Week 67

Dearest fam and friends

Every week it seems crazy that I'm sitting at the computer emailing again.. another week has passed. I can't believe how fast this transfer has zoomed by, its basically over. Its been a great one and I've learned a lot. I've learned a lot about myself.. about how I want to be a better missionary.. about how I want to improve, about how I need to improve. Today we had such a wonderful missionary leadership council meeting, and we talked about teaching like the Savior. The focus for this new month will be "Teach people, not lessons". We have zone training (again, already??) this Wednesday.. I hope we can prepare an inspired training to pump up our zone. 

Well, we haven't had a single investigator at church this whole transfer. To be honest its been quite discouraging. 2 of our investigators specifically promise they'll come to church every week, and then they don't show up. This past week I was feeling so discouraged at church. I was filled with disappointment that for a 3rd week in a row when neither of them showed up. My heart was broken as sacrament meeting started. I didn't want to feel this way, but the thought kept coming to my mind "Am I helping anyone?" Why haven't our investigators come to church? We continuously invite, follow up, testify.. I felt that I really was doing my part... I'm fasting, I'm praying.. why can't they come? After the sacrament, our district got up and performed a special musical number to start out fast and testimony meeting. We sang a Child's prayer mixed with Joseph Smith's first prayer.. and as I was singing I felt the spirit so strong and the confirmation in my heart that I had done enough, I had done my part, and I was helping this ward. Afterwards every member that got up and shared their testimony shared about how strongly they felt the spirit during our musical number, and how grateful they were to us. That simple expression of gratitude changed my day around. Even though I was so sad our investigators weren't there to partake of the special spirit that I felt, Heavenly Father helped me know that I am helping, despite what I feel sometimes.

We had a few investigators drop this week, but we found a few new ones so the Lord is taking good care of us. Our most progressing investigator right now is Nam Sungwon. Its been amazing to see the transformation that has taken place in her these past few weeks. Really when we started meeting with her she had no belief in God or desire to believe. Her faith is growing every day as she continues to pray. Prayer has taken a huge role in her change.. she prays and feels lots of peace. Every time we meet with her she says her faith is growing stronger. She loves prayer. And reading the scriptures. Now we just gotta help her feel that way about coming to church!! She doesn't quite want to yet. Obviously, because she's not coming. She says its just too hard to get up. And she doesn't have a phone so we can't call her to get her up. She's accepting our message so well, she's just not sure if she wants to come to church until she knows its true, or until her faith is stronger. We talked to her about how we come to know slowly as we exercise our faith, using light as an analogy. She said it was a beautiful analogy that really touched her. 

Something that I love that President said in our training today: "This is God's work, Elders and Sisters. He can do it without us, but he doesn't want to. He don't want to do this work without us." It is such a privilege to be a servant in the Lord's vineyard. He wants me here. He needs me here. I am so grateful for that.

사랑해요!! Have a wonderful week.

Sister Holmes

홈스 자매

Bowling last P-Day!

Temple day

Week 66

Dear family

And this transfer is over half-way done. Say it ain't so. Time keeps getting faster and faster and its freaking me out. But I gotta just keep making the most of it! This past week was absolutely crazy!!

This week we went on exchanges with some Sisters in our zone who have been having a really hard time getting along and working together.. One felt like she's been pulling all the weight even though she's a much younger missionary. The other felt like she couldn't do anything right and that her companion was always mad at her. We went into the exchange having been informed of the problem by their district leader. We prayed hard to know how to help them and what to say. Originally we had planned that I would stay in our area and one of them would come here, but last minute we felt prompted to change plans.. so I ended up going to the other area and working with the sister who is younger. Anyways, it was an awesome exchange where we were actually able to help them resolve their differences. My companion Sister Jeon challenged the sister she was with to bear her testimony to her companion. They texted us the day after the exchange thanking us for how much we helped them and that their relationship had improved so much over the course of one day.. it was such a cool experience!

We're seeing some awesome things happen here with a few of our investigators. One of our investigators in particular is progressing so much. Heer name is Nam Sung Won. Right before I got here she started meeting with the sisters. She started out with absolutely only english interest. No belief in God whatsoever, and no desire  to believe. Well its been really cool to see the change that has taken place in her as she has realized this is where she needs to be. She is so prepared.. its just a matter of time now. This past week she has been praying every single day and she loves the way it feels. She says she feels a peace in her life that she's never felt before. She says she's not just praying at night, but she prays in her heart as she's walking down the street, or whatever she may be doing. She is reading the book of mormon.. and she's really getting into it. We gave her the commitment of reading Alma 5 .. and to be honest I wasn't quite sure why we assigned it to her but it felt right. She read it and told us that she felt that God was speaking to her through it in verse 60 when it says that the Good shepard is calling you and you aren't listening... she said, I know that's me! "And look in the last verse it's telling me to be baptized!" I didn't know about those verses when I committed her to read it, but God sure did. She's so prepared. She's not quite ready to accept that fact yet. She didn't come to church yet because she feels that she wants to learn more about our doctrine before she starts doing that. Hopefully after we meet with her this week she will be ready. :)

We had interviews with president this last friday.. might be my last before my exit interview. Now that's crazy. It was great.. its always wonderful to talk to president and see how much i've changed. He challenged me to make some goals for the rest of the time I have left. It freaked me out a bit but I'm excited to keep working hard and hopefully keep becoming who the Lord needs me to be.

This week Sister Jeon finally decided when she wanted to go home! She's leaving in 3 weeks. So that was a good thing to decide soon. My time serving with her has been so short! I'm a little stressed that I won't know enough to take over the area by the time she leaves haha, but with God all things are possible. 

Sorry this email was kind of short! Tomorrow is temple day so our pday is tomorrow.

Have a great happy wonderful week everyone. Love ya.

Sister Holmes

홈스 자매

Week 65

Dear fam, friends and erebody..

Wow this past week has been absolutely crazy! Transferring to a new area is always a big adjustment and a lot of change, so of course its crazy. But I am so grateful to be here in Sangye for so many reasons. Our ward is AWESOME.. they have such a strong desire to do missionary work.. One really amazing thing, all of our members have an alarm on their phone that goes off at 9pm every night, and it doesn't matter where they are or what they're doing, they pray for the missionaries. How amazing is that? It just blows my mind. That, and the fact that we do yoga stretches to start out relief society lets me know that this is the ideal place to be. :) I still miss Taebaek with a burning fiery passion.. but I know that as I get to know and love and serve the people here it will go away! Sangye is pretty neat. I feel blessed. That's all.

We have a lot of investigators right now with a lot of potential here! I haven't met too many of them yet, but we've had great lessons with the ones I have met. One lady in particular is named Anna Kim. She is very good at english and she started meeting with the sisters here several weeks ago. We're doing family english program with her but it usually just turns into 30 min. of the gospel in english and 30 min. in Korean, so that's great! She has had a hard time with people from other churches in the past being backstabbers and mean people so she's skeptical to commit to a church. But she says so far she really likes what she's seen of our church and she's so impressed by all the young missionaries that give our church a good image. She has the desire to read the book of mormon and find out if what we're teaching her is true. She wasn't able to come to church this last sunday but she wants to come next week! I pray good things happen there! We also met a few new investigators this week since I've been here! Seriously I've been here less than a week and I've already seen so many miracles. 

Wow its such a party living with 3 koreans!! I thought adjusting to hearing basically only Korean 24/7 would be a lot harder than it has been! That means I've learned a think or two right?? Its a lot of fun. My companion Sister Jeon is so sweet! We get along well. In our first few days together she already opened up to me and told me all of her deep dark secrets haha. We're tight! I'm excited to work hard with her as Sister training leaders together. Some of the sisters in our zone are having a hard time finding right now so hopefully at our zone training this week and in our exchanges to come, we'll  be able to speak through the spirit and help them out. Being an sister training leader is great because I receive so much more than I give! Tomorrow is our missionary leadership training at president's house.. it should be great. I'm stoked!

