The 7th week in MTC ...

Feb 21, 2012

Hey everyone!!!

How are you doing!? how is your week been? What's happening?!?!

Can you believe it?! I've been out for 6 weeks, and starting my 7th!! Sooo sooo crazy cool!! hahaha~ :)

Well I am doing great! This week was a tough week for our district. As I said last week, we had our older district leave, and our native Koreans as well. We also had to say good-bye to our teacher. He had a job offer that was to do with his major. So he took the job. He didn't want to leave teaching, but because of the time commitment that job requires, he had to let teaching us go. So we were really sad to see him go, but we are happy for him.

We also had to say good-bye to one of our elders this week. He went home and we hope that he will be coming back in about 8 months or so. It was a very emotional week. It's hard to let him go, because we know that once he's out back home, Satan will do everything he can to make the elder not be able to come back on his mission. So please pray that he will have the strength to withstand the temptations that will arise. We really hope to see him in Korea! It was really hard for his companion to let him go too! so please pray for him as well.

Yesterday we had a great teaching experience, my cha-mae-nim and I. We were teaching each other in class about the gospel of Jesus Christ. And we got to do it in ENGLISH!!! :) I look forward to teach in Korean, but speaking in English was GREAT! Cause I could express what I really wanted to say, and it was just great!! :)

My cha-mae-nim and I decided to talk about praying. We taught Elder Morris, who took on a role of a friend he knew. My cha-mae-nim and I wasn't prepared, because we were kinda just thrown into a teaching situation. But because we had read about teaching with unity in PMG earlier that day, and teaching by the spirit, we were able to apply that reading into our teaching yesterday. Starting was a little rough at first, but as we went on, the teaching became more smooth, and the flow was natural. In our lesson, we were actually able to feel the spirit, and the Elders (Elder Morris, and Keetch) that we taught also felt the spirit. It was amazing. And after our teaching experiences, our teacher reminded us that in order to be led by the spirit we need to remember to:

 1. be a good girl/boy

 2. keep the commandments

 3. honor our covenants

If we do these things we will be blessed:

 1. Your feet will be guided

 2. Your mouth will be filled

 3. You will be in the right place at the right time

 4. You will be doing what you are suppose to be doing

She also testified of these things, because she also experienced it when she was on her mission, and she got those from Elder Bednar's talk when she was at the MTC. :)

Well I don't really have much else to say, other than that I am loving my experience here in the MTC! :) We get a new district tomorrow, and I am excited to meet them all. I will be mean, and only speak to them in Korean and very broken English. :P In a way this will be a blessing, because it will force me to learn to talk Korean 24/7, and that will help me when I go to Korea. But how I got this idea was that our older district before us, did kind of a similar thing with us! :P and we just want to pass it on to the next district after us! :) hahaha~

Well I hope you are all doing well! Thank you for the letters you send me! they are so inspiring, and I love to hear how you are doing. Also you never know what your message will do to others. On Thursday of this past week, I needed to hear something encouraging, and my brother sent me a poem that he wrote that he found inspiring to himself. It motivated me to stop mopping around, and actually get to work. I still need to work so I am prepared to meet the people of Korea, and bring them unto Christ.

I will share his poem that he wrote:

Well I am SO glad to be on my mission right now! and I am SO glad to have made the decision to serve! This is the best thing I have done so far! and I love it! :) I Love you all very very much! and I hope your week will be great! Love you very much! and send you a new email next week! Muah~

-Love

Sister Kwok

More learning at MTC... we become the Senior Missionaries ...

February 14, 2012 

How are you all doing? How is life? How have your week been?

  

Well good news! I am doing well, I am better and I haven't gotten sick again (knock on wood :P). And this week has been a challenging week, but also a very uplifting week!

So this past week, I was struggling to feel the spirit. I was starting to only worry about myself (being selfish). My prayers were getting not so sincere, and it literally took a toll on me this week. My cha-mae-nim was able to teach with the spirit, and I wanted to do the same. It took me almost the whole week to realize that I was 'turning inward' when I should be turning outward (being selfless). 

So Saturday came, and we were teaching in TRC. I was trying to understand the investigators, my cha-mae-nim and trying to put sentences together. No matter how much I tried, I just could not understand ANYTHING and could not get anything out. I began to feel frustrated and my cha-mae-nim would turn to me to ask me to say something, and I just stared at her. I felt so angry and frustrated that I just told her I couldn't say anything. I would attempt, but she would end up helping me finish my sentence. Although I wasn't able to say what I wanted to say I did bear my simple testimony about the gospel, and our message about the Book Of Mormon. 

After TRC I was sad, and devastated. I forgot EVERYTHING! and I felt inadequate. My cha-mae-nim said that that thought is not from God. That thought is from the devil, because he wants us to believe that we cannot succeed. Also we got our feed back from our investigators, and I learnt that even though I couldn't say much, our investigators still felt the love of our message for them, and the love that we had for them. So even though we may think we are not doing much, the Spirit is working wonders in the hearts of the investigators!

Sunday was also very amazing! the messages were great! If you can, you should read Elder Bednar's talk about The Character of Christ. It has changed my life, and my purpose as a missionary! To be truly converted to the gospel is to consistently try to live like Christ did by turning outward when the natural man would turn inward. (i.e. Cookie monster from Seasame street; the Cookie monster wanted cookies only for himself and only thought about "me" not anything or anybody else...that is our natural man...selfishness. But we need to put off the natural man and turn outwards towards others and serve them even when we are going through the roughest times in our lives). A story that Elder Bednar shared with us is:

A women, who was also a Relief Society President in her ward, phoned Elder Bednar up one morning and asked him to go to the hospital to identify some young women, because they were in a car accident. There were three young women, one had died during the car accident and the other two were being transported to the hospital. She was on two phones, one with Elder Bednar, and the other with a nurse at the scene of the accident. Elder Bednar was able to hear just a little of what the other person on the other phone told this women, that her daughter was the young women that died in that car accident. Instead of turning inward, she turned outward and told Elder Bednar that they needed to contact the other sisters to let them know that their daughters were in a car accident and let them know what their situation was. (I think a week later) This women, who had an only child (the daughter who died), got a call from someone in her Relief Society. The person who called her didn't know that her only daughter had just died and that she was on her way to her daughter's funeral, and she complained to her that no one in the Relief Society brought her dinner because she was ill. So the women, whose daughter had just died, went and dropped off a meal to the lady's house before she went to her daughter funeral.

This is an example of someone who turned outward when the natural man would have turned inward.

This is only a portion of his talk that we heard, so if you could, you should read the rest of it! It was amazing!

Also this week has been a sad week for our zone. Our senior district left yesterday, Monday, and our native Koreans also! :( It kinda feels a little empty without our senior district, and the stick is now passed on to us to be the examples to the new district that will be coming in next week. We also found out that one of our senior district elders is actually NOT from New Zealand! He was speaking with an accent the whole six weeks, and the last friday, he told us that!! :P we were all shocked, because he played his part very well! Also our district found out that one of our teachers are going to leave next week, because he got a job offer that deals with what he is studying. We are very very sad to let him go, but we understand that it's better for him in the long run. So we have been very emotionally sad this past few days :P.

I feel very blessed, and I am very happy. Yesterday we were reviewing gerunds (i.e. English grammar - a noun formed from a verb ) and our teacher was saying that she was really proud of us, because we were getting it! and also, she said we can say SOO much more now. I look back on my first week here at the MTC, and I remember saying that I would have a hard time learning the language, and that I didn't think I would be able to do it. I look back now and I see that the Lord has really blessed me and my district with the gift of tongues. We have learnt SO much, and this week our goal as a district is to learn 500 dano words in korean (added up together between our district). Also we are able to teach our lessons without writing them out in Korean. I can now look at a sentence and piece it together in Korean! I am soo happy and amazed at what the Lord has taught me, and helped me to accomplish! My next goal is to learn to read faster in Korean. I can speak it alright, and write it, but my weakness is reading! Anyways, I am very very grateful that the Lord has helped me through these past 6 weeks! The Lord works in mysterious and profound ways.

This Sunday at our Relief Society meeting, we were suppose to only have all sisters in that meeting, but Sis. Cook's husband came along cause it was snowing on Sunday, and he wanted to be with his wife. It ended up being a blessing. Near the end of our meeting a sister fainted, and we were able to get medical help, but also Sister Cook's husband was able to give the sister a blessing. From what I hear, she is doing fine now though. But the Lord does work in mysterious ways, and everything happens for a reason! :)

Today I went to the temple, and it was AMAZING!!! I love going to the temple every week! it definitely does make your week/day much better, and you learn SO much! Well My time is up...and i wish I could say sooo much more. But know that I do love you, and that I pray for each and everyone of you everyday! LOVE YOU ALL! and take care! Keep pushing forward, and look on the positive side of things! It will make your day THAT much better~

I love you all, and HAPPY VALENTINE'S DAY!!! :) Remember, that the Lord loves you, and He will NEVER abandon you!

