Hi all!! Love you so much. Can't believe I got to see your beautiful faces this past week. It feels like a million years ago really. It's getting colder and colder here and we've had a couple random snow storms. On thursday the weather was fine until we stepped outside and there was like a freak blizzard. we were far away enough from our house where we didn't want to go back and get our umbrellas and we thought we could tough it out. yeah we were definitely wrong. we were completely soaking wet by the time we got the store to buy umbrellas and we looked ridiculous. aka I looked like a wet dog. It was fun. I got home that night and scared myself when I looked in the mirror...that seems to happen a lot as a missionary I just care less about what I look like. Especially because everyone thinks we're freaks anyways walking around in the freezing cold in skirts. But it's all good!

This week we had the craziest investigator experience both me and Sister Gap were like whaaaat....so we meet this guy who wants help with English but then was interested in the Book of Mormon and wants to find out why people like it so much. Turns out he's way good at English ask he teaches English and is a translator so he wanted to read the Book of Mormon in English because he wanted it to be original and not translated Korean. We were like okay....oh also he doesn't believe in God. He believes in humanity. He's like yeah basically we're kind of like machines and after we die it's like that's the end. Like when a tv breaks that's the end of the tv's life. How sad is that?? So our goal is to instill in this guy some hope through the gospel. Anyway he comes to our second meeting with this document he prepared that has the Book of Mormon line by line first in English and then in Korean. He's like yeah I found it on the internet and copied and pasted it and cut and paste so that I could go line by line. And we were like what the....what kind of person spends that much time on this?? He is seriously meticulous. It was the weirdest thing but awesome. And then he's like yeah so the first five clauses of the Book are really beautiful the way they are written. And we were like oh gosh this guy is way too smart for us...but the lesson turned out to be okay and he's really interested in reading the Book of Mormon so hopefully that will help him. I told him that he couldn't read it with the purpose of proving it wrong and he was like oh no I would never do that but then he said that he doesn't think he'll come to find that it was translated by God's power either...so we'll see what happens. I told him to have an open mind and read it specifically paying attention to how he feels, not only the language (he's studying linguistics so that's why he's fascinated with the whole translation thing) but he's great and hopefully we'll get him to believe in God and have some hope.

Started reading in Matthew today simply about the beginning of Christ's life. Truly grateful for my Savior. In matthew 5:17 I think it talks about Christ going into Capernaum and how the people there are in the shadows of darkness but when Christ visits He brings them light. That's the same for us. If we let Christ into our lives, we let light into our lives, whatever that may mean for us whether it be happiness, peace, understanding, forgiveness. Christ's light overpowers the darkness but we must choose that light.

Love you all tons.

Remember to choose Christ every day!!

 

Love your favorite ever!!!

Sister Blick

hi all. i don't have much to write this week. in fact it will be really short. because i get to talk to you next week!!! ah!! how crazy is that???

 

first i want you all to look up Alma 27:17. right now.

okay

 

did you look it up?

 

because if you didn't. than you must.

 

anyways that will be me in november of 2014.

 

when i read that i laughed. and then i was like yeah that will be me.

 

this week during district meeting we discussed the importance of the Book of Mormon in conversion and how it has played a part in our conversion. Last Monday I had an interesting experience. So we met this lady on the street a couple weeks ago who, when i asked her if she wanted to learn about Christ told me to follow her to her house. So I was like great this is awesome! She ends up taking us to some other place to meet her friend who "has interest in your message" so we met him really awkwardly. got his number and left because he was working at the moment. she then proceeded to take us to meet another one of her friends who she wanted us to meet. basically she gives us referrals but isn't interested in the gospel herself. anyway we decided to meet her again and she took us to this place where like five guys were sitting around a fire thing. oh my gosh it started snowing here by the way! yeah snow is on the ground! and ice....okay back to the story. so she introduces us as her friends. oh while we were walking there she's like can you take off your badges for like a little bit? and we were like no....and she's like ah okay. but yeah so she's like these are my friends! and they're all like laughing and joking that we're americans and blah blah and then it was way awkward because she didn't say anything else like about us being missionaries or anything so we just sat there awkwardly and i was thinking in my head gosh i do not want this to be pointless and i need to open my mouth. so this guy ends up being like oh you're mormon yeah i know mormons. so i walk over to where all the old guys are sitting and start talking to him. and he's Christian and heard of Mormons before and this other guy was like oh what's Mormon? And the guys like they're like Islam and I was like uh no we're Christian. And he's like no you're not. Mormons aren't Christians. And I wanted to be like excuse me?? Yeah I'm the Mormon here thank you. But then I calmed down and I was like no we believe in Jesus Christ and God. And he was trying to quiz me on who created us and who was God's son and i was like Christ. I believe in Jesus Christ. I teach about Jesus Christ. And he's like well what is this Mormon then? And I talked to him about the Book of Mormon and had him read the intro and the testimony of the witnesses and his countenance changed. I felt the Spirit strongly and I know that he did too. I testified about Christ and that the Book of Mormon contained God's words. I knew that I taught what I needed to. And I knew that it is such a privilege to testify about Jesus Christ. Sometimes we think that missionary work is having people accept the gospel and get baptized, but a lot of missionary work is merely giving people the chance to learn and understand more. That guy didn't want to learn more, but I know that his thinking about the church changed and his understanding was clearer. It was an awesome experience.

 

The ward members are great and about 95 percent of them speak ridiculously good english.

 *Sister Blick sent me the link to her Dropbox account where she has all her pictures stored, so I don't have any more captions, sorry!!!

 

 

 

 

hiiiiiiiiii i have so many things to tell you ahhh!!  This week was full of little miracles and it was great. oh also i uploaded new pictures on dropbox so check it out.

first funny things that happened.

i got a free coat! hahahah so this lady has been coming to English class for like eveeeer aka 3 years and she's been taught the lessons I think like a million times but that's a different story. anyway the first time i met her she was wearing this coat and i was like oh my gosh your coat is so cute i love it and it looks really warm. and she's like do you want it? you can have it. and I was like nooooo....i couldn't.....and i was like i'll pay you for it and she's like no! I don't want you to pay i'll just give it to you! and i was like sweeeeet. so she gave it to me and it's awesome and i love it. (awkward emoticon)

okay second thing this is just a weird story. so we were on our way to go advertise our english class and this guy walks up to us and is like here's my card and we were like oh do you want to learn english and we gave him a flyer. and he just looks at me and is like you're really pretty. call me. and i was like uhh...thanks...and then we walked away and he runs after us and points to the flyer and is like is this your number? if i call will you answer? and we were like yeah....and he's like oh you're missionaries? i'm Christian. okay i'll call and i can learn english and we can talk about god. And we were like what the....okay! So he calls and we set up an appointment and then the day of the appointment he texts us in the morning and is like yeah i can't meet with you anymore. he's like first i wanted to learn English from you because you are so beautiful but what your church teaches is wrong. And we were like oh you've learned about our church before? and he's like i looked on the internet. gosh people do you believe everything you see on the internet? so yeah we didn't end up meeting with him but it made for a good story.

