Week 31

Hello Family!!

 

It was so great to see you all this week. So glad that we skyped!! It was way fun!! And it was priceless to be fed lettuce wraps while skyping with you...haha. good times. Glad you all had a merry christmas and I'm glad that my letters got there...sorry they were a little late. I really loved reading all of your letters. thank you!!! Glad you made it to NY safely and I hope you have a great time ringing in the new year. Sister Park and I decided that at 10:29 we will have a little celebration and then go to bed at 10:30 haha :)

 

Exciting news...BETH GOT BAPTIZED!!!! Sunday was Beth's baptism and it was so great! The baptismal service turned out really well and the ward was so great. Since she doesn't understand korean they did everything in Korean and English for her. It was sweet to hear all of these ward members speaking in English. It's probably what it sounds like when I speak korean to them. The missionaries all sang the I Like to Look for Rainbows song and it was really sweet. She really liked the song. Also her husband baptized her!!! he was able to attend the baptism and she decided that she did want him to baptize her so it was really tender! Super happy for her and her family!!!! I'm excited to teach her about the temple and help to prepare her family to go to the temple to be sealed eventually. I will attach some pics from the baptism.

 

Yesterday was a super great sunday because all of the talks and classes were super inspired and exactly what our investigators needed to hear. Jo un jeong (the artist) came to church and the talks were perfect for her! she was able to meet with the bishop after sacrament meeting and it went really well. We also met with her and her daughter on Saturday. She was telling her daughter that she should investigate our church because it has helped her life so much...so cool!!! She really wants her whole family to learn about our church because she loves that our church focuses on the family. I think jo en jeon is going to get baptized soon...I can feel it! i'm very excited for her!!

 

Also on Saturday night there was an awesome stake activity. It included dances, singing and different performances. It was so much fun and jo un jeong came to that as well and she was so happy. She loved it! We are seeing a lot of progress in her in just this past week so that is awesome! The Lord really answers our prayers!

 

We also had a lesson with shin dong hyeon (she is 20 years old) on friday night and it was super great. we taught about how the bom is the key to know if this church is true and whether or not you should be baptized. We had amember come to the lesson (one of the youth) and she told about her conversion and it was perfect! she said that she will think about baptism, so we are excited about that!

 

Life is great here...we are hard at work and loving it :) It's the best to see people start to change and realize that this message is really true and how God loves them. We had dinner at a member's house last night and it was fun. We shared a message about our baptismal covenants and how everytime we take the sacrament we can feel that same joy and love that we felt when we are baptized, so I'd encourage all of you to think about the covenants you made when you were baptized when you partake of the sacrament this week.

 

I love you all!!!

 

Love

Sister Livingston

Week 30

Hello dear family!!

 

Can you believe Christmas is on Wednesday?! I am very excited to call you all and talk to you then!! This morning we opened our christmas presents because we won't have time on actual christmas to do so. I was overwhelmed with all of your love. Thank you so much!!!! I love you all so dearly! I sent off my christmas letters last week, so hopefully they get to you in time. I am excited to open the christmas letters on christmas eve :)

 

This past week we were really really busy! we had appointments all over the place! It was fun. We have 12 people that we are meeting with right now...most of them have maily english interest right now but we have 4 people that are progressing so that is exciting!! We met with Beth a lot this week to help her prepare for baptism on next sunday. She is doing well. She is a sweetie and I'm really grateful for the opportunity to teach her. She called us and asked for our help this week when she needed to go to the doctor but she doesn't really understand korean so she asked for our help to translate. It was sweet to have her ask for help because it shows that she trusts us and appreciates us teaching her. She asked us to come take pictures of her and her son in the snow next time it snows...cute! She is doing well and preparing for her baptism on sunday. We have a few more commandments to teach her about and we are going to review the baptismal interview questions before she gets interviewd this week. I hope that everything goes well :)

 

This week we jo un jeong (the artist) came to church again, which is exciting! she used to come a lot, but she hasn't been in a while but she came this week! And we are planning to have a lesson and get lunch together on christmas so I am excited for that! she has been having a really hard time in her personal life lately and it has been sweet to share our testimonies about how she can receive peace, hope and comfort through the atonement of Christ and exercising her faith in Him. I really pray that she will be able to commit to baptism sometime soon! pray for her :)

 

I don't remember if i have talked about lee so young or not, but she is a young mom that we meet with. we practice english with her 8 year old son for 30 minutes and teach about our church for 30 minutes. She is a sweetie. She has been reading the bom and really likes it!!! she is from china so she has no religious background at all. We have been teaching her about the plan of salvation and it has gone well so far. She is going to come to our ward christmas party tonight so we are excited about that! she said she will be able to come to church in january and we are planning to invite her to be baptized this week. Pray that goes well for us :) 

 

We had the missionary christmas party on friday and it was so fun to see all of the missionaries! there were about 150 missionareis there...it was a party! we got to watch home alone, which was fun. WE had a white elephant gift exchange and a huge lunch. I got to see Sister wadsworth and jacklin (mtc comps) and sister bell!!! I love them all so much and it was so great to reunite! I got to see a member from my old area too because the party was in my old area. we also had a music and the spoken word part, which was really good. lots of people are very talented :) 

 

I have a bunch of pictures to send, but the normal place we email at only had one computer today and the computers we are using don't have a usb thing to plug in for my camera so I will have to send them next week. 

 

Sister Park and I are keeping busy and are feeling a little overwhelmed with all that we have to do, but the good news is that we can do it!!!! One of my favorite memories of the week was when we were walking to an appointment and it started to snow hard core. Of course, it was the day that we were the least prepared for snow, but we just kept going and were singing christmas carols together. So tender :) when we got to the appointment we were covered in snow, but happy :) I have a picture I'll send next week haha We also went caroling with some ward members to less actives and it was fun! Christmas is the best! I'm excited for the party tonight!

