week 10: dear people i love...

dear people i love,

First of all, it was so great to talk to you yesterday! boy that hour flew by :P you guys are the best family ever. oh and i finally opened that package all the way AND THOSE BOWS ARE SO CUTE! my companions were like "wait, you got MORE bows?!" bahaha i'm wearing the blue and white striped one right now and i love it! and i refrigerated the yak shik and i'm excited to eat it! my companions want to try some of it too. oh and jee your cards were sooo cute! and that family picture you sent me- yeah, hwa jil wan jun jo wa! everyone looks so good in it gahhh i love you guys! and thanks for all who wrote to me; i loved hearing from you :D (tycee, we were at a baptism and these kids kept crying but i pulled out the window stickers and they were quiet the rest of the baptism! leave it to miss brown to calm the kids! bahaha you're great!)

so christmas was so great here! the members and our investigators totally made sure we weren't feeling homesick with all sorts of gifts and goodies and everyone was so loving and invited us over even though their families were all there and stuff. i know exactly what kind of a member i want to be when i get back because i've met sooo many awesome members here! but the best part of the day was seeing one of our investigators receive the best-est gift everrrr: the gift of the Holy Ghost! we had two baptisms on saturday and one of them was steph and she is AMAZING. she's had a rough past but she is so teachable and humble! so as we started teaching her, you could see the change in her countenance because the atonement kicked in to her life! before she was like "i just want to know what you have to say. i DO NOT want to be baptized or anything. i'm not interested." but as we met with her, she was like, "so when can i get baptized? what do i have to do?" and she's been reading her scriptures and praying like crazy! and because of the power and strength she got from those simple things, she was able to just completely let go of drugs and gave up cigarettes! the other day, she was like "you sisters are the best. you better have lots of blessings bestowed upon you for having to deal with people like me. wait, did i just use the word BESTOW? where'd i get that?!" and we were like "gahhh you've been reading your scripturessss yayyyy!" the change in steph's life has been a huge miracle and it was possible all because of Jesus Christ! she is going to be such a great contribution to her ward and the church! but you know what's funny? satan knows that too. he knew that she was going to be a great member and influence so this past week (the week before her baptism) all sorts of things were going wrong! she got into arguments with her mom and she got really really sick and her 3 year old son got sick and she wasn't feeling well when we went to see her and she had cravings. BUT GUESS WHAT? she kept turning to the good in her life and she got baptized! tadaaa! she is on God's team and the cool thing is that His team always wins :D it was so cool to see her receive the Holy Ghost on Christmas! the best gift everrr on Christmas! how appropriate :)

Anyway, life is fabulous here in SLC! we had 2604 baptisms this year in the mission! the Lord really does love ALL His children and wants everyone to receive the blessings that the gospel brings. He's so great :) this church is soooo true. I'm so grateful for what Christ did for me. and for you. and for you. and for you!! the only way that someone so imperfect (meeee) can participate in such a perfect work is through the loving atonement of Jesus Christ!

No matter what, keep praying because that's what makes Christ smile: "And when Jesus had spoken these words he came again unto his disciples; and behold they did pray steadfastly, without ceasing, unto him; and he did SMILE upon them again" [3 Nephi 19:30]

love you all.

sister cho

"our district picture!"

"steph's baptism yay!"

"we're teaching dylan and kaley and they're going to be baptized in january!"

"christmas eve we all slept by the christmas tree bahaha it was so fun :)"

week 9: It's beginning to look a lot like christmas!

dear my amazing familhee,

i have so many things that i want to tell you but just not enough time to write it all out hahaha but since we like lists, i'll just list them out!

1. first off jeehee congrats on the 4.0. no biggie for you right? :P and the great score on your ochem final! gahhh hopefully i'll be as motivated in school as you when i get back lol also, i'm so excited that you got your camera!!!! email me pictures, yes?? haha and i'm so glad your schedule worked out the way you wanted it to! i know you hate uncertainty lol and tell max i said thanks for being awesome :D how's hole-digging? bahahaha and i had no idea ee mo had a girl hahahaha i love our family! tell her congrats from me!

