The One With Lots of Drama and Boldness

 I don't have a lot of time, but I will just give y'all the quick rundown of this week.

Jung Bo-rahm is doing great. She is still having a hard time reading her scriptures, but she is progressing toward baptism! I have no doubt that she will be ready to be baptized soon even if she just wants to wait until September.

Nam Gyunghoei is just making my sad! She told us this week that she is not happy with her life and that she feels like she has no purpose. We taught her about the Plan of Salvation and testified to her boldly and plainly of its truthfulness and said that if she prayed, when she prayed she would know it was true and know that God loves her, she is worth so much and she is God's child and that she has a very important purpose on the earth. She wasn't so convinced. She just kept saying it was all like a fairy tale. I told her that she can think that but I know it is true. I told her basically that the only way to know if Sister Workman and I are crazy fools wasting our time halfway across the world in Korea or if everything we say and promise is true is through prayer. We taught her to pray and committed her to do it that night. I really hope she does or else she might just have to be a drop. I get the feeling that she is just using us for English and to have foreigner friends. Gosh. People really break your heart when they are stubborn!

Okay, now the drama!! It all started last week on Monday when we got a call from the president of our service project saying the whole thing was off without explanation then a series of subsequent calls from another lady whose kids attend. And nobody sounded happy! It turns out that one of the moms at the service activity wanted us to teach her kids English at the same time as English class activity and the moms all got in a fight over us. I got a little upset because they were treating us like free English teachers and not missionaries! Ugh. That happens so much and I just hate getting used! It's so annoying! I came to Korea to teach about Christ, not to teach people the ABC's! But after lots of long phone calls and a lot of drama, we figured it all out and got two new investigators out of the whole fiasco! But hopefully it all works out! Please pray that the lady we're starting the Family English program with will have interest in the gospel and not just use us for English! 

Well, that's all I've got for this week!

사랑해요!

"I you love"

Sister Johns

It's summer again!! That means sunburns and heat exhaustion! 

It's peach season! You can get a whole bushel of these for only 3,000원 (that's less than $3, folks!)

The One With the Guy Who Walked into a 5ft Pile of Dirt and the Dude in His Undies

Hello Everyone! This week was great! The work is really moving forward in Coomi! We also had some really silly little adventures this week. I'll tell y'all about that, but first I'll update you on our people!

Jung Borahm is doing great! We prayed so hard for her this week and we found out that the reason why she wants to get baptized later is because her teacher will be coming back to Korea in September or October and she wants her teacher to be able to come to her baptism. But she is totally cool with meeting with us still to prepare. We taught the Plan of Salvation and she loved it. She pointed to the 해의왕국 (Celestial Kingdom) on my Plan Of Salvation puzzle and said "I want to go there. Let's go together!" It was so cute! I told her that we would do all we could to help us all get there together. She is so cute. She was also so excited to read the story of Nephi this week. She said that she's read every night. She also finally prayed at the end of the lesson. She is so great! She has also been coming to church every single week for about 2 months now. I just love her! I hope that no matter where I transfer next, I will be able to go to her baptism! 

We taught Nam Gyunghoei this week and it didn't go as well as we thought, We testified very boldly to her of the Book of Mormon, it's truthfulness, and how we can learn about what the purpose of life from it and then invited her to read Moroni's promise and pray about it's truth. We boldly testified that if she read and prayed she would undeniably get an answer. She was so excited when we told her that we have the key to life's purpose and it's the Book of Mormon. Her eyes just lit up when she got the book, but then she opened it and read Moroni's promise and the spirit just left because she had the hardest time understanding the language (I'm not the biggest fan of the current translation of the BOM in Korean. It is SOOO hard for Koreans to understand...like harder than the BOM is for Americans...and they all just give up the second they open it). She just seemed so disconcerted and I think she felt that we were like "Hey! Here's the answer to the questions of your soul. Oops, what? You can't understand it? That's too bad. Looks like you'll never know!" But she still wants to keep meeting. I think the testimonies we wrote in the front of the Book of Mormon really softened her heart a lot. I think she has a lot of questions deep down and I'm not going to lie, I was pretty dang bold in telling her that she would find happiness through this gospel in that testimony I wrote! Please pray for her! I don't want her to close off to the message!

We also got to go out to dinner with the wife of a less active member and her darling 12 year old less-active daughter who we meet with after school every Tuesday. We talked and shared "For the Strength of Youth" because she is so worried about her daughter. We also testified to her about the Word of Wisdom. She really loved the message and I think her heart is beginning to soften slowly but surely. Pray for her that her heart will be softened to the idea of believing in God and making time to attend church. 