 

Love you all! I am so thankful for you and for our Savior this Christmas season. I know that He lives and that through Him we can do all things! thank you for all of your love and examples!!! can't wait to talk to you all in 2 days!!! 

 

Love

Sister Livingston 

Week 29

Hello Family!!!

 

I seriously can't believe that Christmas is next week!! Im so excited!! I love the Christmas season. Christmas is not a very big deal here like in America, but there is still that Christmas spirit in the air. Our ward has a cute christmas tree that they youth decorated and we all wrote our Christmas wishes on. It's cute. We get to have our mission Christmas party on friday and I am soooo pumped!! I just can't wait to see me old companions and hear about their experiences :) it will be a sweet time. We also are having a ward christmas party on the 23rd and we are hoping that a lot of our investigators will be able to come to that. It should be a good time.  

 

This past week we were super busy!! we met with new investigators and had a lot of appointments. It was exciting to almost always have an appointment to be going to! It's also super nice because that means we don't have to be outside in the cold all day :) I bought some boots last week and it was just in time becaue it snowed again this week! I'm very grateful for my new boots :) and a kind woman in my ward is lending me one of her extra winter coats because she said that my coat wasn't warm enough. I thought I was fine, but she brought the coat to church and gave it to me to use during the winter season. So that was really nice :)

 

My favorite experiences this week:

On Saturday we met with jo un jeon (the artist) and we were talking about her experiences in reading the book of mormon. we asked her to read 3 Nephi and so she has been reading it for the past few weeks. This week she had a really spiritual experiences when reading ch16 v2-3 about how Christ will appear to his lost sheep. it really touched her and she received comfort from it. It was really sweet to hear about her gaining a testimony about the book of mormon. That is something that I have really gained a testimony of while on my mission. I have seen over and over again that those people that read the BOM see progression and change in their lives while those that don't, don't progress. I've seen it in my life too. The bom seriously has power to change your life!!! so make sure you are studying it every day ;)

 

yesterday we met with Beth (she is from the philippines). She is married to a korean man in our ward and they have one little boy. She comes to church everyweek, so we started teaching her the discussions and she has a baptism date for the 29th!!! She is super kind and has so much faith! she grew up catholic so it was kind of hard for her to think about joining a different religion at first, but she always feels really good when she reads the bom and prays so she believes that it is true. We had a sweet lesson yesterday about the plan of salvation. she recently had a hard tim with something and we were able to share our testimonies that this life is not the only life and how god takes care of His children. I teach the lessons in English and my companion added her testimony in korean and I translated for her at the end and it was a really sweet experience. we were all crying. But I am so thankful for the knowledge of the plan of salvation that we have. It is such a blessing and gives us such a different perspectiv eon life. grateful :)

 

On Monday night we visited our relief society president to share a message with her and I shared about how the atonement has such power and gives us hope in this life. It was one of those lessons that the spirit was there and everyone felt what they needed to feel. It was a great way to start out the week.

 

We had a lot of different experiences and lessons this week, but those were some of my favorites :)

 

I'm excited to talk to you all next week! I'm planning to call home at around 9:00 am on my Christmas morning, so it will be your Christmas eve. I will miss you all, but I really do know that  I am where I need to be. It's a privilege to get to spend Christmas with my Korean family this year :) And I get to be teaching people about Christ during Chirstmas time...I can't think of a better way to spend the holidays. Love you all!!!

 

Love

Sister Livingston

 

p.s. where in Korea is the korean family from? people in my ward were curious :)

Week 28

all ready to teach some english and the gospel!!!

my reaction to the snow at 6:30 am haha

we made soup with the young women one day last week

thanksgiving food!

some lovely sista missionaries :)

Hi family!!

 

This was another great week here in Korea! It wasn't as cold this week, which was nice :) This past transfer I had a lot of personal growth and learned a lot and I am feeling really good and happy and grateful right now. I just want to say thank you for all of your love and support! I love you all and I want you all to know that I know that the atonement is so real. It really is an enabling power that allows us to progress and overcome hard things. Through the atonement we really can change and become the person that Heavenly Father wants us to be. I'm feeling really grateful for that this past week.

 

This week we unfortunately had some investigators drop, but we also met some new investigators, so that's good. We had a combined district meeting this week and it was so good!!! We finished a 40 day relay fast as a mission on that day and there were a lot of miracles experienced be the missionaries in our mission from that 40 day fast. We met with sister Shin dong hyeon (she is 20 years old) this week and she is awesome! She really likes our church and agrees with what we teach. We can always feel the spirit really strong in our lessons with her. I asked her if she would be baptized when she comes to know thses things for herself and she said of course! But the main issue is that she works on sunday. So we don't know exactly what to do about that. All we can do for now is help to build up her faith so that she will have the desire to come to church and she can pray to find out a way for her to come to church.

 

Other things that happened this week are that we went to a member's choir concert on friday night with our investigator and it was so much fun! All of the songs were about mothers and they had some dancing and these really really cute korean kids sang and danced and it was just so cute!! It was really fun to support the members and help our investigator to meet members as well.

 

We also had a fun English activity on Saturday night with all of the missionaries in our ward and all of our english interest investigators. It was a success and we met 1 new investogator there and another potential investigator. We also got to each american brownies, which is always a treat :)

 

We are also teaching this woman who has no religious background, but we taught her the first lesson this week and I am really excited to see what happens. For some reason I really believe that she and her family are going to get baptized...maybe not really soon, but I think it's going to happen.

