Expecto Patronum!

On the way to email today I saw the head of a fish in the street. I should have taken a picture because that pretty much sums up Korea!

Also, last week, I saw this in the street . . .

​ . . . is that what I think it is? Hmmm . . .

It's always and adventure here in Korea!

Anyway....안녕하세요 여러분!

I am absolutely loving it here in Seongnam. It's really fun being with Sister Partridge and we've been seeing a lot of great things. Some weeks it seems like we're working had and still nothing seems to be happening but then . . . on Saturday night you have that one miracle that really makes it all worth it.

We were calling referrals we got this week and we were having absolutely no success. Then we got to the last one and this woman answered. We said (in Korean): "Hello, we are the missionaries from the Church of Jesus Christ of Latter-day Saints. We heard you have interest in our English program?" When she answered her voice sounded like a mixture of tired and sad and just worn-out "Yes . . . BUT . . . even more than English I want to go to church." And that really took us by surprise. She went on to say "even more than church . . . I want to read that book." "What book? The Book of Mormon?" "Oh yes, that book." Well of course we could help her with that! We made plans to meet her later this week and we hung up and just looked at each other with our jaws dropped.

It might seem little and kind of silly but something like that has never happened to any one of us thus far. We are meeting her today and are really hoping that we can help her get the help she needs and yes, we can help her read "that book." ^^

Sister Partridge and I have started making it a tradition to call our District Leader and sing "THERE CAN BE MIRACLES! WHEN YOU BELIEVE" (from Prince of Egypt) whenever a miracle happens. I'm not sure if our District Leader 100% appreciates it but it keeps our spirits up :)

It's also really fun being able to be a Sister Training Leader. We are starting going on exchanges today and I'm so excited to get to know the other Sisters in this zone. I'm staying in this area . . . that I hardly know . . . so it should definitely be an adventure.

When we do exchanges with Sisters we prepare a little training for them. Sister Partridge and I wanted to focus on being positive and happy no matter what the circumstance. We were thinking about this and us being that Harry Potter nerds we are we came up with a little analogy (If you don't know about Harry Potter ~ this might seem a little weird and I apologize):

So you have Dementors which are basically evil and they go around sucking the happiness out of people. The only way to defend against their attacks is to 1. Eat chocolate and 2. Go up against it with a Patronum charm (“Expecto Patronum!”) and let the light and goodness of your Patronum chase away all darkness.

Everyone has their own, personalized Dementors that make us distracted and suck out the happiness from our lives. Sometimes it's hard but we have it within us to defend ourselves with light and virtue and goodness. 

So if you are having troubles with negativity in your life my advice would be: Eat chocolate and “Expectro Patronum!”  it right on out of there. If we fill our lives with positive things, good music, exercise, close friendships, and of course, Christ our Savior, we WILL have the power to combat those things that only want to drag us down.

I love you all and I hope that you have a wonderful week!

Keep smiling :)

 - Sister Holdaway

And for a picture: