Letter 11/24/2014

We finally got our heater fixed!!!! Now our toes are warm. Our ward members all reached out to help us so much. One member ordered a plastic door to cover our front door to keep out the cold wind. One member brought electric mats to heat our floor. One member gave us various teas to keep us warm and heal our colds. And members would call us to make sure we were all right. Were it not against the rules for members to enter our homes, I think our house would have been flooded with members to come in and try to fix our heater for us. So cute.

We had so many teaching opportunities this week, especially to our ward members! We were able to visit with so many of them! Guess what? The stake president lived in Japan (about 20 years ago) and I found out this week that he lived in Senzokuike (where our family lived for 4.5 of the years we spent in Tokyo)!!!! The little boy in our ward that we've been teaching the lessons to was baptized by his dad on Wednesday! His baptism was very cute and a lot of ward members came to support!

We got to go to the temple on Thursday! We went straight down to Suwon, meeting a member on the way, to go visit the Hwaseong fortress in Sinpoong. It was so much fun. That's when all of the pictures are from. Our cute member who went with us is the best! She lets us teach practice lessons to her very often and she helps us with so many things! She's really the best! We walked around the castle there. We weren't able to see all of it because there was a drama being filmed.

We were calling former investigators a couple of weeks ago and a former member's mother answered the phone. She said she wanted her younger daughter to start studying (English) with us so we were able to meet this mother and daughter this week! They're from China but living in Korea, which is pretty common.

While we were doing our weekly planning we got a call from President Morrise (the mission president) telling us that our area will be combining with the sisters who cover the 금천 (Keumcheon) 2nd ward. (Natasha is serving in the Keumcheon 1st Ward) We got our transfer calls on Sunday morning telling us that Sister Driscoll will be leaving, sister Hammel will be leaving (she's going home!!), and Sister Hoffman and I will be combining the areas. I'm a bit nervous but I know that it's right so it feels good and I can feel calm.

We had dinner with a family who has a daughter who served with Emi (Natasha's best friend and roommate at BYU who recently finished her mission in Laie Hawaii)!
 
I have been interested in prayer lately because I believe that through prayer we can know God's will and better be able to accomplish His will but I'm not always sure how to have such wonderful prayers. These are some things that I enjoyed while studying True to The Faith:
If you have a difficult task before you, Heavenly Father is pleased when you get on your knees and ask for help and then get on your feet and go to work. We will help you in all your righteous pursuits, but He seldom will do something for you that you can do for yourself."

And in the Bible Dictionary we can read that sometimes we cannot secure blessings for ourselves and others that God is waiting to give to us until we ask. And sometimes our "no" answer is because the time isn't right and sometimes it's because our minds aren't the minds of Christ. When we pray in His name, we need to think as He thinks and ask for the things that He wants us to ask for. He knows what we need and what we should ask for. We can also know what to say as we follow the Spirit in our prayers.