 

Our ward is kind of struggling righ now so we as missionaries are focusing on our members right now and how we can help them to regain some hope and light through the atonement. We have been delivering a lot of message cards to members homes with our testimonies on them to try to help them feel happy during this hard time.

 

I am excited for Christmas! Can't believe it is so soon! So apparently I can call home either on the 24th, 25th, or 26th based off of when it works best for you guys. So when should I call you?!  Love you all!!! I hope you have a great week! Keep up all of the great work and always remember that through living the gospel we can be happy :) Thank you for all of your love and support!!

 

Love

Sister Livingston

 

p.s. the philippino woman has a baptsim date for the 22nd!! woohoo!! hopefully all goes well for her!! Pray for Beth!!!

Week 27

Hello family!!!

Another transfer has come and gone here in Korea. Sister Park and I are staying together in our area, so no big transfer news here. This past transfer was filled with a lot of new and learning experiences for me since we were co-senior together and we both just finished being greenies, so we're excited to start a new transfer together and to have more confidence in what we are doing. 

BIG NEWS......it snowed!!!!! Wednesday was the first snow of the season. It has been pretty chilly here haha. But we are still doing well and trying to work hard. We have been continuing to teach our investigators and some people are finally starting to progress, which is great news! We had 3 investigators come to church yesterday, which is always the best. That's usually the hardest thing is to get people to come to church because a lot of people work on sundays. 

This week on Tuesday we met these two girls (Shin dong hyeon and kim na yeon) that are both 20 years old. They wanted to practice english with me but they ended up being super interested the gospel so we have met with them about 3 times now. This past week though was super good. The spirit was super strong in our lesson and they were like "wow, you guys are so happy and happiness is like radiating from you when you talk about this." It was so nice to hear! It's so true that this gospel really makes me so happy!!! The main issue with them though is that they work on sunday....but I'm hoping that as we continue to meet they will continue to feel the spirit and have the desire to feel that spirit all the time by being baptized and receiving the gift of the holy ghost. 

On wednesday we met jo un jeong (artist) and it was a super good lesson. We were all crying by the end of it haha. But I think it was just what she needed at that time, which is always the best. We talked a lot about how the atonement can relieve her of heavy burdens that she feels and that it is an enabling power to help us accomplish things we wouldn't be able to do on our own. 

This week on Thanksgiving some "mid singles" in the ward invited us over for dinner and we ate japanese food :) it was delicious. and they are so nice. I really like them. They were showing us pictures from their traveling. 

Last night a member gave us some left over thanksgiving food that she made so I got to eat turkey and and potatoes and stuffing last night!! woo hoo!! 

Sorry this is kind of shorter than normal but I'm running out of time, but I love you all so much!!! I hope you all have great weeks and know that I love you all dearly!! 

Love

Sister Livingston

Week 26

my comp and I matched in all polka dots one day

fashion show runway

Park yoo jin and I (one of the yw in the ward)

Hello dear family!!!!

 

First of all, HAPPY THANKSGIVING this week!!!!!! Let me just say how thankful I am for each one of you in my life. That's one of the things that we always try to focus on when we teach is that because God loves us, one of the mist important things He gave us is our families. And how true that is!! I am so thankful for our family and the love that we have for one another. It's sweet to think of us all celebrating the same thing all over the world :) I am also super thankful for our Savior Jesus Christ and His atonement. I am thankful for the knowledge that I have of the Plan of Salvation and the guidance it gives me in my life. We have so much to be thankful for :)

 

This week was a good one :) We met with a lot of our investigators and we met a lot of new investigators that I'm really excited about. We met this girl named Choi Pa Da and she is 20 years old. She is a referral from the stake president. He knows her dad I guess. But she has come to church twice now and she is super nice!! We met last night and introduced ourselves and talked about why we personally chose to attend this church and how this church has blessed our lives. She was super receptive and she really liked our sacrament meeting. I think she is going to progress really well! And it is super refreshing to teach someone that just has gospel interest and not english interest that we are trying to convince to have gospel interest. Yesterday we also started teaching a woman named Beth. She is from the philippines and she is married to a korean man in our ward. That's a popular thing here in Korea i guess...lots of korean men marry philippino women. so I am teaching her in english...it's super weird to teach the lessons in english instead of korean. haha I don't really know what to do...but it will be good :) She grew up catholic and has pretty strong belief so she is going to need to have a some really good spiritual expereinces when we meet for the holy ghost to be able to testify to her, but I'm excited :)

 

Our other investigators are doing well. jeong so jeong (14 year old) came with us on Saturday to a young womens activity that the stake was having. It was kind of like a new beginnings activity, except it was project runway themed. Different wards all made an item of clothing or a hand bag and they had a fashion show/skit to display it. It was super fun! unfortunately jeon so jeong didn't love it as much as we did. She alwasy says that everything is too long...but she'll come around :) She came to church again on Sunday and we went to yw class with her and she was opening up more there. She said she will come to the yw activity that they are having on saturday too, so I'm happy about that.

 

Jo un jeong told us that she is starting to think about baptism now, whereas before she wasn't thinking about it at all, so that's a step in the right direction! I really want her to get baptized! But she is defintely someone that needs time.

 

Korean is still really hard, but I am trying my best and I just have to remind myself that it's okay to make mistakes and to take some time to gather my thoughts and things like that during lessons. This transfer is almost over!! next monday we will be getting our transfer calls again...crazy!! time is flying by! I have no idea what is going to happen this next transfer. I could definitely stay or maybe get transferred again...it will be interesting to see what happens. Love you all!! I'll send some pictures from the fashion show. I hope you all have a fantastic thanksgiving!! I love you all and am so thankful for you!

