Interesting pictures from our area. Old amn pulling cart, Friends sleeping after preparing us dinner at the church and the crazy overhead wiring along the streets!

MORE CREEPY MAN STORIES

For some reason me and my companion always meet creepy old men on the streets of Korea. This never happened when I was with my korean companions. Saturday afternoon we were setting up street boards and a man taps me and Sister McCellan on the shoulder. We turn around to see the man, who just last week asked us if we would like to go drinking and dacing with him. We relectunatly replied, "yes". Then he went in to hug my companion who quickly said "no". Then he explains to us that is how they greet in America. "No its not" we told him. Then he explains how in Korea they hug and kiss when they greet. Lie. Koreans are the most akward people when it comes to touching. They give the most uncomfortable hugs. So he keeps on saying this to us and trying to hug us. Then very sternly I told him. "No! We are missionaries. We are not interested. Go!" So he left. He is almost 50 years old. Eww.

Then my favorite moment of the week just happened yesterday. We were down in a harder area, doing "MORMON.ORG". It is this gaint orange poster with out church website in white, and conference pictures from the Engisn. We get so much attention when we use it. Everyone looks and sounds out "mormon". So its a great way to begin talking to people. They are so curious. Well this 60ish looking men walks up to me and starts talking english. Apparently a long time ago he use to attend one of our missionary english classes. So he knows very well who we are. Then not long into the conversation he tells me

"Your beautiful". 

     "Thanks!?!"

"Do you have a boyfriend in Korea?"

      "No"

"I will be your Boyfriend."

      "No, I have a boyfriend in America." That was a lie, but it did not stop him. At this point I tried to bring the conversation back to the gospel and english class. But he was rather persistant.

"Your are so beautiful. Your teeth are good."

     "Thanks!" I reply with a laugh.

"The more I look at you, the more I love you." In my head I am thinking this man is ridiculous. He is almost 60, shorter than me with a pot belly and has rotting teeth with gold fillings.

"Will you marry me?"
    "No!" By this point my companion, who is right behind me is laughing, as well as myself. We very kindly tell him we have an appointment and leave. As we walk away he says, "I still want to talk to you."

But out of all these creepy man stories, saturday during street boarding we had great conversations with people. Got to talk in-depth to a lady about the Book of Mormon and Joseph Smith, me and Sister McCellan taught a girl why our church is different, we got two numbers, one by a girl who gave it to Sister McCellan before she even asked for it. In fact yesterday night she called us. We were asleep at the time, but will get back to her soon. We've been meeting great potentials on the streets. Its great. I love it.

FROM TWO TO TWELVE

At the beginning of this transfer we had two investigators who both got baptized within the first two weeks of the transfer.

Over the course of six weeks the Lord really has blessed us and we have picked twelve new investigators! Amazing. Me and my companion have been looking back and wondering how did we pick this many new people. We don't know. Its defiantly not from anything we did, the Lord has just been blessing us. But we must be doing something right to recieve so many blessings. We are excixted because of those 12 investigators we have three families, a couple and are teaching an older woman. Cool.

One of the families we picked up this tuesday. This women randomly called us and set up an appointment. We started 30/30 program with them. There is a mom and three girls ages, 11, 8, and 4. Years ago the mom had attended one of Church's english classes and the Father learned english from the missionaries and is now a English teacher. So they have a history with our church. Maybe now is the time, gospel will become more of the focus. They have no religious background, which makes it easier. The youngest girl was insane. She kept on kicking my back, screamed all the time, pretended to stab me with a fork, stuffed paper in my mouth and when she went to the bathroom she purposely mooned me and Sister McCellan. She was waving her butt at us and smiling. She was crazy! But they are a super fun family and we like them alot already. Its a good thing we both like kids and have patience for insanity. Seems to be regular accournace on missions, but normally the crazy people are old drunk men. 

A REGULAR WEEK IN HWAGOK

Well, can't say my weeks lately have been very eventful. But we did pick up three investigators, so that is very exciting. Then a couple days ago, we are waiting at the bus stop. And i was texting in Korea to an investigator telling them we will be 15 minutes late (becasue of the stupid bus) and his man stops right next to me and is leaning over to look at what I am doing. He then ask "You speak Korean" We reply yes, not very excitited to talk to this man. Most men who approach us end up being creepy. Which againg was proven in this story too. He said alot to us, but we didn't understand. So we start telling him we are missionaries and he tells us is not interested at. And then says some more things we dont' understand so he tries to speak english with us instead. And keeps on saying a word that sounds like "Bee". Then we found out he is was saying "Lets go get a Beer". And we are like "no". Then he asks "Lets go dancing." And we say "no". The best park is this man is in his mid-40s. Why would he ever think 20 year old American girls would be interested in him. Men can be so dumb. Then we just kept on bringing up church and he eventually left. Thank goodness. I am so annoyed with this stupid men.

