Letter 10/6/2014

We have our 'culture night' FHE (family home evening) activity this Thursday so we've spent a lot of time preparing for it.

We at times offer to teach our English class students one on one to help them learn English better and so that we can teach them the gospel (30 minutes of English, 30 minutes of gospel) but they usually turn us down because they're not interested in religion. So Sister Blickenstaff and I took a couple of our students out (one sinlge girl and one family with two boys) out for dinner. We went to a restaurant with the girl and we made dinner (curry rice) for the family at the church. We wanted to make Chinese beef and broccoli but after a series of events that prevented that from happening, we just put the beef and broccoli into the curry. I've never had curry like that and I'm sure they haven't either but it all turned out well.

At our service project we help mentally handicapped men and women stretch and play sports. One girl is really hard to understand so she was really angry with us the first time we went because we couldn't understand her and she called us "바보"(Bubo - Fools) but we became friends this last week.

On Wednesday morning at 8am I got a call from our fix-it man telling me that he was coming to fix our shower. We let him in and got back to studies. When companionship study came around I popped my head out of our study room to see what all of the noise was, I saw that our tub was GONE! "자매님! (Jamae-nim! - Sisters!) We don't have a tub anymore! Only a dirt floor!" They then put in tile on the floor so that our bathroom is just a giant shower. The problem was that we couldn't use the shower for two days! So we just hopped over to our neighboring sisters in 영등포 (Yeong-Dong-Po), announced to our ZLs (Zone Leaders) that we were leaving our zone, and were able to use their shower and have a sleepover (missionary sleepovers consist more of just enjoying each other's company and not getting hyper because no one wants to put off going to bed). And then we hopped over the river to the temple the next day.

After the temple on Thursday we went to Gangnam to meet Sister Blickenstaff's recent convert. We had lunch with her and tried to help her get excited for the temple.

We taught two women for the first time this week. I had met one woman on the bus about a month ago and she rejected me when I called her again but she suddenly called us wanting to meet. She and her cousin both wanted truth so they came to us because they liked the impression they got from us. We were excited. We met them at a park and we split up and taught them both seperately. The woman Sister Blickenstaff taught loved the first lesson until Joseph Smith came up and then she got mad because "Joseph Smith is not mentioned in the book of Revelations." The woman I taught was nice. She had a lot of doubts about the Bible and was confused by some scientific evidences to prove the Bible to be wrong. I tried to teach her to ask God for her answers (James 1:5, Moroni 10) but instead of getting excited about that, she got excited that I receive answers to my prayers and asked me to be her oracles, receiving answers in her behalf. But that's not going to happen.

Letter 9/29/2014

I'm wearing the cute black and white floral button-up shirt you gave me. The last time I wore it a woman said to me, "You bought this in Korea, right? It's so cute so I know you bought it in Korea."(it's from Old Navy in the U.S. :)

We spent a lot of time this week visiting less actives to make sure that we visited them all by the end of the week. We had a good turn-out for our special sacrament meeting! It was an exciting day! We all ate food together afterwards and it was fun to see the less actives talk with the members while they ate.

On one night we mapped out which less actives we would visit and in which order. After we got off our bus and walked towards our first destination, I realized that we were standing in front of the apartment where the second LA lived, not the first. I was annoyed wih myself for making a mistake, expcially because it would take extra time to have to go back to the first apartment. We decided to just go the the second less active first (confused yet?). We happened to have a PI (potential investigator?) in this same apartment that we hadn't been able to make an apointment with yet and since we were standing closest to her house we decided to go there first. When the PI answered her door, she told us that she was so happy we had stopped by right then because she hadn't been home all day and she was about to leave her house again. I was annoyed for my mistake but it turned out to be for the better because we wouldn't have met her if we had followed our plans!

While I was on an exchange this week I taught a woman in their area (the area where the sister she did the exchange with serves). As we were talking, she asked us if we can feel the Spirit all of the time because she really wants to feel the Spirit all of the time. It was so sweet to hear her say that she wants to feel God's Spirit because she knows how it will bless her. She said that she had become a better person since she started meeting with the missionaries and she has been trying to be nice to her family and more like Jesus!