We also were able to meet with Shim Sungjin (the recent convert we are teaching) with a sister in our ward who just got home from the Seoul Mission on Monday. We were able to help her so much and the spirit was so strong! Member present lessons are the best! Volunteer yourselves to teach with the missionaries! They will love you forever! 

Okay, now to all of the fun shenanigans! 

This week we worked really, really hard to stay outside jundoing at every opportunity even though it is getting SO hot outside. The other day we were jundoing and it was so hard. Nobody was listening and it was impossible to get contacts. I think God knew we needed a pick-me-up because as we were walking down the street we saw this old guy (maybe in his 60s, so not senile yet) walk straight into a 5ft tall, unmistakable pile of dirt in the middle of the sidewalk near a construction site as if the dirt pile wasn't even there. I have know idea how he didn't see it, but it was sooo funny. He just stiffly walked straight into it, sat there for a second then started to get up and shake the dirt out of his shoes when the construction workers all ran over to see if he was okay. Hahaha. I really think you probably had to be there to understand how funny it was. But Sister Workman and I have been laughing about it for days.

We also decided to make cookies on P-day and then deliver them to all of the people in our villa, but this is Korea and nobody gets off of work/to their house until late at night, so we knocked on all of the doors and ended up just taping the cookies to the door with a pass along card and a little note. The neighbors loved it! We heard one girl come in the other night when we were in bed and she and her friends were freaking out and taking pictures! ㅎㅎ I love little acts of kindness. BUT there was one guy who WAS home and we knocked on the door and he answered the door wearing nothing but his Hawaiian print tighty-whiteys and a matching wife-beater (#only in Korea)...ahahahah. I just turned bright red, handed him the cookies and the pass-along card and ran away without saying anything! AHaha. Definitely one of the more awkward moments of my mission. 

Oh, you've gotta love missionary work. 

Anyway, this week was really great and I really learned a lesson about God answering prayers. I really tried to humble myself and ask God for help, especially with my self-consciousness about the language and he really blessed me with the gift of tongues a little extra this week. I was able to feel that as we taught lessons and suddenly things I didn't know how to say before were so easy to say and teaching the gospel by the spirit wasn't so hard even though it's not in my native language. I think that God is seeing that my desire to learn the language so I can share the gospel is pure and He's helping me make up the difference. I am so thankful for all of the blessings I'm seeing! 

사랑해요!!
"I you love"

Sister Johns

The One with Weaknesses

Hello from Coomi!

This week was a roller coaster! Let me just give y'all a little piece of advice: Unless you want to be completely and utterly cut down, don't pray for humility or ask God to show you your weaknesses.

This week we had half-training meeting (I can't believe we're already halfway through training!) and just being around all of the other powerful, amazing trainers who are such great examples to me made me feel so inadequate and I left that meeting with the longest list of things I need to do to be a better trainer. I felt that I needed to be more humble and reliant on God to train Sister Workman and be a better companion to her. So I knelt down and prayed for humility so that I could fulfill my calling as a missionary and a trainer better. And, honestly, the next few days that followed were some of the hardest days of my mission, It was like everything I was doing was wrong and every weakness of mine was made known to me. I realized that during my mission I have focused way to much on learning Korean and being perfect at it, so I am really bad at teaching by the spirit and relying on God, rather than the language and it is easier for me to have an everyday conversation with people than a gospel conversation in Korean, which is opposite of my purpose. I also realized how much I seriously suck at speaking Korean and how far I have to go before I am fluent. I realized everything I am doing wrong as a trainer, and I realized that there is a whole heck of a lot more I need to do to be Christlike. I just wanted to collapse and die in the gloom and pressure of inadequacy. But then Sister Workman and I were talking when we were out looking for people to teach and we started talking about Ether 12:27 and how God gives us weaknesses to humble us, remind us that we are completely 100% reliant on Him, and then as we rely on Him we are made strong. But that process is easier said than done!! Having God, our biggest role model and the person we look up to most, show us our weaknesses so blatantly is painful and discouraging. And the reason why it is painful and discouraging is because as humans we naturally tend to choose to ignore our weaknesses or just write them off as "who we are"  and sometimes we just need to be humbled right down to the core. But as simple as being humbled sounds, its not that easy! In order to be humbled, God will drag you though the dirt and then put you in front of a magnified mirror where you can see every blemish and imperfection you have. But, God does this in our best interest because according to Moroni, we are given our weaknesses to be humble and the humble give their will over to God, recognize that they are nothing without Him, repent, and through doing so they receive strength and power from God. So after wading through the muck for a few days and counseling  with God as all of this was happening, I realized what I needed to fix and decided that it was time for me to get out of the mud pool because Satan knew that I was in a weak point and he was trying to tempt me into thinking that I was worthless. So I kept my eyes on God's light, asked the Elders for a priesthood blessing, and I was able to walk out of that experience knowing what I need to change and how I can be better because heaven knows, I'm so far from perfect. 

