Do You Have A Dinosaur?

So I am now in Incheon! I am actually currently living in Mansu. Incheon is a lot different from Ansan. Ansan had about 30 active members and 6 missionaries. My ward now, Incheon 2nd ward, is about as big as my home ward and there are 10 missionaries serving here. 8 elders and 2 sisters. The church house is HUGE! It is brand new and 4 stories tall. This area is BOOMING with baptisms. For Korea anyway. ;) They have had like 4 or 5 this year already. There seems to be a lot of prepared people in Incheon, and I am excited to get to witness the work moving along here. My new companion, Sister Reed, and I get along super well. We are like the same person. It can be almost weird how similar we are. We are both going into the medical field so we definitely have health nerd conversations like every night. I am super excited to serve with her!  Right now we are living in a 2 man house in Mansu, but we live about 30 or 40 minutes away from the church, so next week we will be moving to a closer location. And we will be living in a 4 man house with 2 other sisters! It should be fun. I am super excited. :)

So I have to say, I am so thankful to be serving my mission in Korea and learning this language. It is hard of course, but the more I learn, the more I can't imagine life without speaking Korean. And it feels familiar when I speak it. I don't know how to explain the feeling, but when I speak Korean, it just feels natural and like I have been speaking it my whole life. Yesterday I gave my 인사 말씀 ("hello" talk) in sacrament meeting. I had to introduce myself and bear my testimony and stuff so that the ward would know who I was. I spoke with two elders who are going home in a couple months and are amazing at Korean. They both said they had been here for 20 months. I said I had been here for 6. Clearly, our Korean was at very different levels. But afterwards, a lot of ward members came up and told me that I was doing incredible for only being in Korea for 6 months. Our ward mission leader asked if my major was Korean because apparently I sound better than most foreigners. He said I have special pronunciation and intonation that makes me sound super Korean... way more than most missionaries. I was so thankful for the sweet compliments from members. I can take no credit for my Korean skills though. Heavenly Father has blessed me way more than I deserve. And its almost like this language is familiar to my spirit. Maybe that thought is super out there and doesn't make any sense. But maybe... just maybe... missionaries learn their mission languages in heaven and promise people who speak that language that they will bring them the gospel later. I don't know... it could be an absurd thought and it is by no means doctrine. But I like to think of it that way. :)

Oh... I never explained the title to this email. Haha oops. Now I will explain. So yesterday was my first day in my new ward. At church, this random member came up to me and asked me in English, "Do you have a dinosaur?" First off, he was talking in English so that threw me off. Second of all, he was asking me if I had a dinosaur. I was like what? So I replied, pretty confused, "No, I don't have a dinosaur." He then proceeded to reach into his bag and pull out a toy dinosaur. He handed it to me. "Now you have a dinosaur. Put it in your bag so that the kids won't steal it." I laughed for a second and put the toy dinosaur in my bag. Apparently this member gives all the missionaries toy dinosaurs, and since I was new, he was prepared to give me one. Well, now I have a dinosaur.

I love you all always and miss you always! Talk to you next week! :)

Love, Sister Maughan