HEY!!
This has definitely been a week of firsts. SO MUCH.
We had a really good proselyting day in Jinju this week. We had pretty much the whole day open to visiting members, finding less-actives and just proselyting on the street. After going to try to visit a less-active, we were on our way back to our house and stopped by a 7/11 (yup...in Korea) so Sister Call could grab some water. The woman at the register was really talkative. She asked who we were and what we did, and then told us about her beliefs. She is Buddhist, and believes strongly in just showing love and understanding others. As we talked with her, she loved the idea of what we do and gave us a lot of advice in understanding and teaching others. We talked with her for a LONG time. We ended up giving her a Book of Mormon and she was super interested in it! She bought us ice cream and some other snacks, got our number (and we got hers, of course), and had us write a little note in the front of the Book of Mormon. It was awesome. We texted her that night, and she called us the next day. We are excited to talk to her more!
I also bought a little plant that day. It sits on my desk now and brings happiness.
We met KML again on Saturday. She is SO COOL. Right now in Korea there is a huge holiday called Solar (or something like that romanized) going on. Pretty much everyone goes out to their grandparent's house in the country and celebrates with them for a couple days. It is SUPER busy in Jinju and Sacheon, and everyone comes out here to visit their grandmas. KML didn't really have anything she was doing, so we went to Namhae and took her out for ice cream. We taught her all of the Plan of Salvation! It was really good. She is still really quiet, but we can tell that she likes the gospel. She even committed to be baptized on the twenty-first! We may end up teaching her a little more slowly, but we know she will be baptized at some point. She just graduated from middle school, so we bought her some flowers before walking her back to her apartment. We could tell no one had done anything like that for her, and she was so happy. :)
We did have a little problem after meeting KML though. We had to get over to Samcheon-Po for English class, which is about a three hour bus ride. However, if you go by car, you can go over a smaller bridge to get off the island and back to the mainland, and it only takes about 45 minutes. We have always just had to go by bus (because we don't have a car), but the Elders usually hitchhiked. After meeting KML, the traffic was super bad and we knew there was no way we were going to make it in time for English class. Unless...we hitchhiked. The Elders urged us and told us what to do, and we found ourselves standing on the side of the road holding a sign for Samcheon-Po and sticking out our thumb. In about one minute a car pulled over, and a super nice man and his son took us to Samcheon-Po. Yup. We hitchhiked. We did teach a really good lesson in the car though! The man knew exactly who we were and had a lot of questions about the church and the Book of Mormon. We gave him one and got his number for the Elders. He really wants to meet with all of us again! Anyway, now I can check that one off the bucket list.
I read a cool thing in the Liahona the other day! I saw the article about "Only Two Baptisms", and when I read the first paragraph talking about how the writer was a mission president in Guatemala, I thought, "I wonder if it could be Brother Coleman?" I turned the page and yep! It was! Super cool. It was a wonderful article! Please tell Brother Coleman that people in Korea are reading and loving it. It really brought me a lot of comfort.
On Thursday night we got transfer calls! It was pretty late, and getting towards the end of calling time, so we assumed that we were staying together in Jinju and Sacheon. But then President called, and asked me to stay in Jinju/Sacheon and train a new missionary! I am really nervous. I really don't feel ready, but I know that it is what the Lord wants me to do. I am excited to meet my new companion! I will stay in Busan for the next couple days, and then on Wednesday we will get our trainees and go back to our areas. I heard that there are four Korean sisters and one foreigner coming in. So I think I will probably have a native Korean companion. It'll be fun! Sister Call is training too, in another area! She and her trainee will be whitewashing a new area that hasn’t had sisters for a while! We've been going through a bit of a roller coaster of emotions the past few days...
With this going on, I have felt more and more the importance of really staying close to the Lord. There is absolutely no way that I can do this by myself. I know that going into it. But as I thought and prayed about it, I really could feel that the Lord will be working beside me. It is really like that all the time, but sometimes I do not realize how much I depend on Him or how much He really helps us. We have all hear this a hundred times, but if we really do do the best we can and then hand everything over to the Lord, it will work out! And work out perfectly.
I love you all so much! You are the BEST.