so two awesome things happened this week! well lots of awesome things happen but these two are especially awesome. and it all has to do with the plan of salvation! So the first was monday night we were advertising our english class and this guy came up and stood next to me (i was holding a poster) so I said hi and asked him if he wanted to learn English and then he started speaking perfect English to me. Seriously that happens here a lot. Koreans are the smartest people on the Earth I think. anyway so we start talking about why i'm here and how there are a lot of different churches around and that he's been waiting for a long time to feel something special but he hasn't found it. and i was like HELLO WELCOME TO THE TRUTH! So for the next twenty minutes I talked to him about different aspects of the gospel like the Atonement, the Plan of Salvation, feeling the Spirit and how we can find truth through reading scriptures and making time for God. It was seriously the best. I talked to him about how even though I'm young I know that this church is true and I know that it brings hope and happiness into our lives. I talked to him about having faith and having hope and that life is hard sometimes but because of the Savior we can be happy and fight through the hard times. I was able to testify that God has a plan for us and because He loves us He wants us to find truth and knowledge and that if we make time for Him He will bless us with answers to our prayers. It was so great and saying that and testify just strengthened my testimony because everything I was saying was true. Everything I was saying was from the heart. So we got his number and hopefully can meet. He says he's busy during the week because of work so pray for me that we can meet with him on the weekends!!

then we started teaching this girl named Lee. She's actually Chinese and she's here going to Seoul University. She doesn't know Korean so we're teaching her in English which she's really good at. Anyway the first time we met we were trying to get to know her religious background a little bit and she opened up and told us about her experience about finding God. She said that her dad died a little while ago and that was really hard for her family because he was young and the death was sudden. She said that she had so many questions during that time and that she turned to God and the scriptures to find answers. She was talking about how she didn't know if she would see her dad again and she didn't know if he would go to heaven because he didn't really have religion and she wondered why that would happen to him. So she said she was reading the scriptures and she found her answer (which to be honest I didn't really get) but that she knew that her dad was alright and that God loved her. And we were like OH MY GOSH YOU ARE PERFECT so for the second time I was able to testify that she would see her dad again and talk about the plan of salvation and how Heavenly Father has a plan for all his children and I told her about Courtney and how that was hard for our family but because we know that we can see her again and live with her forever we have hope for the future and the eternities. She's so awesome and the Spirit was so strong and I love that I can teach about this true true forever true gospel because it's so glorious! Certain days of the week suck a lot but little things like this make the whole experience worth it.

Don't ever take for granted the knowledge that we have as members of the church. We are so lucky to have been raised in this glorious gospel. Thanks mom and dad for being such faithful examples to your children. Love you tons!!

Sister Blick

transfers are next week!!! ahh what will happen???

hi fam bam i love you tons. and i am beyond grateful for you. i hope thanksgiving day was awesome for you! We got fed by an American family that's living here for the husband's job. He served a mission in Seoul about 12 years ago and they've been living in Korea for four years. They have the cutest daughters and I loved playing with them. I played hide and go seek with the 5 year old and she reminded me of Cutter but a cuter, calmer, nicer, girl hahahah ^^

anyway this week will be short! So our investigator texted us on Friday and told us that she doesn't think she's ready for baptism and kind of eluded to the fact that she doesn't want to keep meeting. That was heartbreaking. We said a prayer to help her and comfort us. We don't know exactly what she's feeling and we're meeting once more this week and we're praying that we can figure out what happened and be able to comfort her. That's the hard thing abou missionary work is that people have their own agency and Satan is working so hard against us. That news was hard to take but we're not giving up on her yet!

Our other investigator that we're teaching is awesome though! It's the husband of a recent convert in the ward and he's great. We taught him the first lesson yesterday and pretty  much everything is new to him because his parents are Buddhist but he didn't really grow up believing it and doesn't have a religion. His wife was the same way before she got baptized so I asked her to share how she came to know that God lives and she said at first it was awkward when she prayed because she didn't know God, but as she prayed to Him she received answers and she knew that He lives. It was awesome. OH BY THE WAY HAPPY BIRTHDAY KRISSY IT'S YOUR BIRTHDAY IN KOREA WOOOOOHOOO!! sorry i just thought of that and i knew i would forget. sorry for the insert. anyway. so he said that he's read a little bit of the Book of Mormon so we didn't have to give him that commitment but he basically said that he wants to read the whole thing because the Book of Mormon is evidence for everything and i was like YES YES IT IS! It was awesome and he said that he would be baptized if he finds these things to be true yayy!!! It was great and even though our Korean is horrible it went well!

Oh this week we were trying to heart attack a member's house and the gate to their apartment complex area was locked so did I give up? No! I climbed a wall and hopped over and unlocked the gate so my companion could come in too hahaha whoops....but i didn't get caught! and it was a great story ^^

Last and this week we're trying to meet all the members in our ward and leave them with a spiritual thought and commitment to pray for someone to share the gospel with during the month of December and bear their testimonies about it January fast and testimony meeting. So I challenge you with that too! Our mission scripture is 1 Nephi 13:37. Read it and think about the amazing blessings that we get from sharing the gospel. Those promises are promised to every member because every member must be a missionary! After all you did covenant to do that when you were baptized ^^ So get on it!

Just wanted to share with you the words of a hymn that I found this week

 

God moves in a mysterious way, His wonders to perform

 

Ye fearful saints, fresh courage take

The clouds ye so much dread

are big with mercy and shall break

with blessings on your head

 

His purposes will ripen fast, unfolding every hour

The bud may have a bitter taste

But sweet with be the flower

 

Remember that Heavenly Father is all-knowing! He loves you and wants to bless you. Thank you for being wonderful examples to be as I was growing up. You are all my best friends and my life would be desolute without you.

 

Love you more than words can express

Sister Blick

hi pamilyyyy i lub you tons. this week had a lot of fun and awesome things so let me tell you about it!!

first i'll tell you about our investigator! she's so cute I love her. She's Chinese and has been living in Korea for five years. She speaks Mandarin and Korean and English so she's amazing. Anyway we gave her a baptismal date this week!! It was so exciting. She;s so earnest and precious and wants to live the gospel and just learn! It was so awesome to teach her about repentance and baptism and the gift of the Holy Ghost and why those things are so important. She struggles with the Word of Wisdom and so she received a priesthood blessing yesterday from a member in our ward who struggled with smoking even as a member. One of our members has fellowshipped her and their relationship is just great. Our investigator really trusts her and we can tell that she really has the desire to live the gospel of Christ and to get to know Jesus Christ better. The change in her life from the gospel is amazing, this gospel truly is such a blessing.

