Serving The Lord With Heart and Seoul: The Song of the 매미s

Serving The Lord With Heart and Seoul: The Song of the 매미s

The Song of the 매미s

The 매미s out, and they are loud. They are singing their songs 24 hours a day, driving the rest of us nuts. They are huge, and they like to land on your window and freak you out. The wiggle their bottom halves as they sing their song. They are mysterious creatures. And the English word for them is... Cicada. The cicadas are out. Before I came here, I had never seen cicadas before. They are weird bugs. Super loud and fairly large.... But totally harmless. My companion told me that when she was a greenie, a Korean man chased her with a cicada in his hand. She had been looking at it in the tree when he ran over, picked it up and began to chase her. Her trainer fought the man off, but it is pretty funny to hear the whole story. But unfortunately more bugs are on the way... Korea has these huge colorful spiders that come out in the fall, and they can get bigger than the size of your hand. Like, they are so big that you can't squish them with your foot by any means. They are not aggressive but from what I hear they are everywhere. Should be fun. :)

"For my soul delighteth in the song of the heart; yea, the song of the righteous is a prayer unto me, and it shall be answered with a blessing upon their heads." D&C 25:12.  Luckily the cicadas weren't the only ones making music this week. Basically our whole week was centered around the power of music, though I don't know how that happened. ;)

On Monday, we met with this adorable member who is basically our Korean mom. She is so loving and kind. She also has a shih-tzu so whenever we visit her I get super excited because well... Chewy is a shih-tzu, and I never get to play with dogs anymore. I love playing with her dog. :) Anyway, it was my turn to share the spiritual message, so I decided to share that scripture (D&C 25:12) and ask her if she would sing her favorite hymn with us. We ended up singing three hymns with her, and she absolutely loved it. Music never fails to bring the spirit, and she was glowing by the time we left.

Then on Wednesday, we met our recent convert. She is actually Chinese, but she met the missionaries in Australia, then moved to Korea and was baptized here. She is fluent in Korean. She goes to China a lot because she still has family there. She brings Chinese Books of Mormons with her every time she goes home, and she always returns back to Korea asking for more. She gives them out to her family in China. There may not be a mission in China, but the gospel is beginning to spread there. So many missionaries here in Korea baptize Chinese people who then go back and spread the gospel to their families. It is so amazing to watch it happen. :) Anyway, when we met with her we decided to go into the chapel and sing songs with her. My companion and I had been practicing a version of "If You Could Hie to Kolob" (Sister Reed singing, me on the piano) for a ward activity that happened on Saturday, and we wanted her opinion on how we sounded. That then turned into us singing hymns for like an hour. And our recent convert's new favorite hymn is now "If You Could Hie to Kolob" even though there is no Chinese translation, and it is not in the Korean hymn book either.  Again, music has so much power. It was so fun. :)

On Friday we had a little time to practice our song again by ourselves in the chapel. In the middle of a run through of the song, the zone leaders came in with their investigator. They were showing him the chapel. One of the elders just told us to keep playing, so we did. Later, the elders told us that because of our music, that investigator felt the spirit so strongly that he almost started crying. It was only their first meeting with this investigator, so they thanked us for the miracle.

Music can be so powerful. I know that my personal spirit responds to music more than anything. If there is one thing that can make me feel the Holy Ghost stronger than anything else, it is music. Whether I am the one making the music or the one listening to it, music is one thing that can almost always make me feel the spirit. I am so thankful that I got to use music as a missionary tool this week. :)

Love you all as always! Miss you! :)

Love, Sister Maughan

The struggle is real!

I am pretty sure I say that phrase, "the struggle is real," like 10 times every day for different reasons. But if the struggle wasn't real, I wouldn't be growing right? Sometimes it is so hot and humid that you literally drag yourself down the street  to the next appointment, sometimes your Korean lacks a little and you don't understand your landlord (also a lawyer) entirely as he yells angrily about the house not being cleaned (though we still don't know if he was mad at us or the people who lived there before... because it is spotless now), sometimes the drunk man walking down the street tries to say hi and call you beautiful in English and you just have to ignore him and keep walking, sometimes a Korean gives you something to eat or drink that has a strange flavor and you just have to swallow it down with a smile, sometimes your ward mission council meeting lasts almost two hours and you wiggle in your chair because you have been at the church house sitting in meetings for 5 full hours on Sunday and your bum hurts a little from all the sitting, sometimes you find out that Koreans purposely trash houses when they move because they believe moving is bad luck and you learn why your house was so disgusting when you moved in, and sometimes your golden investigator drops you because she is too busy to meet....

