week 75: last bit of news from sister cho :)

3/25/13

So this is my last Pday! Weirddd.

 

It's going to be a short email :P Our investigator's still on date for 4/7 yay! We met with her this past week and taught her part of the 3rd lesson along with commandments to see if she's had any problems with them to resolve before her baptism. We were so happy to hear that she's got no problems with the commandments :) Boy, we're so happy for her :D When we asked her what thoughts she had when we invited her to be baptized, she said that she just felt good about it. She said that she could tell through the members she knew that this church is true. And she said that there's something different about missionaries! How so cool :)

Well, it still doesn't feel like i'm going home! but this past week, i've been thinking a lot about the purpose of life and how my mission helps me to fulfill that purpose. So our purpose on Earth is to prepare to meet Heavenly Father as it says in Alma. And among the various ways a mission helps us prepare to meet God, the mission for me helped me gain and develop Christ like attributes. With all the unexpected, interesting, random, things that happen to missionaries during missionary work, I realized that everything that happens to us during this time gives us a chance to develop attributes of our Savior. It was amazing to see that everything that happened to me (the good and the less good), all was to help me become molded and created into becoming more like Jesus Christ--that is if I chose to let myself undergo these changes :) I am filled with inexpressible gratitude for a Heavenly Father who loves me enough to help me change and become better :) I was able to have an interview with Elder Aoyagi this past week for mission tour and he told me that the mission is the MTC for our lives. I'm sad to be leaving (and sad is an understatement haha) but i'm ready to put this to the test :)

 

Come what may and love it, right?

 

Sister Cho

pictures: my comps and i got companionship rings! :)

week 74: Happy Spring :D

3/18/13

Dear People I Love,

two big miracles for the week, ready?

1. So the weather is warmer! yay :) huge miracle :P

2. Our companionship has been trying our best to find people to teach in this area; we've met a lot of super awesome people (like a sign language translator! cool huh?) but there hasn't been very many people we could consistently teach--until this week! we met several really great people who want to continue to meet yay! and one of them was a referral from a member:

So there is a member in our ward who is friends with a cute girl our age who got in to the BYU Hawaii piano program--but she's not a member! So that's where we enter the picture, right? The member was so awesome because she set up an appointment for us at her house and even prepared dinner for us too! boy, she's awesome to say the least :) so last wednesday was the first time we met this sweet girl, right? but while we were preparing to meet her, we felt that she's ready to be baptized! (she's known this member and her family for a long time and her aunt is actually a member too!) So we prayed about it and decided to set a date for her baptism that we felt she would be prepared by. So we went to the appointment and, oh my goodness, she just seemed like a member already! Having our prepared thoughts confirmed, we taught the first lesson (and it was so spiritual; sister arthur described the first vision in korean and it was beautiful! :D) and sister 구 invited her to be baptized. andddddd yep, she said yes! :D we are so excited for her!!!!!!!!!! she said the closing prayer and she was like, "Heavenly Father, i don't know everything at this point but please help me to understand well and learn little by little as we meet to be prepared." We basically felt like we floated home because we were so happy for her! :D

Among the various things I learned from this experience, I think two points stand out the most to me. First, as I've continuously seen on my mission, the Lord doesn't ask us to be perfect; doing our best brings blessings-- regardless of what "our best" may be cuz that's different for each person. Sister 구 is just starting out her mission, sister Arthur is in the middle, and i'm at the end. and our experiences, strengths and weaknesses are all different. But as we each stretched ourselves a bit more to fulfill our individual "bests," that's when unexpected blessings came in unexpected ways :) so cool. 

The second thing I pondered about while reflecting on this experience has to do with prayer. I read a talk by President Monson this past week in which he talked about something he learned while he was on an assignment in Tahiti. He was talking to the Mission President there, President Baudin, about the Tahitian sea captains. The mission president stated "They are amazing. The weather may be terrible, the vessels may be leaky, there may be no navigational aids except their inner feelings and the stars in the heavens, but they pray and they go." President Monson goes on to explain that no matter what we are doing or what we're facing, we should always pray and then go. As we were preparing to meet this sister, we didn't know much about her. But looking back, we subconsciously stuck to this idea of "pray and go"--which is what we have learned from our childhood in primary til now. and Heavenly Father led us to pray about what she needs and led us to the appointment. and the Spirit took care of everything else :) it was a neat experience :) maybe this week, we could find something that we each individually could "pray and go do" :)

Well, that's it for my second to last email yikes! time flies!

그리고 엄마 아빠 선교사업동안 늘 힘이되주시고 사랑해주셔서 감사합니다! 만날때까지 화이팅~^^

Sister Cho :)

pictures: missionaries at a zone activity, my trainer 박자매님 came to our stake conference! and a member dinner appointment :)

week 73: yikes time just flies!

