A prophet of the Lord, A man whom I love

Just a few years ago, President Gordon B. Hinckley was the first LDS President to visit mainland China. This picture tells me he was received well, not unlike any of the other hundreds of grand entrances he's been given in countless countries around the globe.

For those of you who share my faith, I don't need convince you of all the wonderful ways this man has truly made history and changed mankind forever. You know as well as I. For those who are not of my faith, well, surely you've heard of him and at the least, you've caught a Larry King Live Interview to have felt but a glimpse of the goodness and charm this sweet man carried. At 97, he has now passed.

Today I speak on behalf of my other self, my yellow self, if you will. As I've smiled and cried over the last week reading several heartwarming tributes to Gordon B. Hinckley, I've begun to reflect on my own feelings for this man. I believe it was the 3rd lesson of the old missionary discussions, we taught about prophets. It was my opportunity to live among the wonderful people of Taiwan and to share with them the truth about God having a living prophet on the Earth, just as he did in times of old. Each time I would then ask if they would like to see a picture of the man who today serves as the Lord's mouthpiece to lead and guide us. As I would pull out a picture of sweet President Hinckley, without fail, I would have tears in my eyes. The example of his countenance, humility, and love would soar through me. The greatest reward to me, was after these sweet brothers and sisters of mine had prayed to know the truth, they too had a great love for him. They would stand and bear testimony that he was called of God, and again I would experience that surging feeling of the Spirit. President Hinckley had such a love for God's children all around the world. I can confidently say he had a tender spot in his heart for the Saints in Asia. In the Quorum of the Sevenety and as an Apostle, he served for decades often presiding in many capacities over the Asia area. He dedicated 5 of the 6 temples in Asia, there is a 7th now under construction. Last night I read online a few of these dedicatory prayers which he gave, the blessings that he gave to the people of these lands, just incredible. Spencer J. Palmer, a BYU professor of religion and later Seoul Temple president, said in recalling his days with Elder Hinckley in Korea: "He is the father of the church in the Orient" and says Korean Saints joke that President Hinckley will be resurrected as a Korean. Ha ha ha!. Could you imagine? A Hinckley/Erik Oh combo? I love it!

In the summer of 2005, we were able to go to Seoul, Korea, and see Pres. Hickley give a beautiful address at the 50 year reunion celebration of the church in Korea. My father in law was one of the first members of the church in Korea, taught and baptized by an American G.I. - 2 years before the church had officially opened in Korea. So not only was this meeting emotional and wonderful for my in laws as they recalled on the early days of the church in their homeland, but to see over 10,000 Korean saints gathered in this olympic arena to honor President Hinckley and listen to his words was so moving. He walked in the arena across the stage to the pulpit and everyone spontaneously stood and sang, "We Thank Thee Oh God For a Prophet" in Korean, of course! There was no dry eye. He is so dearly loved all over the world. President Hinckley had a way of making each of us feel so special and so loved while always testifying of the divinity of our Savior. Here is an excerpt of the tender address that he gave to the Korean people that day:

”I love you,” he said. “I have a special love for the Saints in Korea. When I see all these old friends (he looked back and pointed at the leaders sitting behind him) who have been faithful all these years, what wonderful people you are. You know the gospel is true and what the Lord expects of you.
“This may be the last time you hear my voice in Korea,” he said. “I’m an old man now, so old I don’t eat kimchee, (a very spicy Korean dish made of cabbage and other vegetables). I may never come to Korea again. I want you all to know that God our Eternal Father lives, He is the great Governor of the universe. We are His children; He hears and answers the prayers of His children. I want you to know Jesus Christ is the Son, that He left His royal home on high and came among men and was hated and abused, but went about doing good. He was crucified and rose the third day, the first fruits of them that slept. I want you to know that the Father and Son appeared to the boy Joseph Smith and ushered in this dispensation, the greatest of all dispensations. The Book of Mormon is a second witness of Jesus Christ and has come forth to testify of Jesus Christ. I want you to know that the Holy Priesthood is on the earth. God bless you.”
“I feel in my heart a great emotional tie, feeling the love of this vast congregation. God bless you and be with you till we meet again. May Heaven smile upon you, and may your lives be filled with gladness. There is nothing greater I could ask for.” What a great man.