We had president interviews on Friday. We were able to have 20 minutes, rather than the normal 15. I love talking to my president because he always says the perfect things. And he always makes me feel like I'm the best missionary, even though I'm sure he says the same things to other missionaries. He knows how to uplift me. I've learned a lot from him and I'm so grateful to have him as my mission president.

Letter 9/22/2014

Jee-Seung (a 15 year old recent convert) is so amazing. She inspires me so much. I'm so glad that I have the opportunity to know her. She just gets it. Although so many people struggle with the Book of Mormon in Korean because it's so difficult (the formal old fashioned language is difficult) she doesn't have a hard time with it. I think it's like Isaiah. It's hard but if you have the spirit and the desire to understand it, you can. We had just had an investigator tell us that no one likes the Book of Mormon and no one wants to read it. So Jee-Seung almost made me cry when she told me that she didn't have a hard time reading it and she enjoys reading it. She's amazing!

We've been working really hard to organize and visit our less actives this week. We were having a hard time coordinating with our elders so we finally just told them to visit the men and we would visit all of the women. And things have been good! We have a special sacrament meeting coming up!

I had an exchange this week with Sister Glauser. She's one of my favorite people. She just gets it about missionary work. She knows why she's here and she's going to do everything required to do what God wants her to. I sometimes feel especially  impressed to talk to someone on the street but it seems to me that whenever this happens the person is extra rejecting. It's usually a random person in a place that I would have to go far out of my way to talk to (and sometimes turn around to someone behind me or cross the street). So I was talking to Sister Glauser about this because the promptings just lead to rejection. And she said she has a the same problem. We both came to the conclusion that sometimes God asks us to do things to test us to see if we'll really do what He asks. If I'm not willing to talk to everyone and go to great lengths to talk to people that I feel that I need to, why would God send me a prepared person? How could He trust me to find them?

Sister Glauser and I were talking to a woman who wasn't interested but when we asked her to let us know if she knew of any service opportunities for us she offered to buy us dinner!

A less active woman in our ward who moved out of our boundaries but prefers our ward called us on Friday wanting to meet immediately. We got permission to leave our zone to go meet her, not knowing why she suddenly wanted to meet us. But she wanted to meet to give us her tithing! It was so sweet to see her hand us her tithing envelope.

Sister Kei and I met a cute girl from South Africa on the street back in June but we were never able to meet with her. I had a feeling to call her the other day and we were finally able to meet her yesterday! She's so cute! And it was fun to teach in English! Holy Moses, my English has gone downhill. She came here as a missionary through her church but when she got here she found out that instead of teaching about the gospel, she was surprised with teaching English instead.  It was sad. She's been here for 2 years. She read along in her Bible and we were surprised when we asked her to read James 1:5 and it used completely different words than we are used to. (probably because of the "modern" translations) But we're excited for her!

Letter 9/15/2014

On Monday (the main day of the Chuseok holiday) we went to stop by less active member's homes because we couldn't make appointments and the streets were rather empty. We wanted to
 leave messages on their doors but we actually met a less active girl that I have been trying to meet for 6 months!!!

On Tuesday we had a mission conference for Choo-Seok (The Chuseok holiday). It was fun! We received training, had a proselyting activity, had a talent show and members made Korean food for us!

I had a sister on an exchange with me who is a really good singer so while we were visiting a member I asked her if she'd sing with me and it really helped to bring the spirit and help all three of us to learn more from each other. I was so grateful to have her there. I always see miracles on exchanges (when she goes on splits with other sister missionaries to train them). I always see why each person was supposed to go/stay in the areas and why everything worked out the way it did on the exchanges.

We have a ward activity coming up in October that we're in charge of. It's a culture night and each missionary is supposed to prepare food from each country (Japan, China, Thailand, US, Mexico, Germany). We have to make enough food to feed 100 people! And we have to make the food at the activity with the guests. Any ideas of what I can do for Japanese food?

Thursday was my one-year mark! Already! I don't understand! It came so fast! To celebrate we ate bing-soo!

I had the weirdest day of my mission on Friday! But i's a really long story. It will have to wait until after the mission.

Our proselyting tool focus this last week was the Book of Mormon. It was amazing to see how many people actually asked me about the Book of Mormon first. I was able to share the purpose and my testimony of the Book of Mormon to people on the street all week.