But hey, I love that the struggle is real. If everything were easy, I wouldn't grow. If everything were easy, this mission would be a vacation, not a mission. If everything were easy, I wouldn't be able to "endure" and enduring is how we become stronger. Plus, if everything were easy, I would have no stories to tell after my mission. And I want to be able to tell crazy stories after my mission. ;)

This week our golden investigator dropped us. She got a new job and said that she was too busy to meet us. We were super disappointed at first, but then she came to church on Sunday even though she didn't have time to meet us during the week. She is still golden and I know that one day she is going to enter the waters of baptism. If we are meant to still meet with her, God will provide a way. We just have to have faith and trust His plan.

So there are a lot of people on the streets proselyting for their churches in Korea. Nobody particularly likes talking to these people because they know if they talk to them, they will be super pressured into joining their church. There is actually a Korean word for them, 전도사 (jundo-sa) which translates to something like "proselyting-person" in English. To Koreans, we get grouped with them all the time since we are sharing the streets with them, but I have realized what makes us different. Unlike them, we are not spreading the gospel to force other people into joining our church. We are not trying to convince other people that our church is better than others. We are not trying to increase our membership numbers or prove that more people go to our church than the church down the street. We are spreading our gospel because we truly desire to serve others, and help them come unto Christ. We just want to take them by the hand and guide them to the path to salvation. If they choose to decline, that is their choice. We can't control other people's actions or decisions, we can just give them the chance to decide for themselves if the gospel is true. We are not here to force anyone to do anything. We are just here to give them a chance, and lovingly guide them to the right path. We share the gospel with love and kindness. We are not force's of salvation, rather, we just take people by the hand and guide them if they are ready to follow.

I am so thankful to be serving here right now. Being a missionary is the best, and time is going faster than I can keep up with. :)

Love, Sister Maughan

NEW HOUSE!

So this week we got to move into our beautiful new apartment! It is a mansion. It is a four man house now so we are living with two other sisters and it has seriously been so fun. But... we got to learn a little bit about Korean culture in this move. Koreans don't clean their houses before they move. I can't judge them for it because it is their culture--it's just not expected of them. But let me say, it was pretty clear that they didn't clean before they left. And we also think this apartment hasn't been lived in for quite some time. So it was... disgusting. There was like an inch of straight dirt on pretty much everything (we live on the 16th floor so we are not sure how that happened), and mold covered some of the bathroom surfaces. The counters had all sorts of dirty things on them... I don't even have names for most of the stuff we found. The stove had old food sludge burnt into all the burners. Yeah it wasn't exactly fun... but we definitely turned the house around. We Cloroxed the heck out of everything. :) It is beautiful and totally liveable now. We are so thankful to be living in the beautiful apartment we are living in. Plus, I get to sleep on two floor mats instead of one in this house! :)

So it is now July and let me just say it is SO HOT. I have never experienced heat like this before. Utah heat is dry. But Korea heat is humid. With some days getting up to 100% humidity the heat is a killer. We walk outside and it feels like we are walking into an oven. There is no escaping the heat either. We don't have air conditioning in our apartment (most Korean apartments don't have air conditioning) and we only have 2 fans between the four of us. We open all the windows at night and sleep with no blankets on. We take cold showers and still walk out drenched in sweat. It is seriously insane. I drink like 4 or 5 big bottles of water every day, and by the end of the day I am so exhausted I plop right down onto the floor after planning and just lay there. Heat has taken on a new meaning to me.

Also, I got to see the ocean for the first time in my life this week! It was from a distance. But it was still the ocean. One of our members lives close enough to the ocean to see it and I could even see the birds dipping down into the water. That was exciting.

So this week the four sisters in my house have been talking a lot about how much the world has gotten worse since we have even been on our missions. We have been getting asked a lot about the church's stance on gay marriage since it was just legalized in the US. America doesn't realize the effect its decisions have on the rest of the world. The Koreans have been freaking out about the new law too. And they have been paying very close attention to the political stuff going on in the US right now. The Koreans know more than me, and I am the American haha. In Korea, it was just legalized for a man to be married to one woman but have live-in mistresses. Members definitely freaked out about that too. The world is becoming a scary place. I am so thankful that I am a missionary right now, but we are up against a lot.