I'd like to add one final memory I have from that day that will put a smile on your face in remembering the great spunk and whit this old man carried. Elder In Sang Han, a member of the sevenety translated for him that day. When President Hinckley finished his remarks, he thanked Elder Han for the translation and highly complimented him. They both had tears, displaying evidence of a great friendship that had been shared over many years. Elder Han bowed at Pres. Hinckley in response to his kind words, and President Hickley bowed back. So Elder Han bowed again....and Pres. Hinckley bowed again. They had this sort of an exchange go on for what seemed like several bows, and it left the crowd in laughs. I love him!

So long, Pres. Hinckley, and God be with YOU until we meet again.

Enough already on the hair!

Okay so because many of you that haven't seen me yet are hounding me about the hair, here you have it. I'm glad I took the plunge. It's nice to have a change. I ran into a girl yesterday that used to live in our neighborhood and no matter what I said she was not registering who I was until I practically spelled it out for her, so funny. I've tried to be extra cognisant of various strangers' dealings with me, like whether or not being a brunette grants certain rights of credibility or maybe on the flipside, people would be more rude to me. But to my disappointment for the likes of a good story, people seem the same. But maybe now I can more easily get away with being a little absent minded at times, I could use a few freebies.

Seattle G'pas

"hal-moni, hal-moni, hada-boji, hada-boji!" Imagine Kimball's cute little scratchy voice and a perfect Korean accent shouting these words all weekend. AKA, grandma and grandpa. These 2 are the new hot items in Kimball's book.
Since Erik's sister Rachel was going to be up in Seattle with their parents last weekend, a special request was sent to have Kimball come up and pay a visit too.
If you notice in the picture above, Kimball's every whit is being coddled. That's pretty much how it is with these grandparents. They absolutely adore every little thing about Kimball and he is equally obsessed with them. So much so that Rachel and I didn't get all that much attention from the little guy. He just wanted to be with them 24/7 and they loved it. We went out to the movies at night and both nights we came back, all 3 of them were asleep with Kimball nestled perfectly in the middle. It was so precious I should have taken a picture.

For the Sake of It

Hi, it's been awhile, so I'm just going to post for the sake of the post so you don't have to keep looking at my dumb hairstyles. It seems as though any free time I've had on the Internet lately has been swallowed up on cnn.com, thus detracting me from blogging. I can be found lurking in the politics section due to some weird unexplainable craving I've recently had to keep abreast on this whole presidential campaign. I don't think I've ever followed the preliminaries too much in the past and now I just can't get enough of it. It's not that I've ever really hated politics, but more so that I've been too lazy to follow it. Now I just can't seem to get enough articles to read, candidate video clips to watch, and am even tuning in to all these political analysts that love to hear themselves talk and "tell it like it is." I don't want to share my opinions on the candidates just yet, if ever, as I am still trying to formulate where I stand and why I would elect or be confident in whom I think would be the best fit. So that's that.

Thanks by the way, to all those who participated in the silly hair poll. The majority pick was a great color. I have until Wednesday to decide if I'm going to go for it. My only lasting hesitation is the long and hard road back to blonde. We shall see...

To go, or not to go, DARK

So I have been thinking about dying my hair dark for a couple of years now but the thought frightens me. I have friends like Brook, Lindsay, Becky and so on, that can change their hair color on what seems like a monthly basis and look amazing no matter what, even when it's drastic. Though my curiosity is ever stirring, I just don't know that I can pull it off. Everyone says, "No biggie, you can always change it back." If I understand correctly, it's not that easy. In fact, okay, I actually have had dark hair my sophomore year of college. Oh boy was that bad, and it took forever to become semi-presentable. I'm sure that brought on the foundation of my fears. But I also went to a pretty ghetto place and asked them to die it back to my normal color (after straight up bleaching it all) and it turned to a deep ashy gray. Plus, it was short. I don't do short very well. I'm actually surprised my boyfriend at that time didn't break up with me, I was really pretty hideous looking. He probably just cheated. Kidding. Anyhow, I think I'm getting closer to just sucking it up and going for it. I have recently been thinking maybe there was a hairstyle/color website and when I finally decided to look, I found this website within seconds. Ladies, you are going to have so much fun messing with this stupid thing. It's from instyle.com so it has all these celebrities hairstyles, kinda cheesy but whatever. I just chose some styles that covered up most of the hair on my face and then played around with their colorcharts, so the colors are not necessarily true to star. Anyhow, I have included a poll at the top of my blog for you all to vote on which color you think suits me well. And if none, leave a comment telling me not to do anything, leave as is, and then threaten to post a picture of that one horrible "gray" year. Oh, we didn't have digital then, phew! Have fun! And yes, it is late, and I am sacrificing precious sleep for a ridiculous vanity driven hair poll. You'll end up doing the same!

