Happy New Year!

So you may want to know what we do here in Korea to celebrate Christmas. Well, for Koreans Christmas is a date holiday. It is like Valentines Day. If you don't have a date, you don't celebrate. Haha. Some Koreans do celebrate it with their family, but especially those among the younger generation treat is as a date holiday. So on Christmas, there were a LOT of couples out. And Korean couples are so cheesy. It is super funny.

For Christmas as missionaries, our zone met together and caroled in front of one of the big department stores in our area. We sang all sorts of Christmas songs in Korean and English. So many people took people selfies with us. I mean a group of  American missionaries singing Christmas carols in the busy and freezing streets of Korea looks very... well the Koreans would use the word 신기하다. It means interesting. But yeah... It was way fun! :) We gave out a lot of "A Savior is Born" proselyting cards and ended up in a lot of pictures. It was freezing... but it was fun. :)

On Christmas Eve, we had a lot of fun adventures. We made cookies with one of our investigators! :) A week before she had handed me her phone and had told me to look up an American cookie recipe. I didn't know where to look, so I made her download Pinterest. That's where we found an easy snowball cookie recipe. We got most of the ingredients (some were lacking as we are in Korea) and used her small toaster oven to make them (Koreans don't have ovens most of the time).  They ended up being super delicious though! We enjoyed eating cookies together and shared the two church Christmas videos: He is the Gift, and A Savior is Born. She really enjoyed them. It was SO fun and made Christmas Eve feel like Christmas Eve, and not just a normal missionary day. :) Then the night of Christmas Eve, our ward combined with another ward and had a Christmas party. And it was CRAZY. Right before the party began, one of the members ran up to me and asked if I could accompany basically the whole program. The pianist that was planning on coming fell through. So up until the performance part of the night, I was running around rehearsing numbers with different groups and doing my best to help every one that I could. I felt a little bit like I was being yanked around, but I was happy to serve and I love playing the piano, so I had no complaints. :)  I am just thankful that I can understand enough Korean to accompany people now. :)

On Saturday we had quite the lesson with a less active, recent convert, and investigator. Somehow we ended up teaching all of them together, all at the same time. They all came to English class, became friends, and met with us afterwards for more English help and to hear the gospel. So cool! And the even crazier thing was, the recent convert is Chinese, the investigator is Japanese, and the less active is Korean. And we are of course American. Only one of us was speaking our native language (Korean), the rest of use were speaking in Korean, which was our second language. It was super cool! :) Unfortunately we found out that the investigator lives in the Daejon Mission, so we will have to refer her. But it was a super good lesson, and she accepted a soft baptismal commitment and prayed for the first time. :)

Well I can't believe Christmas is over, but I guess it is time to welcome in the new year. I have to admit that I hate January, but I will make the best of it. I don't like the cold but hey, when filled with a testimony it can become a warm fire right? Or so we hope. Haha.

Anyway my New Years resolution is to read the Book of Mormon all the way through again before I finish my mission. I have five months so I have plenty of time. :)

It was SO good skyping with everyone on Christmas Eve. Love and miss you all!

Love, Sister Maughan

The cookies we made! :)

Cookie selfie cuz why not? :) (they were supposed to be snowballs but the lack of powdered sugar made them look not like snowballs and just like brownie balls haha.)

cookies selfie. :)

Christmas morning before the presents were unwrapped. Charlie brown Christmas tree. :)

this was my Christmas lunch. (Kimbab).

LOOK ~ LEXIE, HAILEE AND LYDIA! :)

Sister Missionaries! :)

MERRY CHRISTMAS!

I hope that all of you have an amazing Christmas this week! I wish that Christmas were as big of a thing in Korea as it is in America. But it is still gonna be fun. :) We are going to do a zone proselyting activity on Christmas. We will probably wrap up Book of Mormons and give them away as gifts, carol, street contact etc. It should be fun! :)

This week we had zone Christmas Conference and it was SO GOOD. President and Sister Morrise are so amazing. After some training, we went up to the mission home with our zone. Since our zone only has 18 missionaries, it was pretty easy to fit us all up in the Morrise's house. We sung Christmas songs together as we read the Christmas story, and ended by sharing testimonies in the low lights of the Christmas tree.

So Sunday we had a miracle! A recent convert/less active came to church! She was baptized about 2 years ago, but hasn't been to church since she was baptized. Sister Capener and I called her one night and set up an appointment to meet. She doesn't really have a testimony, but we were able to build a relationship with her and start teaching her again. Sunday, she texted us halfway through the first hour asking us where she should go. My mouth dropped and we booked it out of Young Women's to meet her at the door.

Anyway, this less active met our other recent convert. This recent convert is Chinese and is the most solid recent convert I have ever met. But lets just say, they became friends. Really fast. They exchanged numbers and started texting back and forth during church. (I don't support texting during church... but I do support making friends ;) ) Anyway, it turns out that our less active sister wants to learn Chinese, and our recent convert is Chinese, so they are going to study together. It was such a miracle. It is so much easier to come to church if you have a friend, and I have faith that we will reactive this less active while strengthening our recent convert. And really, they are both recent converts. So they can strengthen each other together. :)

So since it is Christmas this week, I want to leave you with my testimony of Christ. I have been reading in Luke about Christ's life, and I am amazed at the grace and power of our Savior. He literally helped every one that He could. He blessed everyone that He could. He spread the gospel to everyone that He could. Jesus Christ did everything for everyone. He did everything for me, and He did everything for you. He was born, lived, and returned to His father. He suffered pain and temptations just like us. But He endured perfectly to the end, so that when we slip up, we can start over again, and we too, can return to our Father in Heaven. Because of Jesus Christ, we can overcome all things, and we can live with God again. I know that He loves us, and I love Him more now than I ever have before.