The thing is, because the world is so bad, that means that the strongest people are here right now. God knew the world would go down hill, so He saved his toughest fighters for the last days. If you are living on the earth now, that means that God chose you to come here during some of the most challenging times. You were one of the most likely ones to stay strong through the fight. Some of the people here are going to give in to the challenges. But that was not God's plan. He sent you here to be strong. Please, always remember that. He sent you here, now, because He knew you could brave the storm and fight on His side. It won't be easy, but if you continue fighting on God's team, reading scriptures, praying, believing in Him and relying on Him, you will not fail. It is when you give into the world's temptations, Satan's temptations, that you will fail. But if you are fighting on the Lord's side, if you are fighting your battles on your knees, you cannot fail. :)

I love you all as always! Miss you!

Love, Sister Maughan

 This is Daysha's bed (YO) that she sleeps on. Doesn't look very comfy! :(

McDonald's Celebration

Happy late 4th of July to all my American friends! We woke up on Saturday and realized that it was America's birthday. We didn't know how to celebrate the holiday in Korea... but I feel like we did a pretty good job. We made American flags and stuck them to the walls of our apartment, did a mini photo shoot wearing red, white and blue, and to top it all off we ate the most American food we could find in Korea... McDonald's. I absolutely love Korea... but America will always be my home and will always have my heart. :)

So time is flying.... so fast. I am like in shock. Yesterday was my 8 month mark... say what? In a month I will be halfway through my mission... and I have heard that after that the mission goes faster and faster. I am loving being a missionary though! :)

Incheon is flourishing right now. We have six investigators, and we could possibly be getting another one soon. We have been so so busy! This week we will be moving into a new house and then we will have lesson after lesson for the rest of the week. It is going to be so crazy. We have one investigator who is praying about being baptized, and if she gets an answer she will be baptized on August 29th. It is so exciting! :)

 So my companion shared a thought with me during companion ship study that I really liked, and I want to share it with you. If we don't have faith in God, does that make His glory any less? Does it make him less powerful or dull His glory? No, of course not. God is the Almighty even if we don't believe He is. So why does He command us to be faithful? It is clearly not so that He can get gain from it. The amount of faith we have doesn't change Him in any way. But God doesn't command us to do things without having a reason for us to do them. So if it is not for His good, it must be for our good, right?

I know that my faith in Heavenly Father has changed my life. Because I have faith in Heavenly Father, I can always have something to hope for. When I have trials, I can trust Heavenly Father to pull me through them. When something doesn't go as planned, I can know that it was part of Heavenly Father's plan. When I feel lonely, I have someone to talk to. I have faith in Heavenly Father because that faith has given me happiness that cannot be explained. It has given me hope. It has given me light. If I didn't know that I could rely on Heavenly Father for just about everything, I don't think I could be as happy or positive as I am all the time. Without the knowledge of God that I have, I would be lost. My faith makes me happy. And that is why I am sharing it. :)

Well, I have to go now. I love you all and miss you always! :)

Love, Sister Maughan

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

Musicals and Transfer calls.

So this week flew by faster than ever before. I can't even tell you how fast time is going on my mission. But it was a super good week!

So Saturday we had a super successful ward party. The missionaries put on the musical, "Meet the Missionaries." We sang songs and acted out an average missionary day, adding some humor about greenies and proselyting experiences like being bible bashed, talking to foreigners who don't speak English or Korean and having no idea what to say etc. It was incredible because more nonmembers came than members. Almost our entire English class of 18 students came to the musical. We ended the musical by acting out a member present lesson. We pretended to knock on someone's door and then teach them a lesson. In the lesson we said that rather than telling them our message, we wanted to show them our message. So we then turned off all the lights and played the "Because He Lives" video on a big screen. So our silly musical turned into a spiritual message. The spirit was so strong. After we finished the video we sang the EFY Medley in Korean, a combination of "We'll Bring the World His Truth" and "As Sisters in Zion." The elders sang the "We'll Bring the World His Truth" part and we sang "As Sisters in Zion." Holy cow the spirit was so strong. The ward members were super impressed and said that they will always remember this group of missionaries. That night we got transfer calls. I knew I was transferring before I got the call... I could feel it. So I spent a lot of time during the ward activity talking to members, enjoying the last activity I had with them.

Then transfer calls came. I am transferring to Incheon! My new companion will be Sister Reed. I haven't met her yet, but I have heard a lot of good things about her. I am super excited for a new experience and a new area. :)

So I had to say goodbye to the ward members yesterday. I didn't expect it to be hard by any means, but it was much harder than I thought. