On the Mend.

Hello Everyone! ^^
It's been a while since my last update. =P
But GREAT news! I am on the mend, and currently almost done my recovery process.
Although, I will be done my recovery process soon, I unfortunately won't be going back on my mission for now.

In order to make sure that it my injury will not come back again, I will be going back to school for a year, to test out my limits, and decided after a year of school to see if I will be going back on a mission or not.

Meanwhile, I will still continue to work on/study my Korean so I won't loose it! ^^ Because I was blessed to have the opportunity to learn the language, and it would be ungrateful of me to not continue learning it, and try mastering it. And who knows, I may need it in the future! ^^

I am also given the "yes" to start running again. Only for a short time (15 min.). But I will slowly increase the time so I can get back to the long distance running I was able to do before my injury/injuries. ^^

The Lord really has blessed me, and helped me through this trial. Even though it was sad to leave the mission early, I also learnt how to rely on the Lord and really trust in Him. I won't say it was easy, especially during the first few months of my recovery. Also it was hard to put the faith into really trusting that the blessings that I received would come true. But I'm glad I still decided to trust in the Lord, and wait for my body to recover.

I look back now, and see that the Lord has blessed me, and the promises He gave to me in my blessings have been fulfilled! :) I KNOW that the Lord is mindful of ALL His children. And that He loves us, and wants to be and do the best. I know that He Loves each and everyone of us, and that He knows each and everyone of us Personally. I know that He listens and answers prayers. I am so grateful for the gospel in my life, and the Atonement! I am so thankful for the opportunities I was able to have on my mission! ^^ The experiences I had cannot compare to anything in the world!

Well, that's all that I have for my update! I hope everyone is doing well! Have an awesome week/day! ^^ until my next update, take care! ^^

Love,
Tiff

Update...

Hey Everyone!! :)
This is Tiff (Sister Kwok)here, sorry for not having any posts for so long, but I have been home for a while now because of some medical conditions.

I have been temporarily released from being a missionary. Once I am doing better I am hoping to get back out to the mission field, and if possible, back to Daejeon, South Korea.

But since being home, I have been keeping myself busy trying to keep up my Korean, and doing my best to help the missionaries out. I can't do much right now, but I am trying :). So I am trying to keep myself busy, and stay on the positive side of things :). I have given a talk in the Korean branch at home in Korean :) hehe~ :) That was fun. I will be speaking in my home ward as well :) which is exciting. :) So yup...I've been keeping myself quite busy. :)

I am hoping to know if I will be able to go back out on the mission soon. Most likely I'll find out after my doctor's visit in 2 weeks (hopefully). So I am anticipating the visit, and hope to know soon!! :)...Wish me luck!! :)

Well that's about it for my update. :)
Until next time, take care!! :)
-Tiff Kwok

The work continues ...

April 29, 2012

HEY EVERYONE!! ^^ 

How has your week been? How has work/school been? How is life? ^^

Well this week...Has been a very tough week! Disappointing, yet also good in a way. ALL of our appointments have been cancelled this week, and we were doing a lot of street contacting and sending stake conference invitations to our in-actives and investigators. 

We actually had an inactive sister attending the church yesterday!!!! She's the one that we go to help her out at her tea shop every week! She came with her daughter!!! We were surprised to see her daughter there!! ^^ so yes!! I felt soo happy to see her at church. 

We also had another inactive attending church this passing 2 weeks! We have an appointment with her this week! ^^ Sooo excited! Since we don't have a lot of investigators meeting with us, we use the time to focus on our less-actives! ^^ It's a little disappointed because none of our investigators are going to church, so they can't see for themselves how important the church is. Because they keep canceling the appointments, it is very difficult for us to share the gospel with them. :( We are hoping that we can meet with our investigators this week. 

