August 19, 2013
Hello!
Time for fun
things, report of the week! Pictures first: I rode a camel last week right
after I emailed y'all :) It's been on my bucket list, and it was actually a
pretty lame ride, but I rode a camel! (I got permission and everything, don't
worry :)) and then there’s a view from our house (one with the trees), and a
view from the 35th floor of our ward mission leader's house (their family is
the best. They're super fun and fed us delicious food ;)) but the picture
doesn't do it justice. Seoul is fantastic. And then a picture of...something
else. I forgot :)
And if we ever
find a post office, a letter will be on its way! After three weeks, I had time
to write like half a letter...It doesn't say anything exciting, because I say
everything in the email anyway, but it's just always fun to get a letter. Like
I said, even if it has the contents of the Declaration of Independence in it.
Hopefully the letter is a little more exciting than that, but no guarantees :)
Woot!
This week was GREAT! And looking back seems like it started forever ago, so
much has happened. Yes, so last P-day we went to the zoo. The animals are the
same ;);. It was funny though. The Korean sister in our house would teach us
some of the animal names and we'd walk around saying "monkey!
monkey!" and people would look at us funny. Oh, the adventures of
a foreigner :). (I got my foreigner card
today! I'm official!) And then we delivered cookies to some less active sisters
- they were kind of ugly cookies, but hopefully not too bad (separate but
related note - there's a recent convert in our ward who we help with
English often (English is a big deal here. I've started talking to some
people just because they're excited to try out their English on a native
speaker. It's fun!) and she was talking about how if/when she goes to America,
she wants to eat "USA cookie" and "USA bread" because
they're so delicious :) (But bread really is different here. No Great Harvest.
It's not bad though! Also, there are little toast stands on the sides of the
street :) (I don't know how many parentheses I’m into right now :)))))) And
then we did a service project with the missionaries in our zone and cleaned up
a mountain - I was excited because I've wanted to go hiking... Service
and Hiking? Can life get any better? I submit that it canNOT! And then we had
family home evening with the ward (on Tuesday, so they can do FHE as a family,
then another with the ward if they like) and played ping pong - I'm awful.
AWFUL. Anyway, we had a lot of meetings and activities this week, so I promise
I'm also going to talk about lessons and investigators and miracles soon :)
We also had a Sister's Conference for the whole mission, which was super fun
and uplifting - church isn't as spiritually refreshing as it usually is because
I don't know what anyone is saying. Thank goodness the Spirit is the same
throughout languages/countries/etc. But I realized just how young our mission
is - as in I recognized more than half of the people there from the MTC;
probably the majority of us have been out less than two months. This is going
to be quite an adventure :)
So
by Thursday night, we finally had time for lessons. Yay! Lessons are the best.
So we have one investigator who is leaving for Thailand in a couple weeks.
She's fantastic. We're actually going to
go play with her and a member later today for P-day. But lesson-wise; we're
feeling stuck; sometimes, it's hard to know how to help. She believes, but her
parents are strongly Catholic, and she is hesitant about breaking from that
family tradition. And I respect that. We don't want to be "that pushy
missionary", because my purpose for being here is not baptismal
statistics. It's to help people be happier and come unto Christ. But through
making covenants, we can receive that additional guidance and peace - anyway, a
hard spot to be. (and hard to explain fully in the few minutes I have to email.
Obviously more thoughts and feelings and gospel principles and stories than
that.) So we continue! Another one of our investigators, the one who speaks
pretty good English, is also great :). We talked about a lot of things
this week (that's one thing I like about her, we just talk. It's not a lesson.
That's ideal, because I like just talking to people about awesome things!!) A
couple things I want to share, because I loved the whole discussion - she said
that she likes meeting with us because she sees a different "energy"
in the missionaries than everyone else, and she likes that; she wants people to
be able to see that in her. At first she thought it was just in the
missionaries, but as she met and talked with the members last week, she thinks
that it's more of the people in our church that have that "energy".
She then talked about how confusing religions and truth is (and really,
especially in Korea, religion is confusing. There are churches on every corner,
meeting every day of the week, with their "전도서s" (kind of like missionaries,
but more like run around and yell at everyone to repent and come to
their church. (I very much want to avoid being a "REPENT!" person,
because that sort of force and overbarance is not a part of the Gospel. In that
sense, it was very helpful for me to hear what she had to say about our
"energy" - the Spirit :))) and that everyone has their
own opinion, and there are parts that are right about everything it
seems, so how do you know what truth really is? And then she said she met
the missionaries, who told her that she could know and could find that truth
for herself. That truth that doesn't change as opinions change. What is
real. And for me, that is one of the best things about this Gospel -- that I
can gather opinions and listen to everyone, but when everything is crazy and
changing, I have this secure base that I can always return to because it's so
real -- in every circumstance. I love it! :D
Anyway, that's
most for this week :)
Love you all!
Sister Thomas
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