Week 78

Hello!!!

We had another fantastic week this week. We are staying supere busy meeting with a lot of people and lots of people are progressing, so it is exciting!!

Yesterday was Brother Kim and Sister Jeong's baptism and it was probably the best baptismal service I have ever been to. It was one of the most spiritual experiences and we just all felt so happy. There were a lot of prayers answered yesterday that helped to make it a special day. I would say that the thing I felt the strongest yesterday was that families really are forever. This is what I wrote in my journal yesterday:

"Today was 김정주형제님 (84yrs old) and 정금랑자매님's (83 yrs old) baptism. IT was the BEST baptism I have been to yet. The spirit was so strong and there was such a strong feeling of love in the room-love for one another and love for God and this gospel. I think it was definitely a once in a lifetime experience. 정금랑자매님 (Sister Jeong) just started bawling when the baptismal service started. She just hunched over and was crying as we sang the opening hymn. She was so overcome with the spirit and I think so filled with the love of God, she couldn't contain it. 조광진형제님 (Brother Jo) Came from Busan to baptize them (He was an elder that served here and taught them before he went home). 김담윤형제님 (their son) bore his testimony and it was really tender. He got emotional and he said that he is happy because now that his parents know this church is true, when they pass on they will be able to let their other ancestors know this is true. This family will get to be sealed in the temple and go to the Celestial Kingdom together. I know that's true and it was beautiful to get to participate in. Sister Ha and I sang the song "I Need Thee Every Hour" for a special musical number. After the baptism the Bishop spoke and talked about how Brother Kim will receive the priesthood and pass and bless the sacrament and then he will go to the temple with his wife and the will be sealed together for eternity. What a beautiful day that will be! The closing song was "Nearer My God to Thee" and I could hardly sing it, I was too emotional. I was so happy for them and I was reminded that THIS is why I came on a mission. And I felt a feeling of approval from the Lord and Heavenly Father for the work that I've dong here on my mission. I know that I will continue to be blessed because of the service that I have given. Such a happy day!"

Yesterday was a great day. We were talking with the other sisters that live in our house and we all thought that everyone was probably dancing in the spirit world because they are soooo happy. That's what this work and this life is all about. Finding that happiness and sharing it with others. We receive that fulness of joy when we participate in the work of the Lord because we are becoming a little bit more like Him.

I love you all and am so thankful for you!!!!!! I hope you have a very happy thanksgiving!

Love

Sister Livingston

Week 77

Hey all!!

This has been an interesting week. It was filled with lots of good news and also some sad news...

We had our zone conference this week and I did a training on becoming one. Talked about how Heavenly Father and Jesus Christ are the perfect example of being one because of their love and the Savior's sacrifice to follow the will of the Father. We applied it to our lives as missionaries and invited the missionaries to make a list of things that they want to do with their companion this transfer in order to become one with each other. It ended up going well and I appreciated the opportunity to bear my testimony to the missionaries in my zone before I go home.

We had the first snow this week!!!!! It wasn't very much snow and didn't stick at all, but we could see it falling!! And one day we were walking outside and it started to rain, so we took a bus and when we got out of the bus it started to hail on us!!!! My companion and I were so surprised and we ran to the nearest store to hide under this tent that was outside and then ran to the church...definitely wasn't expecting to get hailed on this week haha. The temperature drastically dropped this week...winter has officially begun!

Friday morning ended up being a really sad start to our day. We woke up to having some texts on our phone from our investigators...3 of our progressing investigators dropped us that morning....so sad!! one of them got busy with a part time job and the other two were the kids that have been coming to church and progressing so well! The girl texted us that they couldn't meet anymore and she was really sad about it. We tried to contact their mother again, but she isn't answering our calls...we are assuming that the mother didn't want them to attend church anymore. It was just so all of the sudden and caught both my companion and I really off guard. We'll just say that some tears were shed that morning, but since then we have been blessed with some other miracles.

On Saturday we were able to meet with Hayree, who is 16 years old and her aunt is a memebr of our ward and we could set a new baptismal date with her. She is planning to be baptized on December 7th. And The grandparent investigators that we are teaching are ready to be baptized on Sunday, the 23rd!! We also were able to meet some new investigators this week as well, so the Lord has been blessing us a lot.

I am very thankful for this opportunity to serve the Lord here in Korea!! I'm really excited for Brother Kim and Sister Jeong to be baptized on Sunday. I'm excited for waht it means for their family. Yesterday we finished the last lesson and their son was teaching it. He taught about eternal marriage and the temple and the priesthood and it was so good! The grandma especially doesn't remember everything, but she said that she has always prayed that she would be able to live eternally with Heavenly Father, so she was really glad to hear that the purpose of our life is to be sealed in the temple in order to live with God and continue to progress as a family. She said that she was really grateful to come to know the Mormon Church so that she can prepare to do that. It was really sweet!!

