TWO TRANSFERS LEFT

Tonight is transfer calls. We are pretty positive me and Sister Cho will not be staying together. Really sad, because we love being together.

This past week, on Wednesday, we gathered together to hear Our Mission President's Farewell Speech. He is leaving after this week. So sad. He is a great man. So humble, always smiling. I will miss him and his wonderful wife.

Then Sunday, yesterday, was Ward Conference, so we wore our HanBoks. The members loved it. But I realized while in the elevator I forgot to but on my massacre. So I just looked gross in all the pictures. Its so hot in Korea. We are always sweaty and having that little touch of massacre makes a difference.

Later that day we went and did a lot of street contacting. We had fallen behind 40 contacts and needed to catch up. The hour went well but we met a man who I got so frustrated with. He started out by asking if we knew Mitt Romney and then ask "What do you believe?"

Sister Cho gave him a summary of the restoration and other basic Beliefs. Then he went off about how a church needs to have an apostleship. Which we told him we did, but of course he refused to listen. He would just talk over us. So finally I asked him a question "Is there a true church on the earth?" And he ignored my question. So my companion said, "She asked you a question and repeated the question. All he said in response was "no church is perfect." He was so annoying. He just wanted to argue. He didn't believe he even went to the true church. Then he just talked to only my companion and told her "This American is lost, but you, as a Korean, have a chance to really think about these things. Then Sister Cho responded, "I am Korean-American". LOL. I just stopped saying anything, because I was so annoyed with this man. It was not easy keeping a smile. Sister Cho wrapped it up nicely by simply telling him he can know for himself if these things are true or not. Then he left.

I have met several people like this on the street. Every time afterwards and during the conversation I am so frustrated. Because they are out to prove you wrong and have no desire to hear what you have to say. But every time it happens, it strengthens my testimony because this church has the answers that depute their claims or even supports their argument of what the true church has. Even though that man said Christ's Church needs an apostleship and we AGREED! He ignored that and continued to argue about it, when there was no argument to be had. Aaaah!!! The saying is so true, if they are a prepared person, they will listen.

ANOTHER TRANSFER ALMOST DONE

There is one week left in the transfer! I hope to stay in this area with my companion. We don't want to leave each other! On the way to the Community Center to email today, a grandma stopped us and smacked my stomach and told me I need to lose weight. Its hard to be offended when they are smiling. They really say it with such concern in their voice...but it still makes me feel FAT! As we walked away she smacked my butt and told us to work hard. せ せ せ

This week has been soooooooo busy. First Monday we went to the zoo and I got to hold a snake and best of all a BABY LEOPARD. He was so cute. Then, Wednesday we had our ward picnic. But the day before, the Elders decided to make 200 cookies for our members. And gave us some of the work. The only problem was I also had to prepare lunch for our Thursday Zone Meeting. I had to prepare food for 12 people, and I decided to try and make kimchi for the first time.

So from 10am to 11pm on Tuesday we were running around. At 10am I made cookie dough so the Elders could cook some, because we wouldn't have time that day to do it. At 11am we got ingredients for our Thursday lunch. Then we ate lunch. Then at 12:30pm we went and did a lesson with our eternal investigator Je InSheer. After six years of being taught we determined from that lesson, she is still not ready and needs to be dropped. It was good because we both agreed that is what needed to be done.

Then after teaching her we had to go travel 30 minutes to another area for an appointment at 2pm. We are trying to regular meet this part-member, less-active family. Their little girl HeeJean really likes us and was super outgoing this time. The first time we met she was so shy and didn't really talk. But that was not the problem this time. It was fun. And we just taught her about prayer and families being blessed by the gospel. She still is not officially an investigator, but we hope we can just establish a regular meeting schedule and continue to build a relationship with this family. So exciting.

Then we went back towards the church and tried to visit a less active, but the daughter wasn't home. We wanted to invite her to the ward picnic, but the mom, who is also less active gave us a referral! Then we headed back to the church for an appointment at 5pm. It was our first time meeting her, the Elders had met her on the street last week.

