This week I’ll share a bit about culture, we usually hear this word thrown around a lot, but many times we don’t understand its meaning completely, Culture is a word for the 'way of life' of groups of people, meaning the way they do things. Different groups may have different cultures. A culture is passed on to the next generation by learning. Culture is seen in people's writing, religion, music, clothes, cooking and in what they do.
When I grew up the only world view I knew was the one with my family, our traditions, the way we did things was all I had knowledge of, and I assumed every family did this the same way, the way my family did things seemed to be perfect for me, as I trusted my parents and felt safe around my household. Having a father and a mother that loved each other was normal for me, as well as having 3 siblings that loved me. Having lunch together every day, watching tv during weeknights, trying to help my dad with work and going to church every Sunday, were all normal activities, or in other words, they were part of our family culture. A lot of the things we did for fun and ate were also part of our culture that were passed from previous generations and were deemed normal in the culture of our country.
I remember as I started visiting friends, I realized many things we did were not ‘normal’, many of them were family traditions that other people had not adopted, I still remember being invited to have lunch with my friends family, in the beginning everything was normal, all the family sat together to have dinner, I felt really comfortable with them, I loved the food that we were going to have, but then the moment of blessing the food came, and I was waiting for it, being reverent with my hands together and waiting for it, then everyone started eating without blessing the food, I thought to myself: ‘maybe they forgot’, and hearing the mom asking me if I liked the food, because she realized I wasn’t eating. That is the first time I realized many of the things my family did, were not normal for everyone.
This happened later in life when I went to serve a mission in Colombia, I realized many LDS families keep the same traditions as me and my family did, but the traditions of their country were different to mine, so I learned to adopt those traditions as well, there are many things I do from my mission in Colombia that I adopted, while keeping my family traditions and replacing some of my country traditions with the ones I felt were better, like the way of cooking certain things, waking up really, really early in the morning, and the amount of fruits I’d consume daily.
After that, I went back to my family in Chile and got married to my lovely wife, to face once again a change and to replace some of my family traditions, and mix them with the ones my wife had, and after that, we moved to New Zealand were once again we faced a drastic cultural change, where we adopted lots of good things.
There are many things that I stopped doing since I was a kid, like watching TV at night, having cake during birthdays, as we changed the way we celebrated birthdays, and left some unhealthy habits behind. In the other hand, there are some wonderful things me and my wife adopted from other cultures and friends, like our saving and expenditure habits, our sleep schedule, working out at least 4 times a week, our diet has also changed, there are many things from Chile that we don’t eat anymore and we have learned more and develop more interest in nutrition and health. Also in my own family, me and my wife have created our own habits, like cooking breakfast for the other one during weekends and our culture has changed even when it comes to cleaning and tidying up the house.
I think many of the things we have adopted have been inspired in a scripture that Paul wrote in Thessalonians:
Me and my wife have got rid of many traditions we had and adopted the ones we deemed better for our lifestyle. Whenever we have kids, they’ll be faced with the same position we once were and might decide to adopt many of the traditions we introduced them to, and stop having some of the ones they grew up with, which is perfectly fine. Many of the traditions my parents had with might not be bad, but they might also not be the better ones, I believe a very important part of my own family culture come from the scripture shared from Paul, and if we try to look for the best traditions and culture, I think we can’t go wrong. As long as we are holding fast to which is good, no matter where its from or who taught it first, and choosing what is good, better or best.
When I grew up the only world view I knew was the one with my family, our traditions, the way we did things was all I had knowledge of, and I assumed every family did this the same way, the way my family did things seemed to be perfect for me, as I trusted my parents and felt safe around my household. Having a father and a mother that loved each other was normal for me, as well as having 3 siblings that loved me. Having lunch together every day, watching tv during weeknights, trying to help my dad with work and going to church every Sunday, were all normal activities, or in other words, they were part of our family culture. A lot of the things we did for fun and ate were also part of our culture that were passed from previous generations and were deemed normal in the culture of our country.
I remember as I started visiting friends, I realized many things we did were not ‘normal’, many of them were family traditions that other people had not adopted, I still remember being invited to have lunch with my friends family, in the beginning everything was normal, all the family sat together to have dinner, I felt really comfortable with them, I loved the food that we were going to have, but then the moment of blessing the food came, and I was waiting for it, being reverent with my hands together and waiting for it, then everyone started eating without blessing the food, I thought to myself: ‘maybe they forgot’, and hearing the mom asking me if I liked the food, because she realized I wasn’t eating. That is the first time I realized many of the things my family did, were not normal for everyone.
This happened later in life when I went to serve a mission in Colombia, I realized many LDS families keep the same traditions as me and my family did, but the traditions of their country were different to mine, so I learned to adopt those traditions as well, there are many things I do from my mission in Colombia that I adopted, while keeping my family traditions and replacing some of my country traditions with the ones I felt were better, like the way of cooking certain things, waking up really, really early in the morning, and the amount of fruits I’d consume daily.
After that, I went back to my family in Chile and got married to my lovely wife, to face once again a change and to replace some of my family traditions, and mix them with the ones my wife had, and after that, we moved to New Zealand were once again we faced a drastic cultural change, where we adopted lots of good things.
There are many things that I stopped doing since I was a kid, like watching TV at night, having cake during birthdays, as we changed the way we celebrated birthdays, and left some unhealthy habits behind. In the other hand, there are some wonderful things me and my wife adopted from other cultures and friends, like our saving and expenditure habits, our sleep schedule, working out at least 4 times a week, our diet has also changed, there are many things from Chile that we don’t eat anymore and we have learned more and develop more interest in nutrition and health. Also in my own family, me and my wife have created our own habits, like cooking breakfast for the other one during weekends and our culture has changed even when it comes to cleaning and tidying up the house.
I think many of the things we have adopted have been inspired in a scripture that Paul wrote in Thessalonians:
21 Prove all things; hold fast that which is good.
22 Abstain from all appearance of evil.
Me and my wife have got rid of many traditions we had and adopted the ones we deemed better for our lifestyle. Whenever we have kids, they’ll be faced with the same position we once were and might decide to adopt many of the traditions we introduced them to, and stop having some of the ones they grew up with, which is perfectly fine. Many of the traditions my parents had with might not be bad, but they might also not be the better ones, I believe a very important part of my own family culture come from the scripture shared from Paul, and if we try to look for the best traditions and culture, I think we can’t go wrong. As long as we are holding fast to which is good, no matter where its from or who taught it first, and choosing what is good, better or best.
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