BIG NEWS

Another Transfer has come and gone, This one came with some changes!

I'm going to be training! Yay! I wasn't really shocked. In fact, I was hoping I would train. So, you'll all have to wait till next week to find out who my new greenie is.  Also, I didn't hear anything about me being over Bupyeong so that's also great news. Less stress for me! :D

Good news about this past week is that we met with Sarah Cha again. Her cute little kids were all getting sick and so we weren't able to meet but after continually following up with her and seeing how she and her family is doing she invited us over again. We were able to share the Easter video with her and her son Thomas. She liked it so much she shared it on Facebook to her friends. Awesome! Our mission is going to start focusing a lot on Jesus Christ and the #BecauseHeLives initiative. So, I'm praying and hoping we'll be able to find a lot of knew people through it and help others come unto Christ.
Also, do you remember how I mentioned that Crystal was leaving for a month for work? Well, turns out it got canceled completely and now she is back for good :) Yay! We met with her last Tuesday and it didn't quite goes as planned but was still really good. She was asked by the bishop to read Alma 32 about faith being compared to a little seed. When she came to our lesson on Tuesday though she mentioned how she read it 3 different times, but still didn't understand it. So, we changed our lesson plans and ended up just reading the whole chapter with her and talking about it as we read. By doing that, we were able to help her liken the verses to herself and I think that was key for her. She still has so many questions and she wants proof about everything, so we tried our best to help her see that she just needs to focus on prayer and reading the Book of Mormon like we taught her and she will come to know the truth for herself.
Sadly, she didn't make it to church yesterday but our ward had a music fireside yesterday and she came to that. We had 5 members from the ward share their conversion stories and in between each talk their was a video or song. The missionaries all sang my favorite hymn I Know My Redeemer Lives and the Bupyeong sisters played the violin and sang I Am a Child of God. It was a great fireside. We ended the fireside by watching the church's new Easter video Because He Lives and it was such a powerful good way to end it. I felt the spirit for sure and I know without a doubt that He lives. He died that I can feel of His love and have hope and JOY as I look back on my experiences where I had to have patience to endure trials. As I center my faith in Christ, I will have the spirit with me which will give me hope and confidence as I move forward in my missionary work and in my life. I hope you all watch the video and share with everyone your own personal testimony of Jesus Christ. I love you all so very much. Enjoy watching General Conference this weekend. Don't give me too many spoilers! ;)
Love,
Sister Kelly