So just some fun things last week after I emailed we went to Gangnam and it started snowing! haha I felt like I was in New York City it was awesome. Also after I emailed I talked to this crazy guy for like fifteen minutes about how someone was trying to kill him and how he knows it's the Korean government and every day they shock him with an invisible gun and spray metal powder at his legs and how he gets attacked all the time. I was like....well good luck with that....yeah we see him everywhere now so we have to be careful.

Last week I also went on exchanges with one of my besty friends from the MTC well actually we weren't really that close in the MTC but we served in the same zone when we got out here so we got super close. Her name is Sister Florence. Anyway it was basically the best day ever. I ate shark soup!! I know I'm branching out. Be proud. I also ate mussles!! Yeah we went out to lunch with some members and our YW pres was like do you like seafood and i was like no and then she ordered me seafood soup I was like...thanks. But it ended up being way good. But spicy. So my mouth was on fire. But I'm getting used to that. Anyway back to exchanges. they were so fun. I'll just tell you the last part of our day. so we walk forever to this members house so give them these lantern things that Sister Florence and her companion made for them and we get to the door and knock and this guy opens the door and after Sister Florence all nice says hi! in English says what do you want? And we were like uhhh this is awkward and she's new to the area so she didn't know the member and she was like are your daughters home? and he was like what? and we were like we have a present for your daughters. and he was like my daughters? and she said yeah...and then said their names and he was like yeah that's not me....HAHAHA it was hilarious I died laughing and she was like this is not funny. It was awesome. Poor guy got two random foreigners trying to speak Korean tell him that we had presents for his daughters. Good times.

One more funny experience. So there was this girl sitting alone at a bus stop so I go up and pretend I'm waiting for the bus naturally and she has a suitcase so I'm like oh are you traveling? and she says in English sorry I don't speak Korean and I was like really? Because she was Asian obviously. and she's like yeah I'm Chinese...hahaha I was like aaaand I feel racist now. But I can't tell!! Anyways we started having a great convo about how she was there for training for work and how she was waiting for the bus to go to the airport and we told her we were missionaries and sharing a really important message and gave her a mormon.org card and right as we were talking about it her bus comes up stops for like 0.00002 seconds and leaves and we were like uhh.....it was SO AWKWARD. I was like well hopefully you look at the website and realize that our message is worth missing your bus to the airport to catch your flight.....yeah that was great.

So yeah this week was fun. But it's raining and windy and freezing outside right now sooo today will probably be rough. But I love you all! Only a few more weeks until I get to talk to you!! I'm pretty sure it's only a phonecall....so you can divy up times....? Yeah not sure how that's going to work considering there's like a million of you. But I love you!! Have a good week and remember to be grateful for the gospel. During Thanksgiving try to express your gratitude as much as you can and show your gratitude to the Lord by bearing your testimony to those around you. And I hope for Christmas you can find someone for the missionaries to teach as your present to the Lord!! Miss you like crazy!!

 

Sister Blickenstaff

hi family. i decided to write you my main email before i try to talk to any of you because it is just way to difficult the other way around. This week I had some funny and some awesome experiences. My new area is sooooo great and I love it.

First story: we met these high school students (ps I LOVE talking to high school students because they are super funny. they either are like the most excited thing in the world to talk to you or they are scared out of their mind) So these were two excited girls that were hilarious they kept yelling 신기하다! which means wonderful! and they said oh my gosh like a million times and they were laughing the whole time we were talking to them. So we invited them to english class and it was just a fun party.

Second story: we had a combined mission conference these weekend and I got to see Sister Chao for the first time!! She's doing great and she's so beautiful and has the best trainer in the world. She was in the MTC with me and she's awesome. She's Korean but lived in Canada for a while so her English is perfect and she's so cute and practically American. Also saw Elder Pace. haha he was asking people if they knew who Sister Blickenstaff was and he found me and was like hi do you know me and I was like of course! Elder Pace! And he was like how do you know me...? And I wanted to be like little did you know I thought you were super cute when we went to school together and you have no idea who i am yeah i'm not a creeper or anything! But i was like oh Vance and Devin were friends with you and we went to school together....But yeah that was fun. Made me laugh because it reminded me of my stalkerish ways.

Third Story: Sunday I was having a particularly hard time so I was fasting and the merciful Lord showed me a couple miracles. So the first one we had an investigator come to church with us and she told us that she's been trying to keep the WoW but when she gets stressed out she smokes. She says that she really wants help and wants to get rid of that habit and that she wants to try this "church thing" out because she's never really done it before and she thinks it will be good for her life. So we'll hopefully start meeting with her more regularly and be able to help her come closer to her Savior and rely on Him to get rid of her addiction. The second miracle we were on the subway home and my dedicated companion started talking to someone and so I jumped in the conversation and we started talking about how we were missionaries and she ended up giving us tangerines randomly yeah people in Korea do that a lot. and the conversation had kind of died out but the Spirit put a thought into my head to say hey since you gave me a gift can I give you a gift? So I tried to rationalize a million reasons of why not to say it but before I could convince myself I blurted it out and she laughed and said what gift? So I introduced the Book of Mormon to her and told her why it was important and she said okay thanks I'll read it! She didn't live in our area and she said she didn't have a phone but we gave her our number and I don't know if she'll read it or if she'll even look into the church, but the Lord showed me that tender mercy of me being able to share something that's so important to me with the Korean people.

Missionary work is really hard, but the blessings that we get in return far outweigh the cost. It's hard to remember that sometimes, but the Lord helps us in everything we do.

I studied this morning about sacrifice and how it shows our acknowledgement of our duty to God and our thankfulness for the blessings He has given us. Sacrifice is really hard, but I read about Abraham and Isaac and after the Lord tells Abraham not to sacrifice his son, he names the place Jehovah-jileh (I think I can't remember exactly) which means The Lord sees and provides. The Lord sees the sacrifices we make and He will provide.

Think about how you can show your dedication to the Lord this week.

Love you all, need your prayers right now.

