The Worth of Seoul: Week 36

Another week has passed here in Taebaek and I'm doing just fine! I love Taebaek already.. I love our branch here. I got to know our members a bit better this week, and man we've got some great people here. :) They are all so kind, caring and loving. I feel like a part of the family already!

This week we met with our buddhist investigators, Jiny and Dorthy. They are the sweetest women. They love learning about the book of mormon and about our church, but they are very firm in their own beliefs. At this point we're just trying to help them see how we have a lot of the same fundamental beliefs as them, and go from their. We've been really focusing on families with them, which they love. Family is very important to them.

We also got a new investigator, Lee You Jin. She was a referral from the Elders! When they referred her they told us that she has no gospel interest, only English. Well we've met with her a few times and she actually seems to have quite a bit of gospel interest! She is christian and has strong faith in Christ already. We explained to her that our purpose as missionaries is to help people gain a stronger relationship with Christ, and that through reading the Book of Mormon she could do that. She seemed so excited and graciously accepted the Book of Mormon from us. I think we'll see some good things happening with her.

This week I went on exchanges with Sister Young, my sister training leader, in her area, Dong Hey. It is about an hour and a half bus ride from Taebaek (the closest area to us..) It was definitely the highlight of my week! Sister Young is so amazing! She has about 2 transfers left, so she's got some widsom haha. Serving with her was so much fun, I laughed hard and learned so much. Some of the awesome things we did together include taking a run by the beach (yes there is a beach in Dong Hey area ahhhh), trying to find less actives but instead finding an old house that has been abandoned for 20 years, teaching some great lessons and testifying in unity, and meeting some really great people through jundo. It was awesome.

She also shared a talk with me that really helped me out. "That we might not shrink" by Elder Bednar. Before the exchange Sis. Young asked me to text her some questions I had. One of them was how can I feel content with the results of faithful labors even if they are few. She gave me this talk and it answered my question.. differently than I thought it would. In this talk Elder Bendar talks about how important it is for us to stay strong even when times are rough.. It is more important to not shrink than to just survive. He says "strong faith in the savior is submissively accepting of His will and timing in our lives, even if the outcome is not what we hoped for or wanted." I realized that if I have strong faith in the Savior I will trust him and be able to feel happy knowing that He has power to do all things, and He will always help me. It may not always be in the time or way that I expect or want, but He has the power. If I trust his power, I can feel content. No matter what my situation may be. :)

Yesterday we had a cool experience. We decided to go visit our member's houses and leave message cards. Well it started raining cats and dogs and we ended up going the wrong way to get to our branch president's house.. I was soaked and feeling a bit irritated with my comp for taking us the wrong way. but on the way back we saw a young girl walking a little bit ahead of us. She seemed to be going through some kind of shock.. She was shaking out of control and stuttering and twitching. I ran up to her and asked if she was alright. She tried to answer that she was fine. I put my arm around her to try and help her stop shaking. We tried to ask her if she needed anything, if she needed to call someone, and she just kept saying that she was fine. But we kept walking with her. She started asking questions about us and so we introduced ourselves. Then she said something about mormons in korean.. and then in perfect english said, "What's the difference between your church and other christian churches?" Turns out she lived in America for a while, and her dad is a priest for another church. But she really wanted to know about our church, despite her shaking and what not.. so we had the opportunity to teach her the first lesson. We explained about priesthood authority, Joseph Smith and the Book of Mormon.. At the end I felt prompted to say to her, "We don't know what just happened to you, or what you are going through in your life right now, but I promise you that our message will change your life for the better. It will give you the strength, comfort and help that you need." She told us that she wanted to meet again with us and she got our phone number. I don't know if she'll call us, or what will happen with her, but I felt very strongly that because we were where we were at the time we were, we helped her out of a bad situation. We were where the Lord needed us to be.

I wanna share a happy quote I read during personal study this morning from President Gordon B. Hinckley. He says, "Don't you want to be happy? Forget yourself and get lost in this great cause. Lend your efforts to helping people.. stand higher, lift those with feeble knees, hold up the arms of those that hang down. Live the gospel of Jesus Christ."

I love this gospel. I love the people of Taebaek. I love being a disciple of Jesus Christ.

Until next week! Love you all!

Sister Holmes

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