Sister Stapley
This has definitely been a week of firsts. SO MUCH.
We had a really good proselyting day in Jinju this week. We had pretty much the whole day open to visiting members, finding less-actives and just proselyting on the street. After going to try to visit a less-active, we were on our way back to our house and stopped by a 7/11 (yup...in Korea) so Sister Call could grab some water. The woman at the register was really talkative. She asked who we were and what we did, and then told us about her beliefs. She is Buddhist, and believes strongly in just showing love and understanding others. As we talked with her, she loved the idea of what we do and gave us a lot of advice in understanding and teaching others. We talked with her for a LONG time. We ended up giving her a Book of Mormon and she was super interested in it! She bought us ice cream and some other snacks, got our number (and we got hers, of course), and had us write a little note in the front of the Book of Mormon. It was awesome. We texted her that night, and she called us the next day. We are excited to talk to her more!
I also bought a little plant that day. It sits on my desk now and brings happiness.
We met KML again on Saturday. She is SO COOL. Right now in Korea there is a huge holiday called Solar (or something like that romanized) going on. Pretty much everyone goes out to their grandparent's house in the country and celebrates with them for a couple days. It is SUPER busy in Jinju and Sacheon, and everyone comes out here to visit their grandmas. KML didn't really have anything she was doing, so we went to Namhae and took her out for ice cream. We taught her all of the Plan of Salvation! It was really good. She is still really quiet, but we can tell that she likes the gospel. She even committed to be baptized on the twenty-first! We may end up teaching her a little more slowly, but we know she will be baptized at some point. She just graduated from middle school, so we bought her some flowers before walking her back to her apartment. We could tell no one had done anything like that for her, and she was so happy. :)
We did have a little problem after meeting KML though. We had to get over to Samcheon-Po for English class, which is about a three hour bus ride. However, if you go by car, you can go over a smaller bridge to get off the island and back to the mainland, and it only takes about 45 minutes. We have always just had to go by bus (because we don't have a car), but the Elders usually hitchhiked. After meeting KML, the traffic was super bad and we knew there was no way we were going to make it in time for English class. Unless...we hitchhiked. The Elders urged us and told us what to do, and we found ourselves standing on the side of the road holding a sign for Samcheon-Po and sticking out our thumb. In about one minute a car pulled over, and a super nice man and his son took us to Samcheon-Po. Yup. We hitchhiked. We did teach a really good lesson in the car though! The man knew exactly who we were and had a lot of questions about the church and the Book of Mormon. We gave him one and got his number for the Elders. He really wants to meet with all of us again! Anyway, now I can check that one off the bucket list.
I read a cool thing in the Liahona the other day! I saw the article about "Only Two Baptisms", and when I read the first paragraph talking about how the writer was a mission president in Guatemala, I thought, "I wonder if it could be Brother Coleman?" I turned the page and yep! It was! Super cool. It was a wonderful article! Please tell Brother Coleman that people in Korea are reading and loving it. It really brought me a lot of comfort.
On Thursday night we got transfer calls! It was pretty late, and getting towards the end of calling time, so we assumed that we were staying together in Jinju and Sacheon. But then President called, and asked me to stay in Jinju/Sacheon and train a new missionary! I am really nervous. I really don't feel ready, but I know that it is what the Lord wants me to do. I am excited to meet my new companion! I will stay in Busan for the next couple days, and then on Wednesday we will get our trainees and go back to our areas. I heard that there are four Korean sisters and one foreigner coming in. So I think I will probably have a native Korean companion. It'll be fun! Sister Call is training too, in another area! She and her trainee will be whitewashing a new area that hasn’t had sisters for a while! We've been going through a bit of a roller coaster of emotions the past few days...
With this going on, I have felt more and more the importance of really staying close to the Lord. There is absolutely no way that I can do this by myself. I know that going into it. But as I thought and prayed about it, I really could feel that the Lord will be working beside me. It is really like that all the time, but sometimes I do not realize how much I depend on Him or how much He really helps us. We have all hear this a hundred times, but if we really do do the best we can and then hand everything over to the Lord, it will work out! And work out perfectly.
I love you all so much! You are the BEST.
Sister Stapley