This morning I was studying John 11, about when Jesus raises Lazarus from the dead. I found so much comfort in the simple verse 35, "Jesus wept". He wept because he loved Lazarus, He was his good friend. He wept because it hurt Him to see his dear family and sisters in so much pain. I think He also wept because in that moment He recognized the undeniable task of the atonement that he was to fulfill for the world.. and He realized that he would be taking upon Himself not only the sins of the world, but the sickness, the death, the heart breaks of each on of us individually. I love my Savior.. and I am so glad He loves me enough to do that for me. I feel confident in saying that He weeps for me too. As He does for all of us.

Well basically this is life for me right now! I feel grateful to have this new start in a new area (will be my last... AHHHH) Time is just zipping, so I gotta make the most of every second! I love being a missionary. Love this gospel, love you all.

Sister Holmes

홈스 자매

transfers...saying goodbye :(

Jeon Abin Chamenim!

Sangye!

Week 64

Dear fam

I remember having an interview with my mission president 5 transfers ago before I came out to Taebaek. I was talking about how hard it was for me to be leaving Sinchon, and all of the people there that meant so much to me. Well, at that time he made a promise to me that when the time comes for me to leave Taebaek, it would be even harder. Well, his promise has been fulfilled. Yep, after 7 wonderful months here in Taebaek, as John would say "my time has come". I'm leaving Taebaek! We got our transfer calls Saturday night. Headed back to the city... I'm going to an area called Sangye! Saying goodbye has been one of the hardest things I've done on my mission, no joke! The members here in Taebaek have become a part of my life that I can never forget. Each of them means so much to me.. I feel so unbelievably blessed to have had the opportunity to serve in Taebaek. It has changed my life. Even though it is so hard.. Its bittersweet. Because I really am so excited to go to my new area, Sangye. It is one of the most amazing areas in our mission... I know it will be amazing. I feel so blessed and really so excited to be able to serve there for my last three transfers! My new companion's name is Jeon Ah Bin! She's korean and I'll be living with 2 other korean sisters as well.. I am STOKED! Its crazy, I'm going from the smallest zone in the mission to the biggest.. Total opposites. Sister Jeon and I will be the sister training leaders out there. It will be a grand new adventure. Although leaving Taebaek is the hardest thing ever.. I know that great things are instore. I trust Heavenly Father. He sent me to Taebaek and it was better than anything I could've imagined.. so I imagine I'll leave Sangye feeling that same way.

I can't believe how fast this last transfer flew by, I hardly had any time to process it at all. It was probably the fastest transfer of my whole mission (and they just keep getting faster). With MLC, exchanges, Christmas and New years, every week seemed to be so packed. It was a transfer filled with happiness, the spirit, and Christ's love. We have had a hard time finding people to teach these past 2 transfers but I wouldn't have traded the experience we had for anything. Sister Stancliffe and I grew closer to our Savior as we dedicated ourselves to finding.We feel strongly that maintaining relationships with old investigators is really important. I told you about Jeong Sung Kyong last week, how we visited her and actually have started meeting with her again. It was a cool miracle. Also this week we've started teaching one of our long time english class comer's kids with their cousins and grandma during their winter vacation. It might be a short teaching time, but it just goes back to developing those relationships so that we prepare them for accepting the gospel in the future.

This week I conquered the world.. Hiked Taebaek San (mountain) on New Years day with our branch at -14 degrees c. We ate ramen with monks at the top. It was awesome. Haha definitely a new years that I will never forget!

Sister Stancliffe.. Oh how I love her. Leaving her will be hard! I feel like a momma bird that has to let my baby spread her wings and fly haha, I'm not kidding. I know she'll do great things here in Taebaek with Sister Schillemat. She has learned how to work really hard!

