hello loving family! another week come and gone i don't understand how it happens. did i say that last week? probably. i don't remember. this week was awesome of course. every week is the best. every night i collapse in bed and every morning....mornings are a struggle. but don't worry dad i'm obedient. just an obedient zombie that has to keep jake's wedding in the back of my mind in order to go running and exercise throughout the week...

anyway. miracles of the week!

went on an exchange with a sister from our zone and saw a miracle while proselyting that reminded us of the reason why we "talk to everyone" as missionaries. we were walking on the street just on our way to drop something off at a less actives house and we said hi to a lady walking the opposite direction as us. something about her was different so instead of just passing by i turned around and tried to keep talking to her. she turned back around too and we introduced ourself as missionaries. she asked me if i had something to give her and i said well actually we teach about this book called the Book of Mormon and she said oh you're the Mormon church? I've been wondering about what you believe. do you have time right now? do you want to go get some coffee and talk? Trying to hide our excitement we said of course (don't worry once we got to the cafe we told her we don't drink coffee and we got hot chocolate instead) and went to the nearest cafe where we taught her the first lesson! Got her contact information and set an appointment for Saturday. But we ran into a stumbling block: we called the number and it wasn't her. it was some man that had no idea what i was talking about. We were disappointed but no need to fear! she told us where she lives. except she didn't tell us the apartment number. we knew the apartment name and the building and the floor but not the actually apartment number. So we went finding!! there were 6 different apartments on her floor. Friday we went and three people answered that weren't her and the other ones didn't answer. I was freaking out because I was like what the heck where is this woman??? So we went to try again last night the three other houses that didn't answer and the first one we rang at was her house!! So we met with her again last night and she's the greatest! :) Has great potential. Her name is Sister Shin.

another miracle. sister stout and i did a TON of less active finding (we have a lot of old addresses for less actives and we don't know if they actually live them. yeah the records here are a little....yeah. anyway) so one night we headed out to do that and then we were going to visit a potential investigator later that night. but Sister stout ended up getting a little lost and we ended up near the potential investigators house first. it wasn't our plan but we just decided we were there so we should go with the flow and visit her first. good thing we did because she was home!!! she said she was just planning on going out to exercise and if we didn't come just then we would have missed her because she wouldn't have been home. uhm miracle? yes. (coincidence? I think NOT!) so we taught kind of a lesson and picked her up as an investigator! her name is Sister Seo

We haven't met Luleka again. We text her but she doesn't text back so....yeah we'll keep trying with her. Our Catholic investigator (Sister Jeong) is super Catholic and fed us a really weird lunch so we're not sure if we should keep going back...

We had a special sacrament meeting yesterday. I got to perform a musical number with a famous Russian celloist! yeah i'm legit. thanks mom for keeping me in piano lessons. Anyway like a ton of less actives came to church yesterday and it was a really good day! ate lunch with our ward after church and had a grand ole time.

Lastly, I just wanted to share with you a few thoughts about what I thought about this week in personal study. I've started studying the chapter about Christlike Attibutes in PMG and the other day I studied about virtue. I was looking in the TG and it led me to read the story of Ruth. It says that Boaz was happy to marry her because everyone knew she was a virtuous woman. So I read about her and thought about her dedication to her family and her willingness to help Naomi because she loved her so much. She served her mother in law and wanted to keep serving her. Virtue is something that comes from inside and can be reflected by our actions. What are our thoughts and our desires and what do they lead us to DO? It's important who we are but it's also important that who we are leads us to DO things that reflect that. It's important that we are like the Savior but we need to ACT like the Savior. Do as He would do. I was studying faith this morning and I feel like I have learned the most about faith on my mission. I don't have perfect faith but I feel like I understand faith and I understand what we need to do help our faith grow. That's a really important lesson I'm learned on my mission. My MTC teacher had us write a letter in the MTC to ourself that she would send to us when we had 3 months left on our mission. Well believe it or not that time has come so I got the letter a couple of weeks ago. she told us to write something we didn't want to forget. So this is what I wrote:

Caitlin never forget the lessons the Spirit taught you about faith in the MTC. Your faith will carry you through the darkest of times IF you choose to exercise it. Your faith will bring you many blessings IF you choose to exercise. Your faith will bring you hope IF you choose to exercise it. Caitlin exercise your faith in every way you know how. Now and for the rest of your life. Know that Christ is your Savior. He has and WILL save you always. Every promise will be fulfilled if you are faithful.

faith is so important. and it is SO important that we actively work to strengthen our faith in our Savior. I hope you are doing things in your daily life to strengthen your faith! and I hope you are doing your part in helping the Lord in the work of salvation, whatever that may be. Help the missionaries in your area! Love you so much!! Til next week :))

 Pic 1: yeah eaten alive.

2: my dress broke in the middle of the day

3: after our miracle lesson!

4: sister stout and i pigging out

Sister Blick

hi my beautiful family! another week has come and gone already what is going on? just so you know i'm super self conscious when i write emails now because a few members of our family have been criticizing my english ability so i've heard!!!! -__- but for real yesterday my companion and i taught a lesson to a south african woman and the whole time i was thinking wow my english is so bad i can't think of what to say right now i sound like a blabbering idiot. but it's cool the Spirit helped me^^

 

oh first i have to tell you a funny quote from my companion. okay it might not be that funny because i've realized that my sense of humor has deteriorated over time but....yeah. anyway i love my companion she's the greatest. like SUCH  a good missionary. i love teaching with her. i love serving with her. and we are good friends...at least in my eyes. awkward if she hates me. but i like her! anyway so last week we were planning to teach someone about prophets using the gospel art book and she's like "yeah we can make it cool and exciting (she flips to the picture of noah) like sometimes a lot of people hate you and make fun of you but then you end up with a lot of animals and you win." HAHHAHAHAH i was dying #gospeljokes I thought it was funny.

 

yeah so my Korean companion left to Spain! her parents aren't members so she got special permission to have them come pick her up and take her to the airport so we met her parents in the morning (right after we woke up so we looked quite frightening) and they took her to the airport. it was sad to see her go but not really because she gets to serve in Spain and that's pretty legit. It's different with her not here she was the best but I love Sister Stout and we just went back to normal companionship so it was okay!

 

we don't have any investigators right now but we are busy trying to bring less-actives to church, trying to find investigators, and preparing for some missonary ward activities in the future. i'm tired as heck every day of my life but it's the best kind of tired! because i know i'm tiring myself out for the Lord. I don't know if I can fully express my happiness people. really though I am so happy every day and I see little miracles every day. I love being a missonary and I love serving in Korea. I love the people here, I love the language, I love my companion, I love the scriptures, I'm obsessed with PMG. I just have so much love! I have so many faults still and so many weaknesses but it's okay because the Lord still uses me as his instrument and I work every day to do better and be better.

 

anyway we met with a south african woman last night (i already said that) but anyway she is the coolest. Sister Stout met her on the street a couple months ago and they just havent been able to meet for real since then so we called her and she said we could meet! it was really interesting. she said that she came here as a missionary but she's like it's weird because they told us we would come out here as missionaries and then we got out here and it's kind of a business, we teach english and the focus is mostly teaching english so we have to work extra hard to remember the gospel and stuff. sister stout and i were like well...that's unfortunate. so she's kind of a missionary but doesn't really do missionary work. and she's willing to listen so it's cool! then comes the embarrassing part. i was like so what part of south africa are you from? and she names some place and i was like yeah i have no idea and she's like well do you know anything about south africa? and i was like i have a friend from ghana. and she's like yeah...that's a different country. like 7 hours away by plane. oh hi i'm an idiot. yeah yeah stop making fun of me. i tried to hide my embarrassment i was like i never took geography....it's the same continent so that's okay right...? the worst. but we taught her about the restoration and it was so cool! different experience teaching it in english that's for sure. it was cool because as we were teaching i was just reminded how true everything was. as she was listening she kept saying this is just new and different so i'm trying hard to follow along. and i realized yeah this all sounds incredible and is definitely different and may be hard to believe but as i was listening to my companion teach and i was teaching i just knew yes! everything is true. everything that we are teaching is true. and i was fully confident that she could come to that conclusion as well if she wanted to. and that's where her agency comes into play. but all i could do was teach and testify and then let her decide. she committed to read the book of mormon and pray about it! said a great prayer at the end of the lesson. we were kind of disappointed because she said she was really busy and made it apparent that we can't meet for like 3 weeks -__- but hopefully we will still be able to contact her until then. her name is luleka. pray for her!

