Took a Bath in Kimchi

안녕하세요!

I feel like every week is a crazy week so saying "this was the craziest week ever!!!" just doesn't do it anymore :)

Well – this week we kept pretty busy – a lot to prepare for.

On Friday it was Zone Conference so I helped the Zone Leaders prepare a small activity-based training. We had an hour, President had an hour, the AP's had an hour and President invited PJ Rogers for the rest of the training. All-in-all, it was a full day!

The best part of it all was definitely PJ Rogers. He served his mission here a while ago but came back and lived in Korea for a long time. He's fluent in Korean and has Korean citizenship now. He came to talk to us about how to learn the language and a little bit about Korean culture. I've been here for over a year now and I'm still learning a lot!

For instance, Korean culture is very vertical. If someone is older than you, even by a few months, you respect them and they can basically boss you around. It's a principle that a lot of the American missionaries have a hard time with because we live in such a horizontal society where everyone is equal.

I'm still trying to get used to it and learning the different styles of speech for the different levels. It's so fun! I think I could live here forever and always be learning.

The next day, on Saturday, we had a ward barbecue. It was so much fun and really successful! We actually had six of our investigators there! A little stressful but they all had a really good experience.

That night, the bishop's wife gave us I HUGE bag full of Kimchi. We accepted it graciously and took it home. As we were walking home it started to rain so I started running home with the bag of kimchi in my arms. Unfortunately, the bag opened and I realized, too late, that I was covered in kimchi.

​It's a good thing I LOVE KIMCHI!!!

Disclaimer: I still smell like kimchi. Also, all of the food in our fridge smells like kimchi now. ^^yay

But the week was not over . . . on Sunday we were asked by President to host a recent convert activity night. We decided to make a real American breakfast and to watch Meet the Mormons. So we got to work after church on Sunday to make our assigned batch of scrambled eggs and hash browns. Our kitchen:

​For Me and Sister Sweetnam not knowing how to cook they actually turned out pretty tasty!

The activity was really successful. It was my second time watching Meet the Mormons and it was fun watching it all in Korean. I got all the jokes and understood the whole thing ~ success!

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And now for a quick miracle:

This week we went to visit a family in our ward. On the way out it was raining so they let us use their really nice umbrella. We promised to give it back by Sunday. Knowing we would probably forget, we left the umbrella at the church on Saturday. The next day, she showed up and asked us for her umbrella. We went to get it and to our horror found that it wasn't there, someone must have took it.

My heart sank and immediately I said a fervent prayer in my heart. I prayed all during church. I was so stressed about finding that umbrella! Church was over and still no umbrella. I went home – still stressed about the situation. I knelt and prayed again. I knew that God would answer my prayers. I knew that I could find that umbrella. And so I didn't give up. I just kept praying.

After I prayed I picked up the phone to call our Elders about the party that night. I decided to ask them if they happened to pick up an umbrella. To my relief, they had. They brought it back to church that night and we will give that umbrella back to the member next week! Gratitude filled my heart. Finding the umbrella was such a little thing but it meant a lot to me. God cares about the little things – the little heart breaks, the little stresses. And He answers, in His own way and in His own time.

I'm grateful to have a loving Father in Heaven looking after me. And I'm grateful to know that He's looking after every one of you as well.

I love you! Have a wonderful week!

- Sister Holdaway

The Sour and the Sweet

안녕하세요!

What a week! I feel like I say that every week but . . . every week is basically an adventure in Korea.

This week we were overbooked with appointment after appointment. We have had hardly any time to do weekly planning. But we are so blessed! It's nice not having to think "What are we going to for 6 hours tomorrow?" We also have a lot of investigators right now and a lot of people progressing and building their faith.

But it did mean that we were literally RUNNING from appointment to appointment. And when you mix that with how hot it is outside – we have been showing to our appointments out of breath and gross. 0_0 Today we are going to a Korean bathhouse which should be really relaxing and nice. It will be Sister Sweetnam’s first time! Exciting!

On Thursday we went on exchanges with other sisters in our zone. I stayed in Seongnam and Sister Sweetnam went to Bundang. I got to be with Sister Northridge! It was so much fun ~~

We barely got back home after exchanging when I decided to call a potential investigator. As I was talking with her on the phone Sister Northridge sayed "hi" to a lady walking past us. This lady was also on the phone and we realized that we were on the phone with each other! I don't know what she was doing in our neighborhood but we were thinking "what a miracle!" She said she wanted to learn English from the bible so we went with her to her apartment. As we stepped in there something felt a little off. I turned to Sister Northridge with a confused look. The lady seemed nice and so we sat down and she pulled out her Bible.