 

Love

Sister Livingston

Week 25

us at lunch today!

Hello family!!!

 

Glad to hear that you all are doing well. I am so thankful that the missionaries in the philippines are accounted for and safe. Such a miracle. The Lord really does bless His missionaries.

 

Nothing too big or exciting happended this week, but I will give you the run down on our investigators.

 

Jo un jeong (the artist) is doing well. She is slowly progressing. We talked this week about our purpose in this life as a time to prepare to meet God. She said that was the first time she has ever heard that. So we invited her to really think about and pray about when she will be ready to receive baptism. She came to stake conference this week and she was taking notes and seemed to really enjoy it so that's good!

 

Jeong so jeong (14 year old) we met with on Thursday and on Saturday. She had a ton of questions about baptism and about the plan of salvation, so that was exciting!! We are teaching her the second lesson right now and her mom was there to listen to some of it. They almost came to stake conference this week, but the mom said it was too hard, so we are hoping that this next week they will come to church at the normal ward building which is a little closer than the stake center. But we have been trying to help so jeong make friends with a recent convert in our ward so we all went out to dinner together on saturday and it was fun. We had to stay for stake conference meeting but they went home together so hopefully they can be a good support system for one another.

 

Ahn Tay young is a mom that called from and english add to teach her kids english. we go there every monday night. We taught the first lesson last week and it went well. she agreed that having a prophet today would be really good. She was wondering when there would be a korean prophet though...But we are going to teach the first half of the plan of salvation today. I just really want the spirit to be there and she will feel something and wan tto get baptized!!

 

Oh say young is a 39 year old woman that called to practice english. She is buddhist and doesn't know anything about the bible or god so we are starting from the beginning with her. The first time we met her she was really hung over, but the second time we met it was a lot better. the gospel would answer so many of her questions and help her life so much so I pray that she will be open to learning about our message and will follow through on our invitations.

 

This week we met with a new investigator and it was funny because the whole time she was asking us questions about our church because she had heard about it when she went to school and had heard negative things, but was open to learning about it from us. So we just answered her questions and set up an appointment to come back again. But then she called the elders and told them that we were trying to hold a church service in her house and that she doesn't want to meet with us because she is buddhist....we thought it was funny because we honestly were just answering her questions the whole time and we only invited her to read the bom introduction. It's just funny how we meet so many different people, but lots of them we never see again.

 

This week was stake conference and it was super good!! We also had a special missionary meeting with pres shin and our stake president. It was good. He talked a lot about the training he had from Elder Evans that was at your stake conference. It was a good meeting. and guess what?! One of the 12 apostles is coming to our mission in may!!! I'm pumped!!!! We don't know who is coming yet, but they are all awesome haha. We set the goal as a mission to accomplish our BRT122 goal by april as a gift to the Lord and the apostle. We also have a goal to have one person baptized by christmas as a gift to the Lord. So that's what we are working toward right now.

 

Love you all!!! It got really cold here in Korea this week. But life is good! Today we went out to lunch and at booday cheegay. It is a soup with a bunch of ham and random stuff in it. It was yummy :) Korean is definitely coming along, but I still feel like I can only talk about the gospel. If someone asks me something just out of the blue I usually have no idea what's going on, but if we are at church then I can understand haha. Helps me to stay focused on my purpose haha.

 

Love,

sister Livingston

Week 24

Hello family!!!!

 

Thanks for telling me about the storm in the Philippines...I honestly had no idea that that happened. I am so glad to hear that Sister Anderson is doing okay. I will definitely be praying for them! Sounds like you all had great weeks though! It's starting to get really cold here now so I am on the hunt for some warm tights and boots. I'll probably just buy them here sometime soon. Last night we didn't have any appointments so we were just walking around trying to talk to people on the street about the Book of Mormon and our English program and it was pretty chilly...can't wait until it starts snowing haha.

 

This past week was good. nothing too big or crazy happened but it was a good week nonethe less. We met two new investigators that are interested in learning English so we are doing our 30 30 program with them. I just pray that when we teach about our church they will feel the spirit and realize that they want to learn more and can have the desire to follow the example of our Savior. We are meeting with a woman tonight, her name is Han Tay Young. She wants her kids to practice english with us but she was open to hearing about our church so we are going to teach her the first lessson tonight. Pray that it goes well! This past week we had a ward activity on Saturday night and it was really fun! There are 6 missionaries (2 sisters and 4 elders) in our ward and we all did a skit...I never thought that I would be acting, especially in Korean on my mission haha. I was pretty scared, but it went well. We did a funny little skit about a missionary getting a call to korea and then a member introducing their friend to the church and they decide to get baptized and then the missionary wrote a letter to their mom telling about how the mission has changed so many people's lives including the investigator, member and missionary. It was cute. I was the investigator. The activity went really well though. The purpose was for people to bring their friends and to introduce them to the church in a fun, no pressure way. We got 3 referrals from that night so I would say it was a success :)

 

As far as our investigators go... Jo un jeong (the artist) is doing well. She met with the stake president this past week because she has been going through some hard times and wanted to talk to someone about it. Also she is interested in going to BYU hawaii to do more studies. From what I have heard the meeting went really well. We met with her before the meeting and taught her a lesson. I invited her to pray at the end of the lesson and throughout the whole prayer she was crying. it was really tender. I could feel the spirit really strong. I hope that she can recognize that. When we met with her on Saturday she seemed kind of rushed so we weren't able to set her baptism date unfortunately....that's really what she needs is just to commit to baptism, but I think she doesn't want to completely change yet. We are praying a lot about what to do with her since she has received all of the lessons already. We don't really know what is next for her...we will see.