예수 그리스도는 살아계십니다. 그분은 우리 구주 이십니다. 그분은 우리를 사랑하십니다.

Well I can't wait to Skype the family this week! Love and miss you all so much!

메리 크리스마스! Merry Christmas! :)

Love, Sister Maughan

We found some Angel wings. :)

The district.

Star wars is big in Korea too. :)

Filled with Love

So this last week Sister Capener and I managed to run into like every bible basher or 전도사 (jeondo-sa) that we possibly could. 전도사 means "gospel preaching person" and there are a lot of them on the streets. We share the street with a ton of other churches, and for some reason they really like to pick on the Mormons. The funny thing is, I don't know why they like picking on us. As soon as they start trying to fight with us, my Korean flies out the door. Mostly because well, I don't wanna fight. And I can pull the "I am a foreigner and can't speak Korean" card if I have to. Anyway, they like to talk to us and try to fight with us, even though it is pretty clear we are not Korean and can't understand half of what they say. But the first time we were attacked this week, I was just super kind to them. I answered all their questions that included things like "Where are you from? Where do you live now? How long have you been in Korea?" They tried to get me to come into their church house but I kindly told them we had to go. I apologized for having to leave quickly but told them thank you for talking to us and to have a good day. The funny thing is, while we were trapped by 전도사s there were a lot of people watching us, and I think they were impressed at how we handled it. Rather than fighting, we chose to be kind. I mean Jesus wouldn't choose to fight, so why should we?

The second encounter we had with a 전도사 was with our investigator. This 전도사 was a Jehovah's Witness who literally popped out of now where. We were outside playing with our investigator's dog at a playground when this lady just came up to us. She asked us where we were from and handed us an English pamphlet. I read the name of the church and sighed a bit. There are Jehovah's Witnesses every where in Korea I swear. I thought to myself, "no.. not in front of our investigator." For some reason though, I had an idea. Why not just try and relate to this lady? So I asked her how it was talking to people on the streets, if it was hard or not. I told her it is hard for us too and that we get rejected a lot. I told her that all we are trying to do was share Christ's love. She went with it really well for a while, and the spirit was strong. I then brought up Christmas and the lady decided that that was the turning point. She freaked out and said that Christmas wasn't Christ's actual birthday and that we shouldn't celebrate it. I told her that it was just a special time to remember Christ. This is when the miracle happened. Our investigator came up to us and looked at the lady. She said "I am not Mormon. But I believe in the same Christ that these two girls do. And we all know that Christ wasn't actually born on December 25th. But that is an unimportant detail, and Christmas is just a special time to remember Him." She then went on to testify about her beliefs and defend our own. She was INCREDIBLE. I was so proud of her! The Jehovah's Witness lady walked away after that. And I said a prayer for her in my heart. I knew that she was just trying to share her beliefs as we are, but it is hard to go up against the truth of the gospel.

After this encounter, we sat down on a bench with our investigator. We had been teaching her about the Holy Ghost these past few weeks, and she had a moment of revelation. I asked her if what the lady had said did anything to change what she believed. She said "No, words can't change what I believe. I believe what I believe because of what I feel." Then she realized that that feeling was the Holy Ghost, and that only God, through the Holy Ghost, can change what she believes. We had a super deep talk about the Holy Ghost and about Christ and His love for everyone.

Which leads me to why I named this email, "Filled with Love." Both times we encountered people fighting against us, I felt a huge amount of love for these people. Because of that love, I didn't fight with them, but was rather kind to them. I didn't want them to walk away feeling like they had won, or that we had won, but rather wanted them to walk away and say, "Wow, those Mormons were so nice." I never thought I would love someone who wanted to fight against me. But I have felt it. And that is why and how Heavenly Father loves all His children. I imagine this is how He feels towards those who rebel against Him. Heavenly Father loves even those who rebel.

That being said, we still shouldn't rebel against Him. Haha. Anyway, love you all and miss you always! I am excited to skype with you next week! :)

Love, Sister Maughan

Christmas Hope

Christmas is coming SO FAST. I can't believe I am going on round two of the holidays on my mission. But I am so honored to be a missionary during the holidays. It is so special to celebrate Christ's birth while representing Him here in Korea. The stores here have started playing Christmas music... in ENGLISH. I mean a few are in Korean but since Christmas isn't really a big Korean holiday, most of the Christmas music is in English. A few places have put up Christmas trees and Christmas lights. It is definitely nothing compared to Christmas in America, but the little hints of the season that we see and hear here and there and well appreciated. :)

If you haven't seen the new Christmas initiative the church is putting out this year... go look it up. It is super good, and it has helped us in our proselyting. We have cute little cards that we can give to people with the website on it, in Korean. :) The website, in English, is: https://www.mormon.org/christmas
I super suggest watching the video. :)

So this week I had to give a zone training, and it was an adventure as always. I am always nervous before zone trainings. During personal study on Wednesday, I sat there and looked at my notes from Mission Leadership Council meeting and looked at the page full of the missionaries' pictures in our zone. I was trying to get inspiration for what exactly needed to be shared. I thought about each missionary and how I could help them. I was legitimately at a loss for what to share.