Sister Blickenstaff

hi hi hiiii i love you so much and i wish i could talk to you forever on p-day but i can't sad. but almost a month until i get to call you!! except i only have like an hour i think so i have no idea how that will work out. anyway in like an hour i'm going to see jer which is going to be so weird but i'm excited!! anyways i'll just share a couple thoughts with you before i have to go. i don't have that long of time anymore since things are a little different in my new area. so yeah i got transferred i'm a little more north. i love the area it's so pretty but it's freeeeeeezing seriously. there a lot of foreigners here because of Seoul University which apparently is like the most prestigious college in korea so it's weird seeing that but i love the area. my new compy is awesome. we're kind of just hangin out together not knowing korean and trying to share the glorious message! no it's not that bad haha but it will definitely be a fun experience.

just a couple of experiences i had and then i gotta hike on out of here.

first one was with an old grandma. i walk across the street and she's just sitting on one of the post things sticking up from the ground and she looks at me with like the biggest goofy smile on her face and i'm like hi and introduce myself as a missionary and she gets so excited and grabs onto my arm and tells me she wants to take us to her house and at first i was freaked out like where the heck is this grandma taking me but she told us as we were walking that recently she had been thinking what church should i go to? and then she was waiting there and she looked up and saw my eyes and then i introduced myself to her as a missionary and she said that was her answer! so she took us to her house and gave me and sister oh some persimmons and was like oh i hope we meet again and sent us on our way. don't ask me why we didn't baptize her right then. i won't get into that part of the story. i hope she finds the missionaries again someday and that she comes to know the truth because heavenly father really does prepare his children.

another was a less active well sort of less active we visited before i left. she comes to church but only sacrament meeting so she's considered active it's weird. we had a message to share with her but i got the impression to share a different scripture so i shared moroni 7:33 with her about faith and how through faith we can do all things. and i asked her what having faith means to her and she opened up and told us how she doesn't feel like she has faith and that she just goes to church because her family goes to church and that she understands why less-actives go inactive. and it was really touching. she started crying and was apologizing to us but we just let her know that we were there to help her and love and support her. she texted us after and told us thank you so much that she feels more comfortable now and that we helped her. i'm grateful that i could listen to the spirit and share that message with her and that we could help uplift her. I don't know if there's anyone like that you know but try to be spiritually sensitive to those around you. maybe someone in your ward is struggling and on the outside they look fine and happy but on the inside they're hurting. maybe they're a message you can share with them that will help their testimony grow and help them on the path toward Christ and life-long activity.

 

okay i have to go now but pay attention to the people around you!! and remember that Christ taught that it's always better to give than to receive. love you all have a good week. pray for me.

 

Sister Blick

 This is Kayla, the one that spent the day with us as a missionary!

 On Halloween these people were walking around so I had to take a picture with them naturally

When we ate Baskin Robbins, seriously I told you it was huge!

 I'm pretty sure I look horrible in this picture but this is one of my favorite ladies in my ward.  She always calls me her special unforgettable friend.

 Me and some cute girls I met on the street.  My coat's like wearing a blanket, it's the beeeeeeeest

One of my favorite families in the ward.  So sad to leave them!

hi hi hiiiii family. today isn't actually p-day but we get to email. i get to go to the temple on thursday so they made it like a temple p-day but we still email on mondays. it's weird. but anyways hiiii i miss you!! can you believe it's alreay november what??? soon i'll be calling you on the phone!! and I only have like a year left on my mission....weird....time flies when you're working hard.

Some fun things this week. since it was halloween we had a sort of halloween themed english class this week. each week we play a game so this week we bought krispy kremes (they were sooo good) and tied them on strings and did the whole eat them without hands game. it was hilarious and so fun. we had them spin six times and walk to where the donut was and they were like drunkies. who knew spinning six times was so debilitating. it was great.

this week was cool because there's a girl in our ward who is thinking about going on a mission. she's so cute and i love her and she speaks english since she went to Hawaii so i love her even more. anyway so we got permission from president for her to spend the day with us and kind of see what it was like. i'm literally doing everything i can to encourage her to serve a mission. it's been cool to share my experience and thoughts with her about sacrifice and serving the Lord and how my mission has helped me and stuff like that. it helped me think about why i'm serving and how blessed i've been from this experience. she asked me if i would ever regret serving and I was like no I would never regret it. There has been so much that i've learned that I would never trade anything for the experiences that I've had. The day she served with us was also october 31 so we went to baskin robbins and got a massive amount of ice cream and ate the whole thing. i thought i was going to explode. like seriously i probably gained five pounds from all the ice cream. picture to follow later. we had a couple miracles this week. well i consider them miracles at least. so we met with this lady for the first time this week who wanted to learn English which is where we get most of our investigators and she's so cute. Her english isn't that great but we started talking about what she wanted to learn about and she was like actually I want to learn about this book what is it? and pointed to the Book of Mormon and we were like weeeell let us tell you!! So we talked about the Book of Mormon and had her read a little bit of the introduction and she was like why do we need it? And we were like weeeelll let us tell you! And we talked about how it testifies of Jesus Christ and how it talks about God's plan for us and how we can find truth from reading it. And then we asked her to start reading it and she was like yeah of course. It was awesome. So we'll meet with her again this week and then I get transferred so I'm sad. Also I decided I have to start practicing talking on the phone because i am literally terrified of doing it. Mom you know how much I hated calling people and that was in English. So I was like freaking out about calling people but I knew that I had to do. So I got out the potential investigators list which was not very long and looked to see who I could call. I didn't know what I was going to say or what I was supposed to say so I was scared but I knew that the Lord would help me. So I called one person and they were like yeah I'm busy sorry so that was a bummer and I called a couple others but they didn't answer. There was one lady that I wanted to call but it said she had English interest so I wasn't sure what I would even say but I was like okay I'll just call her! So I called and introduced myself and asked her if she would like to meet so learn about our English/gospel program and she was like yeah sure when do you want to meet? So I set up an appointment and we'll meet her this friday!! Now that probably seems lame to you but it was amazing for me! So it was a miracle.

Spiritual thought for the week:

Read His Grace is Sufficient by Brad Wilcox

I was studying about repentance and forgiveness this week and about Christ's grace. Christ promises to forgive us if we confess and forsake our sins. He promises. Part of repentance and forgiveness is us forgiving ourselves. Because we are weak, Satan uses doubt and worry to weigh us down and make us think we aren't good enough for the Lord because we make mistakes. But that is what is so great about Christ's mercy is that even when we make mistakes, he still loves us. When we sin, Christ's Atonement is there to bless us. How merciful is the Lord that even when we sin He blesses us through forgiveness. I think we go through certain experiences to humble us. To make us step back and look at ourselves and the things we've been doing and evaluate what we need to change and how we can improve. And recognizing that we have weaknesses is okay as long as we rely on the Lord to help us overcome them and not succumb to Satan's temptations that our weaknesses make us unworthy to p[rogress and bring fear of failure in our minds.  We can commit to change and the Lord will continue to send us love to us. It's hard because even though we repent out mistakes aren't completely wiped from our memory but because the Lord forgives us, we don't need to dwell on them. We need to change, be more committed and obedient, look forward, and be humble.