I don't have much else to say this week and I don't have much time! Gotta get ready to go.. We leave to Seoul tomorrow. We're having a family home evening/leaving party at the church tonight and a lot of our english class members and investigators are coming so it should be awesome. I love Taebaek. I'm gonna miss it so much I can't even explain. I am coming back here someday.. I already promised all of our members haha so its gonna happen.

I love this gospel! I love this work. More and more every day. Can't wait to fill you all in next week about the awesome new experiences I'll be having in Sangye!

HAPPY NEW YEAR! LOVE YOU ALL!

Sister Holmes

홈스 자매

Hiking!

The Korean traditional New Year's meal of "dok-kuk" (rice cake) soup! You have to eat it to get a year older :) I'M 22!

Goodbyes...

Week 63

Dear family and friends,

This past week was one of the best on my mission so far. Such a wonderful Christmas. Our whole district worked hard to make Christmas special for our branch. We had the funnest party on Christmas day. It was a huge success. Lots of investigators came and some of our English class members. We all had so much fun together. We watched the First presidency christmas devotional as a district Christmas night and it was so inspired and wonderful. Talking to my family the next day was so wonderful. Man I feel so blessed.. and I felt the light of Christ in my heart stronger than ever before this Christmas.

One of my favorite things we did this week was Christmas street boarding on Christmas Eve! ! And it was such a huge success! We set up a table in this pond/park area called Hwangi Pond, which is right in the center of the town. We set up a table, wrapped book of mormons as presents and had the "He is the gift" video playing. We had a board that had the question "What does Christmas mean to you?" on it, with the options of a. Santa Clause, b. Jesus Christ's birth, c. day off, and d. couple day. Most people knew it was about Christ's birth.. but lots of people just chose Satan Clause haha. We got a lot of contacts that day and met some great potential investigators. It felt so great to be able to share the Christmas spirit like that! It was awesome. At the Christmas party the next day, Sung-u, our branch president's youngest son saw our board sitting in the corner and was reading it to himself. I went over to talk to him to ask him what he was doing and he said to me "Sister Holmes! I know the right answer!" I said "What is it Sung-u?" He said "Santa Claus.. is Jesus Christ's son!" I laughed at the cutness of what he said.. but the very next day I read the scripture in Mosiah 5 that talks about how we all become children of Christ through faith on his name. So Sung-u knew what he was talking about haha. It made me so happy :)

We had a cool miracle this week! One of our old investigators, or as I like to call them, 'less active investigators', Jeong Sung Kyong came to our Christmas party this week. She's also been coming to English class every week as of late. We felt like we needed to visit her the day after Christmas. She was one of our most progressing investigators, and the way it ended with her was so random.. It happened around the time when Sister Lykins left. We never really got the chance to talk with her about why she stopped meeting with us. She loved the book of mormon, and said she knew it was true. She was working hard on overcoming her addiction to alcohol and cigarettes.. and she had made a lot of improvement.. The she kind of just gave up. It was really hard for me, and I felt there was never much closure. So because she's been coming to english class and what not, I felt it was a good time to talk to her about it. We went and visited her at her house and had one of the best lessons ever with her. She expressed her concerns to us. She says she feels that she doesn't even understand the bible enough, so she wanted to understand it more before she tries to do anything else. She also says she has a hard time believing in any prophets after the apostle Paul. She said she still believes the book of mormon, she just doesn't 'believe' Joseph Smith. We really focused on the book of mormon and the feelings she felt when she read it. We talked about what it means if the book of mormon is true. If it is true, then Joseph Smith was a prophet. We have to trust God. We talked about how the book of mormon and the bible go together, and one without the other is incomplete. We promised her that if she reads the book of mormon, she would understand the bible more. The spirit was so strong in this lesson. We invited her again to start meeting with us, to give it another chance. She accepted. We are so happy and so grateful for this opportunity the Lord has provided us with to teach her again. I pray that this time her heart and mind will be opened and she will be able to act upon the truths we teach her.

