Dear family and friends
Holy cow, its the last week of the transfer, and as usual with time, I can't believe it. Where is my time?? Its nonexistent. Next monday is transfers and I'll be getting a new companion! Sister Jeon is going home, its official. We sent all her luggage out this morning! Our time together was short! I feel so inadequate and not ready to take over the area, but luckily I don't have to do it alone! God's always on my side, and I'll have a great new companion! Sweet I'm set.
Anyways! Zone training!! It was awesome! We decided to try something new! We talked about 4 different parts of Christ-like teaching: 1. using scriptures, unity with companion, listening, and personalizing the message. We split up into 'stations', each zone leader and sister training leader taking one. I was personalize the message. I talked sharing personal experiences, using parables/analogies, and testifying. Wow it was awesome. Because our zone is so big, its really hard to get that one on one connection with the missionaries, but this experiment allowed us to do that! Almost everybody had the opportunity to share their experiences and feelings, and the spirit was so strong. In each station we had each missionary write down one way they could improve that teaching skill. At the end of the training, we had everyone pick one and specify it. We asked everyone to focus on that one thing this month, and to keep themselves responsible every day, by writing down every night how they applied it specifically that day.Also, we did a zone fast this last friday to saturday. After thinking and praying about it, we decided that we should do a fast for eachother. As missionaries we fast a lot for others, for our investigators, recent converts.. but I've never really thought about fasting for other missionaries! We fasted together that we would all be able to become more christlike teachers, a more christlike zone. It was such an awesome experience. Every time I felt my stomach rumble while I was fasting, (on any other fast sunday I feel the urge to complain and say I'm hungry) I thought, wow it is such a privilege that I get to suffer this small amount of hunger for the missionaries in our zone. I felt the spirit so strongly that day. It was an amazing experience!!!! Such a great zone meeting.
I went on exchanges with the Sisters the sisters in our zone who serve on the military base, so they're in the english speaking branch... So I was basically in America for a day. It was the biggest culture shock of my life. We were invited to dinner with a member family, and I couldn't believe it, we had nachos! Yes, real nachos with real cheese sause. I though that was just a make believe thing! It still exists and its real! Real cheese exists!! Afterward we were knocking doors in their apartment building and almost everyone that lived there was from america. I didn't know how to respond when they answered the door. I don't know how to be an english speaking missionary haha. Sister Ellis (the sister I was with) said that I was ridiculously awkward and I kept bowing to them haha.. Oh great. I've got a few months to try and de-awkward myself.. but I don't see that happening. It was so much fun.. but SO surreal!!
We had so many appointments cancel this. Which is always a bummer, but it was almost hilarious how everything fell through! Sometimes you have days, weeks, and sometimes even TRANSFERS where everything seems to fall apart, but the only thing you can do is to get out there and work! And that's exactly what we did this week, and it felt really good. We talked to A LOT of people. Our only progressing investigator right now, Nam Sungwon came to church yesterday!! That's the first investigator we've had at church this whole transfer! It was such a tender mercy and a miracle. She is progressing so much. This week she finally got accepted to a college, and she attributes that to her prayers and our prayers.. that is huge for her. She told us on saturday after english class! We said, well you better come to church tomorrow to show God that you're thankful to him then, right? She said "Yeah I think so!" she promised she would come if she could wake up... she doesn't have a phone, but we found out her house phone a few weeks ago so we called it in the morning, she woke up, and she came right on time. She stayed for the whole 3 hours. During relief society I leaned over and asked her if she believes in God yet. She says that when she prays, she truly feels that He is there and listening, but other than that she still has a hard time believing there is a God with all the bad stuff that goes on in the world. I didn't know what to tell her except to draw on the feelings she has when she prays, to remember them always, especially when she feels doubt. We're meeting her almost every day this next week before Sister Jeon leaves.. hopefully her progression will be speeding up even more. She leaves in march for school, so we're hoping and praying we can baptize her before she leaves.
Here's a great quote I want to share with you all:
Where can I find hope?
"Everyone of us has times when we need to know things will get better. My declaration is that this is precisely what the gospel of Jesus Christ offers us, especially in times of need. There is help. There is happiness.. Don't you quit. You keep walking. You keep trying.. It will be alright in the end. Trust God and believe in good things to come... Some blessings come soon, some come late, and some don't come until heaven; but for those who embrace the gospel of Jesus Christ, they come." Jeffery R. Holland
I am so grateful for this knowledge. I hope this valentines day that we can all love others enough to share something greater than any amount of flowers or chocolates, even the gospel of Jesus Christ.
Love you all, happy valentines day this week!
Sister Holmes
ํ์ค ์๋งค
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