Pictures Time! - Because my Companion Takes More Pictures Than I Do

This week was awesome! We got transfer calls on Sunday - Sister Moyer and I are staying but Sister Moyer is becoming Sister Training Leader with me! It will be so fun it's so nice to have 2 instead of just 1.

For this update I'm just going to send a few pictures because I've been slacking lately!

Our ward does 타구의밤 or Ping Pong Night every Monday night. Ping Pong is a VERY big thing in Korea. It's a sport!

​President Morrise's favorite color is Yellow!

Our District at the Temple!

​Our last district meeting as this district!

This is us making a #BecauseofHim poster for our ward! Pictures of the poster to come next week.

And this lady lives in our neighborhood who, whenever she sees us, holds on to me and says "Take picture!" And won't let go until we take out our camera and take a picture.

​I'm sure there will be many more where these come from!

​I'm so grateful to be serving in the best mission in the world! With the best people in the world!

Yesterday we were walking around and I felt prompted to talk to an older lady sitting on a bench. So Sister Moyer and I sat down and started talking to this lady and before you knew it we were praying with her and teaching her about God's love and sharing the Book of Mormon with her. Her face lighted up and she didn't stop smiling. We gave her a hug goodbye when we had to leave and she said "I come and sit here every week, come again!" I know we made her day brighter and she made ours brighter!

When we serve others it's literally a win-win situation.  "When ye are in the service of your fellow beings ye are only in the service of your God."

In her words "Amen! Hallelujah!"

I hope everyone has a wonderful week and is enjoying the weather warming up!

사랑해요!

- Sister Holdaway

#BecauseHeLives #그분이살아계시기에

​​This week was Temple week!

Which is always the best week :)

Besides the going to the temple we were busy this week with lots of lessons and tracking down less active members . . . and eating delicious food.

Sister Moyer and I now have a "regular." She gets 떡국 (Dukguk) I get 김치찌게 (Kimchi stew) and then we split a kimbap. Yum! I'm sure going to miss Korean food :(

In our mission we are starting to prepare people for Easter! We have new cards to hand out that bring you to: ​HeLives.mormon.org

We are asking all of our members "Because He lives, what can YOU do?" and we are making posters and street-boards so that we can share the happy message of Christ's resurrection. As we are meeting with members and strengthening our ward we are asking them to share their testimony of the Atonement. It’s amazing how much I learn from each member as they tell me how they apply the Atonement in their life and how they have been blessed by it. My testimony is definitely strengthened.

The Church is having a YouTube Takover on April 5th(? i think?) where the video will be on the front page of YouTube so look out for that!

Woo! Easter and Conference are coming up ^^

To help share this message with people in our area we are also planning on "Singing 전도" where we and our Elders go out on the street and sing primary songs. Sister Moyer has a guitar and Elder Lim (our DL) has a Ukulele. So we're basically set.

Music = Power.

On Tuesday- we went to visit a recent convert and when we got there her mother was there too, she is about 70 years old and not interested in religion. We also can't understand about anything she says . . . so we asked her if she could teach us Arirang (traditional Korean folk song) and so we sat in a restaurant singing Arirang and having a wonderful time. After we were done with that we pulled out our hymnbooks and taught her "As Sisters in Zion." It was so neat to know that we couldn't understand each other but we could both share our love for music.

On Sunday she came to church and her favorite part was the singing :)

Music softens the heart.

Well, that's all folks. Until next time!

Sarangheyo - 사랑해요!

 - Sister Holdaway

P.S. Familiar Faces

P.P.S. Sister Moyer and I were watching a Mormon Message in the church and it was really touching so we started crying . . . a lot. And right then the elders walked in and it was a little awkward. Lesson - don't watch touching videos in a public place.

Happy White Day and Jamba Juice!

Sorry it's going to be a little short today!

This week we had interviews with President Morrise ~~ always the best time ever. We only get 15 minutes with him every other transfer. This is my 4th interview with him so far. It's always a little bit stressful because you only have 15 minutes to let him get to know you and to tell him everything that's been worrying you or questions you have. It is always a good experience though.

It really makes me appreciate the fact that we can have open communication with our Heavenly Father at any time and in any place and for as long as we need.