Thursday rolled around (the very day of zone training) and I started planning for it that morning. Finally I knew what I was going to share. I can testify that if we open our mouth, it will be filled, and that God will give us what we need to say, in the hour that we will say it. I ended up sharing about hope and about being positive. I kind of ran out of time because my training was at the end of zone training, but I ended by talking about Christ being the ultimate example of hope, and then I shared the Christmas video (the one with the url above). Most of the missionaries hadn't seen it yet. After the video, I got up and basically told the zone that I was going to sit down for the rest of my training, and that it would be a testimony meeting for 20 minutes. I bore my testimony on hope and Christ and sat down. After I sat down, so many good things happened.

So many missionaries got up and said that zone training... everything from what the Zone Leaders trained on to what I trained on... was exactly what they needed.

And the funny thing was... my training was exactly what I needed as well. I had been a little bit down because two weeks ago, we had seven investigators. This week, we have three. Four of our investigators either got too busy to meet, or just weren't progressing so we had to drop them. Two of them had accepted baptismal invitations but just got too busy to meet us, and dropped us. I needed the hope talk too. And from the testimonies of other missionaries, I learned that I had not been the only one feeling a little down. Almost every missionary that stood up had been feeling the same way, and needed that zone training just as much as I did.

I know that the Lord is allowing us to lose investigators to make space for new ones. And I also know that Satan was trying to get all of us missionaries down because we have been trying so hard to have faith. Like I have said, the more faith we have, the harder Satan works on us. But we just have to turn to our faith and remember to hope for good things to happen. If our faith and hope is in the Lord we will not fail. Sometimes we do have to lift each other up, and I am so thankful that I got to be a part of that zone training on Thursday. But when we rely on the Lord, we will not fail.

I love you and miss you all! You should go watch that video now if you haven't seen it yet. ;)

Love, Sister Maughan

This is Korea from the 30th floor.

Christmas tree at the Church house.

Our district with our Ward Mission leader and a recent convert.

us with a little girl in our ward. :)

it's us again!

Watching the World Burn From the 16th Floor

If only you could see the world from a missionary's perspective. We only get updates on what is happening in the world once a week, but from what I can see... The Second Coming is on its way. All this stuff happening with ISIS and whatnot... and then you add in the amount of people doing drugs, alcohol, breaking the law of chastity, getting addicted to things they shouldn't, the family being destroyed.... The world is burning. And we are watching it burn from the 16th floor of our apartment building in Incheon, South Korea. I am not exaggerating when I say that it is important, now more than ever before, to be a strong member of God's army. And that doesn't just mean me as a missionary, that means you as members of the church as well.

Okay, now that the intense stuff is over, I will lighten the mood up. ;)

Yesterday I got to accompany the primary kids for the primary program! :) It was SO FUN. Korean kids are the cutest. Maybe I am biased. But they are seriously adorable.

This week was another one of those weeks where I honestly don't remember what happened. My mind is mush. But I can say one thing that I have realized recently. I LOVE KOREAN. I love speaking it. I don't know why it feels so natural to speak Korean, but it does. I am not fluent. I still don't know what people are saying half the time. But I understand and speak enough to hold a conversation. I have been in Korea for about 11 months now, and while I don't think I will ever get fluent on my mission, I finally feel EFFECTIVE. It is the best feeling ever and I am so thankful for the opportunity to speak Korean.

Okay so another random thing... I have to give a shout out to the Nashville Tribute Band. We have been addicted to the album, "Redeemer" this last week. Every time we listen to it we end up in this long conversation about Jesus Christ and how it would be like to live during the time He was here on the earth. Every moment we are home... lunch... dinner... after planning at night... we turn it on. The music does exactly what it should for missionaries, it turns our thoughts to Christ. :) Shout out to Grandma Stucki for sending it to me for my birthday.

That leads me to my next topic. Since I literally cannot remember what we did this week, I just want to bear you my testimony about Christ. Since Christmas is on its way, we have been refocusing our thoughts on Christ and His life on the earth. He died for each and every one of us. He suffered endless pain so that we could be happy on earth, and live with our Father in Heaven again. I have never had such a great appreciation for Christ as I do now. After almost 13 months of wearing the name "Jesus Christ" on my shoulder, every single day, I have learned to appreciate Him so much. Every single day we have to think and act as Christ would. It is SO hard. He was so perfect. And we are so imperfect. But I have felt His love for others, and I have seen His work moving along. Every time I meet with an investigator, my heart swells with love for them. And the amount of love I have for them is not my love alone, but the love of Christ. I didn't know it was possible to love someone so much, to want to give them everything, like I do now. All I want is for each of the people I meet with to have the opportunity to live with God again. And when they reject the opportunity, my heart breaks. I imagine this is just a taste of what Heavenly Father and Jesus Christ feel when His children reject the gospel. But I am so thankful for the opportunity to serve as a missionary and I am so happy to be serving in Korea at this time. :)

I love you all and miss you so much! I hope you had a wonderful Thanksgiving! We ended up going to a buffet with the sisters that we live with. :) Super fun! Anyway, have a great week!

