yay the weather is starting to warm up! :D it's still kinda chilly. but it's better than what it was at the beginning of this month!
so this past week was awesome. we met with our investigators and it's getting really clear as to who is progressing and who is not. Turns out that the Jehovah's Witness lady has been walking a long ways each time she meets with us because the church is super far from her house! and she always carries her baby on her back (어부바) which makes it even harder for her to come meet with us but she does anyway because she's that curious about learning more about the church! last time, it was raining and she still came :) hopefully we can get through all the lessons soon! she's so great!
we also met a new investigator and cool story: turns out her sister started meeting with the missionaries doing the 30 minutes of english and 30 minutes of gospel message program in 일산 which is i think where elder rife is serving if i'm not mistaken :P and then her sister told her about the missionaries and so we got her info and we just started teaching her! and she's soooo awesome! she's in her 30s but she looks like 25! and she's real nice and open. hopefully we'll be able to see her and her sister find the gospel because i know going to church with my sisters was such a HUGE blessing for me. (because you two are the bestestttt! :D)
we ended the week with a Relief Society birthday party thing that the stake put on and each of the relief societies did a little musical number/mini skit thing and our relief society asked us to participate. our theme was something along the lines of everyone has different talents and everyone is 잘났어 in their own way but if we come together as a relief society, we can really help establish His kingdom here. cute huh? so everyone got up and "showed off their unique talents" in a humorous way. like there were two ladies who played tamborins (sp?) and another who played the harmonica and another who played a children's toy zylophone (sp?) and sister park played a funny tune on the ukulele and yes daddy, i played the guitar. yes. with the 3 chords i know. i played the song "zzan ttoki" which is daddy's 엽기 version of "산토끼 토끼야." bahahahaha yes, everyone thought it was hilarious so thank you daddy :D i'll have to show you a 동영상 after the mish :) so yes, i 망가져 a little but it was so fun!!! i love our relief society. and i love relief society in general. and i love church. in a nutshell, i love this gospel. yeee!
anyway, we get transfer calls tonight but i'm pretty sure i'm staying but i'll probably get a new companion! i'll miss sister park, she's great. we're planning on holding 민지's baptism this saturday so i'll have to send sister park pictures wherever she goes :)
hope all is well at home! thanks for writing jee! i'm so glad we'll be able to TA together later!!! yeeee! keep being amazing. i'm studying the story of abinadi and it's so cool how even though it seemed like no one was listening (and yes, king noah and his friends were listening but definitely had hard hearts), alma was listening! and through alma, SO MANY PEOPLE came to know the gospel. so keep being your awesome self (you don't need to be perfect because we can be perfected in Christ! but just try your best!! phew good thing cuz i'm far from perfect :P) no matter who is looking or who is not looking because that's a form of missionary work! love love love you!!!!
-sister cho
pictures:
1. sister park and i each got a box of 40 Books of Mormon and we
didn't order them! so we had to carry them up to our apartment and our
arms hurt so bad! :P
2. we taught english class on saturday and these are our class rules!
cute huh? sister park made the sign :)
3. the relief society activity decorations- super cute huh?! and our
relief society! gahh i love themmmm!
5. oh i forgot to tell you that each missionary when they get here has
to pass off meaning they have to meet with their district leader and
zone leaders and the APs to pass off their language and teaching
skills using the guidelines in this little pass off book. and i passed
off a few weeks ago but i forgot to tell you :P
so i don't have much time so i'll just fill you in on the high light of the week: STAKE CONFERENCE! man i love it so much! i remember when i was little, i only liked stake conference because it was shorter than the 3 hours of normal church! ha. but i loveeeee it!
we had Elder Ringwood of the 70 come and talk to us and he was so good at Korean! he said that he had something to talk about but he felt prompted to share something else. so he talked about how 34 years ago, he did one simple thing: he knocked on a door. and turns out that led to the baptism of a girl who later married a nonmember and converted him. and he is now the bishop of a ward in 강서! and one of his daughters, introduced the church to her friend. and that friend, served a mission in Hawaii and just returned and turns out that this young lady was one of the translators at this meeting! he said that he shared this experience not because he wants credit. but he wanted to share with us how important it is to act on a prompting we receive. because small and simple things can have an impact on so many people! it was such an awesome meeting!
