Happy Birthday Buddha! 2556!

Hello my darling family!

Sorry this email is MUCH later than usual...I know y’all have been anxiously waiting to hear about the adventures of Sister Wells-Longshore!

Well things are going fantastic here in Korea, I was so jealous to read about all the fun all y'all had at the wedding and both Tyler's and Katelyn's weddings looked like they came straight from Pinterest!! (Which they probably did, eh??) Haha No really though, they both sounded perfect!!!  I'm glad the family could all gather together and I’m suppperrr bummed I didn't get to stay in that SWEET house! Haha Glad y'all had fun.

Well when I left off last week I mentioned that we were heading off to an amusement park. It was tons of fun!!  But it would be more fitting to describe it as a glorified fair. Haha The nice part was NO one was there!!  We would just sit on the roller coaster and the workers would just let us ride over and over. Our favorite part was the bumper cars though and I have the shin bruises to prove it!  Overall it was a super fun day.  The only bad part was it felt like we used up alllll of our energy for the rest of the week.  But its all good, we survived.

The rest of the week went pretty well. But there were a couple of moments that really made the week fantastic!

First, was MISSION TOUR!! So we had Elder Aoyagi and his wife come and visit the mission and have a training meeting of sorts with all the missions. I already LOVE it when we can get together with other missionaries, but add in a General Authority and nothing really gets better. So Elder Aoyagi is from Japan and, though he knows English, it's pretty hard for him to speak freely. So, for the meeting, he had a side-by-side Japanese-English translator.  Then, in the back of the room, so that all the Korean missionaries would be able to understand, there was an English to Korean Translator.  Then, throughout the meeting, as the need would arise, the translators would have to go from Korean to English or from English to Japanese and my personal favorite is a missionary that is from Canada, Elder Jang, he is fluent in both English and Korean and he studied some Japanese, so when he helped with translating we even had some Japanese to Korean.... Hahaha It was SO COOL!

The meeting was truly wonderful though, we heard from Pres. and Sister Gilbert as well as Elder and Sister Aoyagi.  The main message I got from all the discussions was love. We need to love the people we teach, not only with all of the love in our hearts, but we need to love them as Christ loves them, and love them as God loves them.  We talked about the role of the Holy Ghost in conversion, but in order for people to feel the Holy Ghost, they first need to feel our love. The ways we can show our love is anything from service to teaching to a simple smile and a compliment.  Elder Aoyagi actually talked a lot about compliments. He defined a compliment as "little messages of love". I really like that!! Think about how good you feel when someone gives you a sincere compliment! Even if they are just telling you that you have cute shoes or something, if it's sincere you can feel their love.  So in language study this week I started studying some words I could use to compliment people haha! And the smiles that I get on the subway when I tell someone, in my little Korean, that their handbag is dazzling shows me that Elder Aoyagi was right.  That compliments show our love.  And if we are to share the message of the Restored Gospel of Jesus Christ, we need to share it with love.

The entire meeting was fantastic!  I was in a small group of missionaries that sang at the meeting and the song went really well. We sang "Lead Kindly Light" in both English and Korean. There were some other really great points in the meeting, but as always there is never enough time!

Another really cool thing happened this week with 김수진.  After church on Sunday she had to rush up to Seoul for a weeklong training.  At the end of the week she calls us up and says that she got in contact with the missionaries up there and she was headed to go visit the Seoul Temple =] I was sooo excited that she was going to be able to see the House of the Lord and feel of its Spirit.  She loved it!  She went more towards evening time so there weren’t very many people on the grounds, and she said how much she felt God's love just sitting there and praying. If she felt so wonderful just sitting on the grounds of the Temple, think of her joy when she will go inside!!!  Every time I talk to her I appreciate more and more of the blessings that are given to those who strive to always come unto Christ.

Saturday was a fun day!! We have TWO cute little girls that we are teaching.  And this week I made brownie cookies with a "special American mix". Haha they thought they were the greatest things ever!! Thanks mom!!

Yesterday, P-day, was fantastic!!!!  The ward picnic was sooo much fun!! Sorry y'all, but it was better than any American picnic I have ever been to! Haha There was tons of food and they laid out this giant mat so we could all eat together, there were games from everyone and everyone participated (old people included!)  There was soccer and baseball, kick ball and some games for the little kids.  We would all go out and play, come back and eat and then go right out and play again haha.  It was in Gyeongju (I think...) Anyhow, we were at a park where there were ancient burial mounds of kings from the Silla dynasty.  So cool!  Dad, you would have loved it!  Sorry, I didn't find any pamphlets though hehe

After the ward picnic we headed up the mountain to Boemosa Temple! It was BUDDHA’S BIRTHDAY yesterday!  He turned 2556!!  The temple was decorated with thousandsssss of lanterns and it was sooo beautiful! They only light the lanterns on the night of his actual birthday so it was really neat being about to see that bit of Korean culture.

Anyhow, things are going well!! I love this work and time is going by wayyy too quickly! I can hardly believe I only have 2 weeks left as a trainee!!

I love you all dearly and thanks for the emails and love.

Kiss love hugs!