week 45: hello :D

AUGUST 27

dear family and friends-

first off, HAPPY HAPPY BIRTHDAY MINHEE!!! sorry i meant to write it in my last email but we were having computer problems so i forgot :( but I LOVE LOVE LOVE YOU AND I'M SO PROUD OF YOU for being a diligent high school student! (eek! time is flying by so fast!!!) and jee, i hope max is feeling well and congrats on the award to BOTH OF YOU! my family is the BESTTTTT. and :D

this week was AWESOME. it was super busy but we love being busy! :) Tuesday was our temple day so we went to the temple and it was exactly the power and peace that i needed! after the session, i met two sisters from my last area 금천 and it was so so good to see them! i'm so grateful for all the wonderful people i've been able to meet on my mission; i wouldn't trade the mission for anything! so we went ice skating for the rest of Pday. yep. i went ice skating. me. uncoordinated with any sort of transportation vehicle-- plus or minus wheels. AND IT WAS SO FUN :D i definately fell. but it was only once. and after that, i got better at skating hahaha a few weeks ago, i taught the young women's lesson at church and it was about trying new things so yay i got to apply it to my life :D then we had a zone conference on Wednesday and it was fun getting to hear the departing testimonies of the returning missionaries and also the testimonies of the new missionaries. and we were asked to help the young women with their 주먹밥 making contest on saturday so that was fun too :) 

but the best-est thing everrrr happened on Sunday. Our investigator, the one who just miraculously appeared out of no where last Sunday, we met her after church with her husband and taught the 1st lesson, and the Spirit was so so present as she bore testimony that she knows that this church is true. she said that something that got her attention about this church was that when she met her husband, she noticed that he was a consistent person; meaning he was the same on any other day of the week as he was on sunday. she'd investigated lots of other churches and she saw that people were great and spiritual on sunday but they didn't always maintain/ try to maintain that during the week. so she was greatly impressed with the members of our church! last week, sister Kim and i had prayed about her and felt that august 1st was the date she could be ready by then but we were a little nervous because her husband seemed a little hesitant about putting a date to her baptism! so we were a little hesitant about bringing it up again with them. but we did. and we just asked them how she felt about baptism and didn't say anything about the date we mentioned last week. and guess what? she said "well, i didn't know people could get baptized this fast and we were both hesitant about it at first. but when i thought about what you two sister missionaries said, about how you two prayed about me, even though you didn't know me well, and received revelation for me, i felt that august 1st is the best date for me. and so i decided to be baptized on that date since you two said i am ready. my husband and i talked about it and we feel like any of my inadequacies that i feel like i have can just be made up as i attend church." WHAT???!!!! sister kim and i were so so happy we just wanted to cry! but we didn't :) SO SHE IS GOING TO BE BAPTIZED THIS SATURDAY!!!! she is so so prepared! they live an hour away from our church but because we have 2 more lessons we need to teach her, THEY OFFERED TO COME UP TO THE CHURCH MONDAY AND WEDNESDAY!!!! so we actually just taught the 3rd lesson today and they took us out to lunch!!!! she is so so solid. we were so so happy!! there are really no words that can express what we felt slash are feeling now! EVERYTHING AND ANYTHING IS WORTH THE HAPPINESS THAT COMES FROM DOING THIS WORK. that's all we could say to each other all yesterday and today! on sunday, when the husband gave our closing prayer, he called us his daughters and that's really how we feel! 

and it came to pass that sister cho and sister kim exercised faith and did their best. and behold, great were the miracles that they saw.

seriously. CAN LIFE GET ANY BETTER??!!

my time's up. but just a thought i want to leave with you: President Uchtdorf said, "don't let a day go by without doing something to act on the promptings of the spirit." because when we do follow these promptings, we are bound to receive a lasting happiness, the kind that sister kim and i are so grateful to be experiencing right now! because "our birthright--and the purpose of our great voyage on this earth-- is to seek and experience eternal happiness."

love you all!

sister cho

pictures: from our zone conference, our ice skating adventure, and a cool statue we found :)

week 44: it's raining it's pouring but no one is snoring BECAUSE WE'RE MISSIONARIES!

AUGUST 19

Jee thanks for the update! i hope max gets better soon!!! :D 

So this week it has been super super rainy! It feels like all the rain that we were supposed to have gotten during the summer is just pouring down on us this week!

But guess what? MIRACLES HAPPEN EVEN WHEN IT'S RAINING. So here are just three of the bunch of miracles we saw this week!