Even though we had a tough week...we were able to get some contacts and able to get phone number from the contacts off the street this week!! ^^ I was talking to two harmonies (grandmas) and got a phone number from one! ^^ So we plan on contacting her. I told her how this gospel has blessed me and my family.^^ I asked if she wanted to learn more about this message, and my companion also helped me. We were able to get her name, and phone number!! ^^ So we are hoping to see her again! ^^ 

This week has been super-oober hard,  I somehow hurt my hip... I've been limping around all week...and trying to street contact at the same time hahaha~ doesn't really help because when they walk faster...I can't keep up. So yup...and I have a cold on top of my gimped leg! :( Well I think it's a cold...I'm gonna get it checked out today...and hoping it's not strep. 

Even though everything seems to be in the dump, we got blessings and I think we are just being tested with our faith. It definitely is hard to keep being positive, but we have tried very hard. On top of these trials and tribulations, we reluctantly had to pass 2 of our investigators to the elders in our neighboring area :(. Actually it’s a blessing that the elders will be meeting with them. We are unable to meet with these two investigators unless a woman is at present. It will work out for the better. We still have 3 other people that we need to contact. It will make up for our lost investigators haha~ ^^ 

I am half way done the book of Alma! It has been really good from studying Alma. I learnt a lot from Alma especially for this week. There were many things that helped me keep going. Alma and Amuleck were continue preaching, even though they were in very bad situations. They were down, but they never gave up. They continued relying on the Lord. Just like us as missionary, we are working as hard as we can, but we may not see any results yet. However, we have seen many mini-blessings/miracles that the Lord have given to us. 

Oh funny story!! So on Wednesday, I was such a bad companion...I 'killed' her with food. >.< So we went to visit one of our less actives, and we didn't eat lunch before seeing her. She had us to meet her at the Galleria. We waited outside for her. While we were waiting, a man came up to us and asked, "Do you know so-and-so?" We replied, "yes we do". He said, "Follow me". So we followed him...and he was like booking it..., we were running after him. He took us through Galleria, and it's like full of Channel, Gucci, Prada stores...You can imagine that we kind of felt a little out of place. HAhaha~ He led us to a car. He got into the car...and asked us to hop in, we were like...we can't get into the car with just a guy...Our inactive came out from the car and asked us to get in the car. She took us to her work, and she talked with us and we invited her to Stake Conference, and then we left. After a long morning, we were very hungry, so we decided to go to a kimbap place (oh correction my favorite food isn't kimbap, it’s bi-bim-pap). I ordered this dish that I thought it wasn't going to be spicy, but I was very wrong. It turned out that it was SUPER SUPER spicy. And my companion was eating away at her noodles, I was only able to eat 3 bites from my plate before I couldn't eat anymore. My mouth was on FIRE!!!! My companion offered to help me finish eating it. So she ate her portion and mine. :( my poor companion. 

After finishing our food, we were heading to one of our investigators. We were doing  a bit of street contacting on our way to our investigator. I proceeded to say "hi" to a harmony (grandma), and she was soo excited and started talking to me. She said "thank you" and also a bunch of other stuff to me that I could not comprehend... She gave me hoe-duck (these pancake like things that have peanuts inside...kind of like the red-bean stuff that we eat at home). Funny thing was that, out of all the people that we say "hi" to, this grandma gave us food...lol~ my poor companion lol~ So the grandma gave one for me and one for my companion. I didn't know it was peanuts inside, we thought it was walnuts...so I had to give mine to my companion because I am allergic to all kind of nuts except peanut... This was like an hour after our lunch...>.< So my companion ate them all. She was sooo full after eating all these food. 

While we were at our investigator’s place, our investigator fed us orange and some rice cake stuff...Oh!! my poor companion. I ate most of the orange trying to rescue her. So yup...she was soo full that she didn't want to eat anything else. She didn't eat dinner that night... Yet I was downing my dinner, in contrast, I was SO hungry lol~ hahaha~ While I was eating my dinner, we watched "Finding Faith in Christ" which was very good for us to watch cause it totally applied for our week!

^^ So that's about how my week is like.^^

Be safe, continue reading your scriptures! Have Faith, and look for the blessings in your day. Don't focus on the bad things that happened! Learn what you can do better. I hope all of you are doing well!! Love you lots and can't wait to hear about how you all are doing!! ^^ Love ya!!

