I. am. SO. tired.
You wanna know why? Because we worked SO hard this week. We had to race home almost every night this week to make the 9:00 curfew because we were teaching lessons, jundoing, and going door-to-door. Yeah...our district leader hates us because we're always late, but how can we be at home when there's so much to do?! Anyway, this week we saw a lot of miracles, but it was so exhausting.
On Wednesday, we met with our new investigator, Joo Ra-mi. She is 32 and there were complications when she was born, so she is in a wheelchair and pretty severely handicapped. She is the sweetest person. She really wants to learn English, but is also really curious about why we are missionaries. After practicing some English, we taught her about the Book of Mormon, who missionaries are and a little about Joseph Smith. We taught her with the Elders and they really helped us a lot. She seemed pretty interested, so we invited her to come to church. She said she would think about it...more about that later.
On Thursday, we met with Hong Yeji and Han Mihyung. We were able to answer a lot of Han Mihyung's questions about the Word of Wisdom and our church before we started the 30 minutes of English. We translated the script of an episode of Modern Family that Hong Yeji found on the internet...(that was interesting...haha...and so funny! Luckily it was a clean episode!) and after that we, again, tried to teach them the Restoration, but it just turned into a really stressful interrogation/random list of questions about our church. I was so tired after! But we were able to teach about how we don't believe that there is just heaven and hell and about how we believe if you don't get a chance to know about Jesus/the gospel during this life you don't just go to hell like a lot of other churches teach. Hong Yeji really liked that, so I think next week we'll teach about the Plan of Salvation. Please pray for them and pray for us! Teaching them is not easy!
Now fast forward to Saturday. On Monday, when we were grocery shopping a member called us to tell us that he was going to send us the contact information of his co-worker's daughter who really wants to study at an American university and is thinking about going to BYU. Her name is Kim Hyunji. We met with her and automatically felt like friends because she is a year younger than me and I was able to tell her how fun BYU is because I studied there for 2 years. We told her that we could study English together and she said that was great, but she was also really interested in our church. She hadn't gone to church since middle school and was curious about why I would come all the way from America to talk to people about my religion. We taught her the whole Restoration message and she seemed to understand it really well. And she said that her intentions for meeting with us are that she wants to join our church and go to BYU. We are going to be meeting every Saturday now. I am so excited, but also a little nervous because it's just too good to be true! Haha. Also, she said she would come to church on Sunday, but couldn't come because they had other plans. Please pray for her! How fun would it be if we got to hang out together at BYU after my mission?!
After that, we visited our friend at her noodle restaurant but a bunch of ladies from her church were there and they were so rude to us. I can't even describe it to you. If you remember the story Elder Holland told in conference a few years ago about a sister missionary who was spit on and had chewed-up mashed potatoes thrown at her...well, I'm pretty sure that story happened in Korea. These ladies were so disgustingly rude to me because my Korean isn't perfect and because of my beliefs, but I just told them that I am in the process of learning. Then they interrogated me about the Bible, which I told them I study all of the time, believe to be God's word, and that I want to become like my scripture hero, Paul. But they just laughed at me and said so many horrible things. And they were even more rude to my companion because she's Korean. I really don't want to judge, but how can someone who professes to be a follower of Jesus Christ act that way to a couple of 20-year-old girls who are just trying to share their beliefs with people (who want to listen...there is no force, I can promise you that!) because we want people to feel happy like us? But our friend felt really bad so she gave us yummy fruit and told us to come back later. It was so awkward. Anyway, after that we just went back to the church and cried for like 30 minutes. The Elders came and we ate candy and said a prayer and then taught English class, which made me feel a little better. After that, we were walking to a dinner appointment at a member's house when our phone randomly rang and it was Joo Ra-mi. She said she wanted to come to church on Sunday and that if we came over at 8:00 she could help us learn how to help her with her wheelchair and figure out how to get her to the other side of Jinhae for Sacrament Meeting. We were so excited. At the dinner appointment, Sister Kwon had invited an old lady she met at work so we could talk about doing the 30/30 program. We taught her about eternal families and ate yummy food, but I have never in my whole life met anyone who talks more than this old lady. Seriously, you don't know anything about talkers until you have met Korean grandmas. They can literally go on for 45 minutes without anyone else having a chance to get in a word. So we were stuck at this member's house with this grandma for close to 2 1/2 hours!!! We were late to help Joo Ra-mi. I felt sooooo bad! We were also so late to get home! It was insane. But what to do when you have a member referral/new investigator and another appointment?! Ah! "Korean time" ('quick' 30 min-1 hour appointment=3 hour appointment) is so stressful!
On Sunday, Joo Ra-mi came to church and the members were so, so kind and welcoming to her. I was so grateful! But I just think that because of her circumstances, she felt a little awkward so she left right before Sacrament Meeting started. I was so sad. She is kind of a confusing investigator and I am starting to think that she is just interesting in meeting with us because she is lonely and she thinks Americans are cool. But if we can share the gospel little-by-little, I know it will help her!
After church, we judoed for more than 3 hours because there was a festival downtown and so many people. We were so pooped when we went to bed last night. Today, our P-Day plans are to sleep. Haha.
I love you all! I would love to hear from all of you!! Thank you so much for the packages and letter and things! It helps so much to get some love from home!
사랑해요!!
I you love!
Sister Johns