Love you to death

Sister Blick

 Some cute Korean high school students

Proselyting like a pro!

 The sweet skeleton we made for our ward Halloween party

 My cute zone leader, he is tiny!  Weighs like 100 lbs

 Our rockin ward missionaries

 My other cute zone leader. This kid is hilarious, reminds me exactly of Jake, probs why I love him so much

All the sisters in our mission

hi family. so jake's girlfriend loves me more than all of you because she was the only one who emailed me! youuuuuu people. excluding mom and dad of course they love me the most. good thing i'm a missionary and filled with love!

anyway this week was good! went on exchanges, had interviews with the president, had a halloween party, worked hard, shared the gospel. solid week.

oh everyone needs to get a copy of "The Power of Everyday Missionaries" by Clayton M. Christensen. it's all about member missionary work and i am determined to make you all member missionaries! the missionaries need your help people!!! seriously though.

okay first tuesday we taught our one progressing investigator...she's cute i love her! i told you about her last week i think...anyway so she read the pamphlet we gave her except we found out that she reads it to just read it (because she's learning english) and she doesn't really understand anything haha so that was a good tidbit of info. but it was okay. we talked more about God and she said that she's learned a lot of things about God and she knows it in her mind but that she doesn't feel it in her heart. So we talked about prayer and how that's how we show our faith and i shared with her Alma's analogy of the seed. and how if we only have a desire that's enough. and she has that desire but she needs to plant it and through prayer she can plant. and it will either be good and grow or it will be bad. So I invited her to pray to God to know if He really was there. I told her that I knew that He would answer if she asked. And she asked me a question that was interesting. She asked me if every single prayer I have given has been answered. And I said yes just automatically, but when I really thought about it the answer was really yes. Sometimes the answer isn't what I want or expect and sometimes the answer takes a long time for me to recognize it, but I know that heavenly Father answers all of our prayers. Because I know that He listens. And I know that He loves me and that He wants to answer my prayers and I know that He will. I was grateful for that experience that caused me to reflect on how I really felt about my answer to that question. Love her. We're teaching her again tonight. Last time she said I feel like if I believe in God that I'll have to do everything correctly. and i was like well next time we'll talk about the atonement thank you for leading into that! I hope it goes well. I got the impression this morning that we should talk about baptism so hopefully I can invite her to be baptized! Pray for me and for her!

wednesday night to thursday night i went on exchanges and that was super fun. it was nice to go somewhere different and be with someone different and learn from my sister training leader who is a great missionary. wednesday night we taught english and one of the ladies there was like wow you are so pretty. i think you'll hear that a lot while you are here. hahah i was like yeah....i'm trying not to get a big head people okay! at our halloween party there was a lady who came up to me and started asking me about where i was from and stuff and then randomly she's like can we take a picture together? i was like suuuuuuure!!!!!!!!!! and then yesterday when i walked on the bus i stood next to this lady sitting down and smiled at her and she's like you're pretty. hahah thanks lady. hey by the way i'm a missionary! it was a great lead in. hahha missionary work is fun!

I guess my focus this week has been on prayer. I was fasting last week and I read a poem and what popped out at me was that sometimes we ask for the wrong things. the poem is called "God Said No" if you want to read it it's really good. so especially this week i've tried to say more meaningful prayers and really think about what i'm asking and if it's what i should be asking for. it says in the bible dictionary that the object of prayer is not to change the will of God, but it is to secure blessings already prepared for us but us receiving them are contingent upon us asking. Just think Heavenly Father has so many blessings prepared for us and we just have to have the faith and courage to ask! i love prayer and I hope that you take advantage of the time you have to talk to your Heavenly Father. Prayer is such a special privilege!

 

those are my thoughts for the week!! love tons!! pray for me and i'll pray for you  :))))

 

Sister Blickkkk

hi lovely family!! sorry i didn't email at the regular time today. we had a mission conference with the sister missionaries so we got permission to email afterwards. it was super fun to get together with all the sisters and it's so inspiring to see all of us together laboring for the Lord. this week was good i'll just give you the low-down

 

we're really trying to work on helping less-actives come back to church as sadly in Korea there are a lot. monday night we had dinner with the mom and daughter of one of the less-active families in their ward. they're an awesome family and we're developing a good relationship with them. their daughter is 11 and she is so cute. a little shy but because me and sister oh are awesome and fun she opened up and we had fun. the mom is so nice and a return missionary and always asks about missionary work and jokes around with us about missionary work. we're trying to encourage her to come back to church. we shared a message about balance and how it's important to have balance in our families so that we can strengthen and serve each other in times of need. we invited her to read the book of the mormon with her family a little bit each night and she talked to us about how she knew she had to try to do better. Kaari i shared with her your experience that you emailed me about last week about praying and feeling the Lord's love immediately. I hope that she knows that we love her and that she has the courage to come back to church.

 

tuesday we had an appointment with a lady who wants help with english. her daughter is a member and is studying at the U. She's been to utah and absolutely loves it and really wants to learn english so we said we could teach her. anyway i started talking to her about her daughter and asked her if she had seen a difference in her daughter since she had become a member and she said yes that her daughter was happier and a better person. She said that she loves the kind of people that Mormons are and said that she wished more people in the world were like us. She says that she thinks we are very honest and sincere people and that we really love God. So I talked about how it has helped me realize what's important in life and it helps us have good morals. I invited her to learn more about what her daughter believes and she said yes! She started by saying that she's Catholic but that's open to hearing about what we believe. So I gave her a restoration pamphlet in English and asked her to read it a) to practice English and b) to introduce her to what we believe. As we kept talking she then revealed that she says she's Catholic but she doesn't really believe in God. She said that when she got married her husband's family was Catholic so she became Catholic. She says she thinks there is a God, but she doesn't think she can believe in Him because too many bad things happen. I talked to her about how there is opposition in all things and that according to God's plan for us if we want to experience joy, there must also be sorrow and so forth. She said that she doesn't know if she can believe, but I told her that if she keeps her mind and heart open that I know she can believe. And i said you don't have to believe a lot right now. At the beginning you just have to believe a little and as you start to learn you will believe more and more. She said if you teach me and I don't accept what you teach will you be disappointed? And I said well of course we'll be disappointed because we know that our message is true and we hope that you will find that too, but it's your choice and if you choose not to accept it we will respect it. She liked that because she thinks that Mormons are respectful of others beliefs. So we'll teach her tomorrow again. Pray for her!! And that we can teach well....