Love, Sister Maughan

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The view from our window on the 16th floor.

Our Christmas tree!

THANKSGIVING!!!!

Went on exchanges with Sister Johnson this week! She is the other softball player who got scholarships to pretty much everywhere and had a chance to almost play on team USA....pretty cool!

We found Christmas lights! and it's freezing again by the way.....we be bundling up!

One Small Step For Man....

One leap for Sister Maughan! I GOT TO SEE THE OCEAN. Kind of. Okay, I got to see an inlet of the ocean. But I got to see the water and the wet sand and smell the fishes... I got to hear the seagulls and watch them dive into the water. I still haven't gotten to see the ocean ocean yet... but this was the closest I have ever gotten to seeing the ocean. So I am content. Not satisfied, but content. :)

This last week we put up the Christmas tree! We bought a five dollar Charlie Brown Christmas tree. It is only like a foot and a half tall, but we covered it in lights and mini ornaments. We made a tree skirt out of a scarf, and put a bow on top of the tree. We did it all while listening to Christmas music. :) We also bought a bunch of Christmas lights and covered our apartment in them. Our apartment looks so good right now! Especially because a couple of weeks ago, we dragged a huge couch out of the trash and put in in our apartment. That sounds gross... but trash here works so differently. If you wanna throw something large away, you just put it outside in front of your apartment complex and put a sticker on it signifying that it is garbage. Missionaries are professional dumpster divers. Really. Except we don't have to get in the dumpster. If there is a couch on the side of the street that looks pretty nice, we just drag it up to our apartment and clean it. And that is exactly what we did. :)

So we have given each of our current 5 investigators a baptismal commitment. 4 of the 5 accepted a soft baptismal commitment. The one who didn't is a completely English interest investigator. A few weeks ago we got a new investigator who started out as English interest expressed sincere gospel interest last week because her father is sick and she is worried about him passing away. She said she doesn't know where he will go after that. She kept saying "I won't get to see him again, right?" Well, that is the beauty of the gospel. We WILL get to see our families again. I took the opportunity to testify that we can live with God again, and we can see our families again. The spirit was so strong. It is so amazing that we as missionaries get the opportunity to promise others that there is a greater and more beautiful plan. God's plan is beautiful, and I am so thankful for it.

This last Sunday, we decided to attend Young Women's instead of Relief Society. What we saw there in Young Women's broke my heart. None of the young women wanted to be there. Half of them were sleeping. The other half were doing homework. No one was listening to their leaders. When the leaders announced that there would be an activity this week, the young women all groaned. Satan has his grip on them SO strong. I know that when you are in high school, it can be hard to want to go to church. It can be hard to want to attend church activities. But it shouldn't be THIS hard. They didn't even stand to say the Young Women's Theme. We now know what our next project in the ward will be. If there is any one who needs strengthening right now, it is the young women. I am not sure how exactly to get them excited about church, but we will keep praying about how to help them. Satan is stronger than we realize, and he will take advantage of us if we let him. We have to be strong. These young women have to be strong. And we are here to save them from the power of Satan. :) Sometimes missionaries have to be superheroes too. ;)

Well Happy Thanksgiving to everyone! I hope you get to eat lots of yummy food, and remember to thank the Lord for all He has given you! Say a prayer of thanks each night, and I know that you will feel His love stronger than ever. I will be spending Thanksgiving at a buffet with our district! It should be fun. :)

Love and miss you all!

Love, Sister Maughan

by the ocean inlet.

I had to fight a giant crab to get to the ocean inlet haha.

I saw part of the ocean! kind of! :) yes that is a boat.

on exchanges with Sister Sutton! ( I have lived with here for 6 months now.)

Gangnam Style

So this week we got to go to the temple on Thursday! I seriously love the temple, and I can't imagine serving as a missionary without the opportunity to attend the temple every transfer. After the temple we went to GANGNAM. In case you didn't really know what Gangnam is... it is a city. A super rich city. It is part of Seoul but it has some great shopping! :) We did some Christmas shopping there, so it was pretty fun. I got some good pictures too! :)

So I don't really remember what happened this last week, I am gonna be honest. This happens sometimes, though I don't really know why. But I will tell you a funny story to keep this entertaining.

