A lot of kinds of crazy

Darling family!
From the various complaints I've gotten about ME sending this off at a weird time, I am assuming y’all went through a daylight sayings (which has just been confirmed by emily). haha That, and everyone seems to be doing well!  Life seems to be jammed packed full of fun times which is exactly what it needs to be!

Well this week here in Daegu started off normal. We were doing great missionary work!  Meeting with members and investigators, proselyting and all that good stuff. We had a fun mountain hike (a favorite past time of Koreans) with our investigator and some members.  During that hike, I was able to have an amazing talk with one of our members about faith and enduring to the end. She said that EVERY DAY it is a struggle to study her scriptures and pray, but the easy alternative is much worse. I asked her how she did it, how she kept going forward if everything was so hard. Her first reply was, when things get hard, when you might get offended or have a hard time, the first thing you DO NOT DO is leave church. She said "do not stop going to church!  You need the strength of the Church."  We touched on a few other topics as well, but I was just in awe at her amazing faith and testimony.  She has the heart of a missionary, the heart that I am striving to develop. It was an amazing hike learning from her.

Thursday we had our English Book of Mormon class with the Elders and our (now their) investigator. It was a neat lesson and we were able to also teach the Restoration and commit him to be baptized when he received the confirmation that these things were true. It was neat. After that lesson we went over to a members house to follow up on their "day of service.” Their 'reward' of sorts for their day of committed service was that we baked them an apple pie!! They absolutely LOVED it!  It was a delicious dinner of Duck, and then followed by an apple pie, made it perfect!  I'm grateful for the members here being so willing to strive to be a little better.

But that's when the crazy began.... dun dunnn dunnnnn. So we knew that we would be moving houses... but we didn't think that the move would happen till next month... and then the call came on THURSDAY night that we would be moving at 9am on SATURDAY!!!  헐 

Thursday night we also had some sisters from another area come to our house for the night... yeah, six girls...one house.  Y’all understand. Then comes Friday...our day of packing and cleaning.  And it was literally ALL DAY LONG!!! There was SO MUCH stuff!! Different from just packing up your own stuff for a transfer, we had to go through everything. Twas a very long and tiring day.  But by the time night time came around we were in pretty decent shape. That night, for our last night in our house, we had some fun!  We were all a little slap happy from a long day and lack of sleep, so we relaxed with some Korean face masks and reenactments of Harry Potter and Pirates of the Caribbean.. I was Voldemort, my companion was Jack Sparrow... it was epic! Haha Though I admit 10:30 bedtime was absolutely Heavenly!

Saturday morning comes around and the real crazy begins.. I'll have to give you the condensed version...we had the AP's, our bishop, and our district of Elders all at our house moving things downstairs and out (it was really really weird to have men in our house!!!). While they were coming in and out, I was finishing up the cleaning of.. Well everything... bathroom, kitchen, fridge, stove, cupboards etc. Then it comes time for the big stuff to be moved and they realized that there is no way the dressers and table are doing to be able to be taken down the 3 flights of stairs, let alone out of the window. In the middle of this, the people who are going to move into the house after we are done, decided to show up. As we are trying to move, they decided to take a look around and begin complaining about everything that they didn't like or they felt was wrong!  

At this point, the Bishop and the AP's (Assistants to the President) are no longer there  (they went to the new house to start putting furniture in)... so we have these angry people asking the Americans and ONE Korean all these questions that none of us understand, nor have the answer too. During this, a moving truck is called and through the window gets all the large stuff out. As they are loading up their trucks we get a call from the other sisters saying that the house is different then the one we saw before... different and smaller!!! So now we are trying to decide there, what stuff we can and cannot take with us... Good bye couch, good bye mattresses, good bye 2 out of the 4 desks.... Finally things are loaded, old house is empty, and we are about to leave when new people start getting angry again... apparently something was up with the water! Anyhow, they were throwing a fit over 600won.. the equivalent of $0.60...

By this point I’m stressed out, and it turns out it is only the beginning as we go into our new TINY TINY TINY apartment and have to figure out how to fit 4 girls in a house meant for maybe one and a half people! Closets in one room, desks and table in the bigger room, 'beds' in the other.  Our bathroom is the size of about 2 airplane bathrooms put together and our kitchen probably smaller then a camper's kitchen. It.. well... it was an adventure to say the least. An adventure and 3 very very long days!

Some highlights were: eating "dinner" amongst the boxes, sleeping on the floor, the contagious giggles brought about from lack of sleep, stress, and the ridiculousness of the entire situation.  It was a weekend to remember!!

But I have to say, that not doing missionary things for about 3 days was really really really hard! It made me realize how much I love the study time, prayer time, and mindset of a missionary.  It was an interesting perspective that I am grateful for! I love being a missionary!!

We also had a very special moment as we knelt in prayer in our new house. Amongst the boxes and zero walking space, we thanked our Heavenly Father for our blessings, and we asked that this new house be a place of learning, and of the Spirit, a place where future missionaries will come to and be able to have a place of refuge as they prepare to go out each day and serve with all their heart, might, mind and strength. I may have a face now full of stress acne, but I have a heart full of gratitude that I am a missionary and I get to dedicate myself to the work everyday.

I love you all! and I miss you! Be safe this week and have fun!

kiss love hugs!