뿅!!

안녕하세요!!!

This week has been incredibly fun, but incredibly busy. So I will start right away... I realize that I am at the point where emails have just because super weird and bullet pointed. Sorry!! Someday I will write better emails again. 

On Monday, all of the sisters met together for a sisters conference where we learned about budgeting, cleaning, exercise, and all those other useful things. The funnest part was probably being able to reunite with some of my old companions. There was a lot of laughter and talking about our new areas. After the sisters conference, Sis. Morrise pretty much ordered us to stay indoors until Sis. Reed was able to function at a pretty decent percent.  So Tuesday was pretty much spent inside doing phone calls, studying Korean, and losing my mind a little.

Wednesday, I went on exchanges with Sis. Jeong in 연수! . Sis Jeong is such an amazing missionary and incredibly fearless when it comes to street contacting. I am pretty sure we stopped every single person that went by us. At first, a lot of the conversations seemed a little fruitless, but then we started talking to a bunch of high school students. We started joking about pop stars, high school life, and then introduced why we were here. One of the students said that she has been going to church by herself and has been looking for a new church. Miracle!! During our exchange,  I also learned all of the English that she has been learning from the American missionaries. Here is a little preview....

"Whatever major loser"

"Shun"

"Shank"

"You are a weirdo"

I don't know who has been teaching her these things, but it always sounds oddly sweet when she says it!! 

Love you,

Sis. Chao

QUARANTINE

안녕하세요!!

Well, if the topic line didn't give it away....this week's focus is really going to be on being sick. My companion got a super nasty bug on Monday and has been out for most of the week. It has been absolutely crazy!! She has been taking medicine everyday and sleeping all the time but she hasn't been able to get over this bug. Even today she has the sniffles, headache, and congestion. I always thought that I was a really good nurse and cook, but this week has showed me that there are definitely areas that I can improve in. Sis. Reed is a champ and doesn't really complain about my cooking, but that might be because she can't really taste anything. 

It hasn't been super bad, but it has made missionary work very interesting. The past few days, we have been trying our best to contact less active members, investigators, and potential investigators.

Oh, miracles- Sis. Reed has been able to go out for small periods before she turns into a zombie. So on Wednesday, we met with our recent convert and a YSA who is leaving for her mission in a month. It was super great to be able to talk about missionary work and preparing for the temple. One the soon-to-be missionary is a bit nervous about the MTC food, but I promised her that you or some friends in the area could send her some tuna. She was going to try and bring it with her to America. 

Another miracle that has happened this week is that we found a new investigator!! She is 27 years old and has a deep connection with another Christian faith, but she really wants to learn about our gospel. She came to church yesterday and she said that she will be coming next week!!! This Tuesday, we will be having a member lesson with her...so keep us in your prayers!! 

Other than that, we are doing really well here in Incheon!! Missionary work is amazing and it is moving forward at His pace. I hope this week was wonderful!!

-Sis. Chao

Incheon!!!

Hello~~

Ah, can you believe that January is halfway over and that my birthday is this Wednesday? I really don't want it to be my birthday because I will be like 75 in missionary years. Seriously, everyone keeps sassing me about how old I am getting. I truly will be a grandmother missionary in no time. 

This week has been pretty busy, but filled with miracles. Towards the beginning of the week, we had a lot of appointments with members so that they could say goodbye to Sis. Gooch. She is super sad to leave, but she is having loads of fun in her new area. I know because she keeps rubbing it in my face with photos. Destruction I miss Sis. Gooch though. We definitely had our fair share of sibling conversations at night. It was ridiculous how fast we became friends. 

That being said, I love being with my new companion Sis. Reed. She is 21 years old (today!) and she is from Provo, Utah. She is in her 5 transfer and 3rd area! Crazy, right? Hopefully she will stay in this area for a while. I cannot imagine having to move so often. She is really excited to work here and her enthusiasm is definitely paying off. This week alone, we have met with 5+ potential investigators! We are hoping that most of them will become real investigators this week. So keep us in your prayers! 

On Wednesday night, we stayed in the mission home because of MLC the next day. It takes FOREVER to get from our area to the Mission office, so once a month we get to stay in REAL beds.  It was a great council and we talked a lot about being more responsible with our time and accountability. I think our focus will be on the call in report this coming zone conference... Exciting, right? Who doesn't love numbers? 

Other than that, missionary work is moving forward faster than ever here in Korea! We are super excited for this coming transfer and have several investigators who could potentially have baptismal dates in the coming weeks. 

I hope all is well!! 

-Sis. Chao

Welcome 2015 - Year of Miracles

안녕하세요!!!

This week has been incredibly busy, so I will start from the beginning. On Monday the elders, Sis. Gooch, and I decided to do an activity together to start off P-day. In our church, there is this random bag of ball pen balls. So we decided that we would have a giant dodgeball game. Our elders decided to make forts out of chairs. One Elder decided to take it even a step further by making tank barriers. I am not really sure what that means, but it made it incredibly hard to throw balls at him. After P-day, we went and had FHE with one of our favorite members. We talked about how the beginning of the new year is often associated with new beginnings. Then we tied that to the atonement. Overall, it was a really good FHE. 

On Tuesday, half our district got super sick. Something is being spread around the missionaries in Korea and it is not good. So Tuesday and Wednesday, we were sentenced inside to recover and make phone calls. Tuesday night, we went out and met with Sis. Wright and Sis. Moyer for a language evaluation. Anytime we meet with those two, we laugh a lot. 

