Week 3 - The Natives have Arrived

Here is her letter from week three! She seems to be getting a hang on the language more! You can hear the excitement in her voice. 

Hi again my wonderful family!! This is your favorite missionary of course!! =]

Again, I'd like to begin with some "Thank You"s.  Thanks Aunt DeAnn for your email.  I love just the little updates of how everyone is doing!  Thanks Aunt Mary Lynn for setting grandpa up on DearElder.  I haven't gotten anything for him yet, but I'm excited with the prospect.  And Mommy, thanks for those delicious cookies!! They are so good! Everyone I've shared them with loves them!

THE NATIVES ARE HERE!! Can I just tell you that this last week has been my absolute favorite!  11 Native Koreans arrived at the MTC last Tuesday and Wednesday!  There are 3 sisters and 8 elders. I am already madly in love with the sister missionaries.  Again, I have never met a kinder, happier, friendlier group of people in my life.  Seriously, the South has nothing on their hospitality!  It's been so nice to have 11 extra teachers with the language.  They are always willing to help and when you do something right or you understand them, you automatically get a big smile and a round of applause.  They are great for your self-esteem! haha!

It's been funny though explaining what we have been learning in class to them.  They hadn't realized their language was so hard to learn.  Once they saw how much work we were putting into it, they just started apologizing. haha!!

So, in the Korean culture you don't really do anything without using both hands.  Giving, receiving, waving... I've nearly perfected my two handed wave =]

With one of the Elders, him and I have been swapping English words. He'll say a word and ask me if I know what it means (like vex, or ergo) and then I'll give him one in return and see if he knows what it means (I stumped him with effervescent). 

Sacrament meeting was the best this past week.  When Koreans sing...THEY SING!  Think of the Longshore row at church... times 10!  I felt so at home! And it made singing in Korean lots of fun. 

I am seriously in love with all of them.  We'll be taking lots of pictures next week so hopefully I can send that home sometime.

While on LDS.org the other day I came upon a talk entitled "Encounter: The Korean Mind and the Gospel".  It was really neat. 
** Question! Speaking about Korea and Koreans, will someone look up the significance of this year being the year of the Black Dragon in Korea?  I know it is important and that it only happens every 60 years, but I just want to know some more about it... thanks! 

So this week we did some new stuff.  On Saturday it was our first trip to the TRC (teaching resource center).  There we taught two sets of members for 15 minutes...of course in Korean.  It was really nice to be able to just talk with members and share a message with them.  I'm excited to continue to go back there and practice more.  The two groups of girls we had were just from this area and their parents were from Korea. 

I FINALLY have my testimony and a more complex prayer memorized! (When I say more complex prayer, I mean now I can say more than just thank you for... and please bless... amen. Now I can say like, in order to learn Korean, please help us.  Or, because you helped my sister, I thank Thee.  It's great!)

This week we also learned numbers!  So, Koreans use both Korean and Chinese numbers.  Like in time, the hours are in Korean and the minutes are in Chinese.  To help us practice, our teacher made us count the stairs going up in Korean and going down in Chinese.  When you forget a number you have to think about it before you move on... Needless to say we've caused a couple of traffic jams already, haha!

My favorite new thing about this week is now, as a district, we are reading the Book of Mormon out loud together.  It'll only be on Monday nights, which I'm sad about, because I've never learned so much in just the first chapter and a half of the Book of Mormon.  Reading it from a missionary perspective is so neat.

My favorite thing I learned this week was from the MTC Fireside Monday night.  It was by the Director of Missionary Services, Clayton M. Christensen.  He talked about how we should never leave the mission field.  So to summarize: when you feel like after you've done everything you're supposed to, (from reading the scriptures, to praying, to keeping your standards and magnifying your calling), and there is still something is lacking, You need to share the gospel!!  Every member should be a missionary.  When we share the gospel we are not only serving the Lord, we are serving His children.  It's not a tactic, it's a principle!!!  A principle, with a promise.  The principle of serving and sharing the gospel comes with so many promised blessings! Such as Mosiah 2:24, immediately blessed, D&C 34:4-5,11, the Lord will be with you, D&C 88:84, perfected in ministry, 1 Nephi 14:14, power of God, and of course, D&C 4, especially v7.  Even when you smile you share the light Christ's gospel brings. 

I love you all!! And I hope you can feel the excitement and joy I have for missionary work in your own lives.  There is no greater joy!  Keep the letters coming!

PS THE PROPHET SHOULD BE COMING TONIGHT!! AND I'M SINGING IN THE CHOIR! I'M SO SO SOO EXCITED!!

Kiss, Love, Hugs!