The next 20 minutes was her telling us about her church - pulling information from random Bible verses and repeating again and again broken English phrases. I asked her over and over again what church she was from but she would never say the name.  Finally I said "Thank you for your time but we are here for two purposes: to share our unique message of the restoration and to help you learn English. If you are not interested in these then we will have to leave." We smiled and left after she said "Next time I'll bring someone who knows English better." She thought we didn't understand but we understood perfectly well.

Hopefully we will not be having that experience again!

We are not interested in Bible-bashing or proving that are church is right and others aren't. We are just here to share the gospel with those who will hear us. If they won't hear us we just smile, nod and move on.

That night, we moved on alright. We met with an investigator who we had given a Book of Mormon to last week. We were pleased to find that she had marked, annotated and cross-referenced her heart out. She was so excited to share about everything she learned. She wanted to meet us the next day too because she was so excited to share what she is learning with us.

It is so wonderful to see someone falling in love with the Book of Mormon just like I fall in love with it every day.

Our mission, right now, is focusing on getting member present lessons because that has been a struggle in our mission. I know that firsthand because I have had a lot of . . . less than pleasant experiences teaching with members. But I decided to forget everything I had experienced and start afresh. So we made goals to get members at our lessons. They were both really good. One of them, we had the American lady in our ward come and practice her testimony in Korean. After we taught about the restoration with our investigator the member came in with tears in her eyes and was able to give a simple, heart-felt testimony that this church is true and that Joseph Smith was a prophet. It was such a wonderful experience for her and for us. It reminded me that we can go on and on about doctrines and principles but all that matters is the sincere, heart-felt testimony.

And for the cherry-on-top of the week: The elders had a baptism again on Sunday! But this time, it was the other set of elders in our district, Elder Hansen and Elder Cook. This is Elder Hansen's first baptism in the year and a half he's been on his mission. We are so proud of him and I've never seen a happier elder in my life. Now the members are asking us when we're going to get a baptism. I just smile and say we are working hard and fasting.

But I don't let it phase me because:

Miracles are happening in SeongNam!!

Sorry this is kinda long this week:

I love you all! Have an awesome week!

- Sister Holdaway

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Not a lot of pictures this week but my "hole-y" socks. No worries – these made it in the garbage last night.

The Things I Do to Share the Gospel . . .

안녕하세요~~

This week was busy, full of miracles and hot, hot, HOT.

It's raining today so it cools things off a bit, but it's been in the 90's here all week.

This was also Missionary Leadership Council and Zone Training. This is the 7th MLC and Zone Training I've done . . . and I still don't think I've gotten any better at training . . . But that's life. I'm considered an "old" missionary now and I feel like I'm still being trained myself! I'm always learning and always growing but that doesn't mean I haven't come a long ways.

After Zone Training - we came home, did a practice lesson with a member and then prepared for ANOTHER baptism this coming Sunday (the Elders are on fire!).

After we were done we went home and started planning but we realized we lost our phone. We ran back to the church but couldn't find it anywhere! We said a prayer, asking God to help us be safe and find the phone quickly. We asked the Elders where our phone was and they said to look back at the church. We went back to the church and found that it was somewhere we thought we had already looked. BLESSINGS. We breathed a sigh of relief and rushed back home because we knew it was pretty late by that point.

On the way home, however, we were stopped by a lady in our neighborhood who we had said 'hi' to lots of times. She was so happy to see us and wanted to show us "real quick" where her home was so we could come by and visit her. We let her show us to her home but we said that we didn't have a lot of time.

Long story short ~ We ended up eating fruit and kimchi with her, she introduced us to her son and we were able to share a little bit about who we are and what we do. She sent us home with some kimchi and told us to come by a lot because she is our "mom in Korea."

Thank goodness we lost our phone! God works in mysterious ways.

I like to call this technique "Oops-we-lost-our-phone-but-we-found-a-miracle-proselyting"

The other day we were walking and we saw a puppy on the side of the street. I wouldn't say we were "prompted" to go and pet the puppy . . . we just really like puppies. So, we stop and pet the puppy and a man comes up to us, gives us his number, and wants us to teach his family on the weekends.

I like to call this technique "Puppy Proselyting"

On Friday, I was making calls to some potential investigators to see if any of them would be interested in meeting with us. We called one family who had stopped coming to English class but who I knew had a lot of potential. As I was talking with them I remembered that they said their uncle cuts

hair so I asked them about that and they said "Why, do you want a haircut?" and I blurted out "yes!"

"How about tonight?"

"Sure! That sounds great!"

"Ok, we'll meet you in half an hour."

So a long story CUT short....(get it?)

​I cut my hair ^^

While I was cutting my hair Sister Jacobson (I was on exchanges at the time) was able to talk about our church and bear her testimony to this cute family!

So now I have short hair - but it's actually perfect for the hot, hot summer!

