hi from sister cho again :)
so this past week we went to the temple and it was fabulous! and our district is great :)
on saturday, 금천2 ward had their young womens new beginnings meeting and the YW president asked me to speak on personal progress and so i was worried that i wouldn't be able to say everything i wanted to say in the way that i could say it in english--but guess what? i was totally able to say everything in korean EXACTLY the way i would have in English! so i wasn't 답답해 like i sometimes am when i speak gospel korean. it was awesomeeeee. yay for the Spirit who can help us do things that we can't do by ourselves!!! and i was able to think about personal progress and how awesome it is! so minhee, keep it up miss, kay? you're doing great :D
yesterday was a crazy sunday because this investigator (who we didn't expect to come to church cuz she's only interested in speaking english) came to sacrament meeting! this work really is the Lord's work. because we never guessed that out of all the people we're meeting, she'd be the one to come!
also, there's this 10 year old girl who we're teaching and she only lives with her dad and her dad's gone all the time so she has no manners and is quite rude to the other church kids and she doesn't have a long attention span so when we try and teach her she always interrupts with random questions and goes off on tangents. so we were
really having a hard time with her but she came to church yesterday and wanted to sit by me; so to tell you the truth, i was kinda scared because i don't like being strict/the mean person telling people to be quiet and stuff. but i decided to sit with her anyway (after i said a prayer in my heart of course! :P) her hair was a mess because she does everything herself and her dad doesn't really care. so before sacrament meeting started, i french braided her hair with my hair tie and bobby pins and she LOVED IT. i didn't think it was that big of a deal because mommy, you did it for me ALL THE TIME and taught me how to french braid. but i guess it meant so much to her because she
doesn't have a mom. and she just beamed. and she just walked around with a huge smile on her faceeee because all the other kids noticed and said they wanted their hair like that too! and during sacrament meeting, she sat quietly drawing pictures on a paper instead of being roudy like she normally is. i like cried in my heart, if that makes any sense! i felt so much love for her and felt so bad that something as simple as braiding her hair made her feel so much love. and then i thought of how loved i am by my awesome mommy. thank you so much for everything mommy! everything. from braiding my hair to 잔소리s. thank you for everythinggggg! you're the best!
enough of that mushy stuff. anyway, in a nutshell, life is great. and i am learning more than ever how to love people. the church is true. do missionary work everyone! that's our calling as it states in 3 Nephi 5:13 "Behold, i am a disciple of Jesus Christ, the Son of God. I have been called of him to declare his word among his people, that they might have everlasting life."
-sister cho
picture: on Pday, we found some random old korean castle thing :P
so we actually don't have much time today because we are going to go teach a lesson so i'll make this quick :)
first off:
daddy- thanks for the tips on the 영어회화반 and the 통역 ^^ you always give me such good advice!! also, i went to a 회원식사 yesterday and turns out you know them! 김한순s. and 김병균b. they told me about how awesome 할아버지 is and everything he did for the church back in the day and they told me that 작은아빠 was the most funniest, 큰아빠 was the smartest and you were the most spiritual out of the kids. it was cool to hear about you from someone who knew you when you were little! they really 칭찬ed you a lot. i was like, yep that's my awesome dad :P
mommy- thanks for your email last time! i miss you :) i'm so grateful that you raised me the way that you did. you are such a blessing and a light to me! the more i see good families raised in the church, the more i think about how big your role is and how awesome you are at fulfilling it! 사랑해용 ^^
jee- i'm okay for now but if you get a chance, i'm missing peanut butter m&ms haha :P let me think about whether i need anything else :) thanks sis! and go ace those midterms girl! keep telling me about your life! i love hearing about it :D
minhee- i'm so glad you gave me that spiritual thought about stake conference! that gave me a boost of energy! i'm so proud of you for listening and taking notes! keep it up! and tell monika i say hi/안녕 :)
this past wednesday was transfers and it was so cool! sister park and i are still staying together in 금천 but we had to go to the transfer location to drop off sister bae cuz she finished her mission! and there were so many missionaries at that subway station!! (i met the 서대문 elders and they said they were the ones who set up skype for 할머니 and 할아버지 bahahaha jcho/minhee remember when we heard how long it took
tee hee) and we got to see who was being transferred where so that was really neat! our district got moved around and so we have two new elders now. one of them is a 교포 from seattle and the other is from jeju island. both of them are really cool so our district should be a lot of fun this transfer too.
sister park and i have been doing great! we've seen miracles because we've been showing our faith by 전도ing everyday. we had been doing it often but not everyday so this transfer, we made it a goal to do it as often as we can! we've been told that we can find 1 person out of 1000 people when we 전도. not very good odds yeah? but President Lee told us that there are two reasons for why we still do it: 1. to find that 1 person. 2. to show our faith in the Lord by being strictly obedient to what we've been asked to do. it's really really interesting to see that when we are obedient, we are blessed in things that don't seem connected to that obedience. for instance, we didn't find anyone to teach through the 전도 that we did this past week, but one of our former investigators (who we couldn't get a hold of because her phone got disconnected) CALLED US (using her friend's phone) AND WANTED TO MEET WITH US! out of the blue. randomly. (but not because nothing is random :P tender mercy right?!) so we met with her and we are teaching her again now! whoa. we are so blessed :D
love you all.
-sister cho
pictures:
1. transfers!
2. the 서대문elders who installed skype for 할아버지 bahaha
3. english class :)
so the weather is getting a little warmer here yay! so instead of -12 degrees, it's like -6 degrees and the highs are even like 3 degrees yayyy :D but we're doing great keeping warm so don't worry mommy :P
so this past tuesday we had what we call a mission tour conference and Elder and Sister Stevenson came to speak to us! They talked about how important it is to have a good foundation to become great missionaries. and the basics come down to obedience, diligence, and language studies. it was really great and remotivated me to improve, progress, and be better!! and i was asked to translate from korean to english for part of the meeting like when President and Sister Lee spoke and it was a really neat experience! daddy i'm sure you understand this but it was really interesting because in korean, the verb doesn't come at the END of the sentence so i had to wait til the very end of the sentences before being able to say it in english so it was 정신없어 a little bit haha and daddy, sister Lee read a poem--and wow poems are hard to translate! (stuff about flowers and analogies!) i can only imagine how hard it was when you translated for general conferences and stuff back in the day :P but i was happy to have had the opportunity to do it and i was grateful to you daddy that you had me do it when i was little during sacrament meetings to try and keep me interested in the talks when i was bored hahaha anyway, it was
great meeting :)
so this past saturday, we had one of our former investigators come to English Class! (and turns out that she was taught by sister 박유라, jee remember the super cheerful girl who took us home from the utah KYSA conference? yeah her! small world huh?) this lady is so sweet and she said that life and a series of trials and sticky situations got in the way of her getting back to investigating the church but when she reached her hardest point, she just for some reason decided to come to English Class and she told us that when she did, she felt PEACE! even though it was just English Class, she felt such a drastic change! we explained to her that peace is a fruit of the Spirit and you could tell that it just clicked for her. HOW AWESOME IS THAT?! so we're going to start meeting with her and we are so so excited :)
i've learned that sometimes, even when we feel like everything we're doing isn't making a difference, we're still being obedient and thus we are progressing and fulfilling that which God has asked us to do. I really felt this while 전도ing because sometimes it feels like there really is no way we're making any difference because there are so many people and only a few of us and no one wants to listen! but i've found comfort in that as long as i'm doing what i'm supposed to be doing, everything will work out. Abinadi could have easily said "well, king Noah isn't gonna listen to me and i'm going to be put to death so whatever." but in Mosiah 13:9, we find that he still finishes his message to king Noah and yeah he didn't listen but Abinadi really could stand before God and say "i've done everything you asked me to." and that's what i want to be able to say too :) so keep going. keep moving. keep being amazing.
-sister cho
pictures: these are just some awesome members we've been able to have dinner with! i know exactly what kind of a member i want to be :D
first thing's first: minhee! i'm SOOOO glad you had fun at CCS choir! and a solo?? aww man can't wait to hear you sing :D if you have time, try and write down some of those thoughts in a journal (notebook or computer) so you can look back on it and remember those awesome things :)
so on tuesday we went to the temple! that morning, THE SUBWAYS WERE SO FULL!! everyone was squished up against everyone else! but the good thing was that when the subway stopped and started moving, usually we have to hold on to the handle things if you're not sitting down but since everyone was squished together and leaning up against each other, we didn't have to worry about that lol but the subway that left before the one we got on WAS EVEN MORE FULL! and it looked like there was no room but here's the crazy part, PEOPLE STILL TRIED TO SHOVE THEMSELVES IN! and the crazier part was that SOMEHOW THEY FIT! one guy squeezed his behind into the subway but his arms and legs were still sticking out so he spread his arms and legs to span the doorway and
pushed himself in! bahahaha wow! i was soooo surprised lol
anyway, the temple was so awesome to go into the korean session! cuz all the english missionaries went into the english one and there wasn't enough room so they had me go into the korean session and i loved it! :) and Pres 송 (the temple president i think) and his counselor Pres 홍 say hi daddy!
so this past week was a bit cold but it didn't matter because you know why??!!! I GOT MY FIRST PHONE NUMBER DURING STREET 전도ING! yeeeeee! seriously, it was the best feeling ever! so the cold was kind of an after thought lol it was this cute girl who's a super nice high school student and she was interested in learning more about the english program! so we're going to let her know when the next class is :) it was soooo cool :)
and we also added a new investigator! she's just finishing up high school and my companions found her 전도ing by some apartments and she's got such an open heart and mind! we kind of got to know her and then we started talking about religion and i thought maybe that would scare her a bit but she was so cool about it! she was cool with beginning and closing with prayer and she wanted to meet again so we have another appointment with her! seriously, Heavenly Father prepares his children to receive the gospel! they are all around us! :)
oh and teaching english class has been a blast! daddy, helping out at the monterey korean school really prepped me for this! so thanks for letting me do that with you and mommy! it's been a huge blessing! we have so many kids in our class! there are members' kids and we also have some investigators coming too! :)
i love korea. i love being a missionary. i love this gospel. it is so perfect. Christ did everything for us so that we can return to our Heavenly Father. all we have to do is try our best to change to be better. and as we continue following Christ, we are promised that we can "inherit the kingdom of God." (3 nephi 11:33) inherit. like receive EVERYTHING He has. and He has everything. like lasting and eternal happiness. what an awesome deal, yeah? :)
have a great week! love you all!
sister cho :)
pictures:
1. us at the temple
2. this is our church in 금천
3. my first snow in korea :)
4. you can't tell but i'm pointing to my first phone number i got through 전도! :D
5. a typical interesting saying on a postcard sis Bae had lol