 

Jeong so jeong (the 14 year old) came to the activity on saturday and to church on sunday so that is awesome!!!! She is so funny. She loves my companion sister Park. She always wants to be right by her and talk to her. I am hoping that she will have the desire to come to church and learn about our church and kind of lead her family into learning more about out church. When we taught her and her mom the first lesson on thursday it went pretty well. We need to help them see how this gospel will help their family to be more happy eternally and make it really relevant to them.

 

We met Lim hyeon sook on Friday. She is a referrall from a member and she agreed to hear the lessons so we taught about God and prayer. She came to the activity on saturday with her daughter and we got her daughters contact infor so hopefully we can meet with her too.

 

We have been visiting members a lot and they all are so nice here! I really like this ward. it seems very unified and they really want to do missionary work...we just need to help them see how to do it I think.

 

Sister Park and I are working a lot better together this past week. It has taken some time to find our groove, but I am feeling a lot better about everything now. We have been doing a 40-day relay fast as a mission in order to be more unified and purified as a mission. It has been cool. We are scheduled to fast next week. But as we have been working together and trying to really communicate with each other things have gotten a lot better and we are on the same page about how we want to do missionary work.

 

I love you all soooooo much!!! So grateful that families are forever and that I get to share that with people :)

 

Love,

Sister Livingston

 

p.s. today is peppero day in Korea because it is 11/11 (Peppero are like pocky sticks, just the korean version) So happy peppero day!!! you should go buy some and eat them  in my honor :)

 

Also Pres Shin told us today that we will have a Christmas party on December 20th and for our packages from home to get here by then you should send them by Thanksgiving time. :)

 

LOVE YOU ALL!!!!!!

So we only had 40 minutes to email before so we are emailing again before our pday ends. But I wanted to tell you all that I have heard a report that Sister heo hyeon jeong got baptized!!!!!!!! She is the 31 year old woman that I was teaching in Daejeon with Sister Bell and she got baptized last sunday. YAY!!!! So happy for her and I feel grateful to have met her. She moved back to where her parents live in a different part of korea after the baptism and received the holy ghost in her new ward and I heard that the ward has been great at welcoming her already. I was sad to miss the baptism, but thankful I could be there to teach her and introduce her to the church with sister bell :) the church is true! love you all!!!

 

love

Sis Liv

Week 23

Our English advertisement picture

heart attacking!

Sister Park and I with the cupcakes we made!

Hello family!!!

 

Sounds like you all had a great Halloween! I got the halloween package in the mail this week, so it was perfect timing! Thank you so much for sending it. Sorry the postage is so expensive. Halloween isn't really celebrated here in Korea. It is definitely an American holiday. My companion and I decided that we wanted to share some of the halloween love this week though so we went and heartattacked a lot of the members with candy and pumpkins and ghosts cut out of paper. It was fun :) And it was good to get a feel for the area more by seeing where all of the members live. We also made the cupcakes and gave those to some people and they were all excited when we told them that my family sent the mix from America. They all said that it was very delicious, so we have the approval of the Korean people...yay!

 

Let's see...so in my new area we have a few investigators that I got to meet this week. First of all is Sister Jo un jeong. She is in her 40s and she has been meeting with the missionaries for a long time now...like over a year. She has had the lessons at least twice now I think. She is a super nice woman. She is an artist, so she was really excited to hear that I am studying art. I got to see some pictures of her artwork and she is really good! She paints and her favorite thing to paint is poppies. She wants to see some of my artwork so that's fun. It was cool when we met because she said that it's really hard for her when the missionaries get transferred, but since I came and am an artist she can see that it is God's will for us to meet :) I worry that she hasn't really been progressing in the gospel, that she just likes meeting with the missionaries and talking to us so Sister Park and I really want to help her to progress and come closer to Christ. She really likes our church and how she feels when she meets with us, it's just up to her to actually do something about it now. We met with her twice. Once on Wednesday and on Saturday. On wednesday Sister Shin (mission president's wife) came to our lesson just all of the sudden, so that was kind of stressful, but it turned out just fine.

 

We met two new investigators this week. The 14 year old that we met last week we met again this week, but at her house, so we also met her mom. She wants to study english, but they said that it would be fine for us to teach them about our church. I just pray that as we teach them they will feel the spirit and realize that this is what they want!!!! The girls name is jeong so jeong and her mom is heo jeong dan, so keep them in your prayers. We are going to start meeting them twice a week at their home. The mom was so nice and sent us home with a huge bag of kimchi and fruit. It was funny walking home. I had one of those moments where I thought about what I was actually doing and just felt the confirmation that I know I am where I am supposed to be. Walking the streets of Korea with my Korean companion teaching people about the gospel in Korean and carrying a huge bag of kimchi...how cool is that?! I am seriously so grateful for this opportunity to be a missionary for the Lord in Korea. I would have never guessed that this is what I was supposed to do, but here I am and it has been such a blessing!

 

Saturday night we met a girl who called to learn english, but she was fine with us teaching about our church as well. She is a cutie!! her name is sor ji he. Her and Sister Park were talking up a storm and I would just sit and smile and laugh when they laughed because most of the time I had no idea what was going on. They were talking so fast! But it was good. She can only meet every 2 weeks though so that's too bad. She is working and her schedule is kind of weird, but I really think she can progress in the gospel quickly if we show her how applicable it is to her. So hopefully we will be able to meet with her again next week.