I like to call this technique "Sacrificing for a greater cause"

On Sunday we had another baptism! And we're having a baptism next week too!

Here's the picture from the baptism a few weeks ago:

Also - this is the Seongnam ward family and I love all of them! <3

I hope you all have a wonderful week! I love this gospel and I love this work!

LOVE,

Sister Holdaway

P.S.

There's a mosquito which lives in our room that we haven't been able to kill so I wake up with 2 new bug bites a night.

And we found this guy the other night:

​We ended up just staring at it for about half an hour wondering what we were going to do about it. Some prayers were involved. We eventually just took a broom and swept it out of our apartment. SO we're all good now.

The Americans in Korea

안녕하세요!

This week has been so amazing! Including Temple Day and the 4th of July! And if you think we didn't celebrate 4th of July here in Korea . . . you're wrong :) More details on that to come.

But first!

Temple Day is always the best. After the Temple we went home to have a relaxing day but we get a call from a potential investigator who wants to meet right away! We run to the church and meet her. She's 18 years old and LOVES the Book of Mormon. She wanted to study the Book of Mormon together and wants to meet us twice a week to study the Book of Mormon more. She has been meeting missionaries for over a year but she's finally ready to "feast upon" the Book of Mormon and we're excited to do it with her!

We also met a lot of amazing people, taught new investigators and watched our current investigators progress.

On Saturday, Sister Sweetnam and I dressed in red, white and blue and sang patriotic songs to start our study time in the morning. We also attempted to do the Pledge of Allegiance but we couldn't find an American flag anywhere. Luckily, I had a flag shirt from the MTC and we located the American flag on it ㅋㅋㅋ

For lunch we went to an American food buffet with our Elders and ate till we were stuffed.

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Then we went to English class and taught everyone "America the Beautiful"

It helps that everyone in our district is from America. :)

 

Our Elders got a little full.

Me sporting my stars and stripes!

We were street-boarding yesterday (standing with a sign about our church and talking to people about it) and there was a cotton-candy stand next to us. I think the owner noticed Sister Sweetnam staring longingly at the cotton-candy because he gave here one for free! It's shaped like a flower :) 

This week was really busy but the busier we are the happier we feel :)

I love this work and I love what I'm doing and I want to make every minute count.

<3

I love you all!

Have a wonderful week ^^

- Sister Holdaway

Miracle at the Baptism

안녕하세요!!

잘지내시죠?

This week was full of walking and teaching and knocking on doors and I sweat a lot ^^ But I think the climax of this entire week happened yesterday at church.

Yesterday, the elders had a baptism. It was the first baptism I have seen in the year or so that I've been here in Korea. I am so proud of our elders and of the brother that made the important and life-changing decision to be baptized!! It was amazing!~

I don't have a lot of time so I'll paste what I wrote to president this week:

"Yesterday was 윤동구's Baptism. We called all of our investigators, less actives and friends to invite them to this baptism. Unfortunately, none of them could come. Then we remembered that we forgot someone. We teach a lady English and she has made it clear that she only likes us for our English. She is a strong Christian but isn't very interested in attending another church. However, she felt bad that we were teaching her all this free English so she decided to make us happy and come to our church "one time." Once is better than never! So she came to church at 11 a.m. –  went to Gospel Principles and when the teacher asked her to introduce herself she said, again, that she attends another church and the only reason she is here is because she feels bad for us teaching her free English all the time.

Afterwards, she went to sacrament meeting. We were praying for her the entire time. Hoping she would enjoy it. Afterwards, we had the baptism that she said she would attend if we could help her with English afterwards. We agreed and she came and sat in the back. When it came time to perform the ordinance, the baptismal font was uncovered and our investigator made her way the front looking curious. After the baptism she looked at me with wide eyes and said "I have NEVER seen that before." She went back to her seat, smiling and enthusiastically joined with us in singing hymns.

After church she talked with the members and ate some refreshments. Afterwards, as we met with her we asked her how she felt at church. She paused, smiled largely and said "감동적인 느낌"(or a deep impression) and that it felt just like family.

She then resolved to come every week, as often as she can.

What a difference 2 hours can make.

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There have been several experiences on my mission to remind me why I'm here and what I'm here to do. Yesterday was one of those experiences.

In other random news ~

The mother of the American family in our ward bore here testimony in church...all in Korean! I was so proud of her! Meanwhile, I translated for the rest of her family and it’s still....pretty difficult. I understand it all in my head but the minute I try to say it in English it doesn't work. I realized at one point that I was saying Korean words to the family but only because I literally forgot what those words were in English . . . oops.

I have been filling in for the primary pianist in primary and it's been really fun. I'm thankful that the children songs are simple!