Love,

Kwok cha-mae-nim

Happy Valentine's Day everyone!!! :D Hope your day is filled with Love and Joy! :D

More Spiritual experience & Senior Sister Missionaries leave for Korea!!

Feb 7th, 2012

How are you all doing? How has your week been?

I'm kind of feeling under the weather right now, cause I apparently have Labyrinthitis...or something similar to that, and the doctor has me on Meclizine 25mg 3x a day. It's an inner-ear infection and is messing up my balance. So yesterday I went to the doctor and he gave me some medications. If it still continues tomorrow I need to go see him again. So I hope everything will be okay. I did get a blessing, and I was able to make it to the temple today! and I am very happy about.  Also, I think my body is finally getting into some shape so I can function...so yea` hahaa.

Well this week was awesome! My Cha-mae-nim and I have really really felt the spirit this past week! I think it started when we actually tried to have companionship study, cause they don't really schedule companionship study into our schedules. So yea~ we have been trying to get it in, and it has made a difference. Also we decided to focus on teaching in unity with one another and with the spirit. we also focused on Teaching by the spirit and Through the spirit. It has made a big difference in how we are teaching, because before one would dominate the lesson(mostly my cha-mae-nim), and I would just sit there and nod. The reason is I had no idea where she was going in the lesson, but after we focused to teach more in unity and with the Spirit, I was able to understand where she wanted the lesson to go, what she was saying, and how to teach our investigators or just other people.

In TRC (which is a workshop of real investigators or already member people who we teach) it was amazing!!! It was our first TRC because last week I was sick, and had to miss it. But I was able to go this week to TRC and it was AMAZING!! in our first visit, we shared the scripture Alma 32:8 and 2 Nephi 32:8-9. Anyways, we intended to teach the investigator about prayer until our investigator asked what humility was. I have to say I was a little shocked, and wasn't sure what to do at first, but that was when the Spirit started to work. I was able to quickly remember that in Preach My Gospel it had a section about Humility. I pulled it out and started to read to the investigator what humility was. My Cha-mae-nim also was also being enlightened by the Spirit to know what to say. That was the most amazing experience, and it surely is a testament that our Heavenly Father is real and that He is here wanting us all to hear His gospel! The Lord sure does work in mysterious ways!! :)

So our goal this week is to teach with the spirit as a focus, and teach in unity with each other. :D Also what was very uplifting to me this week, was going back to the goals we had set in our first week and seeing how far we have come. We, as a companionship, have been slowly accomplishing those goals. we have tried to incorporate speaking our language in everything we say and many other things that I can't remember right now. But it felt good to feel that i was progressing in my goals! :)

Anyways, I can't really tell you all much about my week, cause I'm having a really hard time focusing and trying to comprehend what is going through my head at the moment. Anyways, I just want to let you know that I love you all so so much, and pray for each and everyone of you! I truly love you, and appreciate your emails/letters! they are like my highlight of the day, and I get SO excited to get mail!! hahaha~ I love you guys soo much! and I know this is where I need to be! I am so grateful for this opportunity to serve the Lord! This is His work and His glory to proclaim the gospel to ALL His children to give them the choice to accept or not to accept His gospel! It is amazing, and it truly is Amazing to see the work move forward! 

I am so happy to be here, and cannot wait to go to Korea! I have fallen in LOVE with our native korean missionaries!! They are soo adorable and amazing! This last fast sunday was a very spiritual one! Although I couldn't understand much of what they were saying in their testimonies, I felt the spirit.

I am sooo soo happy that the Sister Missionaries will be leaving for Daejeon! I love them so much, and they made me very happy yesterday when they stopped by my apartment and offered a prayer for me so that I could feel better. They have such amazing faith, and all of the Korean Missionaries will be great missionaries!!!

Also next week, it'll be a big week! The senior missionaries in our district are leaving for Korea, and we become the senior missionaries in our district! >,< I don't feel ready for this responsibility, but I know that the Lord will help us in being a good example to the new missionaries coming in, and I want to help them as much as I can. I am excited to meet them! any ways. My time is running out, so I just want to let you all know that I truly love you all dearly! take care and be safe!!!

Love,

Kwok Cha-mae-nim