The Power To Forgive

Dear Grace,
           I've just finished the most incredible book. It's the kind of book you can't put down until you're finished with it, and then afterward you can't stop thinking about it. It's really changed my life, and it's really made me take a look at myself religiously and realize that I need to be better. This book is called Left To Tell, the true story about a Tutsi woman named Immacule Ilibagiza, who was one of the few Tutsis to survive the Rwandan holocaust. I don't know how much you know about the Rwandan holocaust, but I'll give you a brief background on that story. Rwanda is a small country in Africa Where two tribes of people live: the Tutsis and the Hutus. In 1993, a horrible war broke out, and all Hutus were ordered to wipe out the entire race of the Tutsis. To literally wipe them from the face of the earth. They killed almost a million people in just 100 days. That's like ten thousand deaths each day. 416 each hour. Six people each minute. The amount of killings is just staggering. Immacule talks about how her neighbors and family friends turned against her and her family because they were Tutsis, and how people she had grown up with and gone to school with had taken up machetes and killed family, merely because they were Tutsis. Immacule escaped by going to a Hutu minister's home, where he hid her and seven other women in a tiny 3' by 4' bathroom within the minister's bedroom. They hid the door to the bathroom with a wardrobe. They were so well hidden that even the minister's family didn't know that they were hiding there. She and these seven other women hid in there for three months. Never bathing, eating only when the minister could sneak food to them, and only able to flush the toilet when someone else flushed a toilet in the house. And never, ever able to leave the bathroom, for fear of discovery.
           She tells of how the Hutus were constantly coming to the house to search for them, and how they would tear the house apart while they searched. During these times, she tells of how she spent her time in intense prayer. I can't even describe it, but the way she prayed, she prayed with all the intensity and energy and strength of her being. She prayed for hours until she was sweating and exhausted. The killers never did find their hiding place, but she talks about how, having nothing else to do in the bathroom in absolute silence, she would spend every waking moment in prayer, and she describes this amazing relationship she developed with God. Again, I can't describe just how touching and incredible this relationship she developed was, so you'll just have to read it to see for yourself.
           When she finally got out of the bathroom, she relied on God to get her to safety. The killings were over, but there were still many Hutus (she calls them Interahamwe) who were everywhere, still killing Tutsis at every chance they got. And yet, despite terrifying circumstances and obstacles along the way, by putting her complete and absolute trust in God, she always miraculously made it to safety. The most important thing that she talks about in her book is learning how to forgive. She talks about how in her prayers (she's Catholic) she would recite the prayer "...and forgive us our trespasses as we forgive those who trespass against us..." and she talks about how she just couldn't bring herself to say that part of the prayer because she just couldn't forgive the killers for what they had done. They had murdered everyone in her family, her Father, Mother, and two of her brothers, Damascene, and Vianney. As she was in that bathroom, she asked God to open her heart to his light and love, and to help her learn how to forgive. Again it's just the most remarkable story, and you would just have to read it to understand it at all, but at the end of the book, after the holocaust is over and she is free, she goes to a prison where they are keeping war criminals for their mercilous killings and finds the man who led the party who murdered her family. When she finally meets him, she takes him by the hands, looks him right in the eyes with love and says, "I forgive you."
            How someone could learn to forgive someone of something of that magnitude I'll never know, but I do know that without God it's not possible. In order to become as Christlike as she, you have to do as she did, and open your whole heart to the Lord and let him heal you and replace the darkness with his light. After seeing things through her eyes, one has to wonder how there could be any hate in the world for any reason, if we could have such a vast capacity for forgiveness as Immacule? Her story has had a profound effect on me, and I've decided that I want to do everything within my power to become more like her, to become more forgiving, more Christlike.
            How do I transition from that serious note!? Well I'll just move on to the stuff I've been up to recently. Well, Mom and I went down to Cedar City and picked out my new apartment and signed the contract for it. I'm so excited to move out and get out on my own! It's a really nice place, and I'll be sharing it with three other girls. We'll all each have our own rooms, and there's a full-equipped kitchen and a big living room and a laundry room, so I'll pretty much be living in the lap of luxury. I'll miss Mom and Dad so much when I'm gone, but it'll be so nice to get out of the house and get out on my own. I'm hoping that I'll get normal roommates who won't keep me up until two AM and steal all my food and leave a mess everywhere they go. I'm determined to be a good roommate, and I'm going to keep my room clean and organized as much as possible, and I'm going to clean the kitchen and the bathroom I'll be sharing every week. Another thing I'm determined about is keeping the apartment smelling good. I've walked through a few apartments that nearly made me gag with how horrible they smelled. And if I could smell it, you know it had to be bad (what with my no sense of smell and all). So I'm going to do my laundry once a week and wash my sheets every other week and vacuum the living room and my room and burn candles and keep air fresheners in my room (I know this sounds a bit over the top, but it's what Mom does to keep our house smelling so nice, so it can't hurt to do it on my own).
           Another thing I'm determined to start doing once I'm down there is to cook a good meal every Sunday. I don't know if I'll actually follow through on this one, but I'd like to try and get up and make breakfast for my roommates every Sunday. Mind you, I'm not going to pull out my chef hat and go crazy, but I think it would be nice to give everyone something to look forward to. Plus, I've come to find that you can make a lot of friends very fast when you make good food, so I'm making Mom teach me all of her little cooking tricks so I'll have some recipes in my head to use once I'm down there.
           I forgot to tell you about our little adventure while we were down in Cedar! So I donated blood the day before, right? Well, when I got up the next day to get ready I felt kind of sick and weak, and I ended up having to lie back down while I was getting ready. I didn't think anything of it though because I sometimes get sick in the morning because of my blood sugar. So anyway, we drove all the way down to Cedar, no problem, but the minute I got out of the car, I almost fell over, and I had to hold on to the car to stay standing. I'm still not sure why I was so dizzy, but in any case I ended up having to hang on to Mom for the rest of the day every time we had to go walk somewhere because the dizziness wouldn't go away. So I guess this means I should probably drink a lot more before I donate blood next time, haha.
           Another great thing about the apartment is that it's pretty much within walking distance of a bunch of stores, and the school is about a fifteen minute walk away. It'll be great because I'll have my car, my bike, and my legs to get me from A to B. I'll be going through a LOT less gas too, because I'll be driving so infrequently, so that should help keep the empty feeling out of my wallet.
           Well I'm rambling, I know, but I'm just so excited about getting my own place! Plus I can't really think about anything else I could write about. Oh! I did get some of my senior pictures back the other day, and those turned out really good, so I'll try sending you a couple of those if I can.
           And now I'll end this letter with a cool story and call it good. So I bore my testimony on Fast Sunday about that experience I wrote about in my last letter, right? Well, after sacrament meeting, I was amazed at the number of people who approached me and told me never to think that about myself and how much they loved me and admired me. I never knew that people thought those things about me! I'm still puzzling over it. Then, after church I got a phone call from Sister Clark, and she gave me a little pep talk and told me never to lose heart and that she'd be my personal cheerleader if I would ever need it. People are so kind and considerate sometimes, and it always amazes me when people so freely reach out like that. It gives me hope.
           Well that's it for this letter, I love you and I miss you!
Love always, Katie Jo

