In what way have you narrowed that definition that causes you to think you can exclude him from that? His mother's family are ethnic Chinese in Hawaii, and his father's family lived in California and other parts of the United States after his ancestors emigrated from China in the late 19th century. Elder Gerrit W. Gong of the Quorum of the Twelve Apostles and Sister Susan Gong will be the keynote speakers for Family Discovery Day on the final day of RootsTech, the global family history gathering taking place virtually and in person March 2-4, 2023. Never a member of the Quorum of the Twelve Apostles. Otherwise it would be hard for that person to win the confidence of the senior leadership. He encouraged listeners to connect with ancestors and descendants in uniting God's family. I buried land mines and razor wire in my brain so that my heart couldnt get out., If Gong hadnt come out, he says, I would have fought in the war till I died by suicide.. [4] He also held the Freeman Chair in China studies and was later the Asia Director of the Center for Strategic and International Studies. It takes strength to keep sustaining when one is ready for shifts and even sees wisdom in them, but they dont come. Bensen, recounting your personal experience with a few interracial marriages in [your] own family and supposing you can generalize from those experiences with those few particular people to arrive at broad statements about how race functions in marriage is, at the very least, a trifle naive. Its also more than a trifle condescending, considering that youre trying to correct someone who has actual first-hand experience of the potential issues youre describing. He will be a good fit with the brethren. Big smiles in the Hedgehog home. Also, doesnt Sister Rosana Fernandes Soares identify as a woman of color? As far as Soares goes, He looks like a fairly typical Euro-Brazilian. Please come find your family, all your generations, and bring them home.". I am pleased for him. The OPs own experience of external challenges is evidence enough that race is a factor to consider! Elder Gerrit W. Gong's talk from the April 2022 general conference was all about family history, and it gave us lots of good insights. The apostle choices here should be celebrated and I would say without much qualification for progressive mormons. [5] Gerrit was named after Gerrit de Jong because his mother had lived with de Jong and his family while she was a student at BYU. When the family moved to Utah, the young Gong found himself in a much more homogeneous community with a dominant culture, he says, where his peers and teachers werent exactly sure about his ethnicity. He really desires with all his heart to build the kingdom and bless Heavenly Fathers children. Today we both celebrate andlook forward. Elder Gerrit W. Gong of the Quorum of the Twelve Apostles of The Church of Jesus Christ of Latter-day Saints and his wife, Susan, have rich family histories from Hawaii and Ireland. It will always be Top down, not bottom up. No accent here! A Rhodes Scholar who worked for the U.S. State Department and for the Center for Strategic and International Studies in Washington, D.C., Elder Gongs travels have taken him to all seven continents, including living in Asia for more than a decade. I never thought of myself as nonwhite but as ethnically ambiguous, Gong says in an interview. . Cynthia, thanks for sharing. Thanks for calling attention to the interracial marriage barrier being broken and what this can mean to many families. My last post must have sounded like trolling as it has disappeared. 1. Members of Elder Gerrit W. Gongs family stand in front of a mural project with the children who assisted them in Vietnam. Sign up for Meridians Free Newsletter, pleaseCLICK HERE. Gong then studied international relations at Oxford University as a Rhodes Scholar, receiving a master's degree in 1979 and a D.Phil. With his wife, Susan, Elder Gong helps build Gods kingdom by serving all of His children. This is the very purpose for which God created the heavens and the earth and saw that they were good. Reflecting the increasing diversity of the Church, Elder Gong became the first Asian-American Apostle, Elder Soares the first Apostle from South America. The fact that they are an interracial couple didnt even occur to em; I was just thrilled that there is finally some more international representation in the upper-most echelon. It makes all the difference to know who my family are." My friend muses, "A bent branch does not mean a bad tree. As we discover our story, we connect, we belong, we become." 1. Enter your email address to follow BCC and receive new posts by email. [5][1][2] As a member of the Quorum of the Twelve Apostles, Gong is accepted by the church as a prophet, seer, and revelator. Also, I suspect President Nelsons very special interest in China may have played a role in the case of Elder Gong. [35] The church later announced that Gong, whose wife has ties to Taylorsville, Utah, would preside at the October 2020 groundbreaking for the temple in that city. Similarly, we were happy and hopeful to learn of President Nelsons ties to this wonderful land. Thanks, New Iconoclast. The following is a summary of what he said. Anyone who thinks otherwise is giving themselves a little too much credit. I also rejoice in the callings of Elder Gong and Elder Soares. Once ordained they joined the growing circle of priesthood power.. (Sometimes the emphasis is on achieving a picture-perfect family which involves inflated egos, exclusiveness, feelings of superiority or inferiority, and other unChrist-like behaviors both inside and