Letter #35

안녕하세요!

So the last few days in September and beginning of October in Korea are the Korean Thanksgiving! It is a huge deal here in Korea and everyone goes and visits family. It was fun for us, too because we were able to go to the Bishop's house for a traditional Thanksgiving meal of chicken and fried fish and vegetables. It also made the rest of the weekend extremely hard to do missionary work because everyone was from out of town or were with family. So, all of us missionaries got to get two p-days! FUN! Yesterday we had a whole mission-wide p-day with ALL of the missionaries in our mission! It was a BLAST! We had it at our church building, which was great for us because we didn't have to travel far. We were split up depending on the zone we were in and had sweatshirts made by our zone leaders. The whole day we played games, ate food, learned how to make Korean rice cake, and sang a song for our Christmas card for our families! I had so much fun and it was great to see some missionaries that I haven't seen since the start of my mission.

It really freaked me out to find out that this week is my half way mark in my mission. I am super sad and am shocked with how fast time goes by, especially on a mission. I still don't even feel like an official missionary yet! Crazy! I pray for the time to slow down, but the longer I am here, the faster it seems to go.

This week, my companion and I did a lot of proselyting and trying to find people to teach. I had a great experience one day as we were doing the "If you could ask God one question, what would it be?" activity with my district. I was able to talk to so many people and really teach them right there on the street. I met one girl that was a member of another church and was able to open the Book of Mormon and teach and testify to her right there. Something about Korea that I failed to mention is that there are MANY missionaries from other churches. MANY! But, most of them are under-cover missionaries that are paid to pretend interested in a church, to be baptized into the church, and then to get a leadership postition and take over the church. We run into missionaries all the time and it is also very hard for us to talk to people when they see that we are missionaries because of the bad reputation that missionaries have here. This girl that I openned the Book of Mormon to was from a church that worships Heavenly Mother and does not believe in God. I testified to her that God was our father and that He does really live. And I truly believe and know that! He is our individual father and He does love and know each one of us!

We also were able to meet with a member of our English class to do a 30 minute required introduction of our church. She had absolutely no interest in our church and said that she did not want to learn about God or any sort of religion. After much praying about how we could teach to this woman's needs (because we only had that precious 30 minutes), we felt impressed to share the story of Jesus coming to the Earth after His resurrection and blessing the children. We had her read the story from the Book of Mormon, and she could not understand it (most Koreans cannot understand the Korean Bible or Book of Mormon). We pulled out a picture for her to look at and explained the story. She has a four year old daughter that comes to class with her, and we told the mom that Jesus loves the little children so much because of their innocence and purity. We went on to tell her how this church has always been a family unit in our lives and that no matter where we move in the world, if we walk into one of our churches, we will learn the same things and have an immediate family. She was so moved by this, especially because she is moving to Australia in about a 6 months or so. After English class, I asked her if she wanted to learn more about God's plan for her, and we were absolutely shocked when she said YES! So we are going to meet with her every week before English class to teach her the lessons. I know that her heart was changed and I am so thankful for this miracle to have a new investigator!

We also had another HUGE miracle! On Sunday, because of the holiday, we had church at 8:00 at night. Our ward was tiny because everyone was out-of-town, but we were shocked to see a whole less-active family of 5 walk in to take the sacrament. We had been trying to work with this family for the whole transfer, and it was a complete miracle to see them there!

I know that this gospel is true, and as we stay diligent and follow Christ, we are able to perform and see great miracles! I am thankful and blessed everyday to be here as a missionary and representative of my Savior, Jesus Christ! I am extremely blessed for all the love and support I recieve from you each and every day!

I love you all and am praying for you! Have a fantastic week! :)

사랑합니다!

커기 자매

Sister Kersey