Last Sunday, Sister Capener and I had to take on the responsibility of copying around 200 papers for our member record book. The elders had taken all the records and updated them, organized them, and alphabetized them. But we needed to copy everything to make our book all pretty, too. So we copied all 200 exactly in the same order that theirs was. We made sure to put their book back together and keep it organized as we copied. We kept all our copies in order, we just didn't have sheet protectors to put them in yet, so we kept them in a stack in our binder. It took us around 3 hours, but we completed the task. :) We stepped outside of the church to walk home, and the cross walk light turned green. By the time we got to the crosswalk, we had 10 seconds to get across the intersection, so we started running. Halfway through the intersection... it happened. Papers... 200 freshly copied, freshly organized member records, whipped up into the air in the middle of a busy intersection. It looked like a snow ball had exploded. And not to mention the fact that there was 5 seconds left for us to cross the street, and Korean drivers don't yield to pedestrians. And we are foreigners, so all the cars in the intersection were already filled with people watching us. I looked at Sister Capener with big eyes, and we both knew what we had to do. We started laughing hysterically as we ran around the road, picking up the pieces of paper. Why were we laughing? I don't really know. There were cars honking, people swerving around us... but somehow we knew we were protected. We should have probably been crying, but for some reason we both displayed our fear in laughter. As if we didn't look strange enough--two white girls running around in the middle of an intersection gathering up papers with huge smiles on their faces--Sister Capener was carrying a pink plastic hammer that a member had given to us (we don't really know why ).  So she had a pink toy hammer in one hand, and was picking up papers with the other.  Just imagine that picture. :) Luckily,  we gathered up all the papers in a big bundle and ran off to the side of the road.  We made it safely to the sidewalk and sunk into Kimchi Squat position (the squat that Koreans all do), and laughed our heads off.

Okay, so it was probably funnier to us. But still... it was an adventure. :)

This last week we had a miracle. This lady called us asking for the Bupyeong city missionaries. We said we were the ones she was looking for, and soon we had a time set up to meet. She was originally English interest, but when we taught the gospel section of the meeting, she lit up with interest. She wants to know about God because she has never attended any church of any kind. She is a nurse, so we get along quite well. ;) We asked her if she would be baptized in the first lesson... a step of major faith for us... and she said yes! She said that if she comes to know the gospel is true, she will be baptized. We are still shooting for a white Christmas! :)

Anyway, love you all and miss you always!

We are gangstas!

Seoul Temple

Korea is getting pretty!

This is the longest my hair has ever been!

Me and my beautiful Companion.

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12 Months Down!

Well... I don't know how that happened. Where did the last 12 months of my life go? I have decided that when you are a missionary, you step up to a higher plane that is closer to heaven, and time runs a bit more like God's time does. And by that, I mean time flies. Have you ever heard that 1000 years on earth is 2 hours in heaven? I heard that in seminary at one point. I can't promise you it is exact doctrine, but I feel like as a missionary, our time changes too. 12 months as a missionary feels like 6 months as a normal person. I don't understand.  But I am sure my family appreciates the passing time, though I think it feels faster for me than for them. ;) We went to an American buffet to celebrate my year mark, and one of our investigators gave us a chocolate cake to congratulate me. ;) So 잘 목었습니다! We ate well. :)

Okay so this week I gave my first zone training. It was a bit scary, I am not going to lie. But it ended up being okay, I think. I mean there were a lot of people participating and commenting, and I saw a lot of missionaries taking notes, so I think it was good. :)

Do you remember when I sent my email about faith? Well, we have continued putting our faith to the test. And Sister Capener and I have seen miracle after miracle. We have two investigators who have agreed to be baptized, they just don't have a date yet. We handed out 5 Book of Mormons last week which is super rare for Korea. We also got 4 numbers from people off the street and taught a street lesson which ended in a prayer. We pray so much more during the day, and we have realized that if we promise God that we are going to, for instance, give out a Book of Mormon. He won't let us get home until we give one out. As in, God keeps people on the streets for us to talk to until we find the one to give the Book of Mormon to. It is the coolest thing. :)

Our 4 sister house is doing this thing to celebrate the holidays missionary style. We have a big window in the back of our main room, and we are going to decorate it in snow flakes. We only get to put a snow flake up if we hand out a Book of Mormon though. For each Book of Mormon we hand out, we get to put a snow flake up. Also, we are making a Christmas tree, and for each name card or pamphlet we give out, we get to put ornaments on the tree. And to top it all off, we are shooting for a White Christmas. What color do people wear when they are baptized? WHITE! :) So we want a white Christmas. Our goal is to have an investigator baptized by Christmas. We know we can do it, because it has been promised to us by an apostle that even in Korea, we can baptize someone every month. There are enough prepared people here. :) Plus, what better Christmas gift can we give to the Savior than to bring one of Heavenly Father's children unto Him? :)

Well this week is temple week, so we get to go to the temple on Thursday. I am SO EXCITED. I love the temple so much. :)

Also, I know its kind of weird we are already decorating our house for Christmas... but considering how fast time goes on a mission, Christmas will be here in no time. What feels like the amount of time from December 1st to December 25th in the normal world, is the same amount of time it feels from now to December 25th as a missionary. Does that make sense?... if not... haha my English skills have plummeted anyway so it doesn't surprise me. Haha. Okay enough rambling.

LOVE YOU ALL! MISS YOU ALWAYS!

My new beautiful model companion! :) Sister C

                                                                          Me and my C!!!!

Year mark! I also gave a training this day (45 minute talk).

I got a cake from our investigator for my one year mark! :)

Halloween?