Love,

-Sister Kwok

The Work is moving along ... and I started to do better with the Language

April 22, 2012

HEY EVERYONE!!!

How are you all doing? How was finals/work? Anything new or exciting? How is the ward doing? How is life? Anything fun happened this week? Any spiritual experiences? How has sharing the gospel been with your friends? How are the missionaries in the ward? Anything is exciting happening in the ward?

This week has been great and hard! My companion and I are SO EXHAUSTED! Plus it doesn't help that we haven't gotten good sleep this week because our neighbours around us have been very noisy! So we have tried to get as much sleep as we can. My poor companion has bags under her eyes :(. Nevertheless we still go to do the Lord’s work! We met 8 of our new investigators this week! So exciting! They are so awesome! I am excited to work with them!~ It'll be fun! ^^  We also met with some in-actives and we met some of our investigators this week! Unfortunately some of them had to cancel their appointments :( but we will see them this week! ^^ So happy! 

The Lord has really blessed us this week!! One day we met 2 of our new investigators. On our way to the appointment, we met a lady and she wanted us to meet with her, and stop by her place. She gave us her number and name! So crazy!!! ^^  The appointment was also great (there was 2 people--a mom and a son)! They were ready and excited to hear about the gospel, and they were also very opened to the 30/30 program.

On Saturday, we were supposed to meet with our 3 new investigators (mom, and 2 daughters). The two daughters brought their friends along as well!! So we got 5 new investigators!! Crazy right!? They were accepting of our message, and they were okay with the 30/30 program (30 min english/30 min gospel)!

The Lord has really blessed us this week! :) I don't know how my body could take this stress, but the Lord was truly blessing me and my companion to get through the day, and helping us find new people. I am still struggling with the language, but I am slowly learning it. I am starting to begin to understand what people are saying to me. It's a long process, but I am working at it. Everyday, I study the language. The mission has blessed us missionaries, and put a little pass off book together to help us learn the korean better! (Reading, grammar forms, and vocab). So the little book has really helped me! :) 

I am loving the food here, my favorite is Kimbap! It's a rice bowl with lots of veggies in it!! I really enjoy it, because we don't have lots of veggies as a missionary. We usually run off of cereal(expensive), rice, yogurt (if we have money), bread, EGGS (so cheap), and kim(seaweed), as well as kimchi! So anywhere I can get vegetables, I am SO happy! hahaha~ I do like other types of food too...although I haven't been able to experience a lot of their food yet, because I've only been here nearly a month. So yea~ Still excited to know more about their food! :D 

I have really learnt a lot about the Lord's work. In order for Him to bless us, and help us find people, we first must do our part and show the Lord that we are willing and wanting to share His gospel to others. We usually don't get blessed unless we do what we are suppose to do. Then the Lord can bless us! (we are continuously street contacting even though we are rejected by many. There are few of those that will stop and listen to our message which is always a positive to us. Sometimes we get those who are searching for the gospel, and we get contacts and eventually they become our new investigators :D). 

Right now, I am in Alma reading about Ammon visiting the Lamanites and how he served them. Through his service, the Lord blessed him with an opportunity to show the strength that he was blessed with from the Lord. He was able to share with King Lamoni about his beliefs in God, and was able to convert King Lamoni and many others. Just like missionary work, we serve, and people will see that we are different. If we serve with our hearts, not because we are obligated and because of that we are given opportunities to share the gospel about Heavenly Father, we can help bring others closer to Christ. 

I am enjoying reading the Book of Mormon, and definitely recommend it to everyone to read it all the way through with an opened mind and prayerfully read the book with the Spirit of discernment. To understand how it can apply to our lives. What the Lord wants us to learn from those words, etc. It really helps if you do that! ^^ You get soo much more out of the reading than just read the book without praying. Prayer and having the Spirit to be with you Is SOO important! It makes all the difference! It is essential to have the Spirit, because without the Spirit, we are lost. The spirit is the one who guides, teaches, and testifies to us. 

