January 24, 2012
An-young-ha-sae-oh!!!! EVERyone!!!
I want to thank everyone for sending me letters through dearelder.com! :) I LOVE receiving mail!! :D hehehe ... And Sis. Bateman! Thank you so so much for the box of brownies!! :D I really enjoyed them, and my district enjoyed them as well, and a few other random missionaries I shared it with :D. How are you all doing? How is life?
Well I have to say, this week has been different from last week. I enjoyed this week, but it was a more frustrating week for me. I was a little discouraged, and I felt like I needed to improve in areas of my life, and how I was saying my prayers and I expected more of myself with learning the language. So, I was having a hard week. It is getting harder for my dung-pan-ja (companion) and I to prepare lessons for our investigator Kim-hyung-jae-nim. Our last lesson for him was on Wednesday, and he said he was going to go back to Korea for 3 weeks. I was happy for him, but I was also really worried that he wouldn’t continue to meet with the missionaries when he got back to Korea. So on top of the frustration I had, it piled up, and I broke down and cried. But when I felt like giving up, my dung-pan-ja and my chamenim-dur (sisters who we share a room with) said some positive words to me. I also turned to pray and asked Heavenly Father to help me and comfort me and help me to know what I need to do to be better. I did receive a comforting feeling and that everything was going to be alright.
Next day, our investigator left us; our district made a video clip on his experience while we taught him. He said that he felt our love for him, and he came to know that there is a God. He also felt a special feeling in his heart each time we met with him, and he came to know that it was the spirit. He learnt how to pray; and because he has learnt how to pray, he then prayed to know if the reading the Book of Mormon was right. He received an answer that he should read it and it made me happy. He said he would seek out the missionaries in Korea and he would tell his family about this religion. Also, he would attend church over there. It made me very happy!! :D
We now have two more investigators. I will meet with my second investigator tomorrow. But the one I did meet yesterday was definitely a neat experience. He's an atheist, and My dung-pan-ja and I didn’t really know what to say to him. But we prepared what we wanted to say, but mostly, we were led by the spirit to say the things that we said in our lesson. Because I didn’t really feel prepared for our lesson, and I didn’t have much written down on my notebook about what we would cover. Before we went to teach our lesson, my companion and I said a prayer that we will have the spirit to be with us that we will know what to say to him, and as the lesson went on, insights came, and I don’t know how my companion and I did it, we were able to put sentences together! :D
On Sunday, we had a fireside, and Elder Christensen talked to us. When he began his talk, I noticed that he was stuttering a lot. It didn’t make sense to me as to why he stuttered, because he was a well educated man. I was sure that he was also a good public speaker. After a few sentences, he mentioned that about a year ago he had had a stroke. As I heard that my heart went out to him, and I prayed to Heavenly Father that he will be able to get his message across to us, and that he will be okay. I do also believe that many other missionaries did the same thing, because as he continued to talk, not once do I remember him stuttering again; nor did I recall him having a difficult time speaking. It made me SO happy to know that our Heavenly Father was helping him to get his message across to us.
His topic was on Missionary Work, how we as missionaries should NOT assume that everyone already knows how to pray, read the scriptures, have faith, etc.
We need to make sure when we extend commitments that we teach them to know how to do it. Another thing that he said that really stuck out to me was that even though there are many members in our church that have callings, and maybe to us, some members seem like they are lazy or don’t want to fulfill their callings; it just might be because they don’t know how to do it, because they are not taught. So keep in mind that we need to teach one another how to magnify our callings, or teach others to learn to do their callings. That was the main part that I got out of Elder Christensen's talk.
Well, I have really enjoyed my life here at the MTC!! and it's just going to get better!! :D heehhe~ I am absolutely LOVING my teachers and my district, especially my dear dung-pan-ja! They are definitely a great example to me, and we encourage each other a lot! Yes we joke a lot, and 'pick' on one another for fun, but it brings us closer with one another and I really feel like we are a family. We are SO excited and I cannot wait to go to Korea!! I will definitely prepare myself as best as I can so that I can speak with the Koreans!
Oh and today, we are getting some NATIVE Korean's in the MTC! :D I AM SOOO EXCITED TO MEET THEM!!! EeeK! :D hahha.
And also don’t worry, my whiplash has been doing great! I had a mild flare up yesterday, and it has been about 2 weeks since my last flare up! Heavenly Father has been blessing me, and I am able to concentrate in class, and do all of my studies, and participate during my gym hours. So don’t worry too much, just keep praying that it will continue to heal and let me do the things that I need to get done!! :) Thanks everyone for your love and support and the prayers!! I really appreciate it and I do feel the blessings from your prayers! :) Thank you! I love you all and Wish you all the best this week!! :) can’t wait to hear from you all! and I'll email you guys again next week!! :D
Love,
Kwok Chamenim! :D