it was so cool because one of our investigators, the previous Jehovah's Witness lady was there and she loved it and felt the spirit! she even took notes because she said that it was something that she needed to hear! :D so hopefully she can continue progressing! gahhh i love this work! it's so awesome!
anyway, i love missionary work :D one of the biggest things that i'm learning in the mission field, is how strong of a force LOVE is. (i know i told you about it jee) it was LOVE that motivated Heavenly Father to give us families. it was LOVE that drove Him to create a plan for us. It was LOVE that allowed him to send prophets to declare that plan for us. It was LOVE that gave Him the desire to send His Only Begotten Son Jesus Christ to die for us (that's a hard thing to let happen unless you have a good reason to like LOVE) and it was LOVE that motivated him to restore the gospel to us even after people killed his Son! and it was LOVE that allowed him to give us the Book of Mormon so that we could be guided better back home to him. and it is LOVE that i am trying to learn so that i can have a REASON to help those investigators make it back home to Him as well :)
well, i LOVE you all :)
have a great week!
-sister cho
picture: we passed out programs in 한복s for stake conference :)
spring is just around the corner... i think... i hope... haha so yeah it's not any warmer but the sun is shining so that's good! and everyone's saying that after this week, it should feel like spring! until then, it'll be cold cuz it's what korean's call 꽃샘추이 and it's just the last bit of really really cold weather for a week or so and
then it warms up!
anyway, it's been another awesome week here in 금천 :) but first:
jeehee: BAHAHAHAHAHAHA those pictures were awesome! i may or may not have laughed out loud at the city hall place where we write emails. maybe... bahahaha!!!! tell max hi from the pro hole digger :P
minhee: you're growing up so fast! gahhh! HIGH SCHOOL CLASS REGISTRATION?!! ARE YOU KIDDING ME? YOU'RE LIKE 5! okay, you're not 5... haha but it feels like i just did that yesterday! yee! i'm so excited! you're going to do great! :D
so this week was full of stuff! we had a combined district meeting with all the missionaries in our zone (we usually have district meeting with just our district of 6 missionaries every week but this time it was bigger), we had a new missionary training with President Lee, and new investigators that we met with! It was really busy. one
thing that i am very surprised about is how long it takes to get places. the transportation system here is awesome, like the subways and buses, but trying to get to, for example, a combined district meeting in 삼본, or to 신당, for our training, takes forever! i guess i was just used to hopping in a car and getting places real soon in one smooth ride ( like no transfering subways and stuff hahaha!)
but you know what, I LOVE IT! because on the subways and buses, we get to sit by people and when we talk to them, they usually listen and talk to us because they have to cuz they're sitting next to us for the next while! 전도ing at the crosswalks is fun but people always move away from us and get closer and closer to the curb (almost in front of cars!) cuz they don't want to talk to us but people on the subways and buses at least just listen :) and conversations can last longer. so i was on the subway talking to this lady and then this grandpa kept staring at my Book of Mormon (we are required to hold one in our hands wherever we go) and the lady was super sweet but was more interested in the fact that i'm from America. but the grandpa asked if he could read my book!! So he read and asked questions along the ride and in the end, i offered him my book! he was kind of hesitant at accepting at first because i guess in korea there are a ton of people who give people things for "free" and then once they take it, they are charged like a ton of money later. But he took it in the end :D we weren't able to make an appointment with him because he gave a series of excuses but at least he has a Book of Mormon! Yay for people getting closer to the Gospel :) Anyway, so point being, i love korean transportation. i love korean people. and i love korea :D
so the highlight of my week was when we got to meet with a referral we got from the elders in our district. it was this lady who has three kids and she used to be a Jehovah's Witness because her husband was a hard core Jehovah's Witness and she liked it but she didn't like that only males could speak on the podium and other things like that so she came to church twice and fell in love with the fact that women can speak at church and also that there are a bunch of classes for everyone; like her kids can go to primary and she can go to relief society. she told us that she's going through a rough time in her marriage and she and her husband are probably going to separate :( but she wants to find out if this church is true. she said that she's okay with everything else but doesn't know much about the Book of Mormon. She said that when she finds out the Book of Mormon is true, she will know that this church is true. and yes, she came to this conclusion by herself! WOW huh? so we're going to meet with her every week and study english for 30 minutes and share our message for 30 minutes (it's called the 30/30 program!).