We are getting a lot of bugs in our house so if anyone knows how to get rid of them . . . something other than spraying Windex on them 'til they die would be great.

I love you all!~!~!

Have a wonderful week!

 - Sister Holdaway

P.S. Shout out to Saren and Don who got MARRIED last week!!!  WOOT!!

  

​Also - Rainy Season.  And plenty more pictures here.

Choco Pies and the Matchmaker

안녕하세요!!!

We got transfer calls on Saturday~~~ I'm staying here in Seongnam and will finish training Sister Sweetnam here! This will be my 5th transfer here which is easily twice as long as I've been anywhere. I love it here so I'm happy! Elder Downing is leaving our district ㅠㅠ so we'll see who the new elder is!

Fun things that happened this week:

During planning one night we hear a knock on the door. It was a bit scary because the only people who knock on our door are sales-people or other missionaries from another church. So -- we open it up to find our upstairs neighbor with a plate of delicious cucumber kimchi (my favorite!!) and she said that she heard voices from in here and wanted to introduce herself by giving us food. She said that about 2 years ago 'boy missionaries' lived here and would always give her kids Choco Pies so she was always so grateful. We thanked her profusely and sat down to finish planning and eat our kimchi.

Not long after we hear another knock on the door and she's there with 닭갈비(a chicken dish . . . my other favorite) and her two kids are along with her. We thank her again so, so much and we say hello to her children - we sing a few songs with them, say goodbye, then thank Heavenly Father for the family living 2 stories above us. And of course, eat the delicious food.

Next  . . . A really nice lady came up to us on the subway and wanted our number! Never happens. Later find out that she's a matchmaker for Christian singles . . .ㅋㅋ So we'll see where this goes . . . I will keep you updated. She's really sweet though!

We went on exchanges with some awesome sisters this week!!

We have a Teacher Improvement program to help us with our language and teaching skills and I finished it literally on my year mark! I am a certified teacher now^^

I have acquired a guitar from another Sister who didn't want it . . . but the last string broke. So if anyone knows how to restring a guitar let me know. And yay for sharing the gospel through music!

We had stake conference this week ~ it was a broadcast from Utah. Elder Ringwood spoke (he spoke at last general conference, about serving in Korea) and he gave a talk completely in Korean! Everyone else was translated.

Our mission came out with an intense 7 minute, full body work out that we are expected to do every morning. Our district wants to make a workout video for it so we will film it today. I have been chosen to be the token girl so . . . wish me luck. Maybe I'll send the video next week^^

Cute story of the week:

Our youngest investigator is 8 and we have been teaching her through primary songs. So far, we have taught here "Follow the Prophet" "Jesus wants me for a Sunbeam!" and "Book of Mormon Stories" She has the songs completely memorized and has started making up choreography to go along with them. I love teaching children! 

Anyway, it's getting hot here so we're trying to stay cool!

Until next time!

- Sister Holdaway

Seongnam Ward Birthday Party

안녕하세요!

This week was majorly fun! I'll just list some highlights.

We went into 강남(you know . . . Gangnam . . . style) and we went to a real operating Buddhist temple with our investigator. There they give everyone a cheap meal and since Buddhists don't eat meat it was full of vegetarian kimchi and it was delicious!

She then showed us around. Meanwhile - I was praying in my heart for the opportunity to teach her a message but I didn't know how to go about it . . . seeing as we were in a Buddhist temple. But as we were walking behind the temple on a little foot path in the woods she turned to us and asked,

"Can you finish telling me about your Restoration?"

Prayer = answered.

We went on to explain about The Apostasy and how a young boy with lots of questions prayed in a grove of trees a lot like the place we were in. She seemed so fascinated with everything. We were able to bear our testimony that we know that truth has been restored on the earth and that Joseph Smith was truly called to be a prophet.  She was really impressed. At the end she said that she we were different - not like all the other youth our age. Here was a 50 year old woman talking with two 20 year olds about the purpose of life. It was such a wonderful experience and definitely an answer to our prayers.

On Sunday it was our ward’s "Birthday Party"!!  A lot of people showed up and I don't think I've ever seen the church that full. It was amazing!  I was the ward choir director and we all sang "I Know That My Redeemer Lives" in Sacrament Meeting. I really, really, really miss choir. In between conducting the choir I was translating for the American family in our ward. I'm getting better at it every week!

We had a big 식사 meal afterwards and the American family in our ward made cupcakes and it's been a good forever since I've had an American dessert. 

We were dropped by our most progressing investigator last week due to the stress of having to prepare for a test. We are both pretty bummed about it . . . but we won't let that stop us! We have a lot of new or potential investigators ready to learn and grow together.

In other news, I love Korea!!!!!

You all already know this though.

Until next week! <3 화이팅

- Sister Holdaway