 

we also met this cute old lady that is super catholic and i think just old and lonely but she's so cute and nice so hopefully she will accept the gospel too!

 

weeks go by too fast and it's sad that my time as a missionary is slowly winding down. (emphasis on the slowly) i never want it to end. it's so interesting seeing the change that takes place. when i first came out i felt like my mission was never ending like i would never see the day that i would go home and that thought discouraged me at times when it was hard. but now that it's ending, i wish it was farther away. i wish i had more time. not because i have regrets or i wish i could do better but because i know that the work will never end and there will always be more to do. but that's the cool part i guess. is that even after i do go back home and live my life missionary work will never stop like Joseph Smith said. and even though maybe i won't be in korea as a missionary, i will still be a missionary wherever i go and there will still be work that the Lord wants me to do wherever I am. the church is true people! and the gospel is the greatest gift and brings us the greatest happiness.

 

love you all!! til next week^^

 

Sister Blick

 

ps if you get the chance watch the movie Ephraims Rescue. I'm literally obsessed. there are so many good quotable lines!!!

hi hi hi!! another week has come and gone what the heck time goes by waaay too fast i don't understand. last week was great. every week is great. i'm just a happy missionary so every day is great^^

well if i come home and happen to wonder why i am fifty pounds heavy than when i left, let me tell you. I ALMOST DIED THIS WEEKEND PEOPLE. i literally ate the most food i have ever eaten in my life in one sitting. my companions and i were dying. seriously though i thought i was going to barf all over our member's house like five times. i mean the food was delicious don't get me wrong but i think it started backing up in my stomach and was giving me legit heart burn. and the thing is it happened like 5 meals in a row. my companions and i were laying on the floor of our house we were basically incapacitated. (that's a word right...?) we put icy-hot on our stomachs and it kind of helped hahah. we were desperate. good thing korean food is deliciouuusss.

anyway this week we had a mission conference because there was a Korean national holiday (the equivalent of thanksgiving) and it was super fun! i just love being surrounded by all the missionaries in our mission. i was just overwhelmingly grateful to be a missionary. i can't describe the feeling really but i just sat in the pews of the chapel with a huge smile on my face. i felt like the luckiest girl on the planet. celebrating a Korean holiday with some of the most amazing people.

okay sorry i wanted to write more but you all take up my time with chatting! hehe i know it's not your fault. but sorry! okay i'll share a short cool miracle sorry there was like nothing spiritual in here.

oh i gave a talk yesterday in church! it went great^^ one of the members came up to me and said does your father know how good you are at korean? and i just laughed. and she said no really he will be really surprised. make sure you tell him you are really good at korean! they are so nice to me.

went on exchanged with a sister in our zone and we saw a cool miracle! we went to go visit one of her members at her shop to see if we could do a practice lesson. she said she was busy and had another appointment so she had to go but there was a lady who happened to come in a few minutes after we got there and sat in this half sauna chair thingy (it was an herbalife store) so the member was like hey these missionaries are learning korean and they need practice so they will teach you as you sit in the sauna chair. okay? thanks! and then she ran out of the shop. we were kind of like...haha okay....and then we taught her the first lesson! the sister is a new missionary so she was nervous but i was like you know how to teach it it's okay! and she said what she knew how to say and she did SO awesome!! and turns out the lady was interested in learning more! she said it was cool because she didn't think the shop would be open but she just came by hoping that it would be by chance. and then she met us! it was a cool miracle^^

hope you see miracles every day! love you tons.

