A Picture Is Worth a Thousand Words, and You Have TWO Pictures!

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Things are slowing down in the Sh___ sisters 1 area. (You know, they probably really aren't that slow, but they seem a lot slower. Just as many miracles, but not as much stuff to fill the in-betweens.) You know how we're planning to save the S___ area? Well, phase one is records. Records are a mess here, and I've never quite appreciated the importance of clean, legible, labeled, dated, and well organized records before. We have a lot of names, but no uniform "this is what happened to 
them/where they moved/there is no way to contact them anymore." So. We're starting to organize those, but unfortunately, there really aren't many exciting stories to be told about pouring over about 9 books of 옛날(suuuuuper old) records. (here's a picture of our books When we moved for the first time. We added a couple others to our pile too since then ;))

 

Monday: I went to the dentist (and will have to go again...sad face.) And then we tried to find a less active member on record, who lived out of our area. (there is a mess of people living here and there because of all the ward combinations. (My ward right now is a compilation of 3 former wards, the two in the north combined, then a lot of people moved because it became a really expensive and tourist-y area, and then those wards combined into the current Sh__ ward.) Anyway, we were in the other area, it took FOREVER to find because Korea is confusing, but we found the building, knocked on the door...and she didn't live there. It was a young mother, we talked to her for a bit, and she said we could come back Friday.

Then we got back to the house, and realized we knocked on the wrong door. And we died laughing on the floor for a long time ;) Good thing we were going back Friday! 

Tuesday, we visited another less active member. Super awkward meeting; we though we were going to meet, talk to her for a while, get to know her and her thoughts, invite her to church, etc...but she said she had 5 minutes, so it was interesting. Anyway. Then we went to President Christensen's house to talk for a little about the old wards, because he lives in the area and was here for a little bit before all the combinations...We learned a lot about things that have happened in the church in the past and such. Good information so know, and a few names and people to locate, too. And then some good old door-knocking ;)

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Snapshot number two:

Wednesday, awesome district meeting, kick off of "Save S__!"as I lovingly call it, which kick-off was pretty much me saying "we're going to try and help S___. We don't know a lot and haven't planned a lot. But we'll get back to you :)" And we've been working on a 3-phase plan ever since! And then we met Sister L___ who lives up by the old S___ church, and she's fantastic. She is really sincere in her desire to know God. She says her head knows it, but her heart doesn't yet. She's been praying to forgive someone for a long time, and so we've been talking about receiving answers to prayers. It was just a good, natural lesson, where the Spirit was felt. And we got home suuuuuuper late. 

Thursday! (Thursday, gotta get down on Thursdaaaayyy....yeah.) Well planned! Appointments! Cancelled! Another: cancelled! another: cancelled! So we dropped by a sister's house who just moved in the ward, who just got married. She was super cute and super nice, and just good to talk to. There are a lot of great people here. . .  And then we FINALLY got to meet with a referral from another area, she's about our age, originally met with missionaries for English, but is happy to learn more about God, and doesn't know or feel that He exists, but wants to. We were really happy to meet with her, and hope that our schedules will match up again! (that's a major problem here - everyone is soooo busy, with school and study and work and most especially hawg-kwon (eh..English spellings are awful.) which is like after-school school. Hooray! I'm grateful to live in America, and to know English :) 

Friday:  We met with Sister H___, who is fantastic. Just straight up fantastic. And then we went to go visit that other family again and try to find the less active that we tried to find on Monday and they weren't home. Sniffle.

Saturday! Lesson with Sister B___, another less active member we've been working with; she's super awesome :) We talked about Enos, and prayer, and how he found answers, by hearing the word, and pondering it, and asking with the intent to follow. Solid, Spirit filled, and fun! Try to find other less active members - made the mistake of being in a party part of Seoul on a Saturday night (NEVER again) and some good old street contacting! 

Sunday: I love our ward. Straight up love. It's was ward conference (they make towels to take home for ward conference! How awesome!) Anyway, there are such fantastic people and just talking to others pulls me out of my doubt-hole in my head. Our bishop was released, because their family is moving, And our ward mission leader was called to the bishopric, so it going to be a big change for us functionally. They were awesome. But it'll be fun! :D And then more records. Hoorah!

And that, my dear family, was my week in two snapshots. Whew!