 

A lot of people here think Mormons are pagans (to be honest I'm not really sure what that means glll....) and so that's why they aren't interested and think we are weird. We met a lady on the street that started asking questions (one of them being "are you from Russia?" weird i know) about the church and if we were pagans and stuff and we were able to share with the book of mormon and talk about how we believed in God and Jesus Christ. I don't think she was really interested but it was a success that we were able to clarify what we believe so that she knew the truth about our church.

 

saturday we had dinner at the bishops house with a lady that is sort of a weird investigator situation i'll explain and her daughter in law. So this lady her english name is Grace is super old and we met her through English class. She's friends with the English class coordinator (a member) so she comes to church a lot like almost every week but won't let the missionaries teach her. so she hasn't received the lessons but she comes to church but she doesn't want to get baptized and i'm not really sure what she believes....it's just a weird situation. anyway her daughter in law is vietnamese but speaks pretty good Korean (i like her because her Korean is easy to understand and i feel like we have that foreigner bond). she has one boy that's almost two and is pregnant with a daughter and is due in like two weeks. anyways grace wants her daughter to have korean friends so she wanted to invite her to the church and was like oh and if she wants to learn about your gospel than that's cool too. So we had dinner with them and the bishop's family (their family is way tote) and we gave her a book of mormon in vietnamese and talked about how the book of mormon blesses families and the bishop and bishop's wife bore great testimony and it was cool. i don't really think she's interested, but we invited her and she's really nice and sweet so we'll see what happens.

 

sunday we had dinner at another members house and it was freaking booooomb. okay i am obsessed with sweet potato people. like koreans love it and i love it too. it's so delicious and the food they make is so delicious. mmmm korea. we talked about being steadfast and immovable (mosiah 5:15) and why it's important to build faith on Christ. Sunday I read Jesus the Christ too and that's an amazing book. I love learning about my Savior and I hope you all find times in your busy schedules to learn more about the Savior and study His words.

 

Love you so much. Til next week!! ^^

 

Sister Blick

 

ps. got a halloween package from our ward and it was the greatest thing ever!! they're so cute!! make sure they know i am so happy!!!

hello hello helloooooo!!!! (jim car ref) i love you all as usual. this week was a rollercoaster. every week is a rollercoaster. every day is a rollercoaster but it's good! and being a missionary is great because like a million and one people pray for you and I get to be doing the greatest work ever. Seriously missionary work is the best. And I hope you are all being good member missionaries!! Seriously when I get back I'm going to be the freaking best member missionary in the world. Because I know what it's like to be a missionary! It's hard! They need help, people!! So share the gospel!!

Anyway funny stories of the week:

So it rained this week. Seriously it randomly rains every week and there's like huge thunderstorms and I think there are bombs going off all the time and it's really confusing. Anyway it was raining so we had our umbrellas and we were waiting outside this apartment building because we had an appointment but we were early so we sat down on some benches and i noticed this dark spot on my umbrella and i was like what the...so i looked at the top of it and there was a massive bird poop on it!!! and sister oh died laughing and i was like what the ewwwww!! and she's like hey if you didn't have the umbrella it would be on your head. and it was disgusting and it wouldn't come off i had to get a stick and scrape it off. nasty.  also everyone thinks i'm like 25 -___- okay i'm not ancient! But really so many times there are girls that look 12 and they're like i'm 23 what the?!? i think Koreans have the fountain of youth pill and aren't telling anyone about it....

oh also we got these business cards to advertise our english class and they are legit. when i get the chance i will send one home and if jacky is interested she can come hahahha jkkkk ah that was funny.

oh the other day we were hardcore proselyting and i went up to this girl (i love talking to high school students because they freak out when i talk to them) and started talking to her and she was acting all nervous and shy and i was like are you scared? and she like shyly giggled and was like no this is wonderful! hahahah sometimes i love being a foreigner. then i started talking to this other lady who completely ignored me so i just kept talking to her about how i was learning korean and so i want to talk to everyone and she's like i don't want to talk to you. and i was like have a nice day! yeah love conversations like that too. my favorite are the old grandmas who grab my face and pat me on the arm and tell me my Korean is good and that I'm pretty. Good times. 

So this is kind of cool. The first day that I was here coming to anyang on the subway I was like all gungho I'm a missionary right? So i was like i have to talk to someone! So I looked at the lady next to me and noticed that she was sort of looking at me and she took out her headphone so i said hello and then we sort of talked and she was all excited because she had met the missionaries before i think. (i don't really remember) anyway sister oh got her number and i was like yeah investigator! well we finally met after 8 weeks of us calling her and her being busy and yada yada yada and her family is so awesome! They really just want to learn English I think but seriously there family is so awesome and the dad is amazing and they are just so perfect for the gospel and I want them to get baptized. While I was practicing English with them they asked about tithing (yeah it was random and Sister Oh was like explain tithing so I stuttered through that in Korean yeah it was scary I hadn't taught it since the MTC) and baptism and Joseph Smith. So I taught them about the restoration in Korean/English and recited the first vision and it was so cool! Not really sure if they have real interest but it was a cool experience and I hope that we can bring them closer to Christ. They don't believe in anything. Actually sister oh told me they believe in science hahahaha so that was awesome. But I just know that they are awesome and I want them to be baptized. So pray for me that I can teach through the Spirit!!

I'll just share something quick this week:

I read this morning about Virtue from the PMG attributes assessment and it talks about being dependable and doing the things that we say we will. It had a scripture reference in Alma 53:20 where it talks about the stripling warriors. So i started reading about the stripling warriors and it said something that i had never noticed before and was interesting. It said that before they made the decision to fight they had never been a disadvantage to the people, but now that they were taking up arms they were becoming a great support. What an interesting way to say that. They had never been a disadvantage, but now they were a great support. Last night during our lesson the mom asked us a question that i was kind of ashamed to answer. She was like before your mission did you talk to your friends about the gospel a lot? And the truth is I didn't. I mean everyone knew I was a member of the church and I tried to be a good example of living up to my standards, but I didn't really actively try and share the gospel. Aka I wasn't a disadvantage to the people. I was just there. and I know that this special experience of being a missionary will change me so that I can be a great support. We are all in the Lord's army. We take His name upon us when we are baptized. Are we simply "not a disadvantage" or are we a great support to the Lord? I hope that all of you strive to be of great support to the Lord in these days. It's becoming easier to share the gospel and especially now everyone needs it. So remember your covenants and stand up for the Lord. He needs us to bring His children back to Him!!