The Stasher

So Kimball has a new found obsession with gum and/or chapstick. I don't recall how he got that first piece of gum in his mouth but somehow, somewhere, he did. Erik and I both have random packs of gum and chapsticks in our nightstand drawers and lately whenever I hear stillness in my house for more than 1 minute, I know Kimball is up to something fishy. So I go quietly down the hall and peek into my room, just in time to find Kimball snooping through my drawer. The second he hears me he turns around and hurriedly shuts the drawer and then looks back at me with an innocent smile, as if I haven't just seen him doing this. Then I walk over to him and he will throw his clenched fist behind his back and continue to smile. Inevitably there is a chapstick or gum that was on it's way to being unwrapped. This whole scenario is a daily occurence. The chapstick isn't that big of a deal other than the fact that I will find these little nail marks where he has dug it out and who knows where it has been wiped. But the gum, it just seems weird to see my 1 year old chomping on gum, especially when the child has taken a personal interest in dental hygeine and cannot brush his teeth enough times in a day. He keeps tabs on the toothbrush drawer as well. Anyhow, the reason I share this with you as that I found some humor in his latest operations. Of course I confiscated all the gum within toddler reach and thought the issue had been resolved. Well lately, Kimball will just show up out of nowhere happily chomping on some gum. The first couple of times I thought daddy had given in to his child's pleadings and I let it go. However, it has been occuring more and more frequently and the gum is always green, even though I'm not consistent with which flavors I really buy. I have now realized that little Mr. cunning has made a secret stash of gum somewhere in this house, location unbeknown to Erik or me. It's probably in the same place that he disappears to when he has to get the job done if you know what I mean. Kimball is very particular about hiding in corners and other mysterious places when he has to fill his pants. Anyhow, I guess there could be worse things than gum, I find this whole thing kind of cute but yet a little scary that he's already hiding things from me at age 1!!

"Rockin" New Years

As most of us know, Krista and Tim's karaoke fetish never dies so of course their recent purchase of rockband (because guitar hero clearly just wasn't cutting it) led them to the hosting of a great New Year's Eve party. Theme? No question, rockband. Some were dressed in their favorite rocker outfit from head to toe, others were just along for the ride. And then there was Sarah and Trev and we're still not sure who they were dressed up as, mumus and dreadlocks and such, I think they got New Years mixed up with Halloween. ha ha, you are welcome to rip on me since we didn't dress up at all but then again they'll most likely never read this cause they don't blog. But no matter how you look at it, all had a great time. The bandanna color that we were given designated who our other band members were as this was a competition of course. All I know is that my night was made when I got to be the singer for "Enter Sandman" by Metallica, that was actually a dream come true. It's so fun to sing your heart out to that even though I felt like a man. I'll never forget at the winter dance in 7th grade that song came on and I remember thinking the DJ was so awesome for playing it. I was actually pretty into metal back in junior high when I rode the coattails of my brothers' music taste. Nikki D still reminds us of when Mike would blast Pantera in the car all the way to seminary in the morning! ha ha ha, such funny memories.








Meet Krista and Tim, the hosts. Yes, that is Tim on the right in case you were wondering. As much as you wouldn't want to miss his ripped AC/DC tank top, I just didn't want to take away from these legs. Need I explain why I love Tim?








Linz, Sarah, Krista










If you notice this dude's arm in the upper corner, he is singing "Sabotage" and going nuts on it. He had a rough start so we gave it another go and he nailed it and was having so much fun. Another great nostalgic song that took me back to the Beastie Boys days.......






Here you can appreciate Tim in full uni, minus the heels which I already pointed out.





No clue who this girl on the mic is, but she rocked. Definitely the best female vocalist, so props to the pink bandanna chic.