I am so glad to have chosen to come on a mission. Yes it is hard, and is discouraging at times, but the experiences, the closeness I feel with the spirit, the Love of God for everyone, and seeing people change their lives and turn their lives towards Christ is SO much more rewarding to me. They balance out the sadness and add even more joy in my life! ^^

 I haven't met all of our investigators yet because we have SO many and not enough time in our life, but I love them. I am So happy to know that they are trying to change their life, and follow Heavenly Father and turn their lives towards Christ. ^^ 

This Gospel is true, and everyone can find out for themselves through prayer and reading the scriptures (Book of Mormon and Bible). Together the scriptures testify of Christ, and one cannot be without the other. The Bible and Book of Mormon acts as witnesses of each other and testifies of the existence of Christ. This IS the restored gospel, and we Do have the Power of the Priesthood and the Authority on the earth today! Joseph

Smith WAS a prophet called by God! I know these things are true! I am SO happy to have known this Gospel! It has really blessed me and my

family, and still is blessing us! I have learned to really LOVE the Scriptures, and look forward to read them every morning! ^^ I know here is where I need to be, and that This REALLY is the Lord's work! He really does exist, and He REALLY does LOVE All of us and Knows All of us individually!~ I love this gospel, and I want to share this joy with everyone I can here! ^^ 

I hope all of you have an awesome week! and until next time, Stay safe! ^^ :) Can't wait to hear from you! Love you all Lots!

-Love

Sister Kwok

Learning to be a Missionary ...

April 15, 2012 (Sunday)

Hello everyone,

So I am totally all better now, healthy…as I can be. Still have a little pain in my abdomen…but not so painful that I can't do work. So I am not too worried about it. I am slowly starting to have an idea of what people are saying to me…sometimes. Not all the time, but sometimes. 

So I also found out that my birth area (YuSeoung) is one of the areas my MTC teacher served in!! It's soo awesome!~ ^^ This week, was an AMAZING week! Soo great and awesome!

So Monday was P-Day, and in the evening we went to go and visit one of our investigators. We have been talking about a baptismal date with her, but she has been SO busy lately, and will definitely not be able to get baptized until next month. But she attends church, her two younger children (are kind of inactive) but she was able to get them to church. We also were able to build more 'jung' with her and her family. So we visit them regularly, and we have seen a good outcome from visiting them frequently. Her children are starting to talk with us when we visit (the two younger ones…her oldest daughter practices her english with us, and we are helping her to apply to BYU). Also we have been able to build a relationship with our investigator. :)

Tuesday was District meeting. We had a combined district meeting, and we learned about how to become better missionaries by learning how to better use time wisely, learn how to work in monsoon season, working with your companion, and a few other things. We also shared our testimonies, and yupp~ it was fun!

And then after District Meeting, my companion and I went to our weekly appointment to another investigator of ours. We taught her about the Plan of Salvation, and focused on Eternal Families. She seemed more interested then. :) So it made me happy. She also attended church this week with her husband! :) Big progression step! :) 

Wednesday, was Voting day in Korea, so it's basically a vacation day for them…ALL of our appointments cancelled, but we went out and street contacted people. So yup~ that was a very hard working wonderful day! :)

Thursday…VERY interesting day!

We went and visited a member and her mom, who is less active. She owns a traditional Korean Tea shop/restaurant. We went there for lunch, but because she was super busy, and it was just the member and her mom who was serving the people. So my companion and I decided to help them out. We helped with the lunch rush, and they were so glad and happy. And then, just as we were eating, they got a reservation for Friday, and 25 people were coming to eat there for lunch, plus other people that would show up on Friday. So My companion and I decided to help out again. Plus we were studying about how to serve members in the ward and inactive members. We decided this was a good tool to show her that we love her, and do care about her. I think she really appreciated our help. We are hoping to do this often for her, so she will see that we love her and care for her. And hoping that will help her to come back to church. She has great faith, but there is something that is stopping her from coming to church. So we need to help her and find out what it is. 