Letter 9/8/2014

We're really happy to find a PC-Bang (internet cafe) that's open. We were worried that we wouldn't be able to email because everything shuts down. (It was Chuseok - Korean Thanksgiving) Today we're going to 영등포(Yeongdeungpo - and area) as a gathering of whoever wants to go to play games and watch 17 Miracles!!!!!!!! And tomorrow we have a mission conference with a talent show, training, food, and a proselyting activity. The holiday times are really ineffective (for missionary work). REALLY ineffective. The holiday was lengthened this year for the first time. 

I asked her about Elder Aoyagi's (a member of the Quorum of the Seventy who is from Japan) mission tour, which she went on with him as a Sister Training Leader. This is her response:

He had a translator with him at stake conference but he didn't have a translator at mission tour because he just spoke English and then other missionaries translated into Korean for the Korean missionaries. I sat on the stand next to Sister Aoyagi to translate for her. She had a copy of her husband's talks in Japanese so I only translated for President and Sister Morrise's talks and the comments made by missionaries. I was kind of embarrassed by my Japanese but anyways. We had a meeting afterwards with the ZLs and STLs (zone leaders & sister training leaders) to ask him questions. I translated for her then too and I translated for him a little bit (for him I translated from Japanese into English and for her I translated from English into Japanese). It was scary! My brain was fried at the end of the day! 

Letter 9/1/2014

We had transfers on Wednesday! I think I already told you what was going to happen but Sister Blickenstaff has come to join us. Our five-man house is a mad house. (There is also another companionship of sisters in the apartment.)

This week will be crazy. Wc have MLC (Mission Leader Conference - I believe - for Zone Leaders and Sister Training Leaders) and our ward council meeting on Tuesday, Elder Aoyagi's (a member of the Quorom of the Seventy who is Japanese) mission tour conference on Wednesday, and zone training on Friday. I'm pretty certain we'll be okay. MLC is going to be different and we have a lot more to prepare for it. I'm really excited for our mission tour.

We had stake conference this weekend and Elder Aoyagi came to our stake! It was so fun!

A few weeks ago one of my sisters (on an exchange) told me that she wanted to hear what Japanese sounds like so I told her I would pray in Japanese for our next prayer. But it turned into a lot of silence and almost 50% Korean. I was so sad to have forgotten my Japanese. I was devastated but I trusted God that He would give it back to me if I focused now and studied Korean as well as I can. I was a little bit worried for Elder Aoyagi's talk but I understood everything!! (He would have spoken in Japanese, and then had it translated into Korean) (maybe with the exception of a few words but then Korean pulled through and helped too) I was so happy. Listening to Japanese was like Christmas!

We taught three people for the first time this week and we're excited for two of them (one of them dropped us the next day because she didn't want to be pressured to be baptized as she was just English interest and she wanted to cut the cords before we became friends and it became hard). One is a girl our age and she's super sweet and nice. She goes to school is ANSAN (Natasha's first area where the high school students that died in the ferry accident were from) and she comes home on the weekends. The other is a woman who was referred to us because SHE WANTS TO LEARN ABOUT THE BOOK OF MORMON!

Letter 8/25/2014

A sister who used to serve here has been in town and we have been able to meet less active members through her coming and it has been really good!

We had two exchanges again this week! (She goes on training exchanges with other sister missionaries as a Sister Training Leader) I'm grateful that I get to know all of my sisters! I've learned so much from all of them!

We went to the temple on Thursday! I appreciate it more and more every time I go.

We went to the Spanish embassy on Friday to get Sister Lee's visa! She's leaving in just a few weeks! (Her companion has been waiting for a visa so that she can leave to serve her mission in Madrid, Spain. She has been assigned to Natasha temporarily, while she waits for her visa)

We got transfer calls on Sunday morning! We normally have them on Saturday night but they delayed them at the last minute because President didn't feel ready to assign the trasnfers. We have a new companion! Sister Blickenstaff! We will be a threesome until Sister Lee leaves. I don't know her at all but I've heard good things about her. I'm so glad our area isn't being shut down! I was worried! Three sisters areas shut down this transfer and five more will be shut down next trasnfer!!!!! We got one sister this transfer but she's Korean! She's our first Korean sister to come to the mission since lst Spetember! Everyone's excited!

We have had a recent boom in potential investigators and it's really exciting right now!