Guy Made A Racist Comment To Me, This Is How I Responded...

Hey peeps,

I've sucked at blogging... When I'm not working, I'm either knitting, partying, watching soccer or spending time with my family. Today I was actually supposed to attend yet another party, but I bought 3 yarn balls so I decided to stay home and knit instead. So, I haven't had time to blog. Nevertheless, I wanted to share this experience with you guys:

Today when I was at Walmart buying a pack of socks and 3 wonderful yarn balls (picture to come.. I'm so excited!) I went into the express checkout line to pay for my new crap. I was talking to the chick in front of me and the lady behind me about how awesome knitting is and blabla...

Then a guy was talking to the chick in front of me and I heard them talking about the Walmart in Airdrie. I butted in and asked, "What about the Airdrie Walmart? Is it better or worse?"
The guy said, "Oh, way better!"
I asked, "Oh, is it bigger?"
He said, "There's just way more white people there."
Shocked, but too classy to get into a public fight with a stranger, I sarcastically said, "Uhhh... thanks?"
He said, "Yeah, I hate to be a racist, but it's just the way it is." and he went off about what made the Airdrie Walmart better. I immediately ceased to participate in that conversation.

Surprisingly, I wasn't offended or mad. More so because I'm used to people saying stuff like that to my face, and working in customer service thickened my skin. So I let it go and forgot about it within 30 seconds. Then it was the guy's turn, so he was gone. Then it was the chick in front of me's turn, but before she left she whispered "That was really rude" and I agreed (though it took me a split-second to remember what she was talking about), then went into my register.

After I paid I was walking out of Walmart towards my car and the guy had finished paying the same time as me and was going the same direction as me. He came up to me and asked if I thought he was being rude. I don't like drama with strangers, so normally I would've said no it was fine since I had let it go anyways but for some reason I felt that I should be honest. So I told him (as friendly as I possibly could), "Well, how was I supposed to take that?"

He was suuuuuuuper kind about it and apologized to me. I was so surprised! I was expecting him to be like "Oh yeah, lol, what ethnicity are you?" which I ALWAYS get. Instead, he put his head down and said he was sorry. I could feel his sincerity and sympathized. Note: He was at least 6'4, buff, and full of tattoos -- thus, sensitivity from his part, particularly after a racist remark, was unexpected. He was seriously so humble and kind, I think I even felt the spirit (crazy)! He then proceeded to explain, "it's cuz you look white!" -- my feelings then went from Christlike love to borderline confused. Maybe he was referring to my good English or something.

His friends joined in and named certain ethnic groups that they consider to have a different mentality. I politely interrupted and told them (in a gentle, non-confrontational way -- in more of a conversation tone if that makes sense) that we can't judge people based on their skin colour. I explained that it's not skin colour that determines a person's behaviour or manners... but the way they were raised, how long they've been in Canada, whether they've acclimatized to the culture, if there's a language barrier, if they're educated, and I even said, "I'm half-Asian, quarter Italian, quarter Portuguese and I'm way more polite than a lot of white people I know!"

They nodded their heads the entire time and genuinely agreed with everything I said. I told them, "But you know what? I completely see where you're coming from. I work in customer service and I deal with tonnes of people from different countries and I definitely see a pattern with the way they treat me. Some people can be really, really rude and it irritates me too! But I always try to keep in mind that they come from countries where they're used to people taking advantage of them and everyone's kind of on their own. To them it can be instinctive to be what we call rude to protect themselves." They agreed again and we ended up introducing ourselves to each other and became friends!

I thanked the guy for taking the time to approach me and apologize to me. It really was a noble thing for him to do and I was so touched by it that when I got in my car I felt so much love for Him and I can only imagine how much God must love him.

Lessons learned:

1. God loves even the racists. Who knows, that may even include Hitler as well! :O haha
2. EVERYONE has good in them. So don't hate on random strangers just because they said/did one stupid thing. It's so easy to make terrible assumptions of a stranger. We need to take the time to get to know them before making those judgments.
3. We spend way too much time getting offended and judging others. If we take the time to try to see them as God sees them, forgiveness is a breeze.

My most important lesson of all?
*Humility and kindness are the most noble attributes one can have*

Anyways, I was really touched by this experience and felt prompted to share it with you fellow followers.

Love you all! <3

5 Steps To Disobeying God

Whattup!

I'm sooooooo tired.. if I were to explain how sore my back feels from being on my feet at work all day you'd be surprised I'm only 22. Man, my back's gonna suck by the time I'm 60. Ew.

I hope those of you who read my last post could get something out of it. I put a lot of thought into it and my hope is that the way you feel about yourselves improved after reading it. If you haven't yet, please take the time to read it. Last week I left you guys with a teaser, and I hope it worked. But let's cut to the chase. We need to learn to love ourselves -- it is a commandment. When we are being hard on ourselves, we are disobeying the Lord in five ways:

First, He asks us not to be judgemental.

Some of us do such a good job at not gossiping or beaking people behind their backs, because we know it’s disrespectful to them. So, if it’s disrespectful to a person to judge or bad-mouth them, doesn’t that apply to us? Aren’t we disrespecting ourselves when we tell everyone about our past transgressions or go around saying nasty things about ourselves?