 

We are still looking for new investigators to teach so we have been doing a lot of just talking to people on the street and going door to door trying to teach people. Please pray that we will be able to find more people to teach that are intersted in the gospel. It has been fun to have Sister Park as a companion and to cook with her. We have been eating a lot of rice and kimchi and we made curry the other day. It has been a definite adjustment to have a Korean companion though because she can understand everything and respond to everything whereas I don't understand everything and I can only really talk about the gospel. so we need to learn how to teach together. This transfer I am learning a lot about patience and I am just trying to be really understanding and loving.

 

I really like this ward. They are super kind to us and to one another. There is a lot of unity in this ward. We have already been invited over for food 3 times, so the people are very generous and kind here. The weather has been getting chilly here. I've sported my coat a few times already. This week we had zone conference and it was super good! It was just what I needed to hear. President Shin's focus for us is called BRT122 Chain, which means that every companionship has the goal of 1 baptism per transfer and 2 referrals per day and 2 hours of teacher per day. And the chain means that as we baptize one person, they refer their friends and then they refer their friends and so forth to creat a long chain of converts. So that's what we are trying to do! Unfortunately I couldn't go back for Sister Heo's baptism but she should have been baptized yesterday!!! yay for her!

 

I love you all!! Thank you for your love and prayers! You all are the best!!!

 

 Love,

Sister Livingston

Week 22

goodby samsung ward!

last fhe

sister seong hee

goodbye cake

ice cream with seong hee

my favorite members!

Sister Heo (getting baptized on saturday)

My new companion sister Park

Hello family!!!

 

So I am now emailing you from Gwang ju! I transfered on Thursday. It was super hard for me to transfer because I had grown to love that area and those people so much, but I'm ready to love some more people :) I'll tell you about my last days in daejeon and then what we've been up to here now...

 

So on Monday we had our last FHE with sahn and the Ashbys. Sahn was super sad to find out that I was being transferred. We reviewd lesson 3 with him and talked about the importance of doing the "little things" like prayer and scriptures on a daily basis. It was fun! On Tuesday we had our last district meeting before transfers. It was really good. Elder Jensen has been such an aweome district leader. I have learned a lot from him. All of the people getting transferred bore their testimonies, so I bore mine. It was a good meeting. We had a lesson with Sister Seong Hee and she comitted to be baptized!!!!!!!!! We reviewed her reading of 2 nephi 31 and we talked about what baptism is and invited her to be baptized on November 23rd and she said yes! It was so awesome!!! She said that her family has a relgion, but she has never felt the desire to go, but when she meets wit us she feel really good. SO COOL!! I'm super excited for her. I want to go back for her baptism too...we'll see. But after that Sahn threw me and Elder Wager a mini surprise going away party in the church. He bought us a cake and we ate it together. It was fun. He is soooo sad that some of us were being transferred. Then we went and visited a member to say goodbye. She had helped us a lot with lessons and I had grown close to her. I shared a favorite verse and my testimony as a farwell lesson. On Wedneday we did the greenie street contacting activity and then we had a lesson with this lady...it was a weird lesson. We won't be meeting with her again, but she will keep coming to english class probably haha. We had dinner with Sister seong hee as a last farwell before I left. It was super fun. She is a cutie and I'm exxcited to hear about how she progresses. Then we visited some more members for me to say goodbye before being transferred. It's weird to think that I probably will not see these people again...sad.

Thursday was transfer day! I shipped my luggage through the postal service...it's super cheap here. it cost like 13 dollars to ship my 2 bug suitcases and they delivered it to my new apartment. I took the train to gwang ju with some other sisters and met my new companion in my area. The train took about 2 hours. Sister Park is so awesom and I love her! She is super kind and patient and we are able to communicate pretty well with each other. With the mix of our language skills we are always able to get our point across. We are both still learning a lot about how to do missionary work. We were both greenies just last transfer so it has been hard to all of the sudden be co seniors. We are learning a lot! This area is definitely different than my last. It's not has big of a city so  there are maybe less people and if has just a different feel. The ward is super nice! I really enjoyed meeting them yesterday. I had to introduce myself and bear my testimony during sacrament meeting, which was scary, but everyone was so nice and told me that I was very good at Korean. We both don't know this area very well, so we don't know exactly what to do. We are trying to visit members and meet with investigators and find new ones. Please pray for us :) Today we went bowling for pday it was fun. I love you all! Thanks for your love and support!!! Keep up the good work!

 

Love

Sister Livingston

Week 21

I finally made the cookies!!! they were delicious...thank you!!

We had lunch with Nikii on wednesday. She is a less active member in the ward

This is us with Brother Ho (investigator) and Sister gwong (member) 

from the stake activity

Hello dear family!!!

The big news of today is transfers!!! We got out transfer call this morning and I am being transferred to Gwang ju, and I will be serving in the nong seong ward with Sister Park. Sister Bell will be staying here in samsung and will be training a greenie again. I'm excited! It doesn't really seem real yet. I'm definitely sad to be leaving Sister Bell because she has been such an awesome companion and we work super well together. I am also sad to be leaving our awesome investigators!! that's probably the saddest part. I've come to really love and care so much about them it's hard to imagine not being able to teach them anymore and maybe never seeing them again...but there will be more people that are ready and I am meant to meet in other areas. I'm excited and nervous about having a korean companion because I know that there will be some challenges just with communication, but I know this sister because we were in the MTC at the same time and came to korea at the same time and she is super nice. It will definitely be a growing experience for me. Please pray for me though :)

But this week was another great week here!!! We were busy with lots of appointments and people are progressing! So happy!!!

