Week 41

My dear dear family and friends

This week was a good one. It started out awesome with my birthday on monday. It was a day full of feeling lots of love. :) We had lunch at one of our members, Kim JiHey (I love her so so much) house for lunch. I thought it was basically just a going away party for Elder Moon, but she made special traditional korean food that people eat for their birthdays in my honor. So I felt loved. Then after email Sister Lykins took me to baskin robbins. So I felt loved. Haha then right after that, we went to the church and the Elders surprised me with an icecream cake from baskin robbins.. and yes you know that it was a birthday wish of mine to eat icecream more than once... So I felt loved. For dinner, two of our other members, Kim Kyesook and Park KyongMi (they are the best) took us to dinner for some spicy chicken. So I felt loved. Then we had a super fun family home evening at the church, and every one sang to me. So I just felt so dang loved on my birhtday this year. Even though it was different and I was far from home, I felt so much love and felt so blessed. :)

This week was basically just like Christmas.. My birthday, and then a few days later the Elders came back from transfers in seoul with all my birthday letters and packages... AND COSTCO. We have tortillas, real chicken breasts, and cheese. I repeat, CHEESE. Its a christmas miracle. I was almost crying happy tears. Oh the little things

This week we met with Jiny and Dorthy together for the last time. It ended well. We were sad, but its what needed to be done for the time being. They are the ones who initiated it. They were very aware of our purpose and they didn't want to be invited to do something they didn't want to do. So it was the right thing. I've learned so much from this teaching opportunity. They are such good people. They have really good feelings about our church. They think we have very good teachings and we're very good people. So if nothing else, they've established that basis of trust with us and our religion. I pray that from their experience with us, they will be prepared someday to accept our message for themselves! I hope!

Leann is doing great. This week we had a lesson about baptism with her. We explained exactly what is was to her and we  were very clear. After we explained everything she said "So... you want me to come to your church? And be baptized?" And without hesitation, we both said "well actually.. yes! That is what we want!" We went on to explain the reason why we would want that for her. We talked about the blessings that come from baptism, and that because we love her we want to experience these same things. She really truly was so thankful for our sincerity, but she said she just wasn't sure yet. She said she hasn't really been thinking of our meetings in this serious of a mindset. She said that the things we talk about with her are good and they make her feel good, but she hadn't really thought about 'doing' it for herself. She said she wasn't ready. But she really does have desire. We told her that has we teach her we will help her understand more, and prepare her to make this promise with God.. and she said okay. Now its just about helping her to recognize the spirit! This week we're meeting with her and we're planning on having a lesson on the Holy Ghost. It will be awesome! I hope. :)

We also had a great lesson with Kim Koee Young this week about the plan of salvation. She brought her friend and we had an awesome discussion the led to faith in Jesus Christ. It was a cool experience. I'm not sure how open she is to accepting our message yet, but she's definitely improved and more open than when we first met her!

So yeah. We're working a lot on finding. We've talked to a lot of people and knocked on almost every door in Taebaek I think haha. One particular little miracle this week was during a long day of knocking doors. We'd been knocking doors for hours, with no answers, no interests, and a few mean words and door slams. We were on the last couple doors of an apartment, and we meet the sweetest harmony who invites us in and wants to hear our message. We talked to her about the book of mormon and how we've felt God's love when we read it. She is a good christian woman who believes in God.. the scripture Matt. 7:7-8 was on her wall. I felt the spirit so strongly while we were with her. It was a tender mercy. We asked her if we could come visit her again soon and she said that would be fine. She was such a sweetheart. She tried to feed us rotten corn but hey I'll eat rotten corn any day for a girl like you grammy. After the long hard trials come the sweet blessings! I love being a missionary.

Today I read in Alma 2 about the Nephites and Amlicites in battle. Verses 30-31 really stuck out to me in a way they haven't before. Alma is facing Amlici and asks God to help him defeat Amlici. It reads "Alma, being a man of God, being exercised with much faith..." This passage really stuck out to me. He was exercised with much faith! Meaning that he had exercised faith many times in his life before. I read the verse in Korean, and it translates to something like he had a record of faith. He had a history of exercising faith. So God trusted him and listened to him. In verse 30, after he pleads unto God to have mercy and help him become a tool to save and preserve his people, he was strengthened. So if I have a 'habit' of always exercising my faith, God will always give me help and strength in time of need. I have seen this on my mission in simple ways. If I just push myself out of my comfort zone to talk to that one person who just looks too busy or uninterested, God always gives me the strength to keep talking, to talk to the next person, and the next. He gives me the strength to be a stronger and more hard working missionary. Exercising our faith helps us become people God can trust, and therefore we will always be worthy of His help. Isn't that just dandy to know?

I hope everyone has a happy week full of... happiness! Love you all!

Sincerely,

Sister Holmes

홈스 자매

Birthday fun!