Snapshot of the Week

*click!*

Things are slowing down in the __ sisters 1 area. (You know, they probably really aren't that slow, but they seem a lot slower. Just as many miracles, but not as much stuff to fill the in-betweens.) You know how we're planning to save the __ area? Well, phase one is records. Records are a mess here, and I've never quite appreciated the importance of clean, legible, labeled, dated, and well organized records before. We have a lot of names, but no uniform "this is what happened to them/where they moved/there is no way to contact them anymore." So. We're starting to organize those, but unfortunately, there really aren't many exciting stories to be told about pouring over about 9 books of 옛날(suuuuuper old) records. (here's a picture of our books when we moved for the first time. We added a couple others to our pile, too, since then ;))

Monday: I went to the dentist (and will have to go again...sad face.) And then we tried to find a less active member on record, who lived out of our area. (there is a mess of people living here and there because of all the ward combinations. (My ward right now is a compilation of 3 former wards, the two in the north combined, then a lot of people moved because it became a really expensive and tourist-y area, and then those wards combined into the current __ ward.) Anyway, we were in the other area, it took FOREVER to find because Korea is confusing, but we found the building, knocked on the door...and she didn't live there. It was a young mother. We talked to her for a bit, and she said we could come back Friday.

Then we got back to the house, and realized we knocked on the wrong door. And we died laughing on the floor for a long time ;) Good thing we were going back Friday! 

Tuesday, we went to President Christensen's house to talk for a little about the old wards, because he lives in the area and was here for a little bit before all the combinations...We learned a lot about things that have happened in the church in the past and such. Good information so know, and a few names and people ot locate too. And then some good old door-knocking ;)

Wednesday, awesome disrtict meeting, kick off of "Save __ area" as I lovingly call it, which kick-off was pretty much me saying "we're going to try and help _. We don't know a lot and haven't planned a lot. But we'll get back to you :)" And we've been working on a 3 phase plan ever since! And then we met Sister __ who lives up by the old church, and she's fantastic. She is really sincere in her desire to know God. She says her head knows it, but her heart doesn't yet. She's been praying to forgive someone for a long time, and so we've been talking about receiving answers to prayers. It was just a good, natural lesson, where the Spirit was felt. And we got home suuuuuuper late. 

Whew. Part two in a little. 

Status of the Week

(Honestly, I can't remember where last week left off and where this one started, and it was a great week so I'll just go for it :))

The sun is shining! How lovely. It felt like it wasn't a busy week, but you know, we actually did do quite a lot of good things!

We met with Sister __ and her family - we taught the boys English, and she responded very well to the Jospeh Smith story, looking for truth, and looking for answers. She has been praying for a very long time to forgive someone, as well, but hasn't been able to feel that yet. We will meet with her twice next week, she is happy because that way she can ask us more questions. We're perceiving that there will likely be a problem with an opposing family, but we will continue to work with that.
We also were finally able to meet with Sister __, who understood the Resoration very, very well, and understands the scriptures well, but is veeeery hesitant to accept commitments, because she want to do things naturally. She understands that she needs to act, but isn't willing to very much yet. She says her action is meeting with us, and we are very thankful for that, but we will send her scriptures because she seems to respond well to those. 

!
Miracles! Lots of answers to specific prayers during finding. An even bigger miracle: Both of us have been very frusterated about things that should be happening that aren't, as far as companionship/things we are doing are concerned, but we are working on a big break through, where we support each other rather than trying to do missionary work alone. As I type this, it doesn't make any sense, but it is a whole other level of productivity that we've both wanted to see for our whole missions. We're excited about all the potential! 

Study: with this new focus on saving __, we are in need of a lot of miracles. It's easy to get down about the troublesome less-active situation in Korea, but I found and kind of have hooked on to D&C 10:43, which whole section helped buoy up faith in this work that we are newly embarking on and that faith, that hearts are being prepared. 

Isn't is interesting that we can study the atonement more than anything else, and yet not really understand it until we recognize our need for it. And the more we learn, the more there is to learn. But in it's simplicity, it's excatly what you said; being a dicsiple rather than only a believer.

Sister Claire THOMAS! :D

Moving! And Sunday was GREAT!

So….this week we moved. So it doesn't really feel like we accomplished much, we taught a couple lessons, and talked to a few people, and cleaned and cleaned our nasty dirty house. But now that it's clean, it's beautiful and big!

Monday - we didn't have time to weekly plan for the week last week, so we did that. Then we had a 식사 (a dinner appointment, but we just call them "sheik-sa" here. "Dinner appointment" sounds weird in my mouth.) with some members - they're super great, and have been strong in the church here since the beginning. He pulled out an album and showed us pictures of how he was in the first stake presidency here, and the ground-breaking for two meeting houses and the temple, etc, etc.. . .