He Lives - Celebrate Easter Because Jesus Christ Lives

Tender Mercies From The Lord

Hey ya'll! Well this week was a great week! You know how I told you last week that Crystal had left for a month? Well, she's back now! Turns out her job was delayed a week so she was able to come back last Thursday. Up until she came back our time was really open and so we ended up making appointments with members so we could practicing our teaching and Korean with them. This week I really struggled with my Korean. I felt almost as though the more I tried the more mixed up my tongue was. I just had the hardest time forming sentences or expressing myself in the way I wanted. But even though I had a hard time, the Lord showed many tender mercies to me and my companion.
As usual we had English class on Friday. Sister Chestnut and I are officially the children's english teachers now I think; which is totally ok with me! :D There are about 8 kids and the girls are so cute and remember our names so I enjoy it a lot being able to teach them. Teaching them English isn't too difficult because they learn at school already, but it's the keeping them busy that's the hard part. As compared to Sister chestnut I have a little bit more motherly qualities. She's amazing in so many other ways though. She seems very okay with me taking the lead in class. So, I always have to keep up with their attention spans, and there's always pressure because all the parents are there watching. I feel like she and I have done really well at teaching them and helping the kids all have fun. There's one boy in particular named Mayan. He's so good at English that he even swears. And when he does I just can't help it, but my motherly instincts kick in and I scold him for it. BAD WORDS ARE NOT OK! Haha it's kind of silly just seeing how much of a mother I feel like I am to him. But he needs it. His mother passed away a while ago. Don't know how or exactly when but he doesn't have that motherly figure in his life. Just his dad who has his own personal struggles and being a single dad on top of that must be really hard. They have been coming to our English class for a long time now. I definitely think Mayan's dad likes us missionaries being a good  influence for his son. I'm really glad Mayan has us too.
Anyways, back to my story...
During English class we always end by playing games. Either musical chairs, do you love your neighbor, or duck duck goose. I promised Mayan last week that we would play Duck, duck, goose. Which he didn't fail to remind me about it haha. So we played Duck, duck, goose. While playing a less-active member came with her little 5 or 6 year old niece named Elsa. She was so cute and has the cutest little laugh. I just wanted to keep her as my own daughter! She is a very honest little girl. You know how little kids are they see something and comment on it...usually without a filter. Well this little girl joked about Mayan's hair and how he looked like a bum. All the kids were laughing and laughing and Sister Chestnut and I didn't know the word she said so we didn't understand. As soon as I saw Mayan storm out of the room it all just clicked; I knew he got his feelings hurt. Because I am a missionary I always have to stay with my companion and class wasn't over yet so we couldn't just leave the kids and go after Mayan to see what was wrong. I was rather annoyed by the parent's as well, because they didn't do anything. But eventually little Elsa was told by her aunt that she needs to say sorry to him which she did, but she didn't really know why and was laughing while she said sorry. It really hurt me to witness all that and not be able to make it better. At 8pm, all the classes join together for a game and so during that transition between I learned from Mayan's dad what happened and that he was in the car crying. I immediately wanted to comfort him. So, Sister Chestnut went with me and I was able to try talking to Mayan.
He was really hurt and upset and I tried my best to comfort him. I was really sad that his dad was laughing but I understood that his dad just doesn't know what to do and laughs when it's a weird situation like that. I don't know if Mayan feels any better. I hope he comes again this coming week, but I tried my best and even promised him a little snack for his birthday.
Because of that experience though, I realized I'm really am good with children. I've gotten compliments throughout my mission about it, but it didn't hit me until that moment I helped Mayan. So as I told Michelle, I'm thinking maybe early childhood education wouldn't be a bad major for me. We'll see though. I'll continue to pray about it.

After talking to Mayan for a little bit, we went back inside and joined everyone else in playing a  game. When English class ended, I looked up to see that Crystal had sneaked in. Sadly, too late, but it was great seeing her again. She seemed super excited and wanted to talk to us a little, which was great because a 19 year old girl (a member) always likes staying to chat with us for a little while after class as well. As soon as they introduced themselves to each other it turned into a member lesson! Amazing!! Sadly, my Korean was still lacking and I couldn't fully understand where the lesson was going, but having a member there was such a blessing!! I tried hard to participate and add a couple comments or testimony to what the member was saying but it was mostly our member 주민주 teaching. We eventually had to end it because of our missionary curfew but it was a great time. Through it Crystal was able to make a friend and they even walked home together. So that's great.
On Saturday, all our plans got canceled :(  So that was a bummer. Our only back up plan was to proselyte and try finding a new investigator. Sister Chestnut got a really great idea to go hike the Gyeyang mountain and talk to people while we hike. Because it was so spontaneous we would have to hike in our flats and skirts. But it was either that or just walk around town all day. So, what did we do? We hiked :) About half-way up I decided  it was the worst idea ever; I am so out of shape! But it actually was really successful we talked to about 3 or 4 people. At the top of the mountain, we even met a guy who has met missionaries before and turns out that Saturday was the first day he had hiked in a long time and it just happened to be the day we decided to go hike as well. What do you think of that?? Miracle right?:) My body however, doesn't appreciate that hike, my calves are sooooo sore and I got a blister from wearing my flats on a hike. It wasn't the best decision to hike in those, but it's an experience I'll never forget.

