Subject: I GOT MY APPENDIX TAKEN OUT!!!

jjjjkkkkk stop freaking out people. anyway i love you! and this week was awesome per usual. life as a missionary is da best.

 

so the best part about last week was yesterday! sunday's are great. so sacrament meeting started and Sister Choi still hadn't arrived at church. she sometimes comes a little late so i wasn't worried but then we started singing the sacrament hymn and she hadn't come yet. started getting nervous. took the sacrament and she still hadn't come! so after i texted her and asked where she was she texted back sorry i'm late well at least i knew she was coming. she showed up maybe halfway through the meeting and i think she enjoyed the talk that was being given. after the meeting was over she said that morning her husband wanted her to make breakfast for the family but she doesn't like cooking. she said he was playing the piano and she likes it but he kept playing and wouldn't help her and just told her to make breakfast so she was upset and got frustrated. she said it was 11 oclock and i knew i needed to go to church but my husband insisted on us eating breakfast together as a family but i was mad so i just ate by myself and my daughter wanted to come to church today but she took too long to get ready so i just left by myself and that's why i was late. oh bless her heart. she asked me what do you do in that situation? i hate cooking! and my husband always wants me to cook and i hate it! what do i do? and i was like...uhhh...she she's like what is something that you don't like doing? and i was like oh! I hate cleaning. especially vacuuming and my mom told me i had to vacuum the house every week and clean my room! and she says okay so what did you do? and i thought for a second and i said well i usually think about the worst possible outcome. will i die? no. will mom be happy? yes. will i be a little frustrated? probably but i'll get over it. can i do whatever i want after i'm done? yes. so maybe there are some negative outcomes but the postivie outcomes outweight the negative outcomes, so i would just get it done and then i wouldn't have to worry about it anymore! and sometimes it was hard because i didn't want to do it but it's okay i still did it. and she said okay i'll try that. SO that night our bishop had invited her over for dinner which was super awesome becaaause whenever we talk to her about baptism she also says she's worried that if we leave she thinks it would be hard for her to go to church because she has no friends and she is shy and i was like yeah that's why you make friends because we are going to leave no matter what and when you have friends in the ward you can strengthen each other and help each other live the gospel. so that is what we are trying to help her do--make friends. but she's really shy so it's kind of hard. sooo we went to our bishops and she brought her daughter!! when she first came in she was like i don't like this mood i'm awkward i don't know what to say or what to do. and i was like okay calm down you are fine just be normal for goodness sakes! anyway we started eating dinner and they hit it off great! just talked and talked and then the conversation got geared towards church and she brought up all her concerns that she has brought up to us like a million and one times and it was so nice to have her hear basically the same answer we give but from a member, someone who's "more like her" and who she can really relate to. she said she's nervous about baptism because she doesn't know a lot of things, but she likes the gospel and she said she likes the influence we have on her. she's like for example this morning i got in a fight with my husband and i asked her what to do and she gave me the answer so i went home and cooked for my husband and it was okay! or bishops wife said that before she got baptized she kept giving the msisionaries excuses like i'm busy i can't get baptized this week or i'm studying for this test, after my test i'll think about it. she said that she told herself she wanted to be more sure, and when she felt absolutely sure about everything about the gospel, then she would get baptized. but she said the missionaries were insistant on her getting baptized and kept bugging her and finally she just got baptized. and she said now when i think about it, i think that if i didn't get baptized when i did, i don't know if i ever would have gotten baptized, i would've come up with more reasons and excuses and just never made the decision. and when i look back on my life at all the blessings that i'm gotten from the gospel i really am grateful that they pushed me to get baptized. our bishop talked to her about receiving the gift of the holy ghost and how that will help her so much and give her strength to keep the commandments and the covenants she makes with God. it was great. and then we played a fun game that everyone loved and it was definitely a successful night. she is planning to get baptized on the 24th! we know it will bless her life soo so so much. pray for her please!

 

also we get to see sister park get baptized this sunday so we are excited for that!

 

anyways that's pretty much it for last week. there was probably other stuff but i can't remember. sorryyyy. love you tons! hey guess what next week i hit my year in country mark! ew.

 

kay love you lots!!