So, here's my advice to you! If you want to go looking for your weaknesses, only do it while you are holding God's hand. And as you are wading through that muck, make sure that you only listen to the voice that is telling you that the weaknesses are something that you can and will overcome. Any other voice trying to convince you that you are worthless and that you should just move into a house in the mud definitely does not come from God, I can testify of that. As sons and daughters of God, we have an immense potential that comes from our Heavenly Heritage. And nothing can stop us from living up to our potential except for us listening to Satan. And if we strive to have the spirit with us always by keeping up on the little things like reading our scriptures, praying, serving others, etc. we will have the spirit's constant protection from Satan's voice. My favorite member in Coomi said, "nothing can stop the spirit." And it is so true! Satan tries to overwhelm me and scare me into thinking that going home and adjusting back to normal life is this big, scary thing, but in reality, it is very simple. I know if I just simply keep the commandments (especially the little ones), then it will all go smoothly.

Sorry for getting up on a soapbox every week! When I was a younger missionary I'm sure my emails were a whole lot more fun because I didn't just write the longest lecture on faith! I am turning into such a grandma/stick in the mud! ㅎㅎ 

Here's the update on Coomi for this week:

Jung Boram decided that she doesn't want to get baptized until the winter when her teacher comes to Korea! I am heartbroken! I am so nervous that something is going to happen and that she isn't ever going to actually end up getting baptized!! Satan is a tricky little snake and he wants to do everything he can to keep her as far away from the baptismal font as possible!! She also said that she doesn't want to do the lessons until winter. Luckily, she is still faithfully coming to church every Sunday though! We just need to explain to her that the lessons are something she can continuously do to prepare for baptism in the winter. Please pray that her heart will soften, her mind will change, and that we will be able to teach her again.

We met with Nam Gyunghoei Sister again and we had the most intensely spiritual lesson with her! We taught her about the Gospel of Jesus Christ and baptism and she said it was all just like a "fairy tale" and that believing in God is too good to be true. But I testified to her with all that I had in me that this is not just a fairy tale, that I love God, and that I know he lives. We testified of the hope that knowing about God brings and that life is absolutely not a fairy tale. Life is hard, but God is the love and hope that gets us through it and allows us to be happy even when things are hard. Dad would laugh because she said that I was the "most positive person she's ever met." Take that Dad, for ever calling me negative.ㅋㅋㅋ (People really can change!) She said that she would think more about the gospel and baptism. Pray for her!

Today we are meeting with a new investigator named Yoon Jabin at 5:00! Pray for her as well!

Well, that's all I have to say about this week!

사랑해요!!!

"I you love!"

Sister Johns

요한들 자매

The One With "Wrong Roads"

안녕하세요!!!

This week we saw lots of miracles and we learned lots of lessons. But before I say anything about that, I'll update you a little on the people we are teaching and what's going on in Coomi.

Jung Bo-rahm is doing well, she's still coming to church every single Sunday and she is understanding and accepting the lessons well. There is just one problem. She wants to be baptized, but she won't commit to a set date. We are not sure what is holding her back, but we are going to pray about it this week and we fasted for her on Sunday. I really hope everything works our with her. I would love to be able to see her get baptized before I transfer!

We got a new English Class coordinator this week and she is the best! She is so amazing at English it is almost scary! She served her mission is California and she is fluent in English and Spanish and a few other languages (#lifegoals). I am just so grateful because she is taking her calling to help us seriously and she is on the same page with us in that we hate it when people see us as free English teachers and not as missionaries. We decided that we are going to make having the spirit the focus of English Class so the people who come can feel that when they are with us. 

We started a new service project this week that Sister Amende and I found when we were jundoing when we were on exchanges. We saw this cute mom with super cute blue pants and I said I liked them so she stopped and started talking to us. She was so shocked that we knew some Korean and she asked why we were in Korea. We said that we are missionaries and we teach people about Jesus Christ and serve people in order to follow His example. She was super interested in having us come to the little library at her apartment complex and teach the kids English. The service project got approved and it is so much fun! They just love us there! And I really could see this turning into a way for people to have interest in the gospel because she mom I met on the street was thanking us for coming before we left and she said "I just want to come with you guys! You are just so special and bright."This service activity is so much fun and it's basically like Pohang Kid's English Class, which was one of my favorite things I have done on my mission! 

