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