 my cute companions and the delicious shaved ice

check it my hair is so long. oooooooooh yeaaah.

one of the members of my old ward came to visit me yesterday!! i love her she is the best

hello hello!!! this week seriously flew by i can't believe it's already time to email all of you again! this week was crazy. like a million meetings and such. we had leadership training on tuesday and President Morrise is really pushing language right now in our mission. Too many missionaries are coming out now and they can't speak the language good enough. Can't teach the lessons, are embarrassed to talk to people, don't have relationships with the members, and aren't really doing a lot to improve. they just kind of say well korean is hard and then don't try to learn it and that's not cutting it for our mission. so he's pushing language and i'm really excited! Most of the training was in straight korean and all the missionaries were speaking korean when reporting and such even though the majority were not korean missionaries. it was fun! the training was a little different this time. usually he trains the missionaries and tells us exactly what to train our zones on but because we were having mission tour and so many other trainings recently he said he was going to let us pick what to train our zones on this time.

sorry this email is all over the place, something came up so i had to try and help.

pray for sister choi please. she's having a hard time loving her family. it breaks my heart because i love my family so much and i want her to love her family but it's hard for her to find reasons to love them.

 

we had elder aoyagi of the asia north area presidency come and train our mission. he is the cutest and the best! taught us through love really. told us the importance of remember this is the Lord's work that we are doing. not ours or anyone elses. the Lord's work. so we should do it with the Lord's help, with the Spirit of the Lord. and how do we get the Spirit of the Lord? by being obedient. we decided to train our zone on obedience this month. so i was studying a lot about that this week and i learned some awesome things. i would love to share them with you but sadly i don't have enough time..... sorry! blame kaari she  kept me chatting for most of my email time hahaha sorry sis had to throw you under the bus.

 

anyway introduced myself to my new ward yesterday. like no one was there because this weekend is a holiday. we actually have a big mission conference tomorrow i'm really excited! but i shared 1 Samuel 18:1 and i'll share that with you. it says that Jonathon and David's heart had become one they were knit together (i think it says in english) and Jonathon loved David with his whole soul. that is how i feel about Korea family. I love Korea and I love the people here. sometimes i have hard days and not everyone is nice to me becasue i'm a missionary and they don't have interest in our message, but as a whole, I love Korea and i love the people here. the longer i have served here, the more i love them. and the longer I serve here the more I love you!!

 

but really i Love you. missionary work does something to your heart. it makes it whole! so do missionary work and make your heart a little fuller! when was the last time you served someone? food for thought!!

 

okay love you! pray for me because i pray for you!!

 

Sister Blick

it's september ahhhh!! what is going on in life. seriously yesterday it was christmas of last year. and we are closer to christmas this year than we are to christmas last year. i don't understand where time goes seriously. i'm coming to the end of my mission and i don't want to leave this place! some of the best experiences of my life have happened here and will continue to happen here. 

i was sad i had to leave my old area and nervous about meeting new companions and going to a new area but i love my new companions and i don't know my new ward or area very well but i'm sure i will love them too. 

