The first day of December and it welcomed us with a beautiful snow flurry! It was just like typhoon season but with snow! One thing I really love and am grateful to experience is Korea's 4 seasons! It is always keeping me on my feet! The thanksgiving party is over and we got back into our regular missionary activities. The party really got us excited and it feels good getting back into visiting people and teaching more lessons. The Kim sisters are progressing and trying their best to prepare for baptism. The oldest sister said she thinks she can go without coffee now. It’s more of a mental idea, not much of an addiction. Did I tell you last week how she said she drank coffee and we asked how she felt when she did?  She expressed that while she was drinking it she was thinking "I’m not supposed to be doing this!!" We got a good laugh out of it and we asked if she prayed and she said "yes, to repent for coffee...” They are so cute and I’m appreciative for them trying to be better, and even though she made a mistake, she knew she could repent! I love them so much, just like my sisters. 

We got new elders this week! So now we have 4 elders and us 2 sisters. 6 missionaries in a ward of 30 members!! It’s a bit crowded... haha but I think we will be able to help this area blossom and grow with everyone helping out. We have another greenie in the area and the recent Assistant to the President for his last 3 months! The ward is excited for the new faces and also the excitement from how many people came to the thanksgiving party. They really want to help out with missionary work. 

This week I focused my studies on diligence. I always thought of diligence and how we need to work hard, and do our best, but didn’t study it much. As I read the scriptures I realize it’s everywhere in the scriptures and it really opened my eyes that I can’t pass it by as a I read and how I have to apply it and always try to work hard at being diligent! It’s caused me not to be relaxed in my thinking but always thinking in a diligent way. "Who needs our help right now, what can I be doing that would benefit others." Diligence is not just my hands and body moving around and trying to do things, but internally my mind is working diligently as well. It has made a difference in this work as Sister Moyer and I serve together and work on being diligent. 

I was reading in Mosiah this week about King Benjamin. He says he is serving others so shouldn’t you be serving others too? We will always be in debt to Him. Missionaries that come home did amazing work but everyone is still in debt. It made me want to sacrifice some things for my Heavenly Father. Right now as a missionary, I’m sacrificing my time, but I know that is not enough. I want to sacrifice more of my love for myself and give it to others, I want to sacrifice some of my personal goals and help others accomplish theirs, etc. 

I know the gospel of Jesus Christ has been restored back on the Earth. Through no other church can I come closer to my Heavenly Father. Only through these covenants and ordinances in the restored church can we come this close to Him. 

Sister Wright

 I sleep with Mike Wazowski every night!!! 

spaceship playground

The Turkey Nightmare

This week was crazy! It consisted of pure party planning, decorating, and meetings, exchanges with other missionaries, meeting with members and 1 lesson. But that lesson was the lesson that made this whole transfer! Guess what; the Kim sisters have a Baptismal date!!!!! It’s insane! We’ve been working with them a lot on that. They were less apprehensive and decided to make a goal date for them to prepare. It will be in January. We couldn’t do it in December because they have tests all up until Christmas Eve! No fun at all! We were planning on teaching them tithing, and the lesson was taken off course and we were teaching what the Lord needed us to teach. The older sister asked if Moroni was a prophet and we said yes, and Sister Moyer (which seemed random) said that Moroni is on top of the temples, which led us to show them all the pictures in the back of the Book of Mormon and explain about Joseph smith, temples, liberty jail. It was interesting for them and while we were telling them these things, I was like (in my head) this is so random! We aren’t getting to the tithing lesson today I guess! But then after that, we shared a scripture in Moroni 7 that they read and talked about how "by their fruits, ye shall know them" and related to what was just shared earlier about Joseph Smith and how the Book of Mormon isn’t a bad book. We know that Joseph Smith is a true prophet because of his fruits and because we’ve read and prayed about it. We then shared about the spirit and asked how we receive the spirit, which got them to answer baptism, which led us into inviting them to be baptized on a specific date. It was the spirit that led that whole lesson. The Kim sisters are so prepared and ready to make the necessary changes in their lives. They are already keeping the commandments so well. Ahhh I’m so happy and I know this is what Heavenly Father wants for them. The spirit has led us in their lessons numerous of times and if I deny it, I would probably be condemned!

