I've had similar thoughts to this for a long time now---an email from my dad to my brother serving as a missionary in Japan:
We had a life changing experience at our Empty Nester's FHE on Monday night. Yes, they let us come even though two of our four have flown back to the nest for a short rest. Dr. Raquel Cook came to our back yard, and shared some lessons that she has learned from Nine-Eleven. Nine years again she lost over twenty co-workers from the attacks in New York.
Raquel grew up in Utah County, and even graduated from BYU. But a nagging anger consumed her, and Raquel had to get out of Happy Valley. After graduating, Raquel lived in 38 different countries in her 20's; India, South Korea, China and Saudi Arabia to name a few. When asked if she was ever in danger traveling around the world, Raquel responded that the only place in her life that she had been mugged at gunpoint was in Salt Lake City. Utah. Go figure???
The Lord allowed Raquel to meet and work with Mother Teresa in India. While intending to merely meet her, Mother Teresa put her right to work helping to comfort Lepers, providing compassion and comfort to these outcasts.
Prior to meeting the Dalai Lama, Raquel Cook was instructed to prepare by fasting from speaking for an entire week, which was next to impossible for her. Raquel's goal was to asked for help in dealing with the anger that consumed her soul. But in not being able to articulate her thoughts for that very long week, the anger question was swept away, and was replaced with a greater desire to have more compassion for others.
In London, while doing her Master's degree, Raquel lived with Muslem, a Jew, a Christian and an Atheist. These five women developed a warm openness, and shared in great detail their beliefs. Her Muslem friend would shared passages from the Quran, and Raquel would offer latter-day scriptures in their evening devotionals. They were both amazed at how much they had in common. Before parting, her friend gave Raquel a Quran with engraved on the cover, and hugged her whispering "You have made me a better Muslem". "You have made me a better Mormon".
Yes, in unusual and remote locations, Raquel kept running into members of the Church. She has been endowed in the Temple. Raquel sees so many parallels in the many religions she has learned of. We're not the only people who cloth themselves with garments. God speaks in so many ways to his children throughout the earth.
On the way to work with an investment firm on September 11, 2001, Raquel was rescued from under a parked car as the buildings were falling around her, and thrown into a darkened basement where she wondered if Armageddon had arrived. Surviving the attacks on New York City, Raquel walked through thick ashes fearing she was walking on the dead consumed in the furnace of the explosion. Life shattered with loss, reliving the nightmare over and over, and then rebuilding her life, Raquel turned her energy towards teaching students at American Fork High School, and now at UVU. Many have been lifted through her vision.
Raquel Cook shared a powerful summery of her sojourn through many lands and cultures with these words; "I studied Taoism in China, and I read the Analects of Confucius. I've visited temples in Asia and mosques in the Middle East and cathedrals in Europe. I have immersed myself in 38 countries and attended religious ceremonies of Jains, Jews, Sikhs, Buddhists, Hindus, Muslims, Baptists, Mormons, Shintos, and Native Americans. I've been to the Vatican and the Ganges and Mecca and Salt Lake, and never in that tim e or in any of those places did I meet a single person who was different from me."
We are children of the God who loves us intensely. Love, Dad
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