3/11/13

dear people i love so much.

oh boy. time flies! yikes i only have like 18 days left! ㅠㅠ seriously. where has the time gone?! well, you'll be glad to know it's getting warmer yay! :D 

so we've had a crazy week because we're trying to juggle 봉천 and 노량진 wards and there is just a lot to do! but that just means more chances to see miracles, eright? so as we've thought about how we can find more people to teach in our new area, I came across this line in PMG that stated that we will be guided by the Spirit in our finding efforts as we strengthen recent converts and less active members. We decided to put PMG to the test and so on Saturday, we decided to go visit the less active members in our area. We left the house with a map on my camera of where they live, a message card to give to them, and a big prayer in our hearts that they would be home and welcome us. And so the journey began :) as we were walking with very little clue of where we were headed to, there was a woman walking a little ways in front of us. I felt like we should say hello so we did. She kind of gave us the cold shoulder at first but then we found out that her sister lives in California--in santa clara-- so she opened up to us a little. then it was so cool because there were two other people walking slightly in front of us, so sister Arthur and Sister Gu went and each started talking to one of them :) This woman and I continued our conversation and I didn't mention anything about our religion; just talked with her about families and stuff. and then she asked me about the book I was holding! :D so we talked about the book of mormon and how it has blessed my family! She said that she believes in God too. She goes to another church but wouldn't say where when I asked :P and then she said "well, we have different beliefs, so here let me give you my number and we can talk about this stuff sometime." I wasn't quite sure whether she wanted to convert us to her religion or if she was really wanting to figure out what's different about our church, but one thing i know is that she had a good feeling about us three; we really seldom know how much people can really tell that something's different about us as members of the church. so that was really cool! :D

2. so then the other sisters finished talking to the other people in front of us and we continued on our way. and we were trying to find this three way road but couldn't figure out where it was just with the map. but while we were thinking about where we needed to go, we hit a crosswalk. and there was a cute student there doing something on her phone. and so we said hi. she was so sweet and she was on her way home from somewhere. the three of us were able to talk about the book of Mormon and we offered her a copy and she took it! and sweet sister gu shared a scripture that she likes and we wrapped it up with a powerful testimony from sister arthur! (foreign missionaries have such powerful testimonies!!!) then we exchanged numbers yay!

3. so we were super excited and we kept walking and missed the turn to get to the less active member's house. so we ended up on this hill and we realized we had to turn around :P so we did and on our way down the hill, there were two cute girls walking up the hill. so we talked to them and exchanged numbers too! 

4. so it keeps getting better. we finally found the apartment complex but couldn't tell where our 동 was and as we were walking up the hill to the complex, we heard this old man's voice saying "take longer strides, it'll help you get there faster!" so i thought he was talking to us so we turned around and he was just talking to his cute little wife--such a precious sight, an older couple walking together :) and we were able to start up a conversation because we thought he was talking to us ㅎㅎ and they were such sweet people and they helped us find the 동 and we shared a message about eternal families and the restoration. they weren't interested in meeting with us but it was such a tender mercy to be talking to people all night who liked being around us and talking to us :) 

5. so we finally got to the apartment and yep. she wasn't home. 띠로리. but we left a note on her door and came back out. then there was the 경빙아저씨 outside and he was a little suspicious of us lol (they all seem to be worried that we're going to cause trouble ㅎㅎ) he asked us what we were doing, and the name of who we were looking for haha and we told him and then just explained that we're from all over and we're new missionaries in the area and we wanted to come say hello to a member. when sister arthur stated she was from australia, he was like "oh cool!!!! i went to australia before! do you know where this place is...? up the road from there there is.... and have you seen this place close to the opera house...? etc" lol it was so funny to see how excited her got :) and then we left him our card with our number on it and thanked him for being so nice :) so like 15 minutes later, after we were on our way home already, we got a call from an unknown number and it turned out to be the 경비 man and he just called to let us know that the lights in that house we went to visit just turned on, which means that she's home home now! BAHAHAHA we couldn't believe that he called to tell us that cuz usually those 아저씨s don't give info like that! so pretty much we're best friends with him now :P hahaha that phone call made us so so happy :)

So after having tested PMG again, i'm only more sure that this work is God's work. We didn't get to meet the less active member, but Heavenly Father works in mysterious ways and gives us tender mercies and blessings when we just do what we're taught to do--Alma 57:21 obey and remember what our mothers teach us and we can't go wrong! :)

hope your week is going great! love you all! :D

sister cho

pics: some 노량진ward members, look familiar mommy? :)

week 72: hi hi :D

3/4/13

Dear people i love.

Boy this week has just flown by! We are loving 봉천! and we actually cover the 노량진 area too so that should be neat! :) Our new missionary is sister 구수미 and she's from Busan and she's so cute and fearless! We are always so happy and really enjoying the work!! 

So this is what I wanted to share with you this week:

This week, I've been studying the war chapters in Alma and i'm reading the part about Amalickiah. it's really interesting to see that while Amalickiah really uses all sorts of tricks to try and reign over all the land, "Moroni, on the other hand, had been preparing the minds of the people to be faithful unto the Lord their God." It was as simple as that. It's a running theme i've seen during my mission: As we are trying our best, everything works out the way Heavenly Father wants them to work out. We had an experience on Wednesday (after transfers) coming back from meeting the new missionaries. We had all this luggage when we got on the bus (because there were lots of missionaries taking the same bus leaving back to their areas) and slowly, all the missionaries got off and we were the last ones on the bus because we figured out we can take the bus to our area instead of trying to lug our stuff through the subway. This man on the bus started talking to us about the shortest way to the area we were going and we shared a message with him and he wasn't interested but he was very nice. then it was our turn to get off. We were about to get off when we realized that one of sister Arthur's suitcases was missing! ㅠㅠ The other missionaries who got off before us must have taken it off thinking it was theirs! So we got off the bus and thought about what we should do. (It was so neat because both my companions were very calm :) The man who was on the bus with us came off with us and tried to help us. And while we were calling other missionaries to see if they had seen the suitcase, the man just stood next to us, thinking of how he could help! We thankfully got word that someone had turned the suitcase into the police station so the Assistants were able to pick it up! We were all so relieved and happy--and so was the man! We thanked him for just being there and trying to help and we were about to leave and he said "well, I'm not interested in your message or english, but my daughter might be interested; well, at least in the english part. Let me give you my number." wow!!! (it was cool because it was our new missionary sister 구수미 who brought up english class while we were on the bus! she was not afraid to talk! :) So it was so cool because we actually met his daughter last Friday and she brought a friend too! We introduced the program to them and they said they'd want to talk to their parents about it but they said they'd call us back. Regardless of what happens, I know that the Lord can work through us--through our strengths and our weaknesses! It was no coincidence. nope nope! :) We are excited to see more miracles as we try to just be faithful to our Heavenly Father this transfer! it's scary to think this transfer is so short but i'm working to make every minute count :D

love love love you!

sister cho

ps. thanks jee and leash for figuring out housing :P

pss. daddy, my drivers' license is at home ㅠㅠ can i get it to you next week? 

pictures: my mission "family pic" my two daughters: 이정빈 자매님, 구수미자매님, and my granddaughter (cuz sister이 is training too!) sister Hunsaker! :D okay just kidding, my camera just died ㅠㅠ next week!!!

week 71: Hello :D

2/24/13

Dear People I Love,

Sorry the past few emails have been so short! It's been a crazy transfer! Here's what's been going on:

1. First things first: so I thought 신당 was going to be my last area. but Heavenly Father has lots of surprises for us :) So for my last transfer, I will be whitewash training in 봉천 with a co-senior Sister Arthur, the one I went on exchanges with! (so it's a 3 some!) We have lots of good investigators here in 신당 and the members are so great so leaving an area is always sad but I'm excited to see what the Heavenly Father has in store for our three some for my last 4 weeks :D

2. Our mission President's wife (sister Christensen) and I had the opportunity to put together a mission wide sisters' exchange right before the lunar new year conference so we were busy with that and it turned out great! it's amazing what things we can learn as we learn how to best face change! We had a short sisters' meeting which closed the exchange and it was cool to see how the sisters were with people that they really needed to be with for that time and it was also neat to hear all the miracles that happened in each of the areas! One other cool thing was that at that meeting, I felt that we should ask a certain sister to bear her testimony so after praying about it, I asked her to bear her testimony at our exchange closing meeting. She agreed to do so. Like 20 minutes later, Sister Christensen came up to me and suggested that maybe it would be a good to have this sister bear her testimony in this meeting. Turns out it was the sister that was already asked to do so! It is so cool to see how the Spirit can work through all of us and confirm the things we are thinking or the impressions that we receive :) through these miracles, we then can receive strength to continue pursuing the path of discipleship that we are on. I'm so grateful that we have a loving Heavenly Father who watches over all of us and plans specific tender mercies in our lives to know that we are loved :)