About the Thanksgiving party!

More people came than expected! 50 people! There was a conflicting meeting in another area (music fireside) so we were concerned that no members would show. But many did and they were pleasantly surprised at the outcome! Our ward mission leader set a goal for us to bring 30 of our contacts, and about 30 came! It was amazing. Lots of stress beforehand though. All of Saturday we cooked, went to Costco, cooked more, bought more food, and prepped the final touches for decorations. Menu: pasta salad, mashed potatoes (which the members thought it looked like soup... woops ha-ha they were like “what the potato soup??" yikes, corn, rolls, turkey, ham, pumpkin pie, hot apple juice and members brought fruit! It was a lot of food but the turkey was in demand, the elders said it didn’t cook all the way, (last minute we decided to cook a real turkey... bad idea!!!) They only brought a little bit. But it was ok in the end; people got to try a little bit of it. The Turkey Nightmare. The members got super stressed and wondering if they should buy pizza or chicken at a store to make up for it. We were all stressed! Ha-ha. The elders didn’t seem stressed at all.... it was insane. Anyway, the people enjoyed the food; members were involved with talking with everyone and doing some amazing missionary work! Sister Moyer sang and then we taught dance! We did some line dancing moves and doing the doe- see- doe and they loved it! There were kids running everywhere to the music and a lot of members and non members participated! The ward mission leader was laughing and going all out! It was so funny. It was a good experience in the end and the ward members had a fun time as well! It was fun seeing everyone in a different atmosphere other than just going to church. We are all friends now! Ha-ha you can’t forget to have fun!!!!! In the words of our mission leader "when you have fun, that’s when the baptisms come!"

Love you!!

thanksgiving tree, everyone wrote what they were thankful for on a leaf!

sister chao put me on the body of a chicken man...

Exchanges Cool camera holder

New Church building that will be ready next year.  It's the size of a temple

Subway

Piano Stairs

I got sick this week, because we spent time with a member that had a cold... that was our bad. (I’ve been drinking a lot of ginger lemon tea!) It kind of hindered our ability to go outside for a day, but we had planned an activity for Saturday that we had to prepare for. We were a bit stressed because we were scared no one would be able to come at all. We were texting and calling everyone and everyone said they weren’t able to make it! We wanted it to be a small gathering but if no one came it would be a big flop. We planned to not cancel it, go to our lesson and then go straight to the church and get it all ready for 7pm. WE had an interesting lesson with the Kim sisters, they were a bit tired and were acting differently than usual. We committed them to keep the Sabbath day holy. They are getting a little run down with these commandments we are giving them. They are keeping the word of wisdom, they fasted, they are reading the Book of Mormon. We reminded them of how these commandments make us more perfect, just like our father and as we can’t let the world’s standards affect our Fathers standards. Anyways, we got out of the lesson at 6:15 took a taxi to the church, told him about our thanksgiving party and invited him to it; I had sister Moyer sing him a song in the taxi! Ha-ha that was pretty fun, he dropped us off at the church, and we made sure he knew the thanksgiving party was on Saturday (he got a personal invitational jingle!). Then got to the church at 6:30 got the chairs set up and some people started coming. One family (an English class member who went to the Halloween party; her husband is a less active) and a less active member of the church with his friend that we play soccer with. Their names are Ben and JK. Our recent convert of the church came and played her violin after an elder played the piano. A member came a little later because he was teaching seminary in another room. Sister Moyer and I sang “Be Still My Soul” in Korean along with others. We bore testimony after our performances. During be still my soul, I felt the spirit so gently. As I sang the words, I didn’t worry about how I sang at the time but more of what I was singing. I felt that what we were singing was sincere and real. That brought the spirit and I bore a very simple testimony. That moment touched me and the music spoke to everyone, along with the spirit. Another elder brought the spirit as he played the piano "If you could Hie to Kolob” and “Come Thou Fount”. We asked after wards if anyone had anything to say. The wife of the family stood up and thanked us for this meeting. She talked about how she felt a special feeling that night. After the meeting others asked when we are doing the music night again! They loved it, when we thought they may have been bored! I believe they can find solace and peace as they meet with the missionaries and go to these sorts of activities. It was a very positive experience. The member that attended spoke in church the next day and talked about how he was thinking "there’s not very many people here, why aren’t there many people here?" and in his talk how that the meeting was amazing and that the missionaries are doing amazing work. I was really grateful for his talk. We are just the Lords tools, and He does the rest! I truly have a testimony of that. Ben, the less active came to church as well. Next time, we want to have an art gallery with someone playing the piano as they walk and look at all the pictures and read the descriptions of each one. We are keeping missionary work fun!!!