I labeled this email as "Halloween" with a question mark because I am gonna be honest... I totally missed Halloween. I went to bed on Saturday night, and then I realized that the next day was November 1st. That led me to realize that I had let Halloween totally just blow by me. So... Happy late Halloween! :)

Transfers were this week, and I am now with Sister Capener. She is seriously adorable. Her faith is something that I haven't seen from many missionaries yet, and I won't let it dim even a little during our transfers together. I am going to let her fire spread to me, and hopefully to others as well. She is amazing and I have already learned so much from her. She is a fairly new missionary still, having only been in Korea for three months. She has still has greenie fire, and I am hoping to catch some of it. :)

So I got a bit of a surprise call from President Morrise this last week. Our sweet Sister Training Leader went home last week because of some unfortunate family occurrences, and that left Incheon Zone without a Sister Training Leader. During a family history meeting at our church, our phone started buzzing and I looked down to see President Morrise's name on the Caller ID. I tapped Sister Capener and we walked out into the hallway to answer it. During the phone call, President Morrise just asked me a few simple questions about my health, and said that he had been thinking about me. I politely thanked him and then we ended the phone call. "That was kinda weird," I thought to myself. Then ten minutes later, I get another call from President Morrise that began with him telling me in Korean that God wanted me to be the new Incheon Zone Sister Training Leader. My jaw dropped as my heart was beating a million miles an hour, and Sister Capener laughed at my reaction. He then told me all the details about it and everything, and I accepted the assignment. So yeah, I am the Sister Training Leader of our zone now, and I have to give a training in front of our zone on Thursday. I am kind of nervous, but excited too. Haha wish me luck. ;)

So this week we decided to put our faith to the test. We asked all three of the investigators we met with in they would be baptized. And one of them was a 100% English Interest only investigator that we were meeting with for the first time. Two of the three said that if they come to know that the gospel is true, they will get baptized. The English interest investigator said no, but was still willing to listen to our gospel message and help us with our Korean. She even thought we were kind of cute for trying so hard. But hey, none of the relationships with our investigators were ruined, and all three baptismal commitments ended in good things. God really does help us when we trust Him.:)

Also, since we have been trying to strengthen our faith, we have also been running into a lot of interesting situations on the streets. Satan knows what we are trying to do, and he is sending everyone he can send to stop us on our way. We ran into one lady who got literally an inch away from our faces and started yelling at us in very rude Korean about how "It's not the true gospel!" She wouldn't leave us, so we tried talking to some other people, but she kept following us. Kind of the creeps. I politely said "Go away" in Korean, and then said "Have a nice day." Finally she walked away, but she was the one defeated because I was nice to her even after she had yelled at us for five minutes. She turned around and glared at us, telling us once again that our gospel wasn't true, but we just smiled politely back. She muttered some more stuff and continued walking away. Then we ran into this guy who pointed to our church building (he didn't think we could speak Korean), so we nodded and said "yes, that is our church." He then waved his hand in our faces and said "No!" in English, then continued to repeat the Korean word for cult. I asked him why he thought that, but he just continued saying the words, "no" and "cult." We just let him go on his way. We know we are doing the right thing, because we have never experienced so much persecution. But hey, that's what happens when you act on your faith. :)

Love always, Sister Maughan

BUGS!

Imagine this. You lay down on the floor (okay the mat on the floor but still basically the floor) to go to sleep at night. You just finished your forever long missionary prayer, and you are ready to knock out for the night. After thinking about your plans for the next day one last time, you begin to lull away into sleep. And then, it happens. That obnoxious buzzing in your ear that has been going on for two weeks now. You have heard it, your companion has heard it, and the other sisters you live with have heard it. It happens every night. You swat around your ear and the bug flies away long enough for you to start falling asleep again. But then it is back once you start dreaming. Finally it moves on to another sister. But then, an hour or two later, you are forced awake by an itch on the top of your foot that just cannot be ignored. You walk into the bathroom and flip the bathroom light on to find yet another mosquito bite. You remember you didn't put mosquito spray on that night, so you spray yourself so that you can sleep in peace.

Korean bugs are obnoxious. I thought I knew mosquitoes in America. But American mosquitos are wimps compared to the mosquitoes here. And whatever bug flies around our heads at night... we still haven't found it. It hides in our house during the day and bugs us at night. Its okay though, supposedly winter is on its way and then the mosquitoes will leave. And hopefully mystery bug will leave with them. :)

Anyway, now that I got that part of the email over with. I can tell you what all happened this week. So let me start out with TRANSFER CALLS. Yep transfers are Wednesday, and things will be changing a bit. Sister Sweetnam is going to 수원 zone (Su-won) and I will be companions with Sister Capener. I hope I spelled her name right. Anyway, she just got finished being trained, so I will get to greenie break again. :) It should be super fun! :) Transfer number 8 here I come! :)

This week we had a miracle with one of our investigators. We taught her about prayer and asked her if she had ever prayed. She said that she had prayed once before but that she wasn't really sure if God was there or not. She said she believed in evolution so she didn't think that it was possible for her to believe in God. At the end of the lesson, we asked her to pray out loud with us. During the lesson I had told her that when you pray, if you feel peace, it is God telling you that he is there. She began the prayer and it was SO sincere. Immediately the spirit filled the room, and it was peace only comparable to what I have felt in the temple. She said "amen" and we looked up to see her eyes filled with tears. We asked her to pray every night this week, and she promised us that she would. It was an amazing lesson, and I am so thankful that she felt this peace and learned that God truly is there.

Sorry there's not much more to say for this week! I know that through faith we can accomplish anything, and I know that God really is there for us always. I love you all and miss you so much!