Sunday was so great! Sister Chestnut and I fasted all day for Crystal and for Sam. Which I was so humbled when I already started seeing blessings during church. Since Crystal came back she was able to come to church again. That was a blessing! She came a little late, but the fact that she even came was great! This time we all actually went to Sunday school class (gospel principles) which was the young single adults, and 6 missionaries. Blessing number 2 haha. There I was able to witness how amazing this ward is. Our ward mission leader taught the lesson which that day was on Prophets. He and a couple of the other members were able to help her understand the history of prophets and how the calling of prophets and apostles works today. It was such a tender mercy because they were able to teach her and explain things that I couldn't in Korean. Crystal has lots of questions and so a result of one of her questions lead to another member lesson but this time with our ward mission leader. He was able to explain more deeply the Plan of Salvation and a couple other things like prayer and how to learn for herself that what we are teaching is true. I again stumbled on my Korean, but I felt the spirit all through out church and I knew that the Lord didn't need to help me with my Korean. He has a bunch of actual Koreans who were there to help teach her and answer all her questions. So that was such a tender mercy. She met a couple other friends so that was a blessing as well. Without our knowledge Crystal even made an appointment by herself to meet with the Bishop which I think went really well. She came out of it looking happy so that's good news :D
She doesn't know when she will leave again yet, but she does want to see us again. Especially since Sister Chestnut will be going back to America next week.
Wow! America! Time is flying. I feel like I just became companions with Sister Chestnut and now it's already her last week OF HER MISSION! I feel like if I blink even for just a moment then the rest of my mission will just fly on by! I'm loving every second of it. I hope it doesn't go too quickly!
LOVE YOU ALL SO MUCH!!
Sister Kelly

Ups and Downs of Missionary Work

This week was great but at the same time I had a rough time. Lots of anxiety and stress where one day I just didn't feel up to doing anything. Now looking back, I know it was just the adversary just trying to get me down and cause me to doubt. So as you read this email don't worry. I'm totally happy now! :D

Last Monday, I never mentioned how Crystal had been canceling all our appointments that weekend. Honestly, I didn't want to mention it to you all in case I might jinx the appointment we had set for Monday at 3:30 pm. However, we met her!! And all is well! :D
We usually get to the church early so we can go over our lesson plans and prepare spiritually before an investigator comes. While waiting for her to come, we both had to go to the bathroom really bad, and it was like 5 minutes till. I figured we could both go at the same time and finish before Crystal even arrived. But I was wrong. As soon as I walked out of the restroom I was bombarded with a huge bear hug from Crystal. While we were in the bathroom she came and had been walking around the church calling out for us. She was soooo happy to see me! I definitely could feel her love. She was so sad that she couldn't see us since Wednesday. My anxiety of her dropping us was immediately relieved when she told us she missed us.
She told us about how she will be going to Pyeongtaek for 3 weeks for a job and so she won't be able to see us for a while. We were all sad :( But she wanted to make plans to meet with us every single day this week. So, after scheduling the week, she mentioned that she wants to come to church on Sunday. She has a lot of curiosity about the process of the administering of the Sacrament and said she knows it will really help her for while she's away. We were so overjoyed to hear she wanted to come to church. Without even knowing we had planned to teach her that day about keeping the Sabbath day holy and invite her to church, but she invited her self before we even taught her. Amazing!
We continued to meet with her every day this past week and it was great. Thursday was our temple day. Sister Chestnut and I were asked to do initiatories. Which was such a great experience. There was an American temple worker so I was able to hear it in Korean and in English. Great blessing and great reminder. After finishing, Sister Chestnut and I both changed only to find out we were able to attend the 10:30 am session endowment session. Which really was great to hear, because I had been looking forward to that, but thought I wasn't able to.
Later that evening we heard from the elders that Sam decided to no longer get baptized and not meet anymore. Which just instantly as I heard it I felt knots in my stomach. I hate depressing news. Basically, he talked to some friends and his wife and they feel that he is moving to fast with religion and advised him that he should look into other churches first. Which I understand, BUT he already knows this church is true! He has had so many spiritual experiences it was shocking that he made the choice to choose not to be baptized. While walking home, I was just so angry at God. Why could He let Sam go so easily. Why was all the miracles we were seeing in Gyesan all falling through? Is being on a missionary really worth it, if the miracles never fall through. So far on my mission I've seen sooo many tender mercies, but later learn they weren't really anything. All those thoughts led me to wonder what will happen with Crystal. Is she not going to be baptized? I mean we had just had a great week with her, but she's going to be gone for 3 weeks! A lot can change in 3 whole weeks. She only took 3 weeks to start believing in God. The idea of Satan being able to tempt her and her not have our help scared me. I didn't want her to go.
But during our walk home Sister chestnut and I talked it out and I really was grateful that she had the idea to sing some lines from different happy songs we could think of. Like "Don't worry, be happy" "There is sunshine in my soul today" " Don't stop believin!" " Cause I'm happy... " "If your happy and you know, clap your hands" and etc. While singing we were able to laugh and find relief. Relief I really needed.