We met with Sister gwon on tuesday and sunday this week. She is 22 years old and wants help learning english, but she has been really accepting of our message so far. We taught her the full first lesson yesterday and she said that she would pray about the BOM and our message. we are excited! I asked her how she felt or what she thought when she read the intro to the bom and she said "I am a child of god." It was so cute! and so true!! I loved it. We are meeting her again on tuesday so we will invite her to be baptized then...hopefully that goes well :)

Sister Heo came to church again on Sunday!!!! YAY!!!! She said that she liked it too, which is great. We met with her on Wednesday this week and taught her the third lesson. She committed to a baptism date!!!!!! She is scheduled to be baptized on the 29th of this month! next tuesday!!! We are sooooo excited!!! We are meeting her on Wednesday this week to teach her more about the commandments and if all goes to plan she will be baptized next week. I will hopefully be able to travel back to daejeon to see her baptism since I will have transferred by then. 

Brother Ho is doing well. We reviewed the Plan of Salvation with him and it was going super well until at the end he refused to pray...it was kind of awkward. But we asked him to pray later that night when he was at home. He said he would. We also invited him to read Alma 34 about his purpose in this life. We just really want him to come to church!! 

We met with Sahn a couple of times this week and he is doing so well! He told us that he really wants to go on a mission next year!! AHHHHH!! so cool! he met with president shin and they talked about how he can start to prepare to be able to serve in a year. We had a really tender lesson talking about missionary work and how sister bell and I felt about missionary work and coming to korea. it was good. He is preparing to get the priesthood, which is great. We taught him about the temple so he can prepare to go do baptisms for the dead. I'm just so excited for Sahn to keep progressing in the gospel. I see so many great things ahead for him. So grateful to be a part of it. It will be sad to say goodbye to him. We are having FHE with him tonight and the senior couple missionaries, so that will be fun :)

We met some new investigators this week and the stake had an awesome women's conference thing that we went to. All of the wards prepared a dance or skits or songs that they performed. It was hilarious and awesome. Our ward did different skits of famous stories like romeo and juliet or snow white. It was super fun to watch! 

Life is great here! I can't believe that it is almost November! I've been in Korea for almost 3 months now and I'll be hitting my 6 month mission mark next month...time is flying! I love you all!! So glad that all of you are doing well. So happy and proud of you all! Thank you for your love and prayers! I can feel them. Keep them coming :)

Love you!!

Sis Livingston

Week 20

Hello family!!!

First of all, CONGRATS TO THE NEW JESSIE AND MARK BROWN!! So happy for you both! It sounds and looks like it was a perfect day. Everyone looked really great and happy in the photos that I saw. Yay for families!!  I need Mark's email so I can add him to the family email list haha I also loved the cut out of me haha. it turned out well! It looks like I was there the whole time just constantly peace signing like normal ;)

This was another great week, as usual. We had lessons with sister hyun jeong this week and they have all gone really well. We are still trying to set up a firm baptism date for her, but she keeps talking about how she needs to start living certain commandments like the word of wisdom and things like that now, so that's great. We taught her about the Plan of Salvation on Monday and that went really well. we also talked about how with prayer we can ask Heavenly Father specific questions and He can answer us with specific answers. She really liked that because she had never thought about asking God questions when she prayed, but she will now. It was a really good lesson! We met with her again on friday and the lesson didn't go as planned, but it was still good. We ended up talking about the 10 commandments. But there were people yelling and fighting outside the church and it was super distracting. finally she was like "I'm going to go outside and tell them that we are trying to worship in here" So she went outside and yelled to them to be quiet because we were trying to worship in here. She came inside and said that they ignored her because they were yelling too loud...it was funny haha. But she came to the saturday morning session of general conference!!!!! YAY!!!! we were soooo happy about that! And she liked it. So that's great. We are meeting with her again on tuesday and we really want to get a firm baptism date with her. So pray for that please :)

We met with brother ho cheor on thursday and it was such a good lesson!! The member that always comes to his lessons is so awesome! We were talking more about our purpose in life and we sang the song I am a Child of God all together in Korean and English and it was so tender. Definitely one of those moments where you look at your life and wonder how you got to that point. Tender mercy. We ended up talking a lot about the importance of church attendance because he hasn't come to church yet and we really wanted him to. She bore a really tender testimony about the promises and blessings of the atonement and it was just awesome! And guess what?! He came to general conference on Saturday morning too!!! MIRACLE!! We were so excited! General conference is the best!!!!!!! So we had two investigators come to church this week...that is a huge miracle here! hopefully they will continue to come :) 

The rest of this week was good. We did splits so I went to a different area and was with Sister Stradling. It was fun to see a different area and how another companionship might work. But I am so thankful to have served in the area that I am in now and with Sister Bell. We have had some incredible experiences together. Next week is transfers and we are almost positive that sister Bell or I will get transferred...we are sad about it because we love working together so much. But it will all work out :)

We got to watch conference on Saturday and Sunday and it was so wonderful! I felt like there were a lot of talks about member missionary work and keeping our covenants. super good. I want to echo what they said and invite you all to pray about one person that you can help bring closer to Christ by Christmas. I know that if you do that you will feel an increased amount of the Savior's love in your own life and you will be so happy! There really is no happier work than missionary work! 

I love you all!! Thank you for your love and support! I'm so thankful for this opportunity and I know that through God's plan we can be soooooo happy in this life and the life to come. 

Keep up all the good work!

Love,

Sister Livingston

Week 19

Hello family!!!!

We had another great week here...to be honest I'm having a hard time remembering what happened this week right now. Everything blends together a lot. haha

This week we did a lot of member visits with President's new 20 minute member visit focus. I really love doing these visits because we get to teach and just talk about the gospel and get to know the members better for 20 minutes. We had lunch with this lady that likes to take the missionaries out and she told us all about her experiences as a missionary when she went on a mission 10 years ago. It was funny though because after we ate a HUGE meal of meat and rice and stuff she got us ice cream from mcdonalds and then she got us donuts at krispey kreme (who knew that korea would have krispey kreme?) we were stuffed to say the least. haha.