Well.. its hard to believe I'm finishing up 5 transfers in Taebaek. I can't describe in words how much I love it here. I love our  branch. They have become my family. I love our district and our zone. I feel confident when I say that every single missionary in our zone out here has such a strong desire to be the missionary the Lord wants them to be. We've seen so many great things happen this transfer. I feel so blessed to be serving here, and to have served here for as long as I have. I don't know what will happen with transfer calls this Saturday... it may be time for me to go.. I don't have too many transfers left.. but we'll see what happens. Whatever happens will be amazing, I just know it. 

HAPPY NEW YEAR EVERYONE!!!! Love you all and wish you a wonderful new year.

Sister Holmes

홈스 자매

Christmas at our little home :)

Christmas party fun!

Week 62

Dearest fam, friends and loved ones.....

This past week was insane!! Between being in Seoul for our Christmas conference and service projects, I didn't even have time to think it feels like. It zoomed past! Just like the week before, and the week before.. and all the weeks before.. and before you know it I'm in Korea for my second Christmas in the mission field. I can hardly believe it. I am so happy. I feel the spirit of Christmas burning in my heart more than ever before! I have never felt so happy. There is no where else I'd rather be this Christmas season than here with the people in Korea that I love so much.

Like I said, we did a lot of service this past week! We volunteer at a place here called "lunch boxes of love", helping prepare food and wash dishes (for the elderly). We always have such a wonderful time doing it, and the people there love us missionaries and appreciate the service we give so much, especially because recently everyone has stopped working there, so they've really needed the help. It makes me happy to see how much they appreciate it, and to know that we can help out an hour or so each week, and make a big difference to them. Also we were able to volunteer at a home school place making Christmas cards with a bunch of students, and that was loads of fun. The kids had a great time and really connected with us! One of the girls there was actually one of our old investigator's daughters so that was neat!

We're looking hard for new investigators. We don't have very many right now. We're still working with Rose, understanding her more and more each week. She definitely needs time. She's been reading the book of mormon a little bit and she feels strongly that it is good.. but nothing past that yet. She needs self confidence. really the biggest thing that is holding her back from accepting our message is that she cares too much about what others think. As soon as she lets go of that, she will really be able to connect with us, the gospel, our members, everything. As she continues to come to english class and activities, I think she will recognize more and more that these are good people, and this is where she needs to be. It might just take some time! We're sharing the gift with everyone we can! A few nights ago we were knocking doors in an apartment building feeling cold, and tired, and a bit frustrated because no one was letting us in or accepting us. The last door was the cutest girl who opened the door for us and watched the video with us. She really liked it and said "My family goes to church, but I don't. But that video made me realize that maybe I need to!" 

Christmas conference was wonderful! Things took an unexpected turn when poor Sister Butterfield got sick. We went in for pday on thursday and spent it in seoul shopping and what night. That night she got sick and was throwing up all night :( So I stayed with her and we went to the conference a little late on Friday.  but I was just happy to offer the bit of help that I was able to. She was such a trooper! We also stayed an extra day because riding back on the bus for 4 hours was out of the question. On our way back home on Saturday she said "This experience taught me that really with God I can do anything. I thought there was no way I would make it to 중랑 from the temple.. but God gave me the strength to get there!" It's so true! God gives us whatever strength we need, whether it be spiritual, emotional or physical. He is always there for us. It really was a great experience to be able to help her out. It strengthened the spirit of Christmas I've been feeling so strongly. I loved everything that was said at the conference and it just added to that feeling.

This week will be so great! We're planning a great Christmas party that we'll have with our branch on Christmas day. We'll be decorating the church today! I'm so excited. I am so happy. That's all that I can say. I love Christmas and I love being a missionary, so I am content with my life in every way. May your Christmas be the merriest as you think about the babe who was born in Bethlehem on Christmas day.. Jesus Christ, our Savior and Redeemer, our best friend. 