Sunday came and Crystal did come to church! She really really liked it I think. It was cute that she clapped a little after the first speaker. I forgot to mention to hear we don't do that. haha but it was fine. She was really happy to be there, and after sacrament the ward members introduced themselves, especially the bishop. He ended up just asking her questions to get to know her and well that first 2 minutes turned into us 4 all going to his office to chat for the rest of church. 2 whole hours!! It was a miracle for sure! It turned into a lesson where I know for sure she was able to fully find answers to her questions. Our Korean is bad, but having the bishop there being able to help explain things to her understanding was so needed. She and him seemed to have really similar lives. She is really looking for direction on what she should do with her life, and he had done the same thing. I just loved every moment. He was able to help her see that the gospel can help her find direction for her life. He would ask her questions about if we had taught her something and I was so glad we already had, she was confident and smiled because she was able to understand what he was talking about. I couldn't tell you what was really said now, I can't really remember. Probably why this email doesn't make much sense but I do remember him adding a 3rd witness to ours that she can come to know the truth about Joseph Smith truly being a prophet of God and that the Book of Mormon is the word of God along with the Bible IF she is willing to ask God. I could tell that I was blessed with the gift of tongues and my understanding was increased because I was able to follow the conversation so, so well.
After the meeting she said goodbye and we all even cried a little. But we'll keep in touch while she's away. She plans to continue to pray and read the Book of Mormon so that's great. And I thought back to Thursday night and realized I too had gotten something out of the visit with the Bishop in his office. My job as a missionary is to invite. It can be really really hard seeing people we care about have the truth right in front of them, but choose not to have it. Everyone has their one agency to choose. My job is to just help them know the truth and teach them how they can find out how to know for themselves if it is true.  I will continue to pray for Sam, hoping that the Lord will direct his life and he can be able to discern the difference between the spirit he felt meeting with the elders and other feelings. A huge thing I've learned so far on my mission is that I have to continually trust that the Lord has a plan for everyone I meet.
I know this church is true and as long as I am striving to do my best and live according the the commandments and be a good missionary then I'll be able to see success in my labors.
Love
Sister Kelly

"Now I Can See My Tree"

Sometimes I wish I was like Dumbledore and could have a pensive memory pool to put all my memories in and go back to relive them.
Ritchell the member from the Philippines that we met at the thrift store came to church yesterday  with her non member husband and recently blessed baby! They only stayed for sacrament meeting because her husband had to go to work, but he asked lots of questions and she told him that he can meet with the missionaries to help him learn and understand. So, Sister Chestnut and I will hopefully get to teach them together as a family. The ward was SO welcoming to them and even offered to help Ritchell by translating. Her husband tried but doesn't know all the church vocabulary in English so I noticed he struggled so next week when they come we'll have a member translate for her.
Other news is that we got to meet with Sarah Cha again. She's a really busy mom living in Korea where all the kids do lots of after school activities like Taekwondo so it was a miracle we finally got to meet her again. Thomas just started the first grade this past week so that was cool to hear about. Thomas reminds me so much of Tyler. He was going on and on about minecraft and just is silly like Tyler. I love their personalities. I wasn't able to play with the other two kids, but we taught Thomas the primary song "Choose the right" and Sarah was really good at help us teach him. She mentioned how they haven't been to church in over 6 months and knows they need to go, so we'll see if they made it. It's starting to get busier for her going back to work now, but she said we could maybe come over sometime this coming week for dinner. So, I'm praying we can.