Okay, now for this week's big miracle story!!

Yesterday Sister Workman and I were out jundoing and it was sooooo hot! We were dying of heat and every single person we talked to was rejecting us! We have been seeing so much rejection lately...more than I've ever seen on my mission. We are being bold with people and inviting them to do things, but usually they accept the invitations every once in a while. But these last few weeks we are just getting hands in our faces. We sat on bench for a minute and drank some water and we got talking. We started thinking about why we haven't been seeing success and we started talking about what we could do better. We made a little list of things that we could be more obedient on and things to improve on. Then we got up and went to work. Almost immediately after, we found ourselves at a crossroad. One road went under an overpass and down past some old houses and it seemed to lead to the middle of nowhere. The other road was just a little exercise path. 

We both felt like we needed to go under the overpass and walk to the end of that road. So we went and along the road these two huge, scary dogs came up out of nowhere and they tried to chase us (luckily they were chained up!!). We went down another road and prayed about where to go. We still felt that we needed to go down to the end of the same road, but we took another path. But that path had scary dogs too!! And they also tried to chase us! I'm not going to lie, I kind of don't like dogs and they scare me a lot so I may or may not have almost peed my pants...ㅎㅎ But the dogs were chained up so we walked by. When we got to the end of the road, there was nothing and no one except for a grandma and her grandson, so we said hi to them but they didn't particularly want to talk to us. We were so confused! We walked back and took the other path that we originally intended to go down and we started talking about a Mormon Message by Elder Holland called "Wrong Roads" (no, we don't just watch Mormon Messages for fun at night after planning or anything dorky like that??ㅋㅋ...). In the video Elder Holland talks about a time when he and his son prayed about what path to go on when they were lost, the went down one path that they felt was right, but in the end the path was wrong. Elder Holland said that he feels that sometimes God send you down the wrong path so you can be 100% certain you ended up on the right one.

So we went down the other path that we had originally planned on going down and got rejected by everyone on the way to the end of the road. The first lady we talked to waved her hand in our faces and told us to go away!! But on our way back, we saw a lady sitting on a bench and we both felt prompted to go sit on the bench next to her and take a little water brake. We noticed that she was crying and we felt that we should talk to her. I encouraged Sister Workman to say hello and she was really scared at first, but she did it. Then Sister Workman gave her a little bag of tissues and we sat back down on our bench and found a really great scripture to share (Alma 34:41). We went over and read it with her and explained that we are missionaries serving in Coomi and that we help people in need. We said that she looked sad so we wanted to help. I shared my testimony of Jesus Christ and she seemed to light up a little. Then she opened up to us about how she works so hard to make a good home, but nobody in her family appreciates her. We told her that we are never alone because we always have Christ to rely on and He sees what we do. I told her our missionary purpose and she really liked that. She said we had "천사의 마음" which means "angel heart." I just laughed and said that we definitely weren't angels! We are just human and we make mistakes everyday, but though Christ we have the hope of becoming better every day. Then we just talked about kimchi and stuff and it just made her smile that these random American girls love Korean food. The spirit was so strong and then we told her that ultimately the reason why we came to Korea was to help people know about Christ. I told her that throughout my life, knowing about Christ made me so happy that it made me want to go to Korea to help other people be happy too. She just lit up and then SHE asked for OUR number!! That never happens!  It was so cute because she saved us in her phone as "예쁜 미국 아가씨" which kind of just means "pretty little American girls." Before she left we told her to call us anytime she is sad and she needs to feel the special feeling she had when she was with us. She said she would and I really, really hope she does! After she left we said a prayer of thanks and I'm pretty sure we prayed for like 10 minutes straight. The spirit was so tangibly strong and we could feel it all around us. It was so cool!!

That experience made me realize something. I just want to reek of the spirit...like the episode of Sponge Bob when they have bad breath...ㅋㅋㅋ. Except instead of icky break coming off me in waves, I just want to live worthy to radiate the Spirit so that as we walk down the streets and go to service activities, English Class, and even just when we're at the store people can see and feel a difference when they are around us. There is nothing better than feeling the peace and joy of the Spirit and I just want everyone around me to have a chance to feel it!

Missions are the best!

사랑해요!!

"I you love"

Sister Johns

요한들 자매