The Worth of Seoul: Week 78

Dear fam and friends and all you loved ones out there

I'll have to be honest. I'm really starting to dislike emailing. Only because it means another week has come and gone and its already time to email you again... Time is going faster than I wish it would. Anyways, it was a great week though! For lots of reasons... The Piano Guys! They came to Korea and we had a devotional with them last night!! it was amazing. We brought our investigators and they LOVED it. The music was incredible, and they bore powerful testimonies of the gospel.. It was so amazing. They cello guy, Steven Sharp Nelson, served his mission in Korea! So did one of the other producer guys. So they were so happy to be in Korea and see the Korean people again.

Kim Seo Youn is still progressing really well and preparing for baptism. We had a really great lesson with her last week when I was on exchanges with Sister Neidhardt. We talked more about the role of prayer (that's what we focused on with her a lot this week) and how essential it is to her conversion. We asked her if she'd really prayed to know if what we were teaching her was true.. she admitted that she hadn't actually prayed to know for herself! She said she just believed it and thought it was good so she didn't see the need to question it! We talked about the importance of personal conversion. We said a kneeling prayer together and she offered the prayer. It was such a special experience. She's really excited to be baptized. She even started making her own baptismal clothes haha she didn't know we had some for her to use already.. whoops. What a sweetheart. She is so prepared. Her biggest worry/trial right now is just that her dad, brothers, and boyfriend don't want to accept the gospel. She wants so badly to live the gospel faithfully for the rest of her life. Her family doesn't mind that she's getting baptized and becoming a member of our church, but they don't want anything to do with it for themselves.. and to be honest they're kind of bad influences on her. They don't live commandment keeping lives in any way.. so she just keeps saying how hard it is when she goes home after church or after meeting with us and all the light she felt with us seems to go away when she's with them. She says its really hard for her, and I can totally understand that! I just hope she keeps pushing through and when she receives the holy ghost she'll get that strength and help beyond her own to stand strong always. PRAY FOR THIS GIRL!

We watched "Joseph Smith: The Prophet of the Restoration" with Kim SOO Youn this week. I realized that watching this with investigators is hard for me because every time I watch it I cry for a good 15 minutes straight after, and there's nothing I can do to control it haha. She was almost crying with me. To cheer ourselves up we decided to watch Elder Holland's testimony of the book of mormon (mormon message). It reminded me why Joseph Smith died the way he died, suffered what he suffered, did what he did. Because the book of mormon is true!!! I think it helped her a lot, I know for sure she felt the power and testimony of the prophet Joseph Smith when she watched it. She continues to progress. Slowly. But progress none the less!

We continue to see lots of miracles every day. Haven't had any luck finding less actives yet.. But but my district leader said something encouraging in our district meeting this week. He reminded us that even if we don't find these less actives and the only thing we do is confirm that they have moved addresses, we are still doing something that needs to be done sooner or later! We are still doing the Lord's work! It's a cool feeling. Also it gives more direction in our missionary work. Instead of just going out to jundo for 2 hours, we are going to find the lost sheep and God puts people for us to talk to in our path along the way. It's great.

I've been studying a lot about prayer lately and yesterday at the devotional John Schmit said some great things about prayer that I needed to hear. "PRAYER IS REAL" and "The Lord doesn't say cry unto me for some of your support, or most of your support, but ALL of your support". Prayer is something that I easily take for granted. I forget how important it is sometimes, and especially how important praying with real faith and intent is (you'd think I'd know these things by now, how long have I been on my mission? Sheesh) Specific prayer brings specific blessings! Its so true! I love the Bible definition of prayer. It says something like "as soon as we understand the relationship in which we stand with our Father in Heaven, prayer becomes natural, almost instinctive on our part". God is our Father. We are his children. He wants to talk to us. All the time, every day, no matter what.

Love you, have a great week and don't forget to pray.

Sister Holmes

홈스 자매

P-Day at a cute fancy restaurant.