Also, for a missionary church activity I made brownies, but inorder to make Korean Brownie mix you just add water. Then they taste mediocre. So I did some Betty Crocker magic and added a little oil and an egg. They turned out great. The Bishop's wife I was impressed. But sadly I put myself to shame because I made a potato soup for a linger longer after church and It had a slight burnt taste. I was embarrassed. But people said they like and one of the Elders really liked it, but sometimes I don't think boys have tastebuds. But that was my week. I enjoyed it. :) LOVE YOU ALL!!!!!!!

ANOTHER WEEK

Nothing exciting has happened this past week. Yesterday was one of Korea's big holidays. But even though it is a big holiday, it doesn't feel like anything compared to how America does holidays. In America people go all out with decorations and sales. Maybe it is a little over the top, but I love it and miss it. In Korea they sell this fansy packages of fruit or canned tuna and their is a significant less amount of people on the streets of Seoul.

Also, yesterday we has a combined zone conference. It started at 9am, but me and my companion didn't arrive there until 9:45! We had to transfer trains and somehow we missed our stop. It was only two stations after the transfer, but we went six stations beyond our stop until we realized it. I was checking on our phone to see how much londer we had left. It said 7 minutes. Then a little while later I checked it again and it said 10minutes. We like "crap", because it was already 9am! So we had to get turned around and finally when we got to the stop we got lost trying to find the church because thier were 8 exits to choose from and we had only been to that church once before. It was embarrassing. Our zone leaders texted us "Where are you?" We called them and they told us how to get to the church. After conference we had P-Day till 9pm! So pretty much everyone just hung our, played games and talked. It was fun.

So today I made my companion cry a little during companionship study. She is not passed off so we were doing pass-off practice. And while she taught I ekpt on asking quesionts about everything, just micking people we teach and she got so frustrated and was like "Really?" Then she broke into tears and started saying "I can't teach. I can't speak Korean." My poor companioin gets easily stressed and has no confidence in her abilities. We talked it out and she is fine now. Just kind of funny, cause it happens like once a week. But she is fun and a great missionary, just easily overwhelmed. Poor thing. She told me I am way harder to role play then with District, Zone Leaders and the AP's who she has to pass-off. Ooops! LOL.

Well...today is freezing. So i can't say that i am excited to proselyete. Aah!!! Why does it have to be so cold? Oh that reminds me, we had a cool experience on the train home yesterday from combined zone conference. We are sitting and this guy standing next to us is kind of staring. So I make my Book of Mormon more visible, becaue we aren't aloud to talk to men, unless they say somehting to us first. So eventually he ask "Do you know Lee GeeMin?" He was our old AP. We said, "Yes..." We start talking to him and find out he met with the missionaries almost two years ago, but moved and lost contact. He wants to come to church and start meeting with the misionaries again. So we got his number and will refer to that areas Elders. Its really cool to see how the Lord accomplish his work. Out of all the 25 million people living in Seoul, he stood next to us on the train! Think about it. So cool.

A BAPTISM AND A DRUNK MAN

Yesterday we had a baptism for a girl named Lee Ah Rhan. SHe is 18 years old. Her friend was baptized a year ago, but quickly went inactive because it was her senior school of high school. And in korea that means you go to school at 6am and don't come home till midnight. Its a really stressful year and they never have time for much. Her friend's name is Son Gee Won. Well Gee Won came to church and invited Ah Rhan to come along. That was in December and since then she has never missed a Sunday. My Companion, Sister McCellan and Sister Paul started teaching her December 20th, 2011. They taught her twice, until I came in and replaced Sister Paul. Within two weeks we taught Ah Rhan the remaining lessons and got her ready for baptism on January 15th 2012. The second time she met with the missionaries, they watched The Testaments with her and at the end of movie she asked "When do I get baptized?" She was golden!

Her baptism was wonderful, her mom was able to come and our mission president was unexpectedly there. We sand alond with the elders "Teach me to walk in the Light." And Ah Rhan's friend Gee Won shared her testimony. It was so good. She talked about how she wasn't able to come to church and how she forgot alot, but because of Ah Rhan, her faith has been renuined. Really sweet testimony, she started crying. Since they are great friends I think they will help each other stay strong in the church. Afterwards, we ate Costco muffins, bananas and Caprisans. For Ah Rhan we bought her a skirt, she didn't own one, and a picture of Christ from the Plan of Salvation Pamphlet. It was kind of a joke because when we showed her that picture the first thing she said was "He is sexy." She was embarassed when she found out it was Christ. Overall, such a wonderful baptism!!!