Great week! 

Sister Wright

Thanksgiving planning has begun!! We just finished the handouts and getting them printed! So... the missionaries are in charge of thanksgiving. We asked the ward mission leader how we are going to cook all the food... he said, it’s all up to you!!! Ha-ha it’s pretty funny. Hopefully we can get some members to help; maybe they’ll just buy the fruit... We are in charge of the decorations, food and activities. They are in charge of bringing themselves and hopefully friends! Sister Moyer is singing with her guitar and I am teaching line dancing! They seem very excited! We met with some less actives last night to invite them and they seemed like they wanted to come and dance (they used to have dances in Korea for the young single adults but now they don’t) We had a happy meeting with them and talked about what we are all grateful for and were able to teach a lesson with them. Once we got out of the house we ran home and had 15 minutes to get home. It was a miracle we got home in time. All the lights were green for us to cross the street and the elevator was waiting for us to get in as we came up to it! We hit all three lights and got home in 12 minutes! Usually by walking it takes 25 minutes! We were running so hard all the way, in skirts and jackets and scriptures. Can you picture in your mind, sister Moyer is behind me going at a slower pace because she couldn’t control herself and peed her pants and I'm striding across the street agonizingly slow in boots past all these buses and cars and pretty silent and I’m yelling for sister Moyer to hurry and make it because there’s 3 seconds left until the light turns red! Pretty crazy, and it was a miracle! 

One of the Kim sisters came to stake conference on Sunday!! It was a great meeting and two return missionaries spoke and it was super powerful and we could all feel the spirit. They seemed to have wonderful experiences. We are also planning to have a music night on Saturday and just have a music performance and testimony meeting. We hope it can bring the spirit and touch the lives of some of the people we meet with. 

I’ve encountered my crazy side because I’m really tired and sister Moyer got to see it all yesterday... i was a bit dilusional?? Yeah, she was entertained and my brain was about to explode, so we had a meditation session. It really helped, and I feel a lot better! I’ve seen that it is ok to take a step back and breathe!!! Relaxing is key to being successful! And we played soccer this morning with pastors! The other team consisted of all pastors, it was pretty cool, and we talked to some of them. We got some contact information of others that are super solid people. We’ve gained their trust that we are normal people!! I am really enjoying this area and things are progressing here. We are teaching more and teaching members and enjoying it along the way. Sorry this email is so crazy, I think the soccer got me all hyped up! That’s exactly what I needed!

Sister Moyer is doing great!! We are loving each other more and more. I feel like we have a sister like relationship.

I love this gospel!!!!

Sister Wright

we met with a memebr and wanted to make a picture together about a scripture! its the one in D and C about the chickens under the wing!!

elders cleaned the steeple of the church.. probs not the safest thing to do!

I got the package!  We had a zone training and I got it on Halloween!!! Super cool! Thank you for Mike Wazowski and everything!!!!! So cute.

So I'll start with last p-day... Sister Moyer needed to dye her hair, but they messed up so she had to dye her hair brown... so that’s the big change with her!! She looks great, it represents a new look, change and start new!