I Am Worthwhile

Dear Grace,

I know, I know, I've said it before, but I'll say it again, sorry I've been so lazy about writing. I've had a list of things to write to you about for a while, but I just haven't set my lazy ADD impaired butt down to write them all out. I guess the thought of concentrating on something becomes a great motivator to clean my room, my bathroom, do the laundry, bake something, and do pretty much anything else for me. So there, I'm writing.

Spring Break down in St. George couldn't have been more perfect. It was warm and sunny the entire time we were down there, which made me happy because I was able to wear my new sundress. When we got home it was like the day we came home from Hawaii, where we went from the 80's and sunshine to the 50's and pouring rain. Yeah, I think Kurt has cursed us somehow with crappy Oregon weather. But on a brighter note, the weather has been warming up lately, so I don't have to wear a coat to school anymore. In May. WTC? (That be acronym for 'what the crap?!?') While we were down in St. George we went to a kite festival with Michelle and her family, which was pretty fun. The kids stood in line for various crafts and games and rides, and we took some fun pictures, so we'll have to send those to you if we can. Oh, and you know how Michelle is always finding new and delicious ways to cook food? Well, we used to get these treats called ‘wagon-wheel’ chips, and you made them by frying them in oil and they got huge. Well, she thought they might taste good with a bit of cinnamon sugar on them, and oh boy was she right! I definitely recommend it, you should try it sometime. So a couple of funny stories about St. George. First of all, when we went to church on Sunday, Mom and I went to Relief Society (I'm so happy I'm eighteen!) and for the lesson the lady teaching had her husband and a couple of little girls come in and perform a musical number. The best part? The guy accompanied them with an accordion. Pretty much the most interesting song I've ever heard in a church setting before, haha.

Next, (and this one still makes me laugh) after we said prayer one night, Michelle was hugging the kids on night and she said, "Come here Addison, I'm gonna squish the poop outta you!" And grabbed Addison in a great big bear hug. However, when she squeezed Addison, Addison let out a great big fart. So pretty much we were all worried she had pooped herself, and were laughing so hard that we couldn't be bothered to check right away.