 

Sister blickenstaff

Hello beloved people that I love! this week there were so many exciting things that happened! 

number 1. we found the most awesomest bookcase that led to us finding a piano and the coolest couch ever to bring to our apartment. we lugged all three back to our apartment and we physically fatigued for the rest of the week. but it was so worth it. now we have a piano in our apartment!! and the coolest couch ever. 

number 2. Sister Choi is the best!! She went to Japan this weekend to take her nurse examination but we taught her a couple times before she left. I have just been thinking about the experience of teaching her and I am really in awe. Looking at her now, she is a completely different person than i was teaching in march when i came here. (side note i came here in march what the what??? it's august!! can you believe it's august?? yeah neither can i. i'm convinced that i'm staying here for the rest of my mission. every transfer call time freaks me out. but i don't have to worry about that for a couple of weeks) she still has little things that she struggles with but she has humbled herself in so many ways it has been amazing to see the whole journey and to experience really what the gospel does for people's lives. we got on the subject of baptism and went over the spiritual qualifications (in D&C 20:37) and talked about how she felt about it. she said serve Him until the end? until the end is a long time! and we said yes yes it is. but it is so worth it!! she said I can't promise 100% but I really want to try. and isn't that how we all feel. we can't promise the Lord 100% because we aren't perfect that's just a fact. but we can promise to try 100% of the time. we can promise to try and we can make mistakes and we can learn and then we can repromise to try again! we can come to know the tender mercies of the Lord. We talked to her about her baptismal date and we moved it up to August 24!! it's the last Sunday of the transfer. Please please pray for her!! 

number 3. Sister Park is getting baptized on the 17th! and we got permission to attend it. WE ARE SO STOKED.

number 4. we went to visit one of our less actives randomly to drop off some bread that we made. this less active is very special. she is a return missionary and has had a goal to get back to church for years but just hasn't made it back yet. really nice to the missionaries but doesn't want us to visit or call too often and never lets us set appointments with her. it's just kind of a get lucky and we can meet sort of deal. well let me tell you Heavenly Father helped us be really lucky this week. we made some bread and planned to visit a different less active (sister yang) and if she wasn't there we would go visit sister moon. well sister yang didn't answer her door so we decided to go visit sister moon. we got there and her door was cracked open so we knew she was home! awesome. we knocked on the door and she came out and we were there for the next 2 hours standing outside her door talking to her. nevermind that i wanted to rip my spinal cord out of my back and chop my feet off they hurt so bad but it was worth it. she brought up that her mom had passed away the week before she that really impacted her. she said she had thought about us THAT morning and thought oh if the sisters come visit me should i go back to church?? she talked about how she regretted not spending more time with her mom and setting different things at a higher priority level than her relationship with her mother. her mom wasn't a member but she faithful attended another church and she talked about basically her faithful legacy that she left behind. she admired her mother's faith even if it was in another church. she talked about her conversion experience and said that when she got baptized her parents basically disowned her, they kicked her out of the house and cut money for tuition and everything else. eventually that was resolved though and she went on a mission. she talked to us about her mission experiences and she had a lot of hard times while she was serving. she has just struggled a lot with people in the church and receiving criticism and even though she knows that it's true it's hard for her to come back to church because she doesn't want it to happen again. it was so good for her to talk to us and tell us what she was feeling and we just listened. that was all she wanted. we just wanted her to know that we loved her and yes of course we want her to come back church, but even more than that we love her and the Lord loves her and knows her struggles. She was grateful that we took the time to listen to her and it was a miracle that we got the inspiration to visit her in the first place and than sister yang didn't answer the door.

on my mission i have been able to meet the most amazing people and i love them so much. i was talking to sister hoffman the other day and kind of got upset because i think that way that i show love for people is spending time with them. when i really love someone i just want to spend time with them. i thought of all the times i've gone over to kells house and we don't do anything important maybe make food or dessert but i just loved being with her. i think of the times that i was upset at school and all i did was call kaari and she would come pick me up or i would take a bus and spend the weekend at Krissy's house. i think of when i would take little grocery store trips with dad and just be in the car with him. all the times that me and jake have been consigned to our own hotel room and we just sit on the bed til late at night maybe doing different things but just being together. and when i would call mom on the way to school just to talk to her. we weren't together but i just felt like saying hi and that was the closest i could get to being with her. i spend time with the people that i love because i just like being with them. and as a missionary we can't do that. we can't just go spend hours with our members or our investigators and go and hang out with them. and i think it's really hard for other people to know that i love them because i'm not that great at emotionally expressing myself i think. i got a little discouraged feeling like i couldn't adequately express my love for all the people that i really do love so much. but i try to do the best that i can and hope that they can feel my love. but now i know and now i understand a little bit more about myself that maybe i wouldn't have realized before. i love you all and it kills me that i haven't been able to spend time with you over this past year and a half, but i know that i will have a whole future ahead of me to do that so it's okay. love you love you so so much!!

have a good week!

Sister Blickenstaff

 Yes, I still match with people

  My district, I love them!

Pretty field 

 Elder Bryan transferred this week. Our bishop's daughter bought us ice cream

 Those are my apartments from a distance

HELLO PEOPLE!!! seriously this was a week of miracles my friends. like i wish i had all day to write about this stuff because i just can't fully explain it in a little email that takes me forever to write. but i will try my best.