Love, Sister Maughan

This is what I did the two day's I was sick! HAHA

This is Chinatown in Korea.

This is the Chinese zodiac's.

The year of the pig!

More zodiac's.

Finding Faith Again

This week was incredible. Okay, so it started out kind of rough. I went to our apartment after district meeting with a fever and congestion up the wall, but I just slept it off and I am going full fledged missionary strong again (with a just a hint of a cough). :) Sometimes you just have a moment of, "Oh yeah, I am actually human and do get sick," moments on the mission. I mean 11 months with no sickness is pretty impressive if I do say so myself. The Lord does bless His missionaries. ;)

Anyway, so this week we had a special conference with President Whiting, the Asia North Area 70 president. He said the closing prayer in general conference just in case you were wondering who he is. ;) But the conference was SO GOOD. It opened up my eyes and my heart to seeing things in a new way. He stood in front of us and told us that he was standing in for the apostles, because they themselves couldn't be here. He told us that everything he would tell us that day was straight from the apostles, prophet, and straight from the spirit. He would deliver the message that the apostles wanted him to, but he would deliver it the way the spirit wanted him to. And let me just say, if there was one apostle in particular that he was representing, it was Elder Holland. Elder Holland says just enough to "singe your eyebrows" but he does it with love and emotion that you can't really deny. That is exactly how President Whiting delivered his message.

He basically started out by saying that the apostles love the missionaries in Korea and Japan, and that they are great missionaries. They have the ability and qualifications to baptize thousands. But they are not. He said that when Elder M. Russell Ballard visited the area, he, slightly frustrated said, "Why are they not baptizing?"

Faith. 신앙. That is what we are missing. That is what Elder M. Russell Ballard, Elder Gary E. Stevenson, and Elder Ronald A. Rasband decided when they reviewed the area (before they were all apostles). So many people say to us, even in the mission field on a daily basis, "serving in Korea is hard, huh?" When I got my call I remember thinking, "Dang. Korea? Korean? When I said I wanted to go foreign I never expected this..." When I first got to country, people told me that Korea is kind of a slow place to serve. No baptisms, no investigators. You just keep chugging along and hope for the best. But here's the thing, somewhere along the line I, just as almost every other missionary serving here probably, lost faith. I accepted that I wouldn't baptize anyone on my mission. I accepted that I wouldn't have a lot of investigators. But why accept this?

Heavenly Father can do ANYTHING. In the Book of Mormon, there are so many stories of unrighteous cities being converted to the truth because the missionaries, like Alma and Amulek for example, had faith enough to work miracles. I don't know where my faith went. But I am going to bring it back. As soon as the conference was over, I looked at my companion (we were on exchanges at the time, so I was with Sister Workman who is a greenie), and said, "You ready to go apply everything we just learned?" She looked at me with determination in her eyes and courageously agreed. We set out to talk to everyone we could, and we did. :) We talked to this girl who was 16 years old. We found out she had been curious about religion but didn't have one. She had prayed before but didn't really know how. She was super cute. :) We gave her our number and we are praying that she will call back.

Yesterday, we were on exchanges again (stake activity), and my companion at the time, Sister Holt, and I decided to pray on every street corner to know where to go. We had a feeling to go down one street, so we did. We found this lady whose brother's son was a missionary for our church, and he served in none other than UTAH. Both me and Sister Holt are from Utah. ;) We talked to this lady for a while, exchanged numbers, and she said that she is going to come to the family history activity that is going on at our stake center next week. She was super nice and seemed SO prepared. Plus, finding someone in Korea who is related to a church member is a bit of a rare opportunity. SO COOL.

Through faith we can do anything. President Whiting promised us that if we could find our faith again, it will be possible, according the the words of the apostles who were given revelation for the Korea and Japan missions, for each of our companionship's to baptize one person a month. I am learning to find faith again, and it is making me PUMPED to be a missionary. :)

Love you all and miss you always!

Love, Sister Maughan

                                This is a picture of the Incheon airport. It is amazing!

Let Your Light Shine!

So I finally got to watch GENERAL CONFERENCE! And it was so good. I just wanted it to last forever and keep going. Eight hours did not feel long enough. ;) So I think I have said it before, but Conference is like Christmas for missionaries. In fact, I would dare say that it is better than Christmas. As a missionary, we rarely get the chance to just sit in front of a tv and watch it for eight hours. But Conference gives us that chance to have a small little break to relax and listen to the gospel. This Conference, the two districts that have wards that go to our church building combined to watch conference. The zone leaders texted us the night before and told us to load up on snacks to share with each other during conference, so that is exactly what we did. Then Saturday morning, 16 missionaries met together in the relief society room, notebooks in one hand, bag of snacks in the other, and pens at the ready to jot down every bit of spiritual advice we could get. Watching Conference with other missionaries is seriously the BEST. We all make it fun, but focus more than we ever would at home. The funniest though, is when the prophets give marriage and dating advice, and we all laugh a bit and then write absolutely every thing we can from that talk. The elders especially seem to fill their pages during those talks. Haha if it doesn't apply now, we gotta prepare for later right? ;)

Oh, and I watched Women's Conference, too. Shout out to my friends in the Wellsville Stake that I got to see from all the way over here in Korea! You all sung amazing. I saw so many familiar faces from not only Wellsville but other stakes as well. It was so fun to see everyone! :)