We also visited our investigators and the “inactives”. We taught them lessons and yupp just all that goodness! :) hehehehe~

So Friday, we went back to the tea shop, and helped serve the people. It was fun, and they really appreciated our help. And I think we are starting to build some 'jung' with her! We definitely have built 'jung' with her daughter. Plus, her english (the daughter) is like perfect, so it's easy for us to talk with her! :) And she has helped us with some member lessons! :) I am So happy!

Saturday, was another busy day as well. We were out and about :) Don't really have much to say about it! haha~ OH we also celebrated 'black day'. That is for all the single people in Korea who didn't receive any chocolate on Feb 14. So we ordered 'ja-ja-mein'. It's noodles that are covered in black sauce. hahaha~ that's what people eat on Black day, and other days, but you eat it especially on Black Day! hahah~ ;P

Sunday…AMAZING!! So two weeks ago, one of our investigators got baptized, Sunday he got the Gift of the Holy Ghost! :) It made me SO happy! and we actually had 2 investigators at church! (the one I mentioned earlier above). And then we had 2 less actives at church too, and 2 recent converts at church! :) SOO happy! ^^. 

And then we had a ward sheek-sa (meal). That was fun! :) Good food, and lots of socializing haha~. OH and before the meal, we saw a member's child get baptized! That was fun to see! :) Then after that we went out and Jun-do ed the rest of the night. (Street contacting). WE did that for about 2 hours. And by the end, we were hot, dehydrated, and ready to go home, but we needed a few more contacts in order to go home. So we kept going...AND a Miracle happened. As I was crossing the street to catch up to my companion, cause she started talking to someone, a girl called out to me saying "Jesus Christ?". I realized she was talking to me and ran back to her and said "yes! Jesus Christ…I believe in Jesus Christ". And we started talking to her. She wanted to know why we were known as heritic, and had LOTS of questions. We stood there for probably a good 15-20 minutes talking to her about our church, and trying to answer her questions. Her boyfriend came, and we started to talk to him too. She had to go, and asked for a pamphlet, we gave her one. Unfortunately we didn't get her contact information :(. So we aren't able to contact her, but We were SO blessed by the Lord! He rewarded us for the hard work we were doing!! :) It made me so happy and grateful ^^. After that we went home and did our personal and companion and language study for the rest of the night! :) 

And I never really understood how hard missionary work was, but I am ALWAYS TIRED!! But the Lord blesses us and we are able to be out about doing His work, and still be alert! :) Also, if you can, HELP THE MISSIONARIES in our ward!!! Help them with Member lessons! Feed them! and Just TRY to make their work lighter!! It's really stressful to be a missionary, and when the ward members are not helping it makes it even more difficult for them! Our ward is VERY awesome and helpful, but I just want to stress that to you. Cause we have missionaries now in the ward! Just help them as best as you can PLEASE, when you have time! That will really help them out a lot! 

Well that's the update for this week~! :) We plan on going to a university park today to see the cherry blossoms, and then going to a buffet! :) Next week we plan on going to the Korean Bath house (Moe-gyo-tahn)…I will let you know how that goes…I'm a little scared but it will be a culture experience! ^^ So yupp. That's my week for you! ^^ 

I love you all VERY VERY much, and can't wait to hear from you!! ^^

-Love Sister Kwok! ^^ S2 <--that's suppose to look like a heart >.<

PS.

I have been reading in the BOM and am now in Alma 3~! I LOVE IT! it's gotten SOo interesting…that I feel like personal study isn't enough time…haaha~ I also am

trying to read out of the Korean BOM every day! to practice on my Korean, and it has helped me. I am slowly beginning to piece together what it is trying to say in the Korean BOM…So yeah~ :) I am very very happy!! :D

Starting the work in YuSeong, Daejeon Mission...

April 8, 2012

HEY EVERYONE!!! how are you all doing? How has your week been like? Anything new or exciting happening? How was

conference? How was Easter?

