wear makeups or wear high heels. And my husband is quite brave in taking me as his companion. My mom is pretty sad with me though, without her only child fulfilling a mother's natural dream of a daughter being like a graceful princess. I like to do sports with boys and get my feet in the dirt. So I can only share practicality side of experience, which are three things only:

1. connect with nature, make the house part of the nature instead of letting it differentiate from the nature: we did this by using big windows to bring in as much light as possible and the windows have timber grained frames. We designed our house to face a reserve with the big windows, but that direction is facing west which gets the heat in the afternoon. However, we do not want to sacrifice the view, so we spent double the money to use double glazed windows. It turns out to be so worth it. We also use natural tasmania oak floor boards with a natural matte finish and timber looking tiles for wet areas.
2. For the main activity area - the living room, we made it spacious with a ceiling height of 3m and a width of 6m with a length of 10m. The normal structural width for a residential house without beams in the middle is 4m in Sydney, to increase it to 6m without any beams in the middle increased another significant expenditure, But it made a big difference on the general feeling of the house. Everyone feels my house is so big and spacious, despite that all the bedrooms are all standard size. I know it is the living room making the trick.
3. Lots of big hidden cupboards blend in with the walls to hide things away. This one I have not done very well though. Because I have not mastered a skillful communication art with the construction workers, sometimes it is especially hard for a woman in this industry.
4. This extra point is for your consideration only as it is a personal choice. We chose the house layouts to be simple over sophisticated as we want to spend as less time as possible in cleaning and making it tidy, since I am not very good at house keeping.

The building environment is very different in the states than in Australia, My American friends have their house done nicely within half an year, but here it is over 2 years for my house. I think the builders there are more experienced. So you are in good hands. 😊

For the 6 missionaries we have now in our ward, I really enjoy to be with them. They are not the first missionaries I am very fond of, but they are the first missionary group that I feel so unified among themselves. And it becomes a powerful thing. It is the first time that it is easy for me to remember all their surnames. 

I can see Hai zhanglao plays an important role of leading meekly although he may not be the most senior in the group. He gave a good talk last Sunday, but I only remember to tell him that which words he can work on to pronounce better in Mandarin. Later on he told me that he can digest it by thinking about my intention of helping him do better in Chinese. That takes some meekness in him. I have been good at being bold and direct with a lack of tactfulness and meekness which I feel I should start to focus on working at it. He also shows the same meekness during basketball games with passing the balls and helping others to score. So we feel pretty good about ourselves when playing with him.

And he works me hard, by asking me to study and ponder scriptures and meeting new friends at church. He may now realize he gets this diligence and  dedication from your example after he remembered how you have brought him up in this way. I will try to remember this for my boys as my husband sadly feels that he has to discipline my kids all the time due to my softness. Actually we didn’t expect him to be the bad cop to our kids when we married as he was the soft spirit and I am the strict one. But definitely gospel has changed me and life has changed him ^_*

I really like this feeling of not knowing someone but just want to be their friends. And you are this special person to me. Besides your success as mother in your son's heart, you are truly beautiful in Hai zhanglao's family photo. 

The group of missionaries all have the genuine and lightfilling smiles, the Chinese missionaries' are a bit shy, Sister Burger's is very cute, Hai zhanglao's is charming. I know these beautiful smiles are an outward expression of their inner purity and beauty. Every time being with this group of missionaries, I feel like in the celestial kingdom with the sports activity and scripture sharing. My realistic goals have been ending up in the terrestrial kingdom, but now I kinda want to work harder to get to the celestial. 

This gospel has been so good to me. I have met or known so many charming people carrying the peace and light I so desire so I am working to become like one as well. 

I hope this group of wonderful missionaries will retain the same light and cheerfulness when they return and they may have success and happiness in their lives.

If you and your family happen to visit Sydney, please feel very welcomed to stay with us. You got a friend in me (I actually feel like I am your fan.)

Hope you have a very Merry Christmas and a bountiful year to come.

love, ting

On Fri, 20 Dec 2019 at 07:19, Sawyer Halverson <sawyer.halverson@missionary.org> wrote:

--

please contact
at 61+2+80335123
or 61+(0)430452933

Sydney, NSW

-- 

please contact
at 61+2+80335123
or 61+(0)430452933

Sydney, NSW