outside the family. Some places wanted to send only the best and most artistic children to participate. Today, I love myself, scars and all, and I am awestruck by the simplicity at being happy, something I would never have believed possible in my younger years, says Gong, who shares an apartment with his longtime partner. Fairbanks. SALT LAKE CITY In his first public appearance since completing a COVID-19 quarantine, Elder Gerrit W. Gong, a member of the Quorum of the Twelve Apostles of The Church of Jesus Christ of . Felix was referring to genetics. Next I would really love for Adam and Eve in the temple videos to be an interracial couple. Though Gongs relationship with his parents got off to a rocky start after he came out not for lack of love or rejection but for miscommunication they are now as close as ever and talk almost every week. The greatest Mormon blog in the universe. He began to heal, until there was one final battle: to face institutions and people who had harmed and abused him. They are the parents of four sons and have three grandchildren. Big smiles from this multiethnic family too. Elder Gong, the oldest of three children, inherited his parents love for learning. A lot of good viewpoints and thoughts. . Gerrit W. Gong is a famous Mormon leader. Thank you, Cynthia, for your poignant thoughts. But getting to this place of peace with his trifold identity, says Gong, an artificial intelligence engineer in Seattle, has required hard work. Both men and women of Asian descent in the US face a media and social stereotype of being more submissive, passive, and infantilized. Too many glories to express. Prior to becoming a general authority, Gong served in the church as a stake Sunday School president, high councilor, seminary teacher, bishop, stake president, and area seventy. (Trent Nelson | Tribune file photo) You can produce it under its own pressure; you can lift it out with a pump jack; you can energize it by reinjecting the gas cap; you can push it out by injecting water down a nearby well; you can melt it by injecting steam. No registration is required. His known family tree is extensive (bless the tradition of Chinese family genealogy record-keeping) and is 100% Chinese. Representation matters. Thanks all for the kind answers to my post. RootsTech 2023, a global gathering of family history enthusiasts, will be in-person at the Salt Palace in Salt Lake City and virtually at rootstech.org. Ask Peter. http://www.pbs.org/wnet/black-in-latin-america/featured/black-in-latin-america-full-episode-brazil-a-racial-paradise/224/. But its a relief to know that the oil companies dont have to suck so hard. (Haight had helped to overcome some of the misgivings some family members had about the interracial marriage. It was my biggest hope for the conference. If the supposed universal differences between men and women are assets in a marriage, why not differences in race? His memory is foggy, but he says he woke up four hours later, lying on the floor. We used to hang out during our days at UCSD. Im sorry for that feeling in the pit of your stomachI know it all too well. To appreciate why this feels especially significant to me that we have not only an interracial couple, but specifically a Chinese-American man and a white woman, we have to have a frank talk about how racism in the United States manifests against Asians and Asian-Americans, specifically in regards to gender and sex. His father joined the Church after attending Stanford University, where his parents met and dated. Cautioning against interracial marriage on the grounds of it being challenging seems to contradict every Relief Society lesson Ive sat through about overcoming differences in a marriage. Gong had just been named an apostle. I hope that we will all gain greater appreciation for the struggles, courage, faith and sacrifice of those who have gone before. Much of this post is good, though the backdrop of white supremacy is a bit much. Was he Mexican? His first namesake is Gerrit de Jong, the patriarch of the family that Elder Gong's mother, Jean, lived with when she came to Brigham Young University as a recent convert to the Church. Gerrit W. Gong Featured. Also, only in the USA, would someone with Soaress phenotype be considered not white. Hes white everywhere else on the planet. Benson, although its not incorrect to say the manuals (Kimball) advise caution, they go a little further than that in recommending/expressing preference for racially homogenous marriages. Why does ethnicity have to be politicized in Zion the way it is in Babylon? He and Ulisses Soares filled the vacancies created from the deaths of Thomas S. Monson and Robert D. The in-person Family Discovery Day event will also feature free classes, activities and access to the expo hall. There are both benefits and penalties to being racially mixed. *We recommend that people marry those who are of the same racial background generally, and of somewhat the same economic and social and educational background (some of those are not an absolute necessity, but preferred).. (Courtesy photo by Ryan Di Spaltro) Photo courtesy of the Gong family. And love that something so small an interracial marriage can yet be so huge for your family and for others. Shes everything one would hope for someone in that role. When the prophet starts allowing his decisions to be influenced by every wind of political and worldly doctrine everyone loses. Theres also a correlation between small wedding ceremonies and divorce suggesting that couples thrive on social support. If that makes me bad/wrong, then so be it. 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