Week 61

Hi family!

 

I can't believe it's already going to be August this week!!! Sounds like you all are having great summers though. Congrats to Matthew for being ordained to an Elder!!! Before we all know it Matthew will be the one on a mission...can't wait to see where he will serve :) Jessie and Mark's new hedgehog is soooo cute!!! haha And I'm excited to hear about the trip to Europe and also Greg and Liss moving to Wisconsin...I hope all goes well!

 

We had a good week here. Staying busy. I feel like it's starting to hit me a little more about how much I miss my old area and the people there. It was like family. But the people here are great too! There are a lot of people in the cheonan ward, so it's been a little harder to try to get to know everyone and build a relationship because we are busy meeting with investigators and we are also trying to cover the onyang branch as well...so it's taking a little while to figure out who is who and how we can help them. But it's good :)

 

This week was Sister Song's baptismal interview and it went really well! She is super ready for baptism. We finished teaching her everything this week so she could be interviewed and feel really prepared before she gets baptized on the 3rd. She has such a strong testimony about prayer. It's really cool to see. She told us about an experience that she had where she was trying to get in contact with a friend who has some depression problems, but she couldn't get in contact and she was worried. So she started to pray (this was at 5 AM) and when she finished praying she looked down at her phone, which was on silent, to see that it was that friend calling her and the first thing that friend said was "don't worry about me, I am okay." Sister Song knew that it was an answer to her prayer. Also the night before her baptism interview she had a dream that she was studying the scriptures with my companion and I and that she really liked the verse that we were reading. Then when she woke up she was trying to remember what verse it was and at first she though Mosiah and then she was like, no it was Moroni. So she turned to Moroni 6:2 and read it and it was about preparing for baptism. We all thought it was the coolest thing!!! The Lord has been blessing her with lots of experiences like this. I think she is going to really help her family to eventually accept the gospel as well through her example. So the Lord is preparing her to be His witness. So cool to be a part of :)

 

Funny story from the week: 

So last night we went with the other sisters serving in our ward to visit a grandma and grandpa that are investigating the church (their son and his family is a member of the church). They have been having a hard time since the Korean elder that had been teaching them went home last transfer and another american missionary came to replace him and the grandparents have a hard time with foreigners, so we went to visit them since my comp is korean and one of the other sisters is korean as well. We were just talking and then at about 8:00 they said that they wanted to order us food. We said no, that's okay, but they really insisted and we couldn't stop them. So they ordered us chinese food that got to their house at about 8:30 PM. Let me just say that I literally LOVE all of the korean food that I've eaten here, but the one thing that I can't eat is the chinese food.................you all know how I feel about eating under pressure haha! let me just say that my meal was this really spicy seafood soup with these thick noodles in it........not something I would normally choose to eat at that time of the day...or really ever haha. But they were watching us eat it and we were all dying because we had obviously eaten dinner already before coming, but they made sure that we ate the whole thing haha. It was hilarious. We were all just laughing so hard after we left their house so full and we had to hurry to get home on time.

 

This week as I've been studying the Book of Mormon I've been finding so many great things. I love the Book of Mormon. I'm in Alma right now about the stripling warriors. One phrase that stuck out to me was how they were willing to lose their lives in order to save their souls. It made me think about whether I am willing to lose my life figuratively in order to save my soul. Throughout my mission I've learned so much about the importance of sacrificing our natural tendencies and desires in order to align our will to God's. Like Chirst said, if we lose our life we shall find it. That's what missionary work is all about. Losing our life in order to find our real life and potential.

 

I love you all!!!!! safe travels to all who are traveling and I hope that you all have a great week!!! I am so thankful for your thoughts and prayers and emails and love!!! I think of you all and pray for you often!!

 

Love

Sister Livingston