Well this week...can't really say much...I got really sick with the flu :( But it's okay I am okay. I am better, and on the mend :). So I slept a lot, and just tried to get better. My poor companion, just took really great care of me! I love her! ^.^ And I feel sooo sorry for her, but we ended up being indoors for about 4 full days :(. So on Thrusday, she went on a member split with me. We had our mission mom come and watch over me while she was out. She went and visited one of our new investigators, and ended up having two new investigators. ^.^ So we set up another appointment with them this week, I get to meet them this week! sooo excited!! ^.^ hehehe~

Oh and on Tuesday, of last week (the day I got sick), on our way home for me to go to sleep, cause we made it to District meeting before I fell ill, we took a taxi and the taxi driver recognized us as missionaries, and asked if we believed in the Book of Mormon! ^.^ We said we did, and shared a little bit about what we believed, and gave him our contact information, and gave him a Book of Mormon! ^.^ So great! heheheheh~ ^.^

On Friday, I wanted to get out of the house, I was doing much better, but still in a lot of pain. We went to an appointment that we had made, but when we got there, the appointment fell through :(, and my companion could see I was not doing so well, so we decided to go back home. On our way walking home, a woman stopped us on the street and said she wanted to learn english from us! ^.^ She gave us her address and phone number and name. Sister Miller and I was SOOO amazed and shocked! We were soo excited. We just need to explain to her now that we have a 30,30 program. 30 english and 30 gospel. We'll see how that turns out, we meet her this week.

At General Conference, Saturday was EMPTY-ish! It was mainly mostly missionaries and a few members. But the sessions were AWESOME AND EXCELLENT!!! ^.^ Sunday's sessions were ALSO very VERY awesome! I was SOOO sad it was already over :(.

So what I learnt from conference....ALOT but I'll share a few things.

From Henry B. Eyring's talk I learnt these things: Welcome the challenges! You learn and grow from them. The Lord will NOT forsake you. If our foundation of our faith is not ebbed in our hearts, when temptation and adversity hits, our faith will crumble. So in order for us to build a good foundation we need to learn personal integrity.

From Jeffrey R. Holland's talk I learnt these things: DON'T JUDGE PEOPLE!! Don't covet their blessings, instead look at the blessings that Heavenly Father gave to you! Don't dwell on past, move forward and learn to be kind, generous, and have compassion. NO matter what you may have done in the past, all can be made right through the Atonement of Jesus Christ. Come unto Christ. Apply the Atoning Sacrifice the Lord has given to us, and our lives will be soo much more at peace. It won't take away the trials, but it will make the burden lighter. ^.^

I learnt a lot more, but don't really have time to write it all down. Sorry >.<

Anyways, Funny Culture shock I had this week:

So on Sunday, between the Morning and Afternoon session, we had a potluck. So in America, you have tables set up with food on it, plates at the end of it, and you go along and pick your food and then leave the table and sit down and eat what your plate has. Well...NOT IN KOREA hahaha~ People stand around the table with chopsticks, and grab food with chopsticks. And you wedge your way into the table to get food. ^.^ I was TOTALLY shocked hahaha~ it's funny. I was fortunate to get some food though! :) I'm still trying to prolong my turn to go to the Korean Bathhouse...but eventually...I will be going with my companion! ^.^ hehehe~

I also visited with President this week, because I was in the mission home quite a bit this week, because I was sick. So we talked, and he said some REALLY good stuff I needed to hear! The best thing that he reminded me about was to STAY POSITIVE! think good thought and it will change your attitude. So that's what I have been doing, and my condition in my sickness has improved SO much more. Fact is, I still am sick and getting over it, but the mind can do wonders! ^.^ I am really grateful to President that He gave me such great counsel!!

Anyways, that's about my week! :)  REALLY loving it here in YuSeong! I can't wait to write next week, because I will have more to say! ^.^ hahahha~ We are going to rock it this week! I am so pumped hahaha~ ^.^ Well hope all of you are doing well, and I love you VERY very much! Take care, and Love you tons!

Love

Sister Kwok

Some Pictures in the MTC ...