This week we did street boarding and talked to lots of different people. It got sister Moyer out of her comfort zone and she didn’t have to rely on me to talk to people. She’s doing really great; I’m giving her full responsibility to find homes and leading discussions. We are to train to where after their 12 weeks of training, they’d be able to train, so its pushing her, but she’s taking each challenge graciously and doing a great job:) I’m so proud of her!! She really wanted to go door to door proselyting, which I wasn’t too fond of, (and there’s more effective ways of contacting) but I accepted and it was good, I think I personally needed that push to not be afraid, even though I don’t like talking to people who get angry at me.  I guess I just have to face the fact that not everyone is going to be nice.  I just need to stand up for myself and be the disciple that Christ needs me to be!! (Bible dictionary: fear)

Besides that, we had Halloween parties! English class themed party with Halloween bingo, pin the bone on the skeleton, described English Halloween idioms! It was super fun. We used marshmallows as markers for bingo but they ate them all instead! Ha-ha we have the best 80 year old man in our English class!

Saturday the ward asked us to come to a picnic at this huge park. Fall is beautiful and the ward had a lot of fun together. The ward seems to be a lot better, happier and happy with our work with investigators. Bishop is happier than any one has ever seen him!

After the picnic, the other ward had a Halloween party and we invited our two Kim sisters!! They loved it. Our member who is the same age took them around and took care of them as we worked the booths! It was perfect. They had so much fun. The week before, they promised to fast and come to church. We were sad but they weren’t able to come to church again... but they texted us and said that even though they couldn’t come, they were fasting. These sisters are coming closer and closer to their savior and I can see the joy and happiness in their faces! Not to mention, the missionaries put on a great Halloween party! Decorations and everything were perfect. So that leads me into what is going to happen in November. Our ward mission leader heard how great the Halloween party was... so now we are planning a thanksgiving party! In two weeks! Ahhhhh crazy! The ward mission leader was like" who’s going to be in charge of food??.... and kept repeating it while looking at me the whole time... hahaha I was finally like "ok,

I will!! I will!" ha-ha he’s the funniest member.  So I guess I’m in charge of thanksgiving this year, for the ward. I’m walking in your footsteps mom! Maybe this year’s thanksgiving party will be better than last years.... Sister Moyer is providing the music (she is singing and playing the guitar) and I’m in charge of teaching some dance routines!! Maybe some hoedowns! Ha-ha we might be going to Costco to see what kind of food to buy! It’s super hilarious that this is happening, but it’s going to be fun and a great service opportunity for the ward. We are going to make invitations for the ward members to give to their friends to invite. We are in charge of inviting 30 non members and investigators as well. I think we can do it. A lot of our friends from English class came to the Halloween party.

This week, study time has been very precious to me; I’ve been trying to find a good way I can keep studying effectively because recently it hasn’t been as effective. I had companions that read super fast and I just felt so dumb because I read so slowly, and that made me just want to "get through" the Book of Mormon. But I can’t do that, I've not been effective, so now I’m to focus studies and it’s really helped me as I relate my experiences that past week with what I’m learning. Today I thought about how people with strong faith are like strong trees. I want to grow to be a Redwood tree! I wrote in my journal “GROW BIG!" ha-ha I guess I am spiritually and physically! Aha just kidding. It’s been a great week!

Sister Wright

Fall is Beutiful!!

English Class

Halloween Party... So many people!!

I don’t know how they expect me to teach English to these brilliant people over here.

Wow well this week went by super fast! We have been keeping busy with different finding activities and meeting with potential investigators and keeping on top of training and studies! First off, I don’t know how they expect me to teach English to these brilliant people over here. Our 14 year old investigator is sooo smart. Her English sentences she has us proofread is filled with me asking her what the vocabulary she used means! Ha-ha it’s pretty funny. She’s so cute. Her name is Iryn. 