I love you all!! And I'm excited to see you in a month!!!!

Love

Sister Livingston

Week 76

Hello dear family!!

We had another great week here in Cheonan Korea! We have been busy and are excited to be starting another transfer today...there is so much potential and lots of good things happening right now, so we are feeling really happy and grateful!

Let me just say that I LOVE my companion. She is the best. Last week on Thursday when we did our weekly planning for the next week and set goals for the transfer we decided on a motto for our last transfer together. Out motto is "All is well, all is well!" or in Korean, "모든 것 잘 되리!" We are working really hard to become one and just give everything we can this transfer. We have already seen a lot of miracles and are expecting to see more. It's hard for me to put into words how I am feeling right now. If you read Alma 26 that's probably as close as I can get to expressing it. Missionary work is the best!

Yesterday we were able to set a baptismal date for two of our investigators. They are the parents of a member in our ward (so they are probably in their 80s I would guess). They have been coming to church with their son and his family for quite some time now and we the son has been teaching the lessons to his parents with us during Sunday School at church. They are almost done with the lessons and they agreed to be baptized on November 23rd!! It's so exciting to think of their family all becoming one in the gospel! I'm really happy for their family and that in a year from now they will be able to go to the temple together to be sealed!!!! Families are just the best! I know that their family has been praying for the grandparents to accept the gospel for a long time, so it is a miracle for all of them :)

This week we had MLC, so all of the missionary leaders met with President Shin and received training and talked about our goals. We especially talked about becoming one as a mission, so we will do some more training on that on Tuesday at our combined district metting. (Pray for me that I will do well on my training on tuesday:))

Our other investigators are doing well. Lots of people are busy and can't meet, but the 13 and 11 year old kids are doing really well. They came to church again yesterday and liked it. The 11 year old girl is going to participate in the Primary Program next week, so that's exciting! We taught them about baptism and they said that they wanted to be baptized! We just need to meet with their parents and get their permission for them to receive baptism. They are both great kids who love coming to church and have a belief in God and want to follow Jesus Christ. So I pray that they will be a good example for their family and their family will also have the desire to learn more about our church someday. (Their parents are Buddhist).

Everything is going really well! I'm excited to see what's in store for this last transfer. I know that I have been so blessed to meet and come to love so many people here in Korea. I LOVE the scriptures and I am so thankful for them. I know that through reading the Book of Mormon we become happier and we will feel God's love. I think one of the things I will miss the most from my mission is having the time already set aside for me to study the scriptures for an hour everyday. Something that I definitely want to keep up is having a daily personal study. I hope that you all take the time as well to study the scriptures everyday. It's the best!!

I love you all and am so thankful for you!! God  be with you till we meet again!!

Love,

Sister Livingston

p.s. last pday we went to this awesome old school korean village and had a blast taking pictures ane we also ate delicious hand made noodle soup. best pday ever!!

Week 75

Hey all!!

Sorry I don't have a lot of time to write this email today...lots to do, but we had another great and crazy week here. We were really busy preparing for the Halloween party this week and meeting with investigators and I got sick, but I'm feeling a lot better now! Today is transfer calls so that means that next week is the start of my last transfer!!!! We just got transfer calls and I am staying with my companion Sister Ha!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!! BEST NEWS EVER!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!! We are going to rock this last transfer together! We have a lot of people that are progressing and we hope to be able to help get baptized :) That means that I think there is only 6 more times to email you all before I get home...crazy!!

This week on Monday we went to Daejeon to the mission office for my companion to take an english test so I got to see President and Sister Shin and the senior couple missionaries...yay!!

This week a lot of people progressed, so that was exciting! Two kids that we are teaching came to church yesterday! We picked them up and they really liked it so hopefully they will keep coming!

Our Halloween party was a major success!!!!!!!!!!!!!! there were a lot or people that came and really enjoyed it. We worked really hard to make it fun and to have a lot of investigators attend. I was a cat (actually a pink leopard but...I'll send you some pics).

 Yesterday while I was at church I was overcome with the feeling of just love and gratitude. I felt and overwhelming feeling of just love for the people that I am serving here. I feel like I don't know the people in this ward as well as I did in my last ward, so sometimes that's been hard, but the Lord blessed me with the ability to just love them, so I was grateful for that. I hope you all have a great week and I love you all so much!!!

Sorry this email is so short!! But I hope you can feel my love!!

Love

Sister Livingston