Sister Holmes

홈스 자매

Beautiful snowy Taebaek!

Christmas P-day in Seoul with the Kangneungnam Zone Sisters :)

Christmas conference!

Sister Zundel!! My sister/common friend with the Quinn family haha!

making snowflakes for our Christmas party with our members <3

Week 61

Dear everyone,

I can't believe I'm here emailing again. That week zoomed by! This transfer is basically almost over!! My time training Sister Stancliffe is already almost gone! What happened? We've got a busy week ahead! We have our Christmas conference in Seoul this friday, I'm stoked! We get to go in on Thursday to have p-day there and attend a temple session. I haven't been to the temple (besides sleeping there for our mlc a few weeks ago) for about 4 months. I say that and I realize some missionaries don't get to go at all their whole missions... so I am so blessed! It will be great! :)

It was a great week! Started out awesome with a great exchange with the Donghae sisters on Tuesday. I had Sister Butterfield come to Taebaek and work with me this time. It was so fun to be able to serve with her (we came to Korea at the same time, we were buds in the mtc). We just kept saying how weird it was.. All of the sudden we're at our year in country mark.. and it feels like not much time has passed! It was fun to see how much we've changed since the beginning of our missions. She is such an awesome missionary and she has so much desire to do good. We really focused on following the spirit and set some goals so take time to say more meaningful prayers, whenever the opportunity presents itself. We had a pretty busy day but saw some really awesome miracles! A new investigator came to english class! She contacted the Elders the day before! Such a cool miracle. Her name is Kim JiHye! She is such a sweetheart. We've started meeting her twice a week. She has mainly english interest but our lessons with her are solid! She attends another church so she's not quite open to the idea of accepting ours yet but she has a great desire to learn about and understand the Book of Mormon. So we can work with that! We also had a great lesson with Rose this week (our hard to understand investigator). We've been meeting with her for quite some time, and she hasn't taken any action because of her fears about what other people say about our church. But we kind of had an ultimatum with her! We challenged her to read the book of mormon everyday for one week, and see if things change for her. It not, then she can take a break from meeting with us until she feels ready again. After a little bit of complaining, she finally agreed to it! I just want her to discover the book. It is the thing that has brought me the most happiness in my life and I just want her to know that for herself! The only way she can do that is if she just READS it haha.

How did you all like the "He is the gift video" that I shared last week?? I hope it all touched you! And if you haven't watched it yet, GO DO IT NOW. This week we saw some great things come because of it. We were able to meet with old investigators and investigators we haven't met for a while. One lady, Pak Kyeongmin (and investigator we've only been able to meet with once), we met with and shared the video with told us that it reminded her that she needed to start praying and reading the scriptures. She said although she's so busy she wanted to make time for  the savior more in her life. Because He is the gift. I think that's pretty neat. We've had lots of people say similar things to that when seeing the video! It inspires us all to be better and remember the savior. Especially during this holiday season where its so easy to get focused on things that don't matter. Christmas isn't as big of a deal in Korea, but its been so cool to share with people that Christ is the reason for Christmas. Some of them don't even know that!!

This morning I came across a scripture in Jacob that rocked my world! Jacob 4:3 "Now in this thing we do rejoice; and we do labor diligently to engraven these words upon plates, hoping that our beloved brethren and our children will receive them with thankful hearts, and look upon them that they may learn with joy and not with sorrow, neither with contempt, concerning their first parents." This is the hope that the prophets had when writing the record of the book of mormon. They had a hope that we would receive it with a thankful heart and learn with joy! It was a reminder to never take the precious scriptures that we have for granted. Never cease to testify of their truthfulness to others, never forget to thank the Lord for them. Take advantage of the book of mormon!

Love you all!! Have a great week! Happy holidays and be happy. Because its the most wonderful time of the year!

Sister Holmes

홈스 자매