 

first funny cool thing. the other day it was raining, well that's besides the point, but anyway we were walking to our members house and we walked up to a crosswalk and i look down and there was a cheon won bill (basically a dollar bill) on the ground and I was like awesome! so i picked it up and was beholding my prize when the bus driver stopped at the light honked his horn and gave me a big thumbs up. me and sister hoffman almost died laughing it was the best thing ever.

 

okay first really cool thing. so we go to teach sister choi and sister hoffman says the opening prayer and i say amen and sister choi doesn't say anything so i look at her and she lights up and says fantastic news! i started laughing and we were like yes? and she said My daughter wants to come to church! WHAT THE. we were shocked. She said I've been praying every day and so so so many times for this and suddenly the other day my daughter asked mom didn't you go to church today (she had to go to seoul to do a service activity she had signed up to do so she couldn't come to church last week) and she said I already had signed up to do this service activity so I told the sister missionaries I couldn't come this week, but I will go next week. and her daughter said do you want to go together? and sister choi said YES YES!!! oh my gosh it was SUCH  a miracle!! coolest way to start a lesson.

I think one of the times I have smiled the biggest in my whole life is when I saw her and her daughter walk in the chapel doors yesterday morning. Sister Choi also was beyond happy that her daughter was there and you could tell. It was a great sacrament meeting and I was grateful for all the speakers, one of them being my fabulous companion.

 

there are other miracles that i want to tell you about but I was preoccupied with something else....sorry...!

but i am so so so so happy right now it's ridiculous. not real. i'm tired beyond belief and i'm not happy jolly every minute but when i take a step back i am so happy. i'm so grateful for how this experience is changing my life and i don't think that sister missionary that spoke that week in sacrament will ever fully understand the effect she had on me.

 

Love you all more than everything in the world.

Sister Blickenstaff

 oh also those are my favorite korean elders in the mission. 

 this rock is super cool basically it says this place gives you life's wisdom and happiness. it's in front of a library.

 me and one of elder brissette's recent converts (he was my first zone leader he's going home in a couple weeks. so weird)

massive bugbite

hello hello hello family! good news. i'm not leaving. also good news. my companion is not leaving. i was kind of freaking out but we are so happy that we get to stay together in our ward!

also I forgot to tell you last week. remember Lee? yeah she got baptized!!! I didn't get to go to her baptism but Sister Gapinski did and she showed me pictures and it was sooo awesome. Lee looked so so happy and I was just so happy for her I couldn't express how I felt. She was so prepared!

this week we got to go to the temple and it was awesome just as usual. i just love the feeling i get in the celestial room. it makes me never want to leave. i always tell myself i'm not going to spend a lot of time in there and then i get there and i never want to leave. so peaceful. just a feeling that you can't get anywhere else i think.

 

this week we also sang in sacrament meeting and not going to lie me and sister hoffman sound great together. really i'm just mediocre (all the time hehe) and her gorgeous voice makes mine sound not so bad so we're a good pair. but one of our members came up to us after and was telling her how beautiful it was and how much she felt the spirit and we knew that it affected her a lot because she has a daughter serving a mission too right now. she started crying and i asked her if she thought about her daughter and she said yes. mom do you ever think about me when you see the sister missionaries working??^^ we sang I need thee every hour and it was really awesome. brought the spirit really strongly to sacrament meeting.

 

oh my gosh miracle! taught us how important saying hi to everyone is. so whenever we go to the temple we don't have p-day that week until the thursday we go to the temple. so after the temple we went shopping and took sticker pictures (yes that is a real thing and yes they are awesome i've done it twice) also we got house shirts they are all matching and have a large whale on them they are so cute but that's a different story. so we just went back home didn't have big plans for the night so we just went outside to proselyte. as we were walking out of our apartment complex we pass this lady and her daughter and we kind of say under our breath she is cute and we pass her and the lady says wait do you speak Korean and we're like yeah kind of...( never know how to answer that question) anyway she's like oh my gosh I want to learn English but I'm so busy and i have my daughter and I go to a class but it's not personal, so can you come to my house and teach me English. and we were like uhm YES. she was like a while ago you said hi to me and my daughter one day while you were walking out and I thought the next time I see them I need to ask them if they can help me! So we set up an appointment and we're meeting her tonight! it was so random and a little miracle that Heavenly Father blessed us with :)

 

so  our investigator moved to Seoul so another set of missionaries is teaching her. sad that she had to leave but we are happy because the work is getting done nonetheless! the sisters that are teaching her now told us that their ward really really needs her and they know she will help the ward out a lot so we are happy that she was sent somewhere where she is needed more. the sisters told us about how she moved to her new house. apparently she contacted the leasers and they didn't get back to her for forever and the night before she was going to contract with some other place they randomly texted her so she went and checked it out and it was exactly what she wanted and she made a contract with her! what if she had moved somewhere like out of our mission boundaries or to another area?? the Lord really watches over his children seriously!! it's amazing.

