week 15: 안녕하세요 ^^

하이 가족 ^^

i hope everything is going well for everyone! cuz i'm doing great here! every day is just so awesome :) 하루하루가 너무 재미있어요! and jeehee hope your week is going great even with all your tests, calling, and other stuff! (oh ps. I WOULD HAVE NO FEET IF I DIDN'T HAVE THE UGGS YOU SENT ME FOR CHRISTMAS! seriously, i wear them almost everyday and they are so warm!!!! thank you thank you thank you!! my comps decided they want some too so we're probably gonna get some for them next pday!)

so this past week, we had a baptism! and this was a miracle baptism! so this sweet gal named 미선 (haha i have a hard time remembering names but this one i can remember thanks to mommy!) and she just got baptized a little while ago and i guess without us asking for a referral, she just brought her sister 미정이 to one of the lessons! and she wanted to be baptized! how awesome is that? so this past week, i had the opportunity to teach a real person in korean! of course i had a lot of help from my companions who are awesome and they are so experienced! i'm learning so much from them--which is good because the style of teaching koreans is different than what i'm used to which is teaching american people. so anyway, we just reviewed all the lessons with her from the restoration to all the commandments and it was so fun! what was cool is that 미정 is a little slow so remembering things is really hard for her so sometimes she freezes during her prayers because she forgets what to say next. but miraculously, she remembered SO MUCH when we were reviewing all the lessons and she was shouting out all these answers that we didn't think she would have remembered! and she gave the closing prayer and it was the SWEETEST prayer ever! so simple but pure and beautiful! gahhh she's great! she was so happy when she was baptized; i didn't realized how much she really wanted it after seeing her sister go through with it too.

anyway, i love it here! it's really awesome because when we're hungry, we just whip up some korean food and sister park (one of my companions) is a way good cook so when we are 출출해, she'll just cook up things like 떡꼬치 (my new favorite food!) and 국수 just like mommy did for us at home! i love it! oh and my companions are amazing! i didn't have time to write about them much last time but Sister Park is from Gwangju and she's been out for a little over 6 months and she's the cook i was talking about :) she's super cute and i actually took a microbiology class with her sister a year ago! she's so good at teaching lessons in ways that people will easily understand so i'm learning that from her :) and Sister Bae is from Daegu and her family is really well known in the church in korea; her dad is like a stake president i think! and she's crazy good at street 전도! so i've been learning a lot from her too!

as for the weather: well, it's super cold but it's bearable! oh and 할아버지's friend delievered some coats and super cute scarves that 경언니 wanted to send me so please tell 할머니 that i got everything and that everything fits and that i love it all! :) i couldn't have asked for a better family :P

and yes daddy, i can see korean now so you can write in korean! love hearning from you! and thanks for letting me know about 환오 오빠 and 수진언니! that's so exciting! i'm sure they're having a great time because it's really impossible to have a bad time when you're proclaiming such a beautiful and happy message!

and the thought of the day: i was reading in 1 nephi chapter 11 when nephi sees the vision his father saw and it's the chapter where like every verse it says "the Spirit said unto me: look!" and i thought it was really cool that RIGHT AFTER that, it always says "and i looked" and then Nephi sees awesome things that the Lord wants him to see! i was thinking about how sometimes, we get promptings to do something, or we learn something awesome because Heavenly Father wants to show us things that will bless our lives and those around us, but then we don't act on it! so i'm going to work on "looking" when i'm prompted to "look." cuz every good thought is from God :)

anyway, i hope all is well! 사랑해요 ^^

-조선희 자매


pictures
1. 미정's baptism :) she's so great!
2. it was sister park's birthday so we had a district surprise dinner for her!
3. we have to separate out our food trash. nast huh? lol
4. our view from the apartment (copied e. rife's idea for this pic lol)
5. the street where we walk everyday
6. we went to eat 뼈해장국 and it was only 5 dollars! it was so good :)

week 14: i'm in korea yes!

yeeee! i'm in korea!!!!

gahhh i love it here so much!!! it was bittersweet leaving salt lake though because i loved it there! and i learned so much and met so many awesome people there! but nonetheless i'm glad to be in korea!