We had an interesting/amazing Saturday. We taught a member (20yrs) a lesson to help her strengthen her testimony and she wants to do the English program with us. So we helped her with English and then share a message. She is growing in testimony, but we showed her the Because of Him message which brings the spirit so strong, but afterwards, she sort of shut off. It was sad because every time I watch that video I’m left with chills and am in pure awe. She didn’t have much reaction to it and we were left a bit confused. I could tell she wasn’t in tune with the spirit as she watched it. Later that night we taught the word of wisdom to the Kim sisters. Sister Moyer led the discussion (props to her! she’s in her first week!) and shared about keeping our bodies healthy.  It was a little bit challenging for the older sister to commit because she likes coffee, but she willingly accepted and said she would. At the end of the message, we asked if they had any questions. She asked about a sentence in the word of wisdom pamphlet saying “as we live the word of wisdom we will learn how to recognize promptings of the spirit" we have talked to them a lot about being able to feel the spirit, and from their question, it shows how much of a desire they have to feel this. We talked and explained it and then, we got the thought to show the because of him video. After we showed them the video, we asked how they felt, and they responded with “that was amazing". We asked, do you feel a special feeling in your heart, and they said yes! and we explained that that is the spirit speaking to us. Their faces were changed; we could see that their spiritual knowledge was growing!!! It was an amazing experience. We taught them again the next day, and taught fasting in order to feel the spirit and receive stronger answers to our prayers. We taught and committed them to fast with us next week. I could see in the older sister’s face that this was an even more challenging commitment than the day before. She was struggling within herself to see if she would do it. It was a special and personal moment to see her pause in silence for a little bit and say... "Ok, I will ". These little moments are so spiritual. Seeing her fight with Satan and trust in God! This is why I’m here! to find those who are ready to say "YES, I WILL, OK, I CAN, I WILL TRY, I WILL DO." I love these girls they make me so happy. I am grateful for my companion who asks everyone she comes in contact with if they are happy. Are we happy?? If not, maybe there needs to be some reevaluating to do! I know I can reevaluate some things that I need to work on to be happier everyday! I can serve people more!!! Everyone! Help the grandmas and grandpas pick up trash on the street, not ignore people who might look a bit on the scary side, be nice to the people who hurt our feelings! I love this work and I know it is the work of the Lord. I love being able to take part in Christ's sufferings, to come a little closer with Him. It is because if Him I can do this! We are all called to serve :)

Sister Wright 

This week we went busking!!! Crazy right? Sang in the subways, and shared a message with people who stopped to hear. And handed out flyers of what we are doing here in Korea that we made! We might sign up to do a concert on a stage in the subway we live by.

Went to the temple!

The district

Look what I found! BYU!!!

practiced face painting on the lovely sis. Holdaway

The taste never left our mouths that day

This new transfer has felt like the MTC all over again. Long days but short weeks! Time is going by fast! Sister Holdaway and I parted and I received Sister Moyer! She is from Mesa Arizona and loves to sing and can play guitar! So we have already planned some great finding activities (singing in subway stations and in parks) singing proselyting. It will be fun! The first night Sister Moyer came we had a lesson. I bet it was a bit shocking to her but she did a great job and has some expectations of what it’s going to be like in the field. She almost gave out a Book of Mormon on the subway! She has a great desire to do the Work of the Lord and I am very grateful for her contributions to this work.

 We went through the area's traditional food market and talked to all my favorite people! And we ate 3 oysters at a ladies seafood shop! She just said we could take and eat them, actually she was very adamant about it. So we did... the taste never left our mouths that day.

We met a lady on my companion’s first night and Sister Moyer, even though she had no idea how to talk to her, shared so much love and smiles with this lady, I truly believe that was the reason why she called  2 days later! She wanted to call the 2 smiling happy missionaries! We met with her and ate crab soup with her friends and were able to share a message with them. It was great and established our relationship with them. They invited us over every Friday! 

We were studying the How to Begin Teaching in PMG and it talks about how the first meeting is one of the most important. It builds trust. It’s the meeting that makes or breaks the relationship. And in this case, it made it! I’m grateful for all that I’m learning and all that I can teach my new companion. Training is probably the most crucial part of missionary work. It puts a lot of pressure on me, but I know that I’m not doing it alone. I am happy. I am happy I am a missionary and I’m happy that I can share the love of God to those who are seeking it. Even those who don’t accept our message, I hope they remember those 2 smiling missionaries and how happy they were.

Love you!

Sister Wright

Sister Holdaway on her last day before she moved.  "At her finest"