 

Tuesday: TEMPLE! and guess what - That was the first day the new movie was there! It's the same and so different at the same time. I'm so thankful for the temple and just the pure feeling of peace that's there. 

 

Wednesday-Saturday: I'm very happy that I'm not an office elder. Moving is exciting, but then it keeps going on and on and becomes a pain, especially when you could be out talking to people, and the longer you don't talk to anyone, the harder it is to start, and then you get all grumbly and in a bad mood and don't want to do anything or talk to anyone but then you finally do get a little time to talk to people on the street and as soon as you overcome the little fear barrier that builds up, it's AWESOME! Hehe I like talking to people! Even if they don't exactly want to listen to your message at all (hehe, one student I talked to said that she'd give us her number the third time she saw us at the subway station. It's also fun talking to fun people ;)) And on Saturday, we met the family again - which was entirely different, none of the people there were the same. The wife and kids flew in from America and we played English games with them, and then shared very simply about the Book of Mormon and prophets, and the importance of having prophets, and that through them, we can receive guidance to know about God, to know for ourselves if He exists, and to follow His will. She said that she had been attending another church ever since she was married, but never really received a surety that God exists or loves her - she asked us to share our experiences with her about how we came to know that He loves us, which was a special experience. We're really excited to continue meeting with them :) And we also gotour transfer calls and I'll be in Shindang for another transfer! Nothing changed in our house :)

 

Hooray for Sunday! It was a beautiful day! There was a double baptismal service, the gospel principles class was entirely full (we couldn't attend because there were so many people ^^ (granted, that includes a whole BUNCH of missionaries, but a lot of recent converts, investigators, and others! I really like our gospel principles class :)), a 다 같이 식사 with the ward (all-together meal…I'm not sure how to make that sound normal in English…), and just some really great spiritual experiences.

So Sister _______'s husband, Brother ------ was baptized, and so was another young man, which was also special, because that young man's friend, who was baptized maybe four or five months ago, got to baptize him. President and Sister Christensen came, and President Christensen conferred the Gift of the Holy Ghost upon Brother _____ - in Korean O.O We talked to Sister _____ after, and she was so happy; "My husband has truly been reborn today." We're so excited for them :)

 

Also, a recent convert, Sister ___, she's Chinese, was studying in Canada, heard the gospel and was baptized, traveled to France, and is here now. She speaks English very well, but a lot of things are new, so she said she doesn't often know what's going on, but she likes how she feels at church. And for the first time, a member translated Sacrament meeting into Chinese for her - she said that "you can't imagine what it's like to hear it in your mother tongue". It was a really special experience! 

I'm also very thankful for the sacrament, and the cleansing power of the Atonement. There is very little that feels worse than regret, or knowing that you knew what you were supposed to do, didn't do it, and now situations have gone wrong because you didn't do what you knew you should. (I hope that made sense) And that, my dear friends, is precisely why I feel that baptism and the sacrament is so important, because it is through those moments that, if you listen and ask, you can feel that forgiveness, and that new start. To go and try it all over again is the biggest blessing~

 

Love you all! 

Sister THOMAS!

What a wonderful week! From Sister "Tomato"

Also, It felt like Monday was about three months ago. I don't know, time jsut doesn't add up - the weeks are so long, the months don't exist, and the years are short. Just wait, Lauren, you'll see :)

 

MONDAY!  We went to Dongdaemun and shopped for pday. I got you some fun ties, Dad! And you might wear one of them. One, I'm pretty sure you won't, but it was awesome and $4 :)

 

But even better: we've had a lot of recent converts in our ward lately, so we wanted to have a "how to do family home evening" night, officially called (in English anyway,) Feelin' New Night. Maybe a little too much fun to plan, but it was actually really great; things didn't go according to plan because they announced it and invited the whole ward, whereas we were only expecting seven people, but it ended up being really fantastic, and members, missionaries, recent converts, and less active members were all learning to prepare spiritual thoughts together :)

 

Tuesday, we talked to people on the street all day. We went to a new place we heard about, but it's strange how many men congregate in one place, and considering that we don't talk to men (there's a weird "I'm a young foreign girl" thing that we like to avoid, (the elders do, too, because Korean girls tend to like American men....anyway.)) We moved along and roamed the streets talking to people - and met the cutest girl! Her name is ____; she's 22 like us, and we met with her the next day too, and is super willing to talk and learn about God and the gospel! We also talked with ________ on Wednesday, in a lesson where I think I learned more than I think she did. We talked about learning  line upon line, and precept on precept, and receiving answers to prayers, and at what point we can be 100% sure that what we're saying it true - 100% is an interesting concept. Maybe "I know 100%" one day, but the next day, I recive another answer, so "no, NOW I know 100%". But maybe tomorrow, "I know 85%", but todays 85% is more sure than two weeks ago 100%. Anyway. IT was helpful for me, but I'm not sure it's coming across. :)