Take advantage of the wonderful opportunity of prayer!

Also Happy WHITE DAY!

Korea does Valentine’s Day a little differently than everyone else. It takes place on three days:

~ Feb 14th: Valentine’s Day (The girl gets the guy a gift)

~ Mar 14th: White Day (The guy gets the girl a gift)

~ April 14th: Black Day (All the single people go out and eat 짜장면 or black chinese noodles)

For White Day we had a stake Relief Society program which was basically a music and testimony meeting. Our ward had prepared for weeks for a cool hymn/testimony performance. It included guitars as our accompaniment. You bet Sister Moyer was playing her guitar! We invited two of our investigators to come a long with us and they were so kind and got us flowers!

Like . . . really nice flowers. Perfect for welcoming in spring!

The next day was Sunday, which is always kind of a stressful day, but this day was a little different . . . we have sacrament meeting the 3rd hour and Sister Moyer and I sat down next to our recent convert. Just before the meeting began Sister Moyer mentioned that my eyes were looking kind of red - like a blood vessel or something. I said that we can check it out after the meeting but as my mind reflected on the two words "blood" and "eye" the whole world went fuzzy and I blacked out. I came back to consciousness finding a bunch of people gathered around me looking worried. I assured them I was fine and that blood just sometimes makes me queasy but they insisted that I go home and rest.

So I went home and rested and we called the Area doctor who told me he wasn't worried but to go into the International Hospital in Seoul just to get it checked out. So this morning we made the long trip over to Seoul . . .

BUT –  the journey wasn't in vain . . .

We got Jamba Juice!

I assure everyone that I'm completely fine and I got a very pricey Jamba Juice out of the experience so it's all A-Ok :)

I know that the Lord takes care of His missionaries and is watching out for each and every one of His children :) He loves you! Never forget it.

I love you too!!

Until next week -

- Sister Holdaway

크리스피 크림*

안녕하세요!

Thank you all for your birthday wishes :)  I am officially 20! (still 21 in Korean age). I had a pretty eventful birthday . . .

Mostly because my birthday was between a missionary leadership council meeting and a zone training which we had to do in Korean (yay).

Needless to say, I was a bit stressed so I decided to celebrate my birthday today after all the craziness :)

How am I celebrating? I am going to eat delicious food and sleep :) The best present to myself.

However, on Wednesday night, English class, the elders surprised me with a beautiful chocolate cake and I got to blow out candles and everything. I was definitely shocked! I am serving with such an amazing district :)

So, onto more details about this last week:

Tuesday was the afore-mentioned MLC where we receive training from President for 7 hours and then plan with the Zone Leaders on what to train the missionaries in our zone.

Our focus this Zone training was Preach My Gospel. During the training we split everyone up into districts and had each of them study 1 (or 2) chapters from PMG and then train everyone on how we can us that specific chapter to become better missionaries.

It was really successful. Even though PMG is a missionary tool every home should have a copy. We have been stressing the importance of studying PMG daily along with the scriptures. If you haven't read through PMG yet, you should! It's really amazing and can apply to wherever you are in life.

Every Member is a Missionary!

As Sister Moyer and I have been trying to become "Preach My Gospel Missionaries" we have seen lots of miracles.

This week we taught a lot about prayer to our investigators. We asked one of our newest investigators if she could pray out loud for us. She seemed confused, "I usually only pray in my heart" She said. While we said that that was good, we also said that praying out loud is good when we meet with people like this. So she prayed out-loud for the first time. Afterwards, she had tears in her eyes, "It's a different feeling than I have ever felt."

#thespirit

Apart from teaching lots of lessons, we spend most of our time working with our English class and meetings. We aren't having a lot of time to go out and spend time talking with people.

Every Friday, we also have weekly planning where we plan for 3 hours for the rest of the week.

It's kind of hard to stay awake sometimes....

​Yeah...we've all been kind of tired lately ^^ (Sorry Sister Moyer) 

Each week, we also schedule out exchanges with other Sisters in our zone. This week we got to go with some awesome Korean sisters! The sister I went with got me some Krispy Kreme for my birthday:

I didn't know how much I actually missed donuts! This whole set cost around $11 so it was definitely a treat! 