The  best part of my week was when we met with Crystal. She's still progressing!! So that's great! We had a couple really good discussions with her this week. On Monday, we followed up on if she had read 3 Nephi 11 in The Book of Mormon. She did of coarse :D She did have a couple questions about the Godhead, baptism and the Holy Ghost. Which we assumed she might have since we never really talked much about baptism or the gift of the Holy Ghost yet. So, by the guidance of the spirit, we decided we weren't supposed teach what we planned, but to help answer her questions. We helped her understand that when Jesus Christ talks about how the Father and Him are one they are one in purpose. They are all separate which made a lot more sense to her. Then she mentioned how Christ says we all must be baptized or else we can't receive salvation. Taught her about how Jesus Christ set the example for how we should live. He was perfect and even He was baptized. We explained that baptism by immersion is symbolic of being spiritually reborn and we make a covenant-a promise- with God that we will follow His son Jesus Christ and always remember Him. She is really logical and understood pretty quickly how baptism is important and how it cleanses us from sin and guilt. She asked if we could be baptized more than one so then we were able to explain the sacrament to her and then it just seemed to click for her. She understood why we go to church now to be able to renew our covenants weekly by partaking of the sacrament. As we talked about all this I began to feel the spirit directing my thoughts towards giving her a baptismal commitment. I knew it was time but ya know? The nerves started to kick in, but I didn't let my doubts carry me a way. I asked her how she feels she's progressed since we first met and she said she hasn't received a confirmation that God is real, but she knows she has so much more to learn. She doesn't want Sister Chestnut and I to ever go back to America because we have a responsibility to help her learn. She's so cute haha. As she shared her desire to keep learning, I could feel the spirit build and get stronger and stronger. I remember looking over at my companion a couple times to see if she was feeling it too. By Sister Chestnut's look and light tape on my leg, I just knew it was time to ask Crystal to be baptized. So, I asked her. I whimped out and just gave her a really soft commitment by saying, "when you do receive that confirmation that God is real, will you follow Jesus Christ's example and be baptized?" She, of coarse, without hesitation said yes. I could tell she understands baptism is important. We promised her that she will receive that confirmation as she continues to meet with us and prayer. She told her that we'll even help her learn how to recognize when the Holy Ghost testifies of the truth to her.
Met with her again on Tuesday and Wednesday and both were great discussions as well! On Tuesday, we watched the apostle Elder David A. Bednar's mormon message videos on Patterns of Light. After watching those together, Crystal mentioned that she believes meeting us was God's plan for her. As soon as she said that I just testified to her that that's true! God loves her so much and knows her personally and meeting was not a coincidence. It was all apart of His plan for her.  On Wednesday, we continued talking about the different ways we can feel the spirit. We watched a video on lds.org called Feeling the Holy Ghost. It was only in english so we stopped it frequently to help her understand. After the video we did an analogy with her by turning off the lights and asking her what she will do in order to get the light back on. She thought it was funny, and we all had a good laugh because she's way too smart. She understood really quickly that in order to receive revelation or feel the spirit- like waiting for light to turn on- she needs to act. We need to go and turn the light switch on. We talked about President Uchtdorf's talk receiving light and truth and the 4 steps he talks about for what we need to do. We read Alma 32:27 together and talked about how faith is like a seed. Talked about how we need to nourish the seed and grow our faith into a big strong tree. I then asked her how she feels her faith has grown since she first met us and her words exactly were, " 3 weeks ago I couldn't believe in God. I couldn't see my seed. But now I can see my tree. Those words were beauty to my ears! I wish I could relive that moment over and over. Coming on a mission was all worth it just to her her say she is starting to believe in God.

I received my call about when I go home. The office couple sister Meyer called and asked if I was needing to go home for school in August and it felt right saying yes and so she added me to the group coming home in AUGUST!! Yay!! There's a chance President Morrise can make a special transfer for it since BYU doesn't start till August 31st but I'm hoping I just go home with the others on August 7th. After this transfer I'll only have 3 transfers left! CRAZY!!! Time will fly on by. It's crazy! It's about 4-5 weeks till conference too! Wowzers!!
This past sunday one of the investigators didn't get baptized because his father was going to disown him.. so the elders are trying to help him through that trial with the help of the bishop. Really sad to hear though :( Wow! Alejandra will be great in YW!! :D We go to either class. Whichever we decide to go to. The YW room is so small though so we only go there sometimes. It's still a small young womens but they actually have leaders. And soon we'll get more because they are going to combine our stake with another nearby stake because they've made new stake centers and new ward buildings. That won't happen just yet though.
When we get meals with members it's either all of us or it's just me and my companion. Just depends. Usually it's just the 2 of us. We had one last night and it was way nice and really fun. The family seemed to think I was really cute and funny according to Sister Chestnut so that's good news. A lot of Koreans like the way I talk in Korean it's very cute I guess. haha