On Thursday, the missionaries in our district woke up super early to welcome the new year with the ward. We met our ward at the base of this hill and then we hiked up. Once we arrived to the designated spot, we sang a hymn and the bishop prayed. He then told us all to individually pray for ourselves, family, investigators, friends, etc. Essentially for everyone...it was super good because it remotivated us to be better missionaries. After hiking, we went to the bishops house and ate rice cake soup. It was so good :)  

Friday we helped a couple in our ward move to their new apartment. While we were helping the move, we found opportunities to share the gospel with maintenance people. It was really cool and we extended an invitation to them to learn more about our church. We hope they take us up on our offer.

On Sunday we received transfer calls! Sadly, Sis. Gooch is leaving but she is heading to Gangnam!! Whenever we talk about transfer calls, she would always joke about how she wanted to go to the city. My new companion will be Sis. Reed and it looks like she will be my last. I am still STL and I am super excited to be able to end my mission here in 만수!!  Can you believe that I only have 2 transfers left? I cannot...it definitely is not something I am going to be able to process for a while. 

-Sis. Chao

Happy Christmas!

안녕하세요!!

Can you believe that Christmas has come and gone? This week has been absolutely insane, but so many memorable moments and miracles.

On Tuesday, was the big mission Christmas Conference. It was such a great MTC reunion, old companion reunion, and SISTER reunion! It all started off with a President Morrise talking about how our mission is a tapestry and how each individual missionary is like a piece of fabric in the tapestry. When one is missing, the tapestry is not as valuable as it could be. Then he played the ㅋㅋㅋ It was great because we got to see some pretty epic photos of missionary work. After that, we had the best lunch which included mash potatoes, turkey, stuffing, cranberry sauce, and pie! Ah, it was almost like being in America but a little bit better. ㅋㅋㅋ I am kidding. After lunch, we heard an awesome song and then did this "transfer activity". Essentially, we recreated every transfer activity since the MTC to now. It was so much fun to see old companions and districts. The best part of the transfer activity was that I got to see my Korean sister again! When it was time for us to be companions, we just started jumping up and down. It was so great to see her again!! 

song by David Archuleta with all of our mission pictures attached to it.

The highlight of mission conference was testimony meeting. All of the returning missionaries shared their testimonies of the savior, their mission, and how they are going to apply what they learned to the rest of their lives. It was so great to see how much they have grown over their mission. I am a little bias and loved the testimonies of my trainer and greenie breaker. Essentially they went from not being able to bear any testimony of the truthfulness of the Book of Mormon, to being able to say that they know it is true without any hesitation. We were all so sad to see them go, but we know that they did what they were supposed to do. Korea needs more people like them!

The rest of the week was spent trying to help spread the true meaning of Christmas to the people around us. We attempted this by doing some caroling, passing out cards with "He is the Gift" on it, and sharing the message that Christ lives and has restored his gospel on the earth. I'm not really sure what or if anything came from it, but there were definitely some smiles. People came up to us asking us what made us so happy, and all we could do was share our testimony. Truly that is the answer to their question. 

I am so happy to be a missionary, especially during this special season. I hope you all had a wonderful Christmas!! 

Love, 

Sis. Chao

Merry Christmas!!

Hello Family,

Before I forget, Merry Christmas Family!! I cannot believe that another year has come and gone, but I am happy to be spending another Christmas as a missionary. Oh, that sounded bad... I really do love you and I want to spend it with you, but there is definitely something different about being a missionary on Christmas. Sis. Gooch and I have been preparing for the upcoming holiday festivities by spreading as much Christmas cheer as possible.

Last Sunday, we tried doing Christmas Singing Proselyting with a guitar...it probably would have been a success but the location was bad. So we are planning to do a more populated place next time we go. We are hoping to do it on Christmas Eve. 

This week, we have been working a lot with members and trying to meet with potential investigators. One of our potential investigators, Ali, has been coming out to English Class every week and chatting with us afterwards. We invited her to our ward Christmas party and she seemed super interested. The only catch is that she told us she might be drunk. Oh boy. So we are trying to figure out a way that we can get her to come to the party before she hangs out with her friends. We are praying that she decides to come the party. 

Another miracle that we saw is with another investigator. One evening this week, our appointment fell through so I decided to try and make an appointment with her. She also randomly had time that day so we met. She started talking about how if we wanted to be better missionaries, we have to show people that we genuinely do care for them. She talked about how missionaries need to help people break down this wall that they put up. It finally just clicked, do people we meet with know that we genuinely do care for them and consider them friends?  She then talked about how she knows that we genuinely love her, so she talks about us to her other friends. She even gave one of her friends the Liahona. She may be one of the best member missionaries who is not actually a member. 

As I thought about that this week, we met with another investigator Kate Park. The past few weeks, we have not been able to share much of a gospel message with her. Well, as I watched her gestures and face, I realized that she was super unhappy. So I just asked her. She then opened up her heart to us and told us that she was really lonely. Then she asked us why were so happy. That led us talking about our life decisions and how the gospel has really blessed us. We then talked about how we genuinely wanted her to be happy. We also told her that she could call us whenever she needed someone to talk about. She was quite surprised when we told her and told us that she would. 

After that, things just kept getting better. Ah, seriously being a missionary in Korea is something special. :) Other than that, we are just working to get the Christmas party prepped. The big Christmas conference is tomorrow and there is a rumor that there might be turkey. What? Also, we may or not be dancing at the ward Christmas party. Fail.

Love you! Merry Christmas!

-Sis. Chao

P.S. We are getting a few replacement missionaries (sisters). Elders are still coming in at a steady rate. They just merged a couple and found a few members to act as missionaries for a while. It has been interesting.