After that we went and ordered a pizza and while it was being cooked did street contacting. After that we had to buy some extra baking ingredients and then went home. Once home Sister Cho made cookies and I made Water Kimchi. In between all the cooking we did records. We ended up not making it to bed till 11pm, because my kimchi took longer then expected. That was just Tuesday!

Then Wednesday we met our investigator we had just miraculously found on the street last Saturday, in the morning and together went to the ward picnic. The picnic was so much fun. Had a water-gun fight, played dodgeball, kickball and ate meat. It was a perfect day and our investigator really enjoyed it.

After getting back home we were too tired to go outside. So we stayed inside doing phone calls, organization and updating records. And all in between that, I boiled Potatoes.

On Thursday morning I just cooked and finished preparing lunch. It was a lot of work but the end result was good. I made a main dish of chicken and a side dish of spicy potatoes, cucumber salad and water kimchi. Then for dessert we had bought ice cream. It was a cheap meal.

Only $4 per person. When I told the Elders I made the Kimchi, Elder Choi said "No you did not make that kimchi. Don't lie to me." But I did and my companion loves to tell Korean that on the street because they are so shocked. And I must say for my first time it came out great! And everyone loved it. There were no left-overs! It was a success.

Because of how busy the beginning of our week was we didn't have a lot of time to do proselyting. So By Friday we were 40 contacts behind and if you add the daily goal to that, it is 60. But Friday we had very little time to do proselyting again, only 25 minutes. But miraculously within that amount of time we contacted 33 people and by the end of the day we reached 41. And then Saturday we were able to reach 40 within a very short amount of time. It was a huge blessing, because then we weren't worried about how low our contacting numbers were and we were able to reach our week's goal despite how busy we were. It was all thanks to God's helping hand that we were able to do that. And when we contacted people it didn't drag, but went quickly and was fun. Huge blessing.

This past week has felt like two weeks! We saw so many miracles and received many tender mercies from the Lord. Also, our investigator who went to the picnic also came to church! So exciting!

FOUR MIRACLES

For the past transfer and a half me and my companion have only found two investigators. But over that time both of them dropped and we were left with our one slowly progressing investigator and an eternal investigator. We have been working so hard to find people who want to meet, but have had no success. And my Mission President foretold this to me in an interview I had with him, "Don't get frustrated when you can't find investigators." Well, I am happy to report within the past week we have picked up four new investigators! And the dry-spell has ended!

First, Tuesday, the Elders and us switched potentials we would be meeting that day. They met the guy we had and we met the mom and daughter they were going to meet. It worked out perfectly. First time meeting them all. The mom and daughter are English interest, but are willing to learn about our gospel. So that's awesome.

Second, Saturday we met an investigator we picked up last week. And this week she brought her friend, Betty. Betty also happens to be one of our ward member's friends from School and we had met them together before on the street. Also, both of them want to go to our ward picnic this Wednesday!

Then later that day we went to go do street contacting at KooRow Station. We have no investigators in 2nd ward and decided to do more contacting in 2nd ward boundaries. We have to travel to get there, but its only a 15 minute bus ride away. On the bus I saw the place I had envisioned before to contact at, but NO ONE was there. KooRow is a business area, so Saturday at the crosswalk we found it is not busy at all. So we went to one crosswalk further down with was right outside the subway station and it was crowded with people. My companion suggested we contact her first, then go down to the other one, because I still was wanting to go to the non-busy one.

We did some contacting there. It was difficult. We were further into Seoul, so the people just ignore you and don't stop. It was hard. So then about 30 minutes later I suggested we go to the other crosswalk. We walked down there and there were two people standing there, both men. So we just stood there discussing if we should go somewhere else.

Then two-minutes after being there a woman walked up to us, 50 years old, and asks, "Are you missionaries?" We started talking with her. She is original from Busan and has only lived in Seoul for one year now.

We briefly talked about the Book of Mormon and she told us how recently she hasn't been going to church and has been wondering if God is even listening to hear. Then she said "Well, that isn't true, I met you two."!  She was so nice and we set up an appointment for the next day, Sunday, at 5pm. It so cool, because the Holy Ghost was giving us promptings on where to go. And if we had not listened and cared more about contacting tons of people, we would have never met that woman.