Love you all
Sister Kelly <3

1 YEAR MARK!!!

It's officially been a year since I entered the Missionary Training Center and began my missionary service. Time has just flown on by. It's crazy that's it is already March 2015! In a blink of an eye it'll be June and my birthday! I'm sorry to disappoint but on my actual year mark day I didn't do anything to celebrate. But what better way to celebrate than by teaching our investigator Crystal about the Plan of Salvation. She is progressing so much!! But I'll get to her in a minute.
I actually am celebrating my year mark going to suwon hwaseong fortress with that awesome MTC group of mine. I'm so excited! And last p-day I also got a much needed haircut so that was another cool 1 year mark present to myself.

Anyways, this week was pretty great. Had interviews with the mission president, taught children's English class this week (that was cool) and met with our investigators. Time just flew on by! I say that a lot huh?? But it's true! :D We met with Crystal every day this week except Sunday and on Friday we saw her at English class. She's doing great. We've taught her the whole restoration and the plan of Salvation discussions. Today we will be focusing on helping her learn how to develop faith in Jesus Christ. She's been reading the scriptures, especially the Book of Mormon. She is praying daily as well and said that she feels the difference in her life. She said every day she meets with us she's happier than the day before. We also gave her the commitment of when she comes to know that what we are teaching her is true, she will follow Jesus Christ. That was our very very soft way of preparing her for the baptismal commitment. I know that if she understands why we need to be baptized she will want to, but it's still so scary because I've never had the opportunity like this of having an investigator who would potentially actually get baptized. So please pray for me to have the courage to ask her this week. I need it.

We saw a miracle this week as well. After we meet with Crystal we take a bus home. We get on the bus and the bus driver hands us a Book of Mormon and is telling us he found it. Some missionary left it on the bus. So we took it and sat down. Sister Chestnut began telling me about how this bus driver has seen missionaries come on his bus for over 6 years and he once talked to her and her last companion about English class. Then just couple minutes later as the bus gets to a red light. The bus driver parks the bus and walks back to us asks if he can have the Book of Mormon and us being confused just handed it to him and didn't care. In fact, we were kinda sad that he handed it back to us. As we approached our stop to get off, we stood by the bus exit. We got to another red light and He made eye contact with me in his overhead mirror and motioned for me to come. So, I awkwardly walked up to him and he goes off telling me about how he found it showing me how it was just sitting there under the chair. Then he asks me where it was from and I was confused mostly because I wasn't sure if I understood him correctly-you know with him speaking in Korean and all, so I asked him if he meant where it's from and he was like yeah. So I said it's about the people of ancient American Continent, etc. But I was wrong... and he had to start driving again so I was nervous.. but he explained he wanted to learn English and kept talking about where and a phone number and kept motioning for me to look at the Book of Mormon. Well, I flipped through it and saw the mormon.org pass along card with the elders names and phone numbers and it hit me! He wants to meet with the missionaries and actually wanted to know who left it on the bus like where are those missionaries serving. So just before we got off I told him and showed him the number and he was way happy!
Sunday morning we rode the same bus and learned that he is now doing the 30/30 program with the Bupyeong elders!! A miracle!!!
And lastly, the elders' investigators are doing great. One has a baptism this coming Sunday and he passed his baptismal interview!! YAY! And Sam will be baptized March 22nd! The elders said he's amazing! I can't remember if I mentioned it before to you guys but I had a prompting that Sam should watch the Earthly father, Heavenly Father Mormon message and so I told the elders about it and they ended up showing it to him and he loved it!!! He even downloaded the audio onto to his phone and listens to it while traveling to work and home and said its like a piece of heaven. I'm so glad I followed that prompting. The elders said that he asked why they picked that one out of all the other videos, and they said that God wanted him to watch it, and it's definitely true. God knows us each so personally and wants us to follow him and wants to bless us with all He has.
LOVE YOU ALL SO MUCH!!!
Sister Kelly

Here is the video I wanted Sam to watch:
http://www.mormonchannel.org/watch/series/mormon-messages/earthly-father-heavenly-father