 

had an interesting experience teaching our buddhist investigator. we talked about the atonement this week and how because of Christ we can be free from our sins and she says she doesn't like that because then people just sin and pretend to repent because they can be free from their sins later. and we were like no that's now how it works! we need to be sincere and really the Lord judges us on our hearts not what we say. we can't just pretend to repent because God knows everything, He knows our hearts and our desires. it's really interesting listening to her compare the gospel to her Buddhist beliefs. we have great teaching opportunities here that's for sure.

 

The Book of Mormon is the greatest! reading in Mosiah right now. Mosiah and Alma are so the best. seriously though. they are my favorite books in the Book of Mormon I think. but then again Nephi is pretty solid too. but Abinadi is such a boss. like he gets cast out and goes back IN DISGUISE! what kind of disguise that's what i'm wondering. me and Sister Hoffman thought about doing that to visit some less-actives...ㅋㅋ

 

Missionary work is the best!! Love you all more than life itself :)

 

Love Sister Blick

안녕 안녕 안녕 안녕 반갑습니다 wow that took me waaaay too long to write. this week. what to tell what to tell. it was another good week! let's be honest every week is a good week in 가정 ward in the beloved city of 인천 with my beloved companion Sister Hoffman. sorry you can't read any of that korean but i just can't stand romanization so sorry!^^

but seriously. missionary work is the best. and korea is the best.

 

this week when we were teaching sister chway (turns out the romanization of her name is choi) it was the greatest! she is literally one of my favorite human beings on the planet but beside that i'll tell you about our lesson. so she doesn't have great relationships with her family it's actually really sad and we're doing all we can to encourage her to love her children and her husband and be patient and wait for the blessings from the Lord to come to her family. But she asked to learn about endurance and patience. so Sister Hoffman suggested Alma 38 and we sent that to her to read. when we met with her she said she really liked the chapter. had tons of things circled and underlined. but she said that verse 11 hit her especially. "See that ye are not lifted up unto pride; yea, see that ye do not boast in your own wisdom, nor of your much strength" she said this verse really hit me and i prayed about it. i want to live this way. i really do. i just smiled at her because i had no words to tell her how happy i was. we also went over the baptismal questions with her and when she looked at the first one (about God being our Eternal Father and Christ being our Savior) she said yes that one is good i believe that. OH MY GOSH DO YOU EVEN KNOW HOW LONG WE HAVE BEEN TRYING TO HELP HER ADMIT THAT TO HERSELF! it was a miracle i almost died from joy. the Lord works miracles people!!

Also on a funny note she is hilarious. she always asks "is there a man in the world like you? really i'm wondering." i said yes but he's getting married in december and you're already married!! she's my favorite.

 

next thing that happened that was awesome. MONSOON SEASON. wednesday morning i was sweating bullets it was so hot outside on the way to distrct meeting. then while i was praying to end district meeting i suddenly heard rain pelting outside and sure enough it was pouring. like pouring. to the extent that everything but my face was soaked. i was just walking through puddles because five seconds after being outside my shoes were totally done for. we went into a department store to get some food and when i was walking water was squishing out of my shoes between my toes. i was a little embarrassed. nonetheless it was awesome.

 

oh also i don't know if i already said this but the church in our area is receiving a lot of heat because we want to build a new building and the citizens are fighting really hard against the church. it's a trial for our ward but last week we suggested to the ward that we all fast together as a ward for the building to progress, that we can get the necessary permission and start building. our ward i think was really strengthened by it and it helped them think about how serious the situation is, how much a building would bless our ward and how much we really need to exercise our faith so that things can happen. the tuesday after we fasted the bishop said that the city scheduled a meeting to discuss the building plans and if we could get permission. it was so awesome to hear that!

 

also i wish i had time to tell you all about our PERFECT investigator that sadly is moving so we have to refer her to the sisters in that area, but we gave her a baptismal date yesterday before we said our goodbyes. she is a testimony to me that the Lord does send prepared people our way. because we didn't even find her, she found us. we'll be able to go to her baptism though and be reunited then! her name is sister park so pray for her!!

 

kay i love you all so much. and i'm coming home in 4 months so woohoo!!! but missionary work is the best so actually if you could all move to korea that would be great. or actually if we could just relocate korea to be in the middle of the US that would be ideal. i'll work on it.

 

Love you!!

 

Sister Brick.

HAHAHAH okay one of my investigators called me Brick a couple times and I died laughing. Also sister chway calls me blanckenshtien. so thank you dad for having the hardest last name ever.