Sunday, was hard, it was fast Sunday. And we were not sure if we'd have time to eat, because after our 5pm appointment we had an English Coordination Meeting at 7pm. Around 3pm us and our four Elders went to KooRow Station and did contacting together. Together we accomplished more. Got phone numbers and between me and Sister Cho we got 44 contacts within an hour. It was amazing! Afterwards, the boys went back to the church and we went to go try and visit a less active before our appointment in the area. Again the Lord blessed us, and when we got to the less actives house her door was open...so she couldn't ignore us and pretend she wasn't home, like she had done to the Elders the week before. :) She was really nice, invited us in and we visited for ten minutes. She is tired and just busy with work. We hope to make our visits more regular with her.

After our visit we rushed to meet our potential investigator at a crosswalk, and she came! That's a miracle too, because so many people punk. She took us to a restaurant to feed us, which we didn't really oppose cause we were starving. After that she took us to her house.

Its a room with a bathroom and kitchen, so small. And there we answered her questions and jumped back and forth from Restoration and Plan of Salvation. Even though the lesson wasn't organized, the Spirit was there. She told us how she thought about going to her church that day, but decided not to, because she was going to meet us later. Then she asked, "Do you think God would be mad if I changed churches?" She was so kind and listened well. She told us she wants to come to church next week and we invited her to our ward picnic Wednesday and she really wants to come! She is a very outgoing person.

After our amazing time with her we went to our meeting and were 10 minutes late. But its so amazing because we had been so worried about having time to eat dinner, but the Lord took care of us and through the lady we met, fed us. Such a huge blessing.

I have seen so many miracles this week. And it was reminded me again, that this is the Lord's work. Without Him or the Spirit we won't find those prepared people.

A LONG WEEK

Time has gone by so slowly this past week. Missionary work is not happening very much in my area right now. But we did have cool miracles this past week. First, we went street boarding down from an all-girls school and I was holding our giant, orange Mormon.org poster. A old man stop and started talking with my companion. Behind the man a high school student stopped and was peering over the old man to look at the board. So I stepped off the stair I was standing on and went around the man to talk with the girl. She told me she loves English and how she watches Ugly Betty and Scrubs. Her English name is Elliot.

I introduced to her our 30/30 program and set up an appointment for later that week, Saturday. She told me and my companion how she was so excited and didn't want to leave. (excited about speaking English with foreigners). She was cool and my companion met her Saturday with Sister Jung. I went to splits to another area that day. Apparently the lesson went well and we will meet her again this Saturday.

While I talked to Elliot on the street, Sister Cho got to speak to a crazy old man. She told me afterwards how scary judgement day will be and how she needs to be prepared. He also said Jesus is on the earth today preaching and the twelve tribes of Israel have gathered and there is a million of them right now. My companion, though fluent in Korean, told him sorry I am American-Korean and can't understand. So he left. It's great that he was sharing his beliefs, but the problem is with those kind of people, is they try to prove your religion wrong and they never let you speak. Our church never tries to degrade others beliefs, we simply want to share ours and invite others to learn if interested. Later that day we also set an appointment with an old man who is really interested. We will meet him today...if we can find a woman. Wish us luck!

For my splits this week I got to serve with my old companion Sister McClellan. It was fun. It was like a normal day being together again. While walking on the road we got 18 contacts. We both realized how much we've improved since we were last together. When we were together, walking and contacting on the street was difficult for us. We'd get like 3 people in an hour. So that was cool to see how we've improved.

Together we just organized her new area's records, like we did together while in HwaGok. They were super bad. And the house was cluttered. We did a lot, but there is so much more to do. Its really sad how missionaries poorly treat the houses they stay in  just because its "temporary". Makes me mad. And so many missionaries don't bother to organize their records. Drives me crazy. The first thing I do coming into a new area is find what needs improvement and do it. I can't stand messy records and cluttered houses. I am my Father's daughter.

This next week will go by fast. Yesterday we had our Stake Picnic, tomorrow district meeting, and Thursday we have a Combined Zone Conference. Three more weeks and this transfer will be over. Goes by so fast! Also, 15 weeks left on my mission. So weird!!!