Now for another exciting drunk/crazy man story. Love my new area. So we are stopped in the subway station as I am looking for my subway card. As I am looking this man comes out of no where up to Sister McCellan and says "Hi" in Korean to her. He ask where are you going, she tells him, and he suggest that we go together. Shortly after I found my card and quickly scanned into to the subway with Mccellan right behind me. This old man is tailing us and telling her and me that we are beautiful and just won't leave us alone, even though we are ignoring him. A subway is stopped, I just jump on not knowing if it is the right one. Sister Mccellan gets on as the doors are closing and so does this man who then gets stuck in the door. The whole train gasp. We just stand there staring at him not knowing what to do, and the people on the train stare at him to us, to him again. He doesn't seem very concerned because he casual ask a korean if this train went to a certian station. The doors open again and slowly steps off the train as the doors close again, but he manages to pull his body out. Good to know God watches over you and gets the crazy's stuck in doors so you can run away.

Then while street boarding shortly after the drunk man we had a lady riding a bike with a kid hit one of our street boards. Thankfully her and her kid were fine, but she destroyed out street board statnd. Pinched the leg off and parts were just falling off as we put it away. Sad thing it I didn't give her our card!

 

힐 자매

      Sister Hill

NEW AREA

Exciting news, I am no longer in my greenie area. My new area is close into Seoul. I LOVE IT. So different from my first area. Its alot of people and all these small apartments crammed together and these randomly planned streets. This area is so confusing. Especially finding homes. The numbers jump from 20 to 70. The address system here makes no sense. We got lost for one hour on these creepy streets and no people. We were fine. It just makes you a little paranoid.

When transfer calls came my greenie, Sister Ha, hands me the phone and says you are transfering. They news was exciting, but i am sad to not spend another transfer with Sister Ha, she is great. She was so cute and started crying. She didn't want me to leave and was scared about getting a new companion. The only bad thing with transfers is that it happened before a baptism we had scheculed for that sunday. When I called Yoon Sang Ah to tell her I was transfering and if we could see her that next night before I left she just screamed on the phone. And then when we met her the next night she started crying when she saw me. I just love the relationships you build with investigators, because I can't say much Korean still, but you just have this special bond with them and love for them. Its great. She was so sweet and bought me and goodbye present and we took lots of pictures together.

But the good thing is my new area had a baptism this past sunday too (Sister Paul went from my new area to my old area. We just swictched places) So we went on splits and me and Sister Paul were both able to see our investigators baptism. Such a blessing!!!!! Yoon Sang Ah baptism was great, us and the Elders sang primary songs. Its was not well sung, but she was crying the whole time. The spirit is so strong on baptisms, and I love seeing how it effects the investigators, its just confirms to them that they are making the right decision. Even after the baptism she started rying again. So adorable.

Then after the baptism we visited a member along with a girl named Kim Joo Mong. We gave her a baptismal commitment 3 transfers ago, but this cute little girl feels pressure easily and said no. She wants baptism, but the commandments scare her. Just about "what if i make a mistake/" SHe is only 11 years old. She is friends with the members son and always goes to church with them. It was good just to see her and talk. Build a friendship and she was sweet and just gave me a hug because I was leaving. So hard to leave theses people. you just love them so much. But she will be okay. But the member who is this little girl's fellowshipper is an amazing Traditional Korean Artist. A couple weeks ago I asked if I could buy a painting. And , being korea, she said no I will just paint one for free for you. Koreans are soo giving.So yesterday she showed me the painting and I ws so shocked. I expected a little painting. But no, she is painting me two that will be a set and they are both 2 feet tall. Absoluely beautiful!!! This will be the coolest thing I bring home from Korea. I gave her cookies yesterday, but it is not enough. Not sure what I can give her, but I really want to give her something cool. Any ideas?

Oh quick,funny things that have happened in my life. One with our investigator E Ah Ran. She is 18 years old and after first lesson go a baptism commitment, said "yes" and will get baptized this sunday, three weeks from when she was committed. Anways, we taught her Plan of Salavation and gave her the pamphlet for her to read. She looks at it and points to the front picture and says "He is sexy", in english. We just start laughing and say "that is Jesus". She always ssays hilarious things. She also thinks Joseph Smith is handsome. She is hilarious. Then on the subway back to my new area, there was this really drunk old man sitting across from us. And he was talking so loud to us and saying we looked like movie stars and mad a heart shape with his arms and told us he loved us. And that his home of open to us. He was harmless, but we still walked quickly away from him once we got off the subway. Love my new area!

힐 자매

      Sister Hill