 

We had lunch with our fantastic Relief Society president on Thursday (Fun fact: try to find an article; in was in the Liahona in March, and it was about Korea - that's the ward I'm serving in! The single sister with two daughters, that's our Relief Society president.) and she is wonderful, and takes care of everyone so well. And at night, we had a very spirit-filled meeting with a new sister we've been meeting with, who lives in Gangnam (yes, from the song), and as we talked about Joseph Smith, the spirit was very strong. She connected everything herself, and very willingly accepted the invitation to be baptized. So we're preparing together for April 5th! I may or may not be in Shindang then, but that's okay! Just, in the case, I won't be about to give you updates :)

 

And we had lunch with President and Sister Christensen, and ________ and her husband, who will be baptized next week. It was a good time, we felt the spirit, and President Christensen shared a lot of wisdom with us :) He encouraged the couple that once they are members of the church, to continue seeking ways to help others come unto Christ, in the way that they have. And isn't that what it's all about- helping and supporting others as we all learn of and become like Christ.

 

You know that family I told you we were going to meet? We met them! Sort of. half of them were still in the US, so we'll meet with them all next time. 

 

Also, two girls came to our ward on Sunday! A member from America, and a recent convert from Canada who is Chinese, and was so happy to be in this ward, because the members could talk to her in both Chinese AND English! Hopefully we can go to the temple to do baptisms with her later! And we had another very special opportunity on Sunday - Elder Nash, who is over the Church History Department came to speak yesterday. We missionaries could go if we brought either a less active member or investigator or recent convert, and we just ended up getting a large group together and all went together (missionaries, returned missionaries, recent converts, less active members, members, all in one little car :)) He spoke on many things, but I'll just relate a little - He spoke about the story of the Brother of Jared, and building boats "tight like unto a dish", as the Book of Mormon says (Ether 3); he spoke of building families "tight like unto a dish," through family home evening, prayer and scripture study. Every day. Even when you're busy or tired. But I especially liked what he said about when the Brother of Jared prayed - he saidI have done all that I can, I have been obedient, and that is the point at which we can pray with great confidence. That's the point -- that we can ask for great blessings and guidance. He also promised that the progress in Korea would accelerate as the saints are faithful and do what they've been asked. That we may not realize the acceleration, but it will. There are great things in store for Korea!

 

WHEW! I'm sooooo tired, but so happy! Love you All! 

 

Sister Tomato (that's what the little kids call me here. "Thomas" looks like "tomato" when it's spelled in Korean :)

Weekly update . . .

Anyway, it's been a good week, even though all of our investigators cancelled their appointments! Hooray! That means we have more time to find new people to teach! And we did! Granted, I already told you about them in the other email so I will continue with other things here :) We also found a few other people who said they wanted to meet, but two didn't show up and then one slept in, so also didn't show up. Which is always a bummer, but we can always try again! 

 

________ is still doing great.  Reading her scriptures, understanding more and more about how great the gospel is, (these things take time, sometimes) and loves meeting with us. She's the sunshine in the middle of our week. And her husband decided to be baptized next month! Isn't that exciting? Hopefully we'll have lunch with her and Sister Christensen this week :)

 

We also taught almost the exact same lesson three times in two days. It was really strange, but good practice - Because God loves us, He always calls prophets to guide us, but when people reject them, they lose that guidance. It's a pattern that has happened over and over again, and that God again called a prophet. It's exciting, when you think about it! 

 

We also had a fireside after church, just for missionaries, in English, by Brother Wyatt, President of SUU. It was really fantastic to be inspired in English, it's just not quite the same in Korean, even if I can understand most of it. He spoke about how it's through pushing through the hard things, that we become strong. His father took college algebra three times because it was hard, became a professor in it, and ended up writing one of the most famous textbooks on college algebra and became a very successful engineer, all because it was soooo hard for him in the first place. Just intelligence and talent isn't enough, but through adversity, character is built. About not fearing, never doubting yourself or your work that you've been called to do and committed to do; Alma56:47. It was wonderful :)

 

Oh! out of time! love you all! Have a great week, and have faith in the good things that you are doing! 

 

Sister Claire Thomas