So whilst we were down in the loverly land of St. George, we went and looked at a few apartments for me to live in next year, and I’m not gonna lie, those things are pretty sweet. I’m so excited to officially get my own place and step into the real world. The anxiety that I’ve missed over the last year finally caught up to me though as we were looking through my potential homes-to-be. Fortunately it only lasted for a few days and now I’m just excited again. I had one apartment picked out because it was so nice and I really liked the living conditions and the price. However, it seems that that’s not where the good Lord needs me to be, and I wasn’t able to get in, so Mom and I are going down tomorrow to go apartment-shopping again (I get to miss school! YES!).

Something I’m super excited to do for my next birthday is something I found out about while Mom and I visited Silver Reef on our trip down there. A lady who works at the museum gives after-dark ghost tours, because the old Wells Fargo bank is haunted, so I’m totally doing that this coming October. Isn’t it crazy that Kurt will be home by then? Him and Mom and Dad will all be coming down to visit Michelle and me for Halloween and we’ll all be able to go see Thriller together.

Funny story! So the other day in choir, we had three birthday boys in the class, so of course we were all going to sing to them horribly off-key and make them stand in front of the class, right? Well our choir teacher, Mr. Dursche (sp?) decides that we should try and get all three of them to stand on his piano stool at the same time and spin them around while we sing to them. None of us thought they could all get up there and stay up, but miraculously, they somehow did. We were half laughing half singing as someone tried to spin them while they were all up, but they fell down about halfway through the song. I love my choir class J.

Today I tried something new that I always thought other people were insane for doing: I got up at 4:30 and went to the temple before school. I thought I would be dead all day and totally regret it, but as it turns out, I was totally fine, as though I had gotten a full night’s sleep. Then after school I went and donated blood at the Red Cross (I needed some service hours for a school project, and donating blood counts as 2 hours). I have to admit, I was kind of nervous as to the outcome, thanks to my last experience trying to donate blood. But it went very smoothly, and the nurse knew what the crap she was doing, so she didn’t try moving the needle around a bunch and all that mess, so I had a much pleasanter experience this time.

Well, I’ll leave you with one last story and I’ll be done. So last week Monday and Tuesday were the last two nights of Orem high’s production of Les Miserables, and I went to see Andrea perform. After closing night, I started driving home. Monday night I had felt pretty bummed about not being able to do anything in theater anymore, but that night I was pretty upset, and while I was driving, I couldn’t help but start crying. I poured my heart out to God and told him what I was feeling. I told him about how useless and worthless I felt, and how I felt I wasn’t doing anything productive with my life, and that I wanted to be doing more, but I felt stuck and I just didn’t know what to do to make things different. I also shared how frustrated I was with myself in being so different, and how that makes it so hard for me to make friends, and how I wished I could just be normal like everyone else.

When I got home I started getting ready for bed. I went to my closet to hang up a shirt, when I noticed that letter I had taped up on the closet door. I felt prompted that I needed to read it, and as soon as I read the first line, I started crying again: I made you different from the others.

I had to stop for a minute before I could read any more, because my feelings overcame me, and I knew that the Lord was speaking to me. As I continued, lines from the letter spoke out to me. I know I already sent you a copy of the letter, but let me just copy down the lines that answered my prayers. The rarities that make you one of a kind, my child, are no mere accident or quirk of fate. I made you different in order that you might make a difference. ...You possess the power of choice. Free will. You have been given everything you need to act, but the choice is yours alone. And beginning this very moment, you will choose wisely.

I know this was the Lord chastising me for being so “Oh woe is me” and all that, when it’s my own fault that I’m not doing anything. He reminded me that he’s not always going to drop those opportunities in my lap, and that I have to get out there and give my all if I want to find new opportunities. The last lines gave me renewed hope, and I found strength and felt filled with profound gratitude at these words which were the direct answers to my prayer. Now go, and never feel inadequate again. Do not dwell in thoughts of insignificance or wander aimlessly, lost, like a sheep. You are powerful. You matter. And you have been found. You are my choice.

                                       Your Father

I have to say, God still has a way of surprising me with how much love and understanding he has for me. It has begun the change of how I view myself, the view of someone who does nothing to serve and give back to the Lord, to someone who really can make a difference. I really do believe that I am here for a specific and important reason, and God has clearly shown me that.

            Well, that’s all for this letter. I’ll try to remember to keep taking notes in case something exciting happens, but always remember that I love you and pray for you.

Love always

                                    Katie Jo

P.S. Here are some pictures of my adventures

My mangled pinkie

Police trianing with Dad

My AWESOME le-le-le-leather shoes!

And leather pants

The new pet dog everyone at my work has adopted (and yes, we are aware of what his name means, that's why it's funny :) )

And a Kirk's Dik Dik