On Thursday there was a fun stake activity that we went to. It was a sports day that all of the wards participated in. Sahn came as well and he is super good at sports so it was a great way for him to get involved in the ward and stake. It was so fun to see all of the members outside of church playing sports and having a good time together. The women mainly cheer for the men, except they had a womens relay race around the track. In our ward there are hardly any youth so they had me participate in the race and represent the samsung ward. It was super fun! 

This week we continued to meet with hyun jeong (the girl) and it is going so great with her! She is awesome! She really likes our message and is preparing for baptism. We don't have a specific date for her yet because she just wants to make sure she is ready for herself when she gets baptized because she realizes it is a big commitment. I love teacher her though!

We met with ho chor this week and it was good to see him again since we haven't met with him for a couple of weeks. He just kept talking about how he wants to find his purpose in this life so we have been teaching him the plan of salvation and how this life is a time for us to prepare to meet God. He is so ready for this gospel! It's awesome! I'm excited for him to slowly accept the gospel message and see how it will make his life so much happier and he will have purpose to his life! 

On Sunday during testimony meeting one of the members got up and bore her testimony about how she has loved working with us (the missionaries) and she said that she loves sister bell and sister livingston! It was a tender mercy to hear a member talk about how helping us in our lessons has blessed her life! We had dinner with a family in our ward last night and they invited some youth over that aren't members and we taught them a lesson about prayer. It was really good, especially since we weren't expecting to teach them. Everyday I feel so blessed to get to share the happy message of the atonement. And everyday I am amazed that I can speak Korean!! who would have ever guessed?! 

I will be thinking a lot about all of you this week! Congrats to Jessie and Mark!! I love you both! So happy for you!!! I can't wait to hear all about the wedding next week! FAMILIES ARE FOREVER :)

Love you all!!

Sister Livingston

Week 18

pictures from the hike last p-day!

Hello dear family!!!

So glad to hear that everyone is doing well! Sounds like you are all busy doing great things! Congrats to Greg for selling some of his leather work and for mom selling some of her cards! Congrats to Jessie for being so beautiful :) The pictures I saw looked gorgeous and I can't wait to see more bridals!!! 

This was another great and busy week here in Daejeon Korea. On Monday we went hiking as a district in the mountains and it was really fun! we had a good view of the city and it was fun to do a different activity than the usual on pday. I'll send some pictures. It looked a lot like Virginia forests so it reminded me of home and the creek behind our house. On Monday night we had "FHE" with Sahn and the Ashbys (Senior missionaries) We wanted to go to a member's house but no one was available so we did it with the ashbys at the church. It was really fun though. We reviewed the commandments and played the flour game. Then we brought ice cream to eat because we all know that fhe is not complete without a treat haha. 

We have been trying to meet with members a lot more now. President started a new program where we visit members and teach them for 20 minutes so that we can get more practice teaching. I really like doing these visits because I can get to know the members better and they can see that we are trying and actually capable of teaching and speaking in Korean. Then they will be more likely to give us referrals and hopefully catch the missionary spirit. So we did some of those member visits this week. We are still meeting with Sahn about every other day to review the lessons and teach lesson 5 and rad the scriptures with him. He is doing well. He is just such an awesome kid and such an inspiration and example of faith in changing his life. I'm so happy that I know him.

On Thursday we met a new investigator and he was hilarious. He is kind of an awkward kid and he would always say, "frankly speaking" whenever he started a sentence in english. And he kept saying wow you guys are so beautiful and kind and have such a good heart. He was shocked to learn that we don't have boyfriends haha. he told us that we were like movie stars. It was a super funny time. But when we were talking about our purpose and who God is and how we can prayer he was really interested and liked our message. He came to an activity that we had on Saturday and he really liked that too. We'll see what happens with him though haha. Also another funny story from that day: We were walking down this street right by the college and we noticed this boy kept looking at us. So we kept walking down this other street and from the corner of our eye we could tell that he was following us. We slowed down so he could talk to us if he wanted to, but he slowed down too. (he is college age) We crossed the street and then he crossed and we stopped at a bus stop and then he stopped at the bus stop. Finally we just said hello to him and he said hello and that he saw us and he wants a foreign friend. haha. we explained that we were missionaries, but we love meeting with people and teaching them english and about our church so we got his number to maybe meet him later. It was super funny. People just love having foreign friends here haha. 

On Friday we met a new investigator and guess what...drumroll....IT'S A GIRL!!! Our first girl investigator! I can't even tell you how nice it was to not have to worry about having another adult woman coming to our lesson. And this girl is actually interested in our church! She saw an english ad and called, but she wanted to learn about our church. miracle! So we have met her twice and taught her the whole first lesson. She understands everything and she is going to pray about the BOM and Joseph Smith. We invited her to be baptized on October 19th and she said yes at first, but then she decided she wanted to pray about that too to see if it is right. WE'RE EXCITED!! This girl is awesome. She is 31 years old and super nice. She askes really great questions and I'm really excited for her. Great things are going to happen. I can feel it. Pray for her! Her name is Hyun Jeong.

We had a ward fireside and korean barbeque on saturday and it was really great. Sister Bell spoke in church yesterday and I said the closing prayer in sacrament meeting. woot woot. I am super happy and just so grateful for this opportunity! I love and miss you all greatly! I'm sad I am missing Jessie's wedding, but I know I am where I am supposed to be. Thank you for all of your love and support!!!!!

Love you all!

Sister Livingston