3. So we have this family we are meeting with and teaching English and the Gospel. Last week, we had a member and her daughter there to teach with us and they were perfect for this family! We talked about Jesus Christ and His church established on the earth during His mortal ministry and it was so cool because our commitment we had planned was to invite them to come to church. During our lesson, the 10 year old raised her hand and said, "well, i don't know how to ask this but... uh... can i come to church this sunday?" sister lee and I were so excited and so were the members with us and the 17 year old was a little hesitant but the member's daughter had already become friends with her and helped her feel comfortable and so the two of them decided to come to church! The mother said she'd come another time because she has to take care of her autistic son but she's keeping in touch with our member so they're friends too! Members really can naturally work so many miracles that we as missionaries can't (or can but with more time and effort). The two girls came to church and we went to pick them up but the dad said he'd be willing to take us by car! So we had a nice chat with him and he's supportive of them wanting to come to church! The Young Women just fellowshipped the the 17 year old so so well! and the little 10 year old had fun but thought it was a little too long :P it was a real cool experience :)

4. Our ward mission leader was on the ball about getting a new English class banner put together and this lady just saw it and came to english class! Turns out she lived in Utah for about 3 months when she went with her 2 children for them to learn english and she said that she was impressed with the lifestyle of the mormons. she said that she attended church but didn't know what was going on because it was all in really fast english but she got a good feel from it. When we met with her, she asked about why we don't drink coffee and how polygamy is related to our religion. She seems to know a little bit about everything that we believe and doesn't seem scared by what others say about our church because her experience in Utah. We asked her about baptism and she wasn't sure exactly what that entailed so we were able to teach her the difference between sprinkling and baptism and she wanted to see the baptismal font too! it was cool. when we invited her to church, she said that she's Presbyterian and there are some problems at her church; because she's been attending there for a long time, she wants to see those things get resolved and then come to church with us. We were able to ask a question which just popped in our heads (inspired question? :) to distinguish whether she wants to meet for English and out of curiosity or if she's interested in learning if this religion is really for her. And she told us it was the latter reason! yay :) we are excited for her!!

Thought for the day: the Lord's way isn't always our way. But as we align our will with His, miracles just happen. Because this is His work :) Hope your week is going well! Love you all!

-Sister Cho

pics: at 설날 conference, before the sisters' exchange, saw 할아버지 at stake conference :), a gathering at a member's house (she's so awesomeee!)

week 70: sorry!

2/18/13

so i don't have time today cuz there are some other things i have to do but i'm alive and well and loving my mission! i'm so sorry i'm not writing more but i'll write next week!

Love you all! come what may and love it! 사랑해요!

sister cho

ps. mommy president said grandma and grandpa can come to our dinner when i get released. will you ask them if they would like to come?

also, releases are done by the stake president so i think we need to let him know when i'll be back to get released. eek! weird thinking about this stuff!!!

week 69: quick email for this week!

2/12/13

Sorry I don't have much time today!

So last weekend (new years' weekend) we had a mission wide sisters' exchange! It was so so cool to see how each person was needed in each area for that weekend! I was with a sister from Australia named sister Arthur and she was so so sweet!

So while on exchanges, sister Arthur and I 전도ed together and we saw lots of miracles! we saw a group of ladies coming our way so we were going to say hi but then they just whizzed passed us and then we saw two ladies walking by so this time we didn't want to miss them so we just said hello as they walked by and one of them stopped. she looked really confused and asked us "it's really cold. like really really cold. why are you out here?" and then we talked to her for a minute and she spoke really good English too. so sister arthur had the chance to bear her beautiful testimony in English! she asked us "are you really happy?" and we explained that yes, we are really happy no matter what because of our Savior Jesus Christ. and then this sister said "well, i'm kinda lonely these days. and i feel like something is missing in my life. so i'd really like to visit your church sometime." sister Arthur and I were so so so excited! it was like a scene from "the district" dvds!! so we just met her today upon HER request through text! and she told us she's been looking for a way to gain faith for the past year and half and it was cool because we showed her the sacrament meeting room and she said "i've been to a lot of different churches for the past year and half and this feels different." wow. we are going to meet her every week on tuesday at 3:30! we are very excited! 

This week I re-read an article by elder wirthlin and he said that "those who make happiness the chief objective of life are bound to fail, for happiness is a by-product rather than an end in itself. Happiness comes from doing one's duty and knowing that his life is in harmony with God and His commandments." So it's that simple. we just do what we are supposed to do as missionaries and we're good to go! I'm slowly learning line upon line throughout my mission that this is indeed true! yay for tender mercies :)

Anyway, we took lots of pictures at New Years' Conference but i'll attach them next week! love you all! 엄마 아빠 싸랑해요~ ^^

sister cho :)