so the plane ride was long but it was fun because i got to talk to the people sitting next to me and there are so many awesome people in the world! from SL to San Fran, i sat next to this lady who is a pharmacist (what are the odds of that?! talking to her made me want to do pharmacy more! so that in itself was a tender mercy!) and her boy friend's dad just passed away. DING DING DING QUE PLAN OF SALVATION! so i made sure i had the pamphlets in my backpack so we talked about lesson 2 and left her the pamphlet. SHE WAS SO NICEEEE! :) and from san fran to korea, i sat next to this lady who was going to singapore for the chinese new year and we talked about religion and about the Gospel of Jesus Christ! i'm hoping she read the pamphlet on her way from korea to singapore! YAY FOR THE GOSPEL AND YAY FOR AWESOME PEOPLE :)

anyway, i was grateful that i was able to talk to people who actually listened to me on the ride over to korea because when i got to korea, i realized that NO ONE LISTENS TO THE MISSIONARIES! haha sad but true! the second day i was there, we did some 전도ing on the streets by a subway station and I was so so surprised at how people would see us and then just walk faster and say they were busy! and then people would just brush us off by saying they were buddhist and then when we asked if they worshipped regularly they said uhh no! and then they'd just run off! it was so funny because people in salt lake at least took our flyers and pamphlets but people here don't even want to take a piece of paper with them! crazy huh??

so this one grandma looked like she had been 등산-ing (hiking somewhere like all the old people do here!) and she was tired so she was walking real slow. and NO ONE WALKS SLOW HERE! so my companion and i thought this was our chance so we walked up to her and said "hello!" and she did a double take and then her eyes got super huge and that poor tired grandma just RAN FOR HER LIFE! my companion was worried that my feelings were going to be hurt but i thought it was so funny! haha I LOVE PROSELYTING ON THE STREETS HERE! :) and even though people don't listen, i know that Heavenly Father is happy that i'm still proclaiming His word to His children :)

so two days ago, on monday, we had a new years conference (so we didn't have emailing time then! but normally, pday is still monday fyi jee!) and i met all these 교포s from salt lake! daddy do you know brother 문현양 and brother 서석우? their sons are here in this mission so we talked about utah and stuff :) it was neat!

anyway, to wrap it up, mommy and daddy- i'm so grateful that you taught me korean because everywhere i go, people are so surprised that i can speak like a korean and i've had several people tell me that they want to meet my parents and tell them how much they respect you for teaching us korean! :) thank you so so much :) oh and EVERYONE KNOWS 할아버지 here!!! it's so great! they say he's such a great man! i'm so grateful for that heritage too :) gahhh, i love you family! :)

thought for the day: my goal is to live every day to its fullest so that i can write in my journal what nephi wrote in 2nephi 5:27 "and it came to pass that we lived after the manner of happiness." cuz i know that through following heavenly father, we can obtain true and lasting happiness! how awesome is that?!! :)

-sister cho


oh and i forgot to tell you i'm in the 안양 (anyang) stake in 금천!

pictures: my companions (they are great!), the 교포s i met, an investigator and her friends we are teaching and half of our mission at the new year conference and some other ones :)

week 12: update from sister cho!

HI HI HI :D

this week was another great one yeee! i love the gospel gahhh :) so here's what's been going on:

1. my visa info came in and i laughed out loud when they told me to fill out the papers again because they threw away the other copy because it was too old or something. for some reason i thought that was going to happen :P so i filled it out again and took one of those hideous passport pictures at walgreens and got everything taken care of on thursday! the travel office said that if everything goes well, i will be leaving on Jan 16th so we'll see what happens :) 

2. Daddy: Don from the travel office said he would need a copy of the letter that verifies my korean citizenship renunciation. did he contact you about that? if not, can you call in and check with what he needs? thank youuuu :)

3. so of course there was another miracle that happened this past week! we are teaching this family and they are inactive but one of the girls is baptism age. and they are great and so sweet but they didn't seem very motivated about coming back to church and christina (the girl) didn't seem like she was interested in baptism :( and they hadn't been praying and reading and getting to church :( we as a companionship had been praying to know what to do because there was no more we could teach them because the next step is for them to come back to church and for christina to be baptized. we prayed and studied about what we could share with them and sis Mousseau read in 1 nephi about how lehi had to leave EVERYTHING to follow God. we decided to teach them about this story and how we need to leave everything behind, not necessarily riches and a nice home (like lehi had to) but we need to leave things that get in the way of us getting to church, praying, and reading your scriptures! so we went to their house and guess what? THEY READ AND PRAYED AS A FAMILY THAT PAST WEEK! and you know what the biggest tender mercy is? THEY READ EXACTLY WHAT WE READ WHEN WE WERE STUDYING FOR THEM!!! the Spirit was sooo strong and they knew that they were doing the right thing! and what do you know, THEY CAME TO CHURCH THIS SUNDAY! even the dad was like "man, i can't believe i'm at church. and not just that, we're all here at 9AM church!!" that's what the gospel does; it changes you :)

4. seriously, when we leave everything behind, Heavenly Father can give us everything he knows is best for us. i mean Lehi dwelt in a tent! (1 nephi 2:15) but when he sacrificed what he had, he was blessed. and their family was guided to the promised land! that's my goal! to let go of everything so God can lead me to my promised land! yeeee :)

5. love you all :)

-sister cho

 in the gym: our whole zone at our last pday activity before transfers!

 red robin: our last district meeting ended with a district lunch :)

 at transfers: our new companionship! yay!

in the relief society room: we did a role play during district meeting and we were all a family so that's our family portrait!

and this is what our awkward family was like during the role play because the role play was about getting a family together to teach and removing distractions haha it was real fun!

week 11: happy new year :)

dear people i love-

I hope your new years day was nothing less than fabulous :) mine was fabulous--but everyday is fabulous so no biggie :P

This week was transfers! yay for sister cho's first transfer day experience everrr! so Tuesday morning we got a voice mail from the zone leaders and they listed off all the names of the missionaries and said if they were staying or leaving. And then we all gathered at the mission office on Wednesday to find out where everyone was going! Sister Mousseau and I are staying in West Valley but Sister Thompson got transferred to central salt lake where they teach people from nepal and burma! we miss her but she'll do great wherever she is :) we got a new companion straight from the MTC and she is absolutely amazing. her name is Sister Yates and she's from Virginia and she is so fun and fearless! 

So President Winn gathered all the companionships with new missionaries and after we had lunch, he explained that we were going to do what they call Extreme Street Contacting. each companionship got assigned a street by temple square and we talked to everyone on that street! IT WAS SO AWESOME. i absolutely LOVEEEEE street contacting!!! i hope we do it in korea! and we had so much fun! we walked the same street over and over again but it was so neat to meet so many people there! there were people going to see a concert at the energy solution arena, people who were going to work at fast food places, and a ton of people waiting for the bus! (i didn't realize that there were so many people who take the bus!) there were really nice people who listened to us and said they would read out pamphlet and there were really not-so-nice people who kept walking faster and faster as we tried walking with them and talking to them. but each of us got to hard commit (extend a baptismal invitation) and you'd be surprised at how many people said yes they would get baptized if they knew these things were true! it was a neat experience :)

As if the day couldn't get better, we experienced a HUGE MIRACLE that night! we had a few lessons that evening and we introduced Sister Yates to the people in our area. then we decided to check a referral cuz one of our lessons fell through. so Sister Mousseau felt like we should go check this referral we got the night before at a dinner appointment. we got to the neighborhood but couldn't find the house because the directions we got weren't clear; the lady told us it was kiddy corner to her house somewhere but we couldn't figure it out so we decided to ask the lady again. but she wasn't home :( so we were going to go back to the car but we decided to just go to both the houses that were kiddy corner and just check. and we got to one house and it wasn't the one BUT WE GOT A RETURN APPOINTMENT AND ADDED HER (her name was star, how cute huh?!) TO OUR TEACHING POOL! awesome huh? BUT IT GETS BETTER. so we went to the other house and it also wasn't the referral but a man answered the door and said he wasn't interested and was about to shut the door but Sister Mousseau asked me to share a scripture so i was looking for this scripture in 3 nephi that i thought would be good for him BUT I COULDN'T FIND IT ANYWHERE! so after a minute, i just shared a scripture that popped up into my head and it was mosiah 2:41 (consider the happy state of those that keep the commandments..). He was like "oh i like that... can you book mark that scripture for me? wait, you're going to give me that book of mormon right?" HE SAID HE WASN'T INTERESTED BUT HE WANTED THE BOOK OF MORMON! but it was our copy so we said we'd go get him one and we ran back to the car but we realized that we took our supplies box out of the car so we could fit all of sister Yates' luggage at transfers! saddddd right? :( BUT GUESS WHAT? Elder Bednar spoke at the MTC on christmas and told everyone to buy a copy of the book of mormon and read it with a question in mind so sister Yates was obedient and had just bought one that morning! it was on the top of her luggage--easy access right? and so we got it and gave it to him and we set up another RETURN APPOINTMENT AND ADDED HIM AS A NEW INVESTIGATOR TOO! 

seriously. tender mercies are everywhere. I think Elder Bednar said in a conference talk that "The Lord's tender mercies are the very personal and individualized blessings, strength, protection, assurances, guidance, loving kindness, consolation, support, and spiritual gifts which we receive from and because of and through the Lord Jesus Christ. Truly, the Lord suits "his mercy according to the conditions of the children of men."" I'm so grateful that sister Mousseau listened to the prompting to go check the referral and share a scripture, and i'm grateful that the Spirit directed me to share the scripture that touched the man's heart, and i'm SO SO grateful that sister Yates was obedient to Elder Bednar and bought the Book of Mormon. Gahh, isn't that so cool? we just need to be obedient to the promptings of the Spirit and miracles happen yeeee!

have a fabulous week :)

sister cho