hi family! this week was great! mom you talked about comp unity in your email and can i just tell you me and my comp are on fire. she's the greatest basically and we work soooo well together. i hope we get to stay together another transfer. actually i'm convinced that i am dying in my area and never leaving and she can't leave either so we'll just spend the next three transfers together too before i leave. hopefully Heavenly Father has the same plan in mind...?

yeah anyhways. we saw like a million miracles last week all of which i am so unworthy to receive! i just want to hang my head in shame because i am NOT worthy! hehe. miss all of you and our weird language that we all spoke to each other. anyway let me tell you about my week!

 

this week we went to go visit our member who lives waaaay out in the country. she doesn't even live in our ward boundaries but to be honest there are a lot of members here who don't actually go to the ward they are supposed to. kind of a culture thing. anyway so she never gets missionary visits and we had time so we decided to go visit her. turned out to be the best ever! she took us out to lunch and we were talking about her conversion story and how she feels bad because she lives so far away in the country where there are like no people so she doesn't do missionary work and she knows she shouls serve better but she feels like she can't. well Heavenly Father heard her because he blessed us with a missionary opportunity. we were the only people eating at the restaurant by the time we got done eating and during that time whenever they would bring stuff out we would say thank you and talk to the waitress people and they were like freaking out that we could speak korean so we told them we were missionaries and learning korean and they were SO nice. and our member was like I have never seen them act this way before towards people-you should give them a Book of Mormon! so we were standing by the cash register and our member was talking about the church and the missionaries and explaining a little bit about who we were and then we told them about our english program and introduced the Book of Mormon and gave it to them and we got their number to contact them later! We ran out of the restaurant and danced in the parking lot with our member. It was so awesome that we could experience that with her and help her have that missionary opportunity.

 

our investigator sister chway is my favorite person in the whole world. i had an interesting experience teaching her this week. we try and meet her three times a week. so we met her on tuesday and i was super frustrated by the lesson. she basically said that when she comes to church she can tell that we're different and she likes the influence that we have on her. she knows that our lifestyle is different and she respects it, thinks it's kind of weird at times, but is always amazed at the way that we live because of our faith. but when it came down to it she said it's not like i'm trying to follow Christ, I want to follow you I want to follow your example. Now in any other situation I would take the latter as a compliment, but it was seriously a dagger to my heart! All I want for her is to be converted unto the gospel, unto the Lord, not me and not my example. I was at a loss. I felt like I did something wrong and I didn't know how to fix it except get transferred and encourage her to meet with other missionaries. so I asked our mission president for help and he said he didn't want to rob me of getting revelation for our investigator -__- not really the answer i was looking for but i knew he was right. he directed me towards helping her understand the Atonement so we planned for that. She has had a hard time accepting prophets because she feels like they are like an almighty leader that we worship like a God. and turns out she thought it went from father to son which is a mun jae (that means problem). so we talked about prophets and the organization of the church and how really Jesus Christ is the head of our church. we talked about the role of prophets and how they are special witnesses of Christ. if you read the April Liahona or Ensign whatever the equivalent is, it has a special witnesses of Christ section from the first presidency and twelve apostles so we gave her that to read. we talked about how the only people we follow are God and Christ. I told her I don't want you to follow me I want you to follow Christ. and that truly was my desire. And I think she understand she looked at me and nodded her head and said okay. That day at zone training meeting we had talked about real intent and that had been on my mind. Help investigators develop real intent. When she prayed to close our lesson she asked for God to really answer her prayer. and after I said if you get your answer what will you do? and she looked at me and said absolute believe. and i almost started crying. Christ changes people. He changes hearts. He's the only one. it's not the missionaries. it's the gospel and a belief in Christ. Without Him we can't do anything.

 

another amazing visit with our less active this Sunday. we didn't prepare a message for them to hear but instead planned to ask them what they wanted to learn about. the mom got out her scriptures and said I read Alma 46:5-6; 40-41 the other day and I was wondering about it. and we read it and i will be totally honest i had no idea what she was asking or what she was looking for. and her husband was like that's not even a question what are you saying? and the thought came to mind to talk about Courtney and share how she has impacted our life. i said what i learn from these verses is that we have to trust God's plan. I told them about how she passed away and how the questions that come to mind were why did that happen? she was three. what was her purpose? but i said looking back on it now, she had a really big purpose for our family. because of her, our testimony of the plan of salvation was solidified, our testimony that the Book of Mormon answers questions of the soul (moroni 8) was solidified and now we have hope for when we can see her again and live with her forever. her purpose was greater than we could have imagined. and we learned to trust in the Lord's plan. the husband was really surprised by that answer because he didn't even think there was a question. he said when i first saw you i thought you were just another average missionary. but there is something different about you two. you two have a special ability. and we both said it is 100% not us, it is the Lord. we thought of Alma 26:12. this is the Lord's work and He is helping His imperfect and weak servants. I definitely have a testimony of that. The Lord loves us individually and through us He can answer others' questions.

 

This work is the best. It's the hardest. But it's the best.

I love being a missionary in Korea. and most of all I love you.

Please help me be strong until the end. I will be home soon enough but for now I am the Lord's missionary doing His work His way. And it's the best. 

 

Sister Blickenstaff