Okay, so we had a bit of a miracle this week. We invited one of our English/gospel interest investigators to conference. Unfortunately, English class and Conference conflicted times a little, and I was sure that she would choose to come to English class rather than go to Conference. But when English class got out, we peeped into the chapel to see only about 15 people out of the 2 wards of 150 people each watching Conference. Among them, was our investigator. She had chosen to watch Conference over attending English class. Such a miracle! And she thinks it is incredible that we have a living prophet. She really likes the idea, and I think she really enjoyed watching Conference. My companion and I saw her sitting in the chapel, eyes glued on the screen. We quickly stepped out of the chapel to scream silently and hug each other because we were so happy that our investigator attended Conference, especially over English class. :)

So I really loved President Monson's talk about Christ's light. My whole life I have tried so hard to avoid things that I know are wrong. I love feeling Christ's light in my eyes, and I can feel it when it is gone. But that also means, that through high school, and even on my mission, I have been called a "Molly Mormon." At first I thought that this phrase had a negative connotation, and to a lot of people, it does. Even on the mission, when we talk about our past lives, I am a "Molly Mormon." I always read my scriptures, prayed every night, I didn't date steadily through high school, I dressed modestly. Some people, even in the mission field, have told me that I am too innocent and don't know enough about the world.  But as President Monson was talking about Christ's light, I had a warm feeling come over me. The Spirit enveloped me and told me that I had been making the right decisions. Being a Molly Mormon isn't a bad thing. People ask me often how I manage to stay positive and happy, even through the toughest of trials. Well, it is because I have learned that happiness doesn't come from worldy things. Happiness comes from Christ's light. And when I have Christ's light, even the darkest of days are lighted by Him.

I love you all so much and miss you as always! Have a great week!

Love, Sister Maughan

 Incheon! If  you watched the President's cup ( golf) in Korea, this past weekend, you might have seen this bldg.

 Incheon! This area was just part of the Ocean 7 years ago. It is a brand new and very rich city!

The Little Things

So this last week was kind of a tough one for us. We had 5 appointments cancel on us last minute... so our lesson count was super slim. But sometimes that happens, and you just have to keep moving along. :)

If there is one thing that being a missionary in Korea has taught me, it is to appreciate the little things. I remember hearing about all sorts of huge miracle stories from returned missionaries... miracles with the Gift of Tongues, miracles with people on the street, miracles with investigators and miracles with the Spirit. These things happen in every mission, all over the world. But I guess I just came out here expecting the miracles to be a little bigger and brighter and easier to see, like the ones I had heard about seemed to be. But the thing is... the miracles I have experienced so far on my mission have not been huge ones. In fact I cannot think of one huge miracle that has happened. I haven't had an investigator be baptized. I haven't even had an investigator accept the baptismal commitment. I haven't taught past the 3rd lesson. BUT... that doesn't mean that there are not miracles that happen every day. I have learned to not only see the hand of God in my life, but to SEEK and SEARCH for the hand of God in my life. And the more I have focused on seeing the small miracles, the more of them I have noticed, and the more my heart fills with appreciation towards my Heavenly Father.

Let me give some examples of small miracles that I have seen on my mission. Just yesterday, a member came up to me and started talking to me. When she began talking to me, I got nervous because 2 months ago, I slaughtered a conversation in Korean with this member and I thought that she had lost trust in me. But this time, I was able to hold a full conversation with her, and I understood everything that she said. She complimented me on my piano playing, telling me that the sound of my piano playing was beautiful. Then she asked me how long I had been serving in Incheon. It was a small conversation, taking probably only about 2 minutes. But after this conversation, I walked away and felt this sense of success. I mean I didn't know that I had come that far in 2 months, but that right there is a miracle with the Gift of Tongues.

On Friday, we went sticker boarding with our district. Some college girls came up and stuck a sticker on the board. I then started talking to them, and I found out that they were the same age as me, born in the same year. In Korea, if you are born in the same year as someone else, you automatically become friends.  I ended up talking to like 4 groups of college students, and became friends with all of them. I walked away from that experience feeling super successful, and it was SO FUN. The night was ended with high five from the elders who told me I totally killed it out there proselyting on the streets that day. It was a small miracle on the streets, but I felt God working through me, giving me courage to talk to the college students. :)

On Saturday during personal study, I was saying a prayer when I had a thought come to my mind. "Ask 김인국s if she wants to meet us with 문정조s." These two are investigators that are friends, but have stopped meeting with us because they are busy and felt pressure from members to be baptized. But we have never met them together. So that day, I asked them if they would be willing to meet with us next week, together, and study English for 30 minutes and the gospel for 30 minutes. They agreed, and we have an appointment with them on Wednesday. :) That in itself was a miracle with investigators, and a miracle that came from me following the spirit.

Sometimes the miracles we see here in Korea, and probably all over the world as missionaries, are small. They are not huge or necessarily life changing. But when you really look for them, they are there, and they are amazing gifts given to us by the hand of our loving Father in Heaven.

I am excited to watch conference this upcoming weekend! I will tell you about it next week! :) Oh, and happy 11 months to me today! :)

Love, Sister Maughan