2. not sure on when i'm going to korea! i haven't heard anything! but i want to spend christmas here with people i've gotten to know and love so i hope it's not in the next week haha! but we can talk more about that when i CALL HOME THIS SUNDAY! which brings me to the next point lol

3. so i get to call home Sunday 3:30pm my time so 2:30 california time. i hope that works! can't wait to talk to you all :D

4. i heard from leashh!!! thank you thank youuu! i can't believe you're home leash!!! i want to send you a christmas card so email me your address, kay??!! i'll write more in a letter cuz we're all leaving for the store in a minute :P sa rang hae balgan mori! haha

4. so on saturday, we had our mission christmas devotional and guess who was there: ELDER AND SISTER OAKS! it was awesome! we all got to shake their hands, one by one (like in 3 nephi!) and it was so coool! you know how there are people who just "beam?" i didn't quite get that but i get it now seeing Elder and Sister Oaks! i want to be like thattttt! that's my new goal. to BEAM because of the gospel in my life :) so the sister missionaries got to sit up real close to the pulpit (so i was in row 3 of the chapel) and so the sisters got to shake his hand first and then i got to see everyone else shake his hand and it was the coolest thing; with one hand shake and hello, his light just transferred to each one of the people that shook his hand. CRAZY HUH? so everyone walked away with a huge smile! it was real neat. and it's a mission tradition to sing silent night in all the languages represented in the mission so groups of people got up to sing it in their languages so my companions learned it in korean throughout the week and we sang it there and it went really well! all the other groups were really big but ours was just us three so we put harmony into it and it sounded pretty! and elder Oaks whispered to us "well done!" after we finished! haha it was such a neat experience!

5. so the Oaks spoke to us for like an hour and it was great! Something i really liked was the phrase sister Oaks put on bookmarks that she made us! it says "OBEDIENCE is the price. FAITH is the power. LOVE is the motive. the SPIRIT is the key. CHRIST is the reason." it made me think about what we are all doing in this life! we are trying to progress and become better so we can live in eternal happiness with Heavenly Father! i'm so grateful for this knowledge! 

6. love you all. merry christmas. 

Sonhee!!

week 8: Happy Holidays!

*NOTE: I still haven't sent sonhee her christmas package yet, so if you'd like to include a short message in it, just send me an email at jeeheecho@gmail.com or a facebook message--i'm sure sonhee will appreciate all of your love and support! :)


First of all HAPPY BIRTHDAY DADDY! thanks for being the best dad everrrr :) I can't thank you enough for the example you have been in my life; everything you've taught me about life and the gospel has/is coming in handy on the mission :) and thank you for your email! unfortunately, these computers don't have korean encoding/typing so i couldn't read it! but i'll read it when i get to korea and can email there :P sounds like you've been having a busy month so far filled with music! yay :) oh i meant to tell you last week, i met a korean family here and the dad's name is brother Kang Hyun Suck and he said that you two were MTC dong ki or something like that! they've been here in west valley for like 5 years and we had dinner at their house last week! so she made bulgogi and had different kimchis for us :D Sister Thompson LOVES korean food so she was so happy; she's really good at using chopsticks cuz she studied in Japan for a while. and this was Sister Mousseau's first time trying Korean food and she finished everything on her plate haha she said she loved the bulgogi but she wouldn't go out of her way to get kimchi bahaha 

This week has seriously gone by so fast! We've been to 6 different Christmas parties for the wards in our stake to get referrals and they were all so fun! so don't worry mommy, missionaries here get taken care of especially during the holidays! We were asked to judge a pie contest at one of the parties so we tried a spoonful of like 20 different pies! it was only a spoonful of each but it was all so sweet so we felt sick at the end of the night :P there was this one pie that looked like a peanut butter/caramel pie and it looked really good so we tried it and we all looked at each other with our cringing double chin faces because it was some sort of lemmony tangy pie! we just kinda forced it down and moved on lol it wasn't a bad pie but it was just not the peanut butter sweet taste that we expected. i think that happens to us in life; we get something/God gives us something that we aren't expecting. and what we get isn't bad; actually it's good for us because God gives us what we need exactly when we need it to become better and stronger. but i think we sometimes don't like to accept the things that come our way because it's not exactly what we expected. but i think that as we lean on the Savior during those times, we can progress and become better! :)

As far as investigators go, it's been a rough week because people just haven't been home and one of our investigators didn't make it to church this past sunday so he fell off date :( but we're going to keep working with him so he can be baptized in january yay! but after all this "trial of faith period," we found two families who have been inactive and they want to start going to church again and they have kids who haven't been baptized! the Lord really does prepare people and what's really cool is that He let's imperfect people like us help find and teach them!

Today we have a sister's luncheon so i've gotta get going but i want to end with a thought i had during scripture study. i was reading 1 nephi 2:16. this is where Nephi really wants to know of the mysteries of God that his dad was able to see in a vision. in that verse, it says he had the three things Elder Oaks said you need to change, achieve, and become something: desire, faith and labor. He had "great desires"(desire) and "did cry unto the Lord" (labor) and "did believe all the words which had been spoken by my father" (faith). and his becoming, achieving and desiring was that he "did not rebel against him like unto my brothers." i'm trying to follow this pattern of righteous progression and it's just made it more clear that the church is true!

Love you all!

-Sister Cho

"we had korean food last week and sister mousseau tried kimchi for the first time!"

"we had papusas last week and i've rekindled my love for el salvadorian food :D "

 "that's sister winn, our mission president's wife! she's so great"

week 7: there is sunshine in my soul today--even though it's cold :D

**side note: SISTER CHO'S CHRISTMAS PACKAGE: I'M SENDING HER A PACKAGE SOON AND I'D LOVE TO HAVE HER FRIENDS WRITE HER A SHORT NOTE/MESSAGE FOR ME TO INCLUDE IN HER PACKAGE. PLEASE EMAIL ME AT jeeheecho@gmail.com. I KNOW SONHEE WOULD LOVE TO HEAR FROM YOU :) --Jeehee Cho






yep even though it's cold. and i can see my breath. and it's snowing every now and then. I AM SO HAPPY :D i'm thinking maybe it has something to do with the gospel. and by maybe i mean OF COURSE slash FOR SURE. 

jeehee- your temple/devotional trip sounds like it was a lot of fun! glad you had a good time! and tell brook congrats from me :D and what a perfect calling for you miss "i love being organized all the time!" secretary is one of the hardest callings ever! there is so much work! but i know you'll be fabulous because you're so organized and prepared! and thanks for the address! sorry for no pictures this time! i forgot to bring my cord but i'll attach some next time :)

so there have been so many things going on this past week! there is this awesome guy named mike who has been meeting with us and he is in a rough spot with his family cuz his wife was upset with him and wouldn't let him see his kids who were sick so they were in the hospital! but he kept meeting with us and started doing all the right things like going to church, praying and reading his scriptures and he decided he is going to be baptized. you know what the crazy miracle is? he just found out that his family just started meeting with some missionaries and are going to church! we could call it coincidence because neither party knew the other started meeting the missionaries but there's no such thing as coincidences. but there are things called tender mercies yay!!! when we are doing the right things, Heavenly Father really takes care of everything else! last week i got to teach him about the Book of Mormon because he was confused about the Lamanites and Nephites and where they came from so i drew a picture and broke it down (it was so fun--like teaching chem 105--but even better and more rewarding because it's about salvation!) and it was SO NEAT to see him just soak it in; he had no doubts and he didn't question the truthfulness of any of it because he is a man of so much faith! i can't wait to talk to him after he reads about the Brother of Jared cuz he's a lot like him; he acts on faith and then sees "the finger of the lord"/ the hand of the lord in his life! Anyway, he's so awesome!

there is also this boy named Isaac we are teaching and he is SO great! but when we teach him he looks like he isn't paying attention and doesn't talk much; the only thing we saw when we met with him for the first time is a half smile when we talked about a cool story in the Book of Mormon (a war story in alma since he's a teenage boy haha). BUT GUESS WHAT??!! the next time we met with him, he told us that he's kept his commitments to pray and to go to church! WHAT??!! WHERE DID THAT COME FROM??! and he told the bishop that he's getting baptized! REALLY??!! HOW AWESOME IS THAT. 

and the only reason why miracles like this happen is because THIS IS THE TRUE CHURCH. and God's hand is directing his work. this gospel is what softened the heart of mike's wife and prompt her to meet the missionaries. and the gospel is what caused a change in a teenage boy enough to make him want to pray and be baptized. and the gospel is everything that keeps me going. and i love it. 

stay warm. go to church. and share the gospel with those around you. i know it's hard but remember what Elder Holland said: "I am convinced that missionary work is not easy because salvation is not a cheap experience. salvation never was easy. we are the Church of Jesus Christ, this is the truth, and He is our great eternal head. how could we believe it would be easy for us when it was never easy for Him?"

love you all :)

Sister Cho