Love you tons. Peeeeace

Sister Blick

hiiii!!! i love you all tons and tons and this week was super great. just some quicky stories

this morning actually my companion was just casually like ah it's going to be cold today. there's going to be a typhoon tomorrow. and i was like WHAT. A TYPHOON?? and she's like yeah...like totally normal!! what the heck typhoons are not normal!! so hopefully I survive that.

HAHA okay so the less-actives here are awesome. okay well not in that they're less-active but in that they LOVE the missionaries. it's super weird because they're super nice to the missionaries and treat them like family but they won't come to church. Sister Oh said it has to do something with the way that the church is in Korea but said I wouldn't understand it so I don't really know. But we went to visit a less-active yesterday after church and she gave us two bags of food and she gave me two winter coats. my compy was like oh tomorrow is p-day and we might have to go shopping because sister blick needs a winter coat. and the member was like what size are you what color do you like? and brought out these coats and was like i've only worn them like twice so here you can have them. and i was like uhh....they were expensive!! one of them is SUPER cute and i was way stoked to get it. the other one wasn't that cute but i'm still grateful hahah.

so i went on exchanges this week with another korean sister missionary who came out the same time as me. not going to lie i was super scared because a) i don't know where anything is and b) i don't speak Korean. but turns out we didn't get lost and I can kind of speak Korean! yay!! But the day ended up being super fun and we talked to a lot of people. While we were proselyting we were walking past a bus station and I here this girl say 외 국 인! which means foreigner. first i laughed and then i turned around and i was like hi! yeah I'm a foreigner. to which she freaked out semi because she was embarrassed that i understood her and also because i was speaking Korean. It was awesome. Talked to her and turns out she's Korean but lives in China and she was just on a trip to Korea with her mom and aunt for a couple days. She speaks perfect English, Korean, and Chinese. Yeah she's a genius. She was super nice I wish I could've talked to her more about the gospel. I told her I was a missionary and then she was like oh my bus is here gotta go! It was sad. But maybe if she sees another missionary she'll remember me.

This morning my companion was like hey! you're wearing my ribbon. (which i was wearing a hair tie of hers that has a bow on it) but when she said it it sounded like nipple and i was like what??? love her konglish.

 

this week was super awesome. me and compy have grown closer and had a lot of fun and worked really hard. in that way i have been super blessed. we don't have any investigators still so the work is hard but we love it! i love personal study time because i love the scriptures and i'm obsessed with the gospel because it's the greatest thing in the whole world.

my message to you this week is about charity. A really really good talk that i'm making all of you look up and read is Let Us Raise Our Voice of Warning but Pres. Eyring from the 2009 Liahona. It talks all about member missionary work and how it's really important. He specifically talked about three things that we can do to be better missionaries every day. He said we can love others (charity), be a good example to others (let your light so shine before men that they may see your good works and glorify the Father) and to share testimony (invite people to act). this morning i specifically studied about charity. in the BD it sayds that charity is the highest, noblest, strongest kind of love. in Corinthians it says that charity edifieth, which means builds up, strengthens, establishes, and repairs. The word repairs struck me. Charity repairs. When we have charity towards other people we have the ability to repair their hearts, their testimonies, whatever they may need. Charity has healing power. Both for the person who has it and the person who receives it. Why? Because pure love has healing power. Christ had such strong love for us that He sacrificed Himself so that we might be healed-from sin, sorrow, pain, weakness, you name it. When we love others, everything becomes easier for us. We're not so focused on ourselves and what we want or don't want what we have or don't have. We focus on others and everything else falls into place. One of my favorite scriptures is Moroni 7:48. We must pray with ALL ENERGY OF HEART to be filled with the pure love of Christ that he bestows upon his TRUE FOLLOWERS. If we really are a true follower of Christ, we will desire charity. We will want to love others because that is what Christ would do (and does). And when we have that love, we become his true children. And as we become His true children, we appear to be like Him. That when we meet Him, He will see us as His child. He will recognize us as one of His sheep because we have kept the greatest commandment. To love one another. Here it's hard because I can't speak the language very well so I can't express my feelings very well. But I still love the people. And I pray that through my smiles and through the small conversations that I am able to have, that they can at least feel Heavenly Father's love for them through me. One of my favorite members of the ward I'm in always tells me that she has a special feeling about me because she says I'm so nice and she can tell that I care. Sometimes that's all people need! They don't need you to be perfect and say the perfect thing they just need you to be there and to show through actions that you care. Actions speak louder than words right? Because actions shows that we've thought about it enough to do it. So show people that you love them! Smile more and seek for opportunities to let people feel God's love for them through you.

Also studied in Luke 22:31-32 Christ is talking to Simon and He says Satan wants to sift you but I have prayed for you that your faith fail not. Christ prayed for His disciple. Don't you think He still does that? If we are disciples of Christ, He prays for us! That our faith fails not. I love that. Our Lord and Savior prays for us weak beings that we may have faith. So work extra hard to strengthen your faith! Each day ask yourself if how you have increase your faith in Christ. And if you don't know how. Read PMG. Seriously it's a great book to read from. And you're all member missionaries so it applies to you.

Also during companionship study this week we were focusing on introducing the Book of Mormon to other people and how we can use the Book of Mormon. The Book of Mormon is so essential to our gospel! I hope you all are reading from it at least a little bit everyday. I love the words of the prophets and I wish I could study it for hours on end. But PMG says to not forget that even though we are members, Moroni's promise still applies to us. When was the last time you asked Heavenly Father if they Book of Mormon was true? So challenge of the week/month is to ask for a reconfirmation that the Book of Mormon is true. Read Moroni's promise and ask, with a sincere heart and real intent if the Book of Mormon contains God's word. And I want to here about your experience!! But not over email. So write me a letter :)))) Love you all. I know that the Book of the Mormon is the word of God. I asked Heavenly Father and then I read Moroni 7 verse 16 (I think) where it talks about the the Spirit of Christ leading to do good and how everything that leads to Christ is good and of God. and I knew that was my answer. Because they Book of Mormon testifies of Christ. Look to Christ and you won't fall. Love you so much everyone. Can't wait for your letters!! Jake tell Jackie she has to write one too :))

 

love you!!