last p-day was sister bassett's last p-day before she went home to america ㅠㅠ i was so sad for her to leave. but anyway we went to chinatown and had fun there you will see pictures later! that night we met with sister choi and another member sister kim for dinner. sister choi got me this cute handmade bag for a present and then when i got home i found 300 dollars inside the bag she gave me. what the 300 dollars!! too bad i can't keep it! gave it back to her the next day and she was kind of upset that i had to give it back. i told her to spend it on me later when she came and visited me in america. went and visited her for the last time at her school on tuesday afternoon. she's the greatest. she started talking about she is really grateful for the influence i've had in her life. she said before she met me she was looking for and needed love from her mom and her heart was a little empty, it was missing something but since meeting me she doesn't need that love anymore. she said i resolved part of her problem. isn't that what the gospel does? resolve our problems! she's the greatest. she started crying as i was walking away and i almost burst into tearts but i held myself together knowing i would see her at her baptism. more about that later!! that night i got to meet with all the young women in our ward and i was so happy they almost all came! i just barely started getting to know them and i was sad to leave but i didn't even think they liked me until sunday when i told all of them i was leaving and they were all sad! it made me feel good^^ 

wednesday was crazy. i had to pack in a couple of days and let me tell you i have a ton of stuff...after i threw a ton of stuff away....yeah i needed to do some spring cleaning. it was much needed. but met my new companions and they had a busy schedule that day so we were running all over the place. my new companions are rockin. seriously. one of them is a korean sister who studied at byu hawaii so she's fluent in english as well but she actually got her call to spain but has come visa problems so she is serving with us until the 15th when she leaves for spain. she's technically a greenie but she is so cool and a great teacher. she got baptized only a couple years ago and she is just the coolest. she is so fun to serve with and i will be sad when she goes. my other companion is sister stout. she's super awesome too. she's american but she grew up in japan so she's fluent at japanese too. yeah i'm basically a super lame person i am realizing. she came out the same time melanie did. she's so so nice and i've heard a lot of good things about her which are all true! she can't eat gluten so her diet is a little different but i ask her like a million times a day what she can and can't eat. she's the cutest! i am so happy to be serving with them. they are such hard workers and great missionaries and will keep me working hard these last couple transfers!

i moved back into seoul so there are like a million more people everywhere and everything is wider and bigger and noisier! it's a party basically. different from my old area but i still love it. 

okay highlight of the week!!! SISTER CHOI GOT BAPTIZED!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!! HAPPIEST DAY OF MY LIFE!!!! my new area is super far away and we had stake conference that night so it was a little squishy with our schedule but everything worked out and it was the best! we got to the church before she did so we were just waiting for her and i ran to the parking lot as soon as i saw her car but then i was confused because there was a man driving the car. then i had the greatest realization of my life. HER HUSBAND CAME!!! AND HER DAUGHTER!! it was the coolest seriously. her husband likes the missionaries and is super nice. hasn't expressed any interest in the church though so we haven't taught him at all and she said that he probably wasn't going to come to the baptism but she said when she talked to him about it he said he wanted to go so he came!! it was the coolest. AND my favorite less active family came to the baptism too! it was literally THE BEST EVER! we sang her favorite song nearer my god to thee (she remembers it from when she went to church as a teenager) and she even bore her testimony! she was so sweet and just said what she really felt i was really surprised actually. she talked about how she still doesn't know a lot about the church and about the gospel but she knows that's it's had a good influence on her and she wants to keep learning and keep trying. she says it will be hard and sometimes she thinks she can't keep all the commandments but she wants to try and keep her promise and she hopes that the gospel will be a big blessing to her family. she sent me this email this week.  

to my dear friend:

It was the best part of my life

 i met you and known

talking to you

i will  try to keep promise

she's the best right?? i love her so much. 
anyway this week will be crazy. we have mission tour. elder aoyagi is coming to speak to our mission. we are all excited for that. my companion and i have training meetings we have to go to and such so that will be a party. 
love you all so much! pray for you all the time!!! love you love you love!! have a good week! 
Sister Blick

OH YEAH HOW COULD I FORGET. lol so we live with another set of sisters too it's a five man house right now! it's super fun. but when i met them i was like hi i'm sister blickenstaff and one of the sisters was like yeah i totally stalked your blog before i came to korea (she's a greenie now) hahahahah wow i'm famous! and then sister stout told me that her old comp sister kei (she went home) said that apparently my blog is number one on the search engine hahahahahaha what the i am NOT that cool.