On Sunday, we went to church. 3 hours of church in a foreign language can be hard but as I'm understanding more and more I'm able to get a lot more out of it.

There is a girl in our ward who is deaf but she diligently comes to church every week even though she doesn't understand at all. I should never complain about not understanding Korean!

Sister Moyer and I are trying to learn Korean Sign Language so that we can teach her the gospel in a way she understands. I thought learning KSL on top of Korean would be hard but it's actually been really helpful.

I'm sorry for how long this one is and for the lack of pictures this week! I'll try harder this next week ^^

화이팅!!!

- Sister Holdaway

* Korean-ization of Krispy Kreme

It's Always Going to Be About the Food and the Miracles

안녕하세요!

This week has been a blur!

I would like to title this week: the week of food and miracles.

Sister Moyer and I have been putting a lot of effort into eating healthier. At the beginning of this week we went the Shijang (market) and bought lots of produce. However, our plans were soon thwarted when the bishop’s wife asked us if we could help her make Mandu (만두) – they're like potstickers. So we showed up to the church and helped her make 50 pounds of 만두 and me eating a good 10 pounds of it by myself. It was really fun though and if anyone wants to know how to make 만두 I can definitely help.

PIC

#apronselfies 

On Tuesday we received a referral from a ward member and we met her. We were expecting to just meet and talk about the programs we have but she insisted on feeding us a pizza buffet! We told her that we really do like Korean food but I'm not sure if she believed us because pizza it was! Haha – it was really, really delicious. (Korean pizza is better than American pizza. They put corn and potatoes on it. Enough said.)

After THAT, we had a meal with a member and she took us to get 삼겹살 – meat. And, though we were kind of full, it was still super delicious. Korean has the best food.

THEN, on Saturday another ward member who owns a restaurant invited us over to make a noodle dish. So, we spent Saturday morning making 50 pounds of noodles and Saturday afternoon sharing it with our elders. So if anyone wants to know how to make these 2 Korean dishes I can help!

I also ate this last week:

A Korean delicacy! Silkworms!

Maybe next week Sister Moyer and I will be better at being healthy. We are so grateful that our ward members love to feed us. I remember areas where we got fed maybe once a month. So, no complaining here :) I love this ward!

Another thing that we've been working on is being exactly obedient. Last week, we went through the white handbook and made sure that we were following the standards we needed to. We have already seen huge miracles from this.

When you are obedient you see blessings, when you are exactly obedient you see miracles.

We saw it in our lesson to a 17-year old about prayer. I always like to teach the principle that God is our Heavenly Father and Prayer together for the first time. They are simple principles but they are so incredibly important. As we testified of God's love for us and His desire to hear our prayers we asked if she had any questions. After a minute she said "How does God answer my prayers?" Obviously, we could have started to teach her about the spirit and blessings but instead we asked "How do YOU think He answers your prayers?" A little thrown off, she thought about it and said "I'll get a warm feeling in my heart and I'll know that it's truth."

BOOM.

We couldn't have said it better ourselves. 

Yesterday, we brought the Restoration video to watch with a 14 year old girl. We had already taught her about the restoration but she still seemed to not understand completely (probably because of our Korean skills).Watched the video and bore our testimonies of Joseph Smith's calling as a prophet. Then we asked her what her feelings were.

I was a little nervous when she didn't answer us right away.  She finally said "I don't know." with a confused look on her face.  I was definitely a nervous at this point.  But then we asked "Was it a good feeling?"  Immediately, she smiled and nodded her head profusely and said "YES!"

She didn't know how to describe the feelings she felt but she knew that they were good feelings.

On the bus home from noodle making with a member I was talking to a woman who was Christian but had been to Hawaii and had seen our school and our temple. She wanted to know why our church was different than other churches. I pulled out my Book of Mormon and testified about the blessings I have seen in my life from being a member of this church.

No one can question the validity of a sincere testimony.

Anyway, these are just a few of the reasons why it's great to be a missionary.

I love you all! Have a great week!

- Sister Holdaway

P.S. I think I'm getting better at Korean because Sister Moyer says I sleep talk in Korean.