 

Sister BBBBBBlickenstaff

hi lovely family that i love with all my heart and will never stop loving ever!!

okay so i love love love the liahona and the ensign and can't wait for general conference. i can't believe i never wanted to read stuff like that when i was back home! gosh how stupid i was. the prophets and apostles are sooo inspired and they teach the best doctrine ever it's just amazing! so this week i think the greatest thing I studied about was seeking counsel from the Lord. A great talk to read is called Leaving Adversity Behind by David S. Baxter from the Dec 2012 Liahona if you want to look it up it. Anyway yesterday I read a talk given by Elder Holland that was talking about why missionary work is so hard. Why aren't people just running to get baptized? We have the truth! Why aren't we having more success why don't people accept it right away? And his answer was that "salvation is not a cheap experience" Think about what Christ endured so that we might have salvation. He said if it wasn't easy for our Lord and Savior why would be easy for us? So then I wanted to study more about Christ's suffering in Gethsemane and I read in Matthew the prayers that he offers. And his first prayer is a little bit different from the second and third prayer. In the first prayer, he states his desires but then adds thy will be done. in the second and third prayers when he prayes he states the Lord's will and accepts it. His desire isn't even in the picture anymore. Heavenly Father knows us perfectly. He already knows what we want. But we don't know what He wants. So we must seek it. And when we find it, we must accept it even when it goes against our desire. That is what the Christ did because His purpose was to fulfill the God's will.

Then I read in Jacob 4 particularly vs. 7-11and it basically says hello!! God created the Earth and man so why wouldn't he be able to command it according to His will?? Heavenly Father's hand is in everything we do. He is our Creator and our Master. We must seek His counsel because He knows everything. We must trust his counsel because He knows everything. Also read in Jacob 5-the most awesome allegory in the whole world. And when it was talking about poor and good ground I got the impression that it doesn't matter where we are, the Lord will always nourish us.The Lord knows what He's doing. He directs all things. He can bring forth fruit whenever and wherever He wants. But because we have agency, we cannot let our pride get in the way of His will and His work. Be willing to seek His counsel and be willing to be molded by Him. Don't seek to counsel the Lord because we know nothing. Seek to know what the Lord would have you do and he will help you do great things for yourself, your family, and for others. Keep loving the Lord in all things!!

 

Love you tons.

Sister Blick

Me and compy being super cute with Korean face masks

Us in our traditional han boks for chu sok.  I borrowed the dress from a member and it was soooo pretty

 We are eating man du which is soooo delicious

 Tell me this picture is not awesome. Typical Blickenstaff picture. Tthe guy actually woke up and looked at us taking the picture so it was super awkward but I'll never see him again in my life so it's all good

 Cool random fish

 This Korean kid showing us how to use num-chucks? nun-chucks? anyways it was crazy and made me laugh

The gymnast I talked about, he's legit

WHAT THE FURBIES HAHAHHAHAH making a comeback and for 80 bucks what theeeee

Hi fam baaaaam.

this week was fun and i have a lot of stories. gonna make it short so listen up. haha don't know why i said that but listen. so last night i woke up randomly laughing. my dream was funny apparently. i remember knowing what i was laughing about at the time but i have no recollection now. but it was weird i was laughing and then i started laughing because i was laughing and this was all while i was like half awake. anyway that was random.

another thing so because they don't have the f sound in Korean everytime someone says California. It sounds like Calipornia and I die laughing I'm like I know California is going downhill okay the Koreans have foresight haha.

Which reminds me. I have to get a foreigner card that says I can live in Korea for a year yada yada so in the picture we weren't allowed to smile and then for the card they change the picture to black and white and make it look all scary so literally I look like a serial killer on my card. Like if I saw that, I would be like, deport this girl I think she's planning on massacring the Korean nation!

Oh yesterday we had a baptism for some of the eight year olds in our ward and they filled the baptismal font with boiling hot water so that was a big fiasco. The baptisms here are super weird because the font has serious issues with the water and there always ends up being a problem and it's super awkward at the baptism. Anyways besides that it went good. 

We met with a potential investigator yesterday that turned out to be not an investigator. But it was a girl I met on the bus and she wants to practice English and she's super nice. But she basically said she wanted to meet again because she met me and I was so nice and pretty and young. And then we were walking down the hall of the church and she said to my compy she's so pretty! hahaha and I was like yeah this is awkward...and then I was depressed because she was like yeah I'm really busy so I don't have a lot of time but if I have time I'll call you. But thanks for meeting with me you're really pretty!

Oh read The Fourth Missionary talk it's way good.

Yeah so we have an elder who is serving and simultaneously training for the Olympics. It's kind of ridiculously awesome. He's from Canada and is a gymnast and his lower body is tiny but his upper body is riiiipped. it's kind of impressive. Anyway we got together as a mission on Thursday because it was a holiday and we're not allowed to proselyte because people get way offended. It's kind of the same as Christmas in America. and we had a talent show and he was doing some stuff and it was siiiick. you'll get some pictures later. this way funny sister was sitting behind me--seriously love her--and he was doing like a handstand on mini parallel bars and his shirt fell down and she was like wow haven't seen that in a while. HAHAHAHA I DIED LAUGHING. and she was like that stays here! But of course I have to tell you all.

This weekend we're having an open house in our ward where we asked each of the members to invite a friend and we're going to have dinner, a game, and then the missionaries (we have six in our ward) are putting on a skit of the first lesson. It's way fun and we made some of the cheezy decorations because i am super creative and awesome. anyway we're acting out Noah and I made the sickest eagle wings and elephant ears and also i made the ten commandments. member missionary work is really hard in Korean because they have this thing called 何淬 which is basically like "pressure". if they feel 何淬, investigators will stop meeting with you and stuff like that. so it's really hard to get members involved in missionary work but we're trying. and hopefully the open house will be a success.

Anyways this morning i was studying in Romans 8 and Alma 17 and 26. They contain some great verses about being patient through our afflictions. In Romans it says that our sufferings at this time won't even be comparable to the glory that we can partake of IF we are faithful and endure to the end. It also says that everything good will come to those that serve the Lord and work according to His purposes. How often are you seeking to do what the Lord wants you do? How often do you ask yourself if this is what the Lord wants you to do? Remember that as we follow Him we will be blessed whether now or later we don't know but we have to have faith. (that's the hard part and what really sets us apart--do we endure with faith?) In Alma it talks about being patient because God has all power and is everything. Trust in Him. The last verse I think in Alma 36 talks about how the Lord was mindful of Aaron and his brothers and he calls them wanderers in a strange land. If that isn't me that what is? I'm always striving to be more patient and striving to remember that the Lord is mindful of me. Know that He loves you and if you endure your trials you will blessed with what you need. 

love you tons,

sister blick

Making our failed Rootbeer

Sister Oh playing with the dry ice

Yummy squid i loooove love love with rice and eggs and soy sauce. Typical lunch

 

 Me being eaten alive. I HATE THE MOSQUITOES HERE THEY LOVE MY BLOOD. I HATE THEM! 

I get massive welts each time I get bitten and the Elders make fun of me. 

 

Us in front of a massive tiger

 

Cutest red panda everrrrr

 Me being cute at the zoo. There were crazy animals there! Rhino, zebra, ostrich, hippo and other things I can't remember. I felt like I was in Africa