Tuesday, October 27, 2015

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.

Monday, October 19, 2015

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!

Monday, October 12, 2015

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!


Monday, October 5, 2015

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