She is so desperately looking for the truth. What a blessing it is for us to have been born in the Gospel! We don't have to look for it because we have it already. Now we just have to fully apply it in our lives and share it with others :) let us hold up our light, which is Christ (3nephi 18:24)!! have a fabulous week! love you!
-Sister Cho
ps. That little girl whose hair i braided, SHE'S ON DATE FOR BAPTISM on the 31st of March!!! YEEEEEEEEEE!!! :D
pictures
the missionaries put on a spring youth activity with a bunch of relays and games so that the youth could bring their friends! it turned out great :)
so first things first:
daddy- i was surprised to see how many people don't want to be with their families forever because they don't like their families! we truly are blessed! i was 전도ing to this lady and i said "예수그리스도의 회복된 복음을 통해 가족 이 영원히 함께할수있어요! 큰 축복이죠?!" ("isn't it a blessing we can be with our families together forever through the restored gospel of Jesus Christ?")with a huge smile on my face. and she was like "i'm already sick of my family so why would i want to spend forever with them? 가족이 웬수야!" i was like, uhhhhh.... and i didn't know what i should say so i just bore testimony of what i do know. so i said that i know that even if she's not happy with her family right now, she will be happier as she learns about Jesus Christ's restored gospel. but i thought it was so sad that people think that families are just a bunch of people grouped together that annoy each other. WE ARE SO BLESSED!
mommy- thank you for your email! 매일매일 느끼고있어요, 제가 얼마나 많은 사랑과 축복을 받으면서 컸는지 from you and daddy! 또 항상 "엄마라면 어떻게 했을까" 라는 생각을 해요 when i buy things, or when i decide whether i should wear a thick coat or thin coat, or if i should take an umbrella! ㅋㅋ 그리고 항상 엄마 말이 맞다는것을 깨달아요! love you :) oh 그리고 엄마 i'm so grateful that you were brave enough to meet the missionaries and join the church ^^ 최근 개종자 들이랑 이야기할때 i'm so amazed at their stories! 근데 생각해보니까 mommy YOU are a convert too! and you're story is sooo awesome too!!! so thank you for converting!!
anyway, this week has been kinda rough in terms of missionary work :/ the investigators that we added to our teaching pool and the current investigators we had were doing so great! but then they just STOPPED PROGRESSING. boo. boo. life just got in the way and they didn't read what we asked them to read. and they didn't come to church like we invited them to. and they just blew off our appointments. BUT YOU KNOW
WHAT? it's still okay because sister park and i have been obedient and we've been the best we can be so we know clearly that this lack of progress in our investigators is not due to our lack of obedience! AND THIS IS SUCH A COMFORT!!! otherwise we could have gotten down on ourselves saying "oh it's because we don't have the spirit because we weren't obedient this day or that day." but we know that it's because everything works on the Lord's time and we did everything we could to help our investigators progress so we just need to keep up our work
and the time will come when they are ready :) 2 nephi 2:2 is when lehi is talking to jacob saying that jacob's had to deal with a lot of trials from birth but he tells jacob that all his afflictions will be made up for and for our gain. so even though things are rough, life is still great! because this is the best work ever! and the rough times will make the good times even better and more worth it!
have a great week! love you!
-sister cho
picture: so i went and visited a member in this ward who served as a missionary under the Rife's in Daejeon (there are quite a few here actually!) and we were looking through her mission pictures and look what we found!! everyone who i've met who knows the Rife family only has good things to say about them! They are such a great family. I love them so much. my prayers are with their family :)
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