People don’t need to know our weaknesses -- especially if it's in the past and repented for. If they are any smart, they should know not to expect you or any human being in this planet to be perfect. So stop. Let God be the judge of you and in the meantime, strive to do the things you know you’re supposed to do. Work with your bishops should your problems be more severe. He can help you. He is called to serve as a witness of the redeeming blood of Christ during those times.

Second, he asks us to be patient. 

Here’s a quote by President Uchtdorf, “Forget not to be patient with yourself. I want to tell you something that I hope you will take in the right way: God is fully aware that you and I are not perfect. Let me add: God is also fully aware that people you think are perfect are not. And yet we spend so much time and energy comparing ourselves to others – usually comparing our weaknesses to their strengths. This drives us to create expectations for ourselves that are impossible to meet.

"As a result, we never celebrate our good efforts because they seem to be less than what someone else does. Everyone has strengths and weaknesses. It’s wonderful that you have strengths. And it is part of your mortal experience that you do have weaknesses. God wants to help us eventually turn all our weaknesses into strengths. But He knows that this is a long-term goal. He wants us to become perfect, and if we stay on the path of discipleship, one day we will. It’s okay that you’re not quite there yet. Keep working on it, but stop punishing yourself.

“Dear sisters, many of you are endlessly compassionate and patient with the weaknesses of others. Please remember also to be compassionate and patient with yourself. In the meantime, be thankful for the small successes in your home, your family relationships, your education and livelihood, your Church participation and personal improvement. Like the forget-me-nots, these successes may seem so tiny to you and they may go unnoticed by others, but God notices them and they are not small to Him. If you consider success to be only the most perfect rose or dazzling orchid, you may miss some of life’s sweet experiences. (...) Our journey toward perfection is long, but we can find wonder and delight in even the tiniest steps in that journey.”

Third, He asks us to be grateful. 

We are taught to count our blessings and to have a spirit of thanksgiving. I can guarantee you right now, no matter who you are or what your circumstances may be, that you have gifts, talents, and attributes that you have inherited from your Heavenly Father. The difference between those talented people who always seem to have the spotlight and people who are kind of hidden in the corner isn’t that the first type of people are more talented; it is simply that the first type have discovered their talents already.

So go out and try new things; discover what you enjoy and what you’re good at. Do things you enjoy doing and maybe it’ll turn into a talent. Don’t let anybody convince you you’re not talented, because that is a lie. EVERYONE is good at something – we just need to figure out what it is we’re good at. All of this being said, if God has given you these gifts and instead of recognizing those blessings and thanking Him for them, we do the exact opposite – we are being disobedient. You may think it’s just yourself you’re hurting when you tear yourself down, but you’re also hurting God because He created you and He loves you, and you choose to reject that gift that He so lovingly created.

Fourth, He asks us to be forgiving. 

In Doctrine and Covenants 64:10, we read, “I the Lord, will forgive whom I will forgive, but of you it is required to forgive all men.” By all men, this includes ourselves. And how many times should we forgive people? 7 times? According to the Lord Jesus Christ, 70x7, or 490 times. Not literally, but he meant to say tonnes of times. Here’s another goody in D&C 61:2, “(…) I, the Lord, forgive sins, and am merciful unto those who confess their sins with humble hearts.” So if you’ve done your end of the bargain (i.e. ABCD’s) in the repentance process (Acknowledge, Be sorry, Confess, Don’t do it again), MOVE ON! Stop punishing yourselves.

If the Lord has forgiven you, then you need to forgive yourself too. Art thou greater than him? Never. So, trust His judgments. I think a lot of us get so afraid of falling into temptation and sinning again, that we make the mistake of thinking that by punishing ourselves, we guarantee it won’t happen again because we feel bad about it. It’s quite the opposite actually. Satan is the one who gives us such feelings of inadequacy and the minute we accept his lies that we aren’t good enough, we take crap from him. Eventually this will lead us to think “I’ve done this once, I can do it again” or “I’m just a loser, I give up on this repentance thing”.

Fifth, He asks us to believe and have faith. 

When we think of believing or having faith, the first thing that may cross our minds is believing in God, or believing in a miracle, or in the prophets. Those are definitely important things to believe in, but we overlook our belief in ourselves. If we refuse to believe in ourselves, we are denying our divine nature and potential. Faith, according to the Bible Dictionary, is “to hope for things which are not seen, but which are true (…) To have faith is to have confidence in something or someone.”

We need to have faith in ourselves, or it would be impossible for us to progress into our potential and exaltation. Though we may not see our potential right now, God sees it, and we must believe in and hope for it. Re-read the BD's definition of it: "to hope for things which are not seen but which are true". Have you ever wondered why faith is the first principle of the gospel? If we don’t have faith in the Saviour, we can’t truly repent, and if we can’t truly repent, we can’t be baptized, and if we’re not baptized we don’t have the Holy Ghost. The same way with our divine potential; if we don’t have faith in ourselves, we can’t progress. Only God sees our potential, but we don’t. Part of having faith is to hope for that, though we don’t see it.

So what are some things we can do to improve our self-esteem and believe in ourselves? Honestly, I wish I could tell you, but this post is getting really long so I will save it for the next post. In the meantime, I would encourage you to think about that to yourselves (and send me suggestions if you’d like them to go here).

Those of you who have overcome past feelings of inadequacy: how did you do it? Did you simply suck it up and got over it, or did you take certain steps to do so?