We are all changed for the better. Photo by Shane Baker Download Full Image. We need more voices that reflect the church’s greatness in diversity. Blessed be the name of the Lord…. I think generational biases are difficult to overcome when seeking the Lord’s will on things great and small. Sister Susan Gong, wife of Elder Gerrit W. Gong, speaks during a worldwide devotional for young adults on Sunday, Jan. 10, 2021. Credit: Screenshot YouTube “It’s hard to see how these bits of color will resolve into a coherent pattern. It’s just good to have people from outside of the Western US. A lot of good viewpoints and thoughts. sltrib.com © 1996-2021 The Salt Lake Tribune. Their children had a hard time in Korean schools because of the “round eyes.” Does that mean they never should have gotten married? And I suspect their international cred was perceived as a big plus, not a minus. So, I will clarify to satisfy you both. Thank you, Cynthia, for your poignant thoughts. It’s nice to see that a worldwide church now boasts 17% non-US born apostles. Yes, I have the most beautiful grandchildren. Yes, my heart feels especially full today in seeing what I believe is the first interracial couple in the Quorum of the Twelve [1], and in knowing that my son and daughter can see children in the family photo of an apostle that look like them, too! It will be another important step when we have the first woman of color wife of an apostle, the first black man, more examples of lives lived on more continents and in bodies with different abilities, and–dare we hope–the first woman. Until he was 10, Matt Gong, the family’s fourth of four sons, lived in the Washington, D.C., area, where his dad worked at a policy think tank. And he still didn’t know how to love himself. I can also attest that there are benefits inherent in my interracial + intercultural marriage. Love you. Elder Gong was on my list of best case scenarios. “…for the Lord seeth not as man seeth; for man looketh on the outward appearance, but the Lord looketh on the heart.”. If that makes me bad/wrong, then so be it. Oh Lord, hasten the healing of our unbelief. Thoughts of not having that became unbearable, he says, and so he repressed them. Oct 11, 2019 - Explore Lynne Dray's board "Gerrit W Gong", followed by 805 people on Pinterest. And he never brought it up. Photo by Monique Saenz. It may also be that I have read today’s conversations about it incorrectly and that Latino is ok? Ask those who believed in the 1978 Official Declaration long before it came. Of the Seventy. (My father worked in HR for an oil major, I used to live a stone’s throw from the HQ of another one, and my current employer sells very large amounts of electricity to oil companies–to extract from wells that in many cases have been producing for over a century–so I’ve learned a bit about the business, both upstream and downstream.). The church’s rhetoric against such marriages was very strong in the wake of the 1978 revelation, as if SWK wanted to communicate “Hey, let’s not go crazy with this thing.” That attitude has slowly dissipated, but even now it’s not quite gone. The strongest marriages are based on mutual core values, and church leaders seem to believe that marrying in the faith takes care of that. It’s not a Chinese, Mormon or academic dinner-table topic. FILE - In this June 28, 2018 file photo Gerrit W. Gong speaks during a news conference, in Salt Lake City. We used to hang out during our days at UCSD. (For more reading on this, see here, here, and here.). It’s disingenuous to portray the Church’s historic concern with inter-racial marriages as a simple matter of possible incompatibility. Work to make it different, but live in reality, too. Why does ethnicity have to be politicized in Zion the way it is in Babylon? However I’m not excited about the call because of his increasing the “racial” diversity in the Quorum of the Twelve (which he doesn’t) but rather because he brings a -cultural- diversity that is very welcomed.