1. so we were on our way to visit a less active woman but the weather was looking really ominous. but when we left the house, it didn't look bad at all!!! so we didn't think we needed umbrellas. and of course we did. it started raining a little and it looked like it was going to down pour any minute! sister kim and i prayed in our hearts that we'd just get to this lady's house before it poured. and guess what? that's what happened. we found out that she doesn't live there anymore which was a huge break through that we even found that out because we'd been trying for the past 3 weeks to figure out if she lives there cuz no one has her address really. so right when we got to the apartment complex, it poureddd! and so sister kim and i felt like we should wait a little bit because the rain could stop. and we prayed together asking that we could just get to the bus stop somewhat dry. and we waited all of 5 minutes and it stopped! i felt like we didn't have to take the bus and that we could just walk cuz that's what we usually did. but sister kim felt that we should hurry and take the bus. AND GOOD THING WE DID. cuz we got on the bus and buckets. of. rain. just. fell. How much does Heavenly Father control weather for us? i'm not sure. but i do know that prayer never makes anything worse. in fact, it always makes things better :)

2. during my whole time here in korea, i'm learning every day how important it is to TALK TO EVERYONE. Because you really don't know who is looking for the light that we have. So sister kim and i were on our way to visit a member and we were stopped at a crosswalk. We're only allowed to start conversations with girls and we looked around and all the people were men! except this one student standing closest to the traffic pole thing. but of course, SHE HAD HER HEADPHONES IN. boo. usually, when you start conversations with people who have headphones in, they just pretend like you're not there and lift their head up a little so that we are out of their sight. But i just started a conversation with her anyway. AND SHE TOOK OUT HER HEADPHONES. AND LISTENED. AND SHE WAS NICE. AND SHE GAVE US HER NUMBER. wow. you wanna know the other crazy cool part of the story? her name is 예그리나 (yea gu ri na) and we asked her where she got her name cuz it's unique. and she said that her name is a shortened version of 예수그리스도 그리고 나 (Jesus Christ and me)! turns out her family is christian! We never know if we can meet these people we get numbers from off the street but it definately was a miracle that we talked to her! and we're hopefully gonna meet her!

3. Sister kim and i have been trying really hard to find new investigators because the ones we have are not progressing and have kind of dropped us. boo. so we have tried all sorts of things to figure out what kind of missionary work works best here in Honje. So it was kind of sad when it got to Saturday and we didn't find anyone new (we had made a goal of finding one new investigator every week). But we did everything we could to be obedient and hard working, talking to as many people as we can and making the most of our time by visiting members and less actives. AND THEN SUNDAY CAME ROLLING AROUND. A member brought his wife to church who isn't a member. great huh? but it gets better. he came up to us and said "hey, could you sisters teach the lessons to my wife after church today?" WHAT??!!! WHERE DID YOU COME FROM MIRACLE?! sister kim and i were soooo happy! and we both felt like we should teach the plan of salvation, yay companionship unity! and yay spirit! and during the lesson, she said "i've always wondered where we came from cuz other churches don't teach that." WOW. could it get any better? yep it sure can. i have these plan of salvation cut outs that i got from the SLC mission that help teach this lesson and i always leave them at home unless we have it in our schedules to teach the Plan of Salvation. But before leaving for church, I decided that i should take them around everywhere i go just in case we have to teach it. AND VOILA. we used them. YAY SPIRIT!!!!! it was just so so cool to see that when WE are prepared, Heavenly Father leads us to PREPARED PEOPLE. I was thinking about that for sister cho when she's not a missionary anymore; the cool thing is, this idea will work for anyoneeee--even sister cho when she's not a missionary anymore! yeee! so anyway, it gets better. this investigator told us that she used to come to this church with her husband every once in a while and she decided to just read the Book of Mormon. (wow) and then she said that she realized this church was good but making a switch in religion is hard because there are so many friendships that are involved in going to a church so it was hard for her to just let go of all those friends. but then, she said that two weeks ago, after attending our sacrament meeting, she felt in her heart that Heavenly Father wanted her to attend this church now. and on saturday, her husband came to clean up the church and she usually doesn't come with him but she decided to this past saturday. and they cleaned and talked. and she found a copy of the Book of Mormon again and started reading it again and it confirmed to her that her choice to come to this church now was a good choice. WOW. miracle. we don't know yet when we'll finish the lessons but she said that she will get baptized! The husband was a little hesitant on putting a date to baptism but that's for sure where she's headed! yay miracles :D

Lessons learned from these miracles: pray. talk to everyone. do your best. then see miracles.

THought: always remember that the atonement is not only to make bad men good. it's also for good men to be better as Elder Bednar's talk states in april's liahona! (read it! it's great!)

love you all! have a great week!

sister cho

pics: sister kim and i are going to use these pictures for message cards for our members! saying they're 최고 (the best!)

week 43: it's beginning to look a lot like fall!!

AUGUST 12

yay the weather has been getting cooler! it used to be 36 in our house but now it's 31 yay!!! and some trees have started letting go of their leaves!! (not many but still! i love that it's getting cooler!)

so this past week has just flown by! it's been full of member 식사s and lots and lots of streetboarding! we streetboard with the zone every week on thursday and last week was 서대문 and this week it was 삼청! we streetboarded by some college so we talked to a lot of students! there's so much energy when we streetboard together because you really realize that there are so many missionaries all around the world doing the same thing we're doing all with the same purpose of inviting people to come unto Christ! we also had a lesson with an investigator whose sons are members but she's keeping close to the religion she's familiar with which is 천주교회. she's really nice and she made us 돈까스 last friday but we need to figure out how we can get her to open her heart; her heart is closed because she doesn't want to lose her friends she made at church. anyway, her little 10 year old son is so cute! he's a good example to his mom because he is truly converted. like when we were teaching he wanted his mom to say the prayer but she wouldn't so he whinned a little and she still wouldn't so he said, "ahhh, fine mom. this time i'll say it. and you listen carefully and learn how i pray and then you have to pray next time, okay?!" and he prayed like he was writing a journal, it was so cute! he said "Heavenly Father, the missionaries came over while mom was making food and mom looked through sister cho's photo album and my brother showed sister kim his beetle collection. please bless the food. in the name of jesus christ amen." so so cute! :D i hope we can help his mom know what the solid sons know :)

so there aren't a ton of members in this new ward. all the members are solid! but especially cuz this week was 휴가 everyone was gone on vacation. so usually we teach primary at church but i taught the young women this past sunday and it went great! it was real fun and i truly gained a deeper appreciation for such solid fellow young women and solid leaders like sister lund, sister lemmon and sister davidson and all the other amazing monterey ward leaders!!! it's so great how as missionaries, we are being "used" by Heavenly Father in all sorts of ways in addition to the way that i thought missionaries would be asked to do missionary work! Sister kim and i are really enjoying it :)

thought for the day comes from President Uchtdorf's talk "Waiting on the road to Damascus." He talks about how sometimes, we just wait for things/miracles to happen to us that will strengthen our faith or we wait for experiences that Joseph Smith or Saul had. he said sometimes we wait for a whole painting of Christ to be given to us, but instead we are given puzzle pieces that we can, over time, piece together/ strengthen our faith! we can't just wait, we have to keep working and before we know it, we can have the solid testimonies that we so desire. There were a bunch of great quotes but i can't remember them off the top of my head so read it if you have time! :)

love you all!

sister cho

pictures

our bishop's daughter! sooo cute!!! she won me at rock paper scissors and she was so happy! lol

i got to step on the first fall leaves and they were so crunchy! yayyyy!!

sister kim and i were 전ing and found these cool trees at a historical place!

week 42: Congrats Jeehee!!! :D

AUGUST 5

wow you looked so gorgeous jee!!! and the Drake's yard looks great!!! minhee and leash, thanks for all those pictures!!! i'm going to develop them so i can use them during BRT with my investigators!! :D I can't wait to see more when i get home! :D

so guess what? we had transfers and i'm now in my new area and it's a place called  홍제 (Hong Jae). and it just so happens to be in the Seoul Stake. and it happens to be the closest sisters' area to 서대문 which happens to be where 할머니 할아버지 are! lol i had no idea it was so close! So last week, we went streetboarding and 전도ing as a zone at Sodaemun and it was so funny walking by 할머니's neighborhood! bahaha anyway, my new area is great. it has just tons of hills so i'll have nice healthy calves after i'm done here :) we went up a hill to visit a less active my first day her and yep i felt 호제's welcome in my legs! We have investigators but i haven't met them all yet so i'm looking forward to that this coming week.

my new companion is sister 김유희 and she this is her 3rd transfer and this is her greenie area! She's super fun and she works hard and catches on real fast so it's been great! i do kind of miss my old house because this one is a little...old haha but it's not bad! the weather here's been great. 36 degrees in our house but no mosquitos! :D We've been doing a lot of door knocking/ 가가호호 but you know what? the first day we were doing it, this random lady said "i don't want to hear you talk about your church! but it's hot. come on in." it was sister kim's first time getting through a door during door knocking and so she was super excited! this lady was a member and leader of like a relief society type organization of some other church! but she was so nice and she gave us drinks (배즙) because it was so hot! she and her friends were working on decorating fans with pressed flowers so that was so neat to see too! there are some mean people out in the world but there are also super nice ones too like her! yay for nice people :D

on sunday, we went to our ward and turns out  quite a few people know 할머니할아버지! and the bishop (유종욱b) here was daddy's friend when he first got baptized 27 years ago! small small world :) anyway, we met one of our investigators on sunday and it he's really really logical so it's hard for him to accept things because he always questions things and considers everything a good theory. and he said that he has too much pride so he can't use his agency to do what he wants to do like follow our commitments! i was like "wow, this guy has some tough concerns!" and then it was the COOLEST THING EVER. i saw oh so clearly in my mind a verse i read in Alma a few weeks ago about Alma going out to reactivate those who fell away from the church. He says that in order to get rid of the pride of the people, he would use two things: the word of God and pure testimony. and i remembered where it was in the scriptures right then and when i shared that with him and said that as he keeps meeting with us, we can share the word of God and our pure testimonies to help him get rid of his pride, he accepted the answer real well!! what's funny is that even right now, i don't remember the chapter or verse it was that i used! but right when i needed that verse, i just SAW IT IN MY MIND! wow. bravo spirit!!! man i am just so grateful that Heavenly Father is using someone as imperfect as ME to bring to pass His great work!

thought of the week: i'm reading in Alma 49 about how Moroni fortified the weak cities of Ammoniah and Noah and the Lamanites were like whoaaaa! and they got super scared and shocked at how much preparation Moroni did in strengthening the weak spots. and then not one Nephite soul was lost in the battle! prepared people really see miracles. so siter kim and i are going to be as prepared as we can be so we can see miracles while we're together :)

i love this work. and i love you all! congrats jee!!!!

sister cho :)

week 41: another hot week in korea :)

JULY 29

gahhhh! jee i can't believe you're getting married this week!!!!! YOUR PICTURES ARE SOOO BEAUTIFUL!!! but what's new right? :D i know things can get stressful but like you said, the important thing is just that you're getting married to someone you loveeee! and you're doing in the right placeee. and the right timeee. by someone with the right authorityyy. yay!!!!!! satan thinks he can make you feel stressed and interfere when anything good is about to happen! pshhhh! well he's not gonna interfere because we have heavenly father on our side. and heavenly father always wins yayyy :D i'm glad the photographer is letting you do the temple pictures again in the fall! and you know what, you should just bring your wedding dress to korea later and do a cute photoshoot here too! good thing you're just gonna be as photogenic then as you are now :P i'm so excited for youuuu!!!!! i'm praying for youuuu!!!!

also, minhee! you look GORGEOUS!!! wow i wish i would have done feast of lanterns too!!! and i'm so glad you had fun at camp and got solos! atta girl, that's my sis!!!! gahh, keep being great and listening to what mommy and daddy tell you to do, cuz it's all for your own good, kay?! love youuuu!!!!!

so this past week we had a huge miracle! our investigator that we met with back in april CAME BACK FROM KIRIKISTAN!!!! and we were the 2nd people she called! (the first being the member who is fellowshipping her!!!!) and you know what's cool? sister hill and i wrote in our planners last week that we should give her a call on Sunday to see if she's back yet. AND SHE CALLED US BEFORE!!! and she told us that when she was back in her country, she told her parents about us as her friends! how cool is that!! and she wanted to meet on sunday so we did and she brought us back some souvenirs and it was SOOO GREAT to see her!!! it was a little taste of what reunions are gonna be like in HEAVENNNN! 

oops i don't have much time but we found another investigator through english class and she wants to know about the Plan of Salvation!!! so we're gonna teach her next saturday!! and the girl we met on the street, you know the one who was looking at us because sis hill is american and gave us 요쿠르트? yeah we met her and she's doing so well! taught about the plan of salvation too and she's a little cautious about learning about religion cuz she's never had a religion before but she's understanding so well!!

ahhh this work is so great! and so rewarding!!! As we have charity for others and care for their well being, we become more Christ like and find happiness because we're doing what Heavenly Father wants us to do! I don't remember if i shared this before but elder marvin j ashton said that "charity is expecting the best of each other" which goes along with what President Uchtdorf and Elder Holland talked about this past conference about not judging, giving people second chances, and being happy for other people :)

Love you all!

Sister Cho

ps. my camera battery died just right now ㅠ ㅠ so i'll have pictures for you next week i promise :P

HAVE A GREAT WEDDING JEE!!! I LOVE YOUUUU!

week 40: happy 초복 ^^

JULY 24

daddy- thanks for your mission story!!! it's interesting to think that you've had the experiences that i've had on my mission :P 아빠도 젊었을때 가 있긴 있었군요... ㅋㅋㅋ we eat ice cream all the time! like 3 times a day cuz it's so hot :P but we found this 70% off ice cream place so it's only lik 30 cents to 60 cents ^^ oh and do you know a 김동순자매님? she's in our ward and she said that she was friends with you when you were growing up! :D small world!

jee! congrats on your pcat score!!! i knew you'd do well :) so yeah you'll definitely have to help me when i get back lol and yee i'm so excited for you to go through the temple!!!!!! i'm praying for you sis :)

so this past wednesday was 초복 which is the beginning of the hottest days of summer in Korea. and yep. it was hot. to say the least :P they eat 삼계탕 (a really hot whole chicken soup dish here) to beat the heat with heat! so on wednesday, we went to a member's house and she fed us each a chicken (but neither of us could finish it lol) and i'm not sure if it beat the heat but it was super yummy for sure!!!

so you remember our miracle investigator who was supposed to get baptized at the end of this month? and she couldn't come to church last week? well turns out she had some big unexpected family problems that came up so her date's been put off for now so we're praying for her!!! it's amazing what kind of things get in the way when people are so close to making good choices and making awesome covenants! i guess that's when the adversary does anything he can to stop the good from happening! when i had that thought, i realized that this fact isn't just true for investigators; it's true for all of us. whenever we start to make good changes in our lives, things always get in the way that make it difficult to carry through with our good choices. for instance, there are lots of hot and rainy and sticky days that fill our week and thinking about going outside sometimes seems like just a bad idea :P but sister hill and i have definitely realized that when we push through, and we push to the edge, that's when we see miracles :) we're praying that our investigator will be able to take care of the problems that beset her right now as she continues to read her scriptures and pray. and then, after that, she'll be even stronger and then she'll be even more happy to make her baptismal covenants :)

anyway, the miracle (well, we have lots but the main one :P) for the week happened on Friday. Sister hill and i both felt like we should go to 은행나무 4거리 to go 전도. so we did. but it was blazing hot and it had just rained, so it was even more humid! so it felt like i was walking around in wet laundry :P my 60 cent fan that i bought this summer has seriously been my best 60 cent investment EVER :) so we got to the four way and the side that we usually 전도 on was way way way too hot and had no shade. so we went to the other side which was the side that had all these grandmas selling vegetables and stuff on the street so we don't prefer that side because it's too crowded. so the first person i said hi to was the lady selling 야쿠르트. but she had this sarcastic and angry look on her face because she was there the last time we ran into a lady who told everyone around us that we were 이단 (word that means we are not a true religion cuz we are a branch off of something or something like that and kinda the word kinda has a cult meaning to it too apparantly.) so i guess she decided to believe that lady instead of trying to talk to us. so sis hill and i said maybe we should just leave her alone. so we talked to other people. and there was this one grandma i talked to who was so so sweet. and she wasn't interested, but when i was on the other side of the street, she bought sis hill a yogurt thing (that the lady was selling) and left. and then when i crossed the street, the yogurt lady i guess felt bad that only sister hill got one so she gave me one for free! we were so so so SURPRISED!!! i don't even really like the yogurt stuff but it tasted great because she gave it to me haha! and then sister hill and i went to get 50 cent soft serve at lotteria and we both felt like it'd be a good idea to buy the yogurt lady some icecream! so we did. and guess what. she thanked us. and when we were about to leave, she asked us all these questions about where we're from, why we're here, what our church believes, and where the nearest church is, what we did before we came out on a mission, and what the book of mormon is. WOW!!! all that came from a 50cent gesture of "thanks for the extra yogurt."  oh the blessings of gratitude!

this brings me to the spiritual thought of the day: President Monson started off a talk a few conferences ago by saying that the two most important words are "thank you." and really, it's true. relationships are strengthened, awkward situations are transformed into opportunities to develop friendships (and yes, sis hill and i are very familiar with awkward situations :P), anger is dissipated and replaced with a chance to see everyone as a child of God, and we become more Christlike as we show gratitude to everyone--not just the people we like but to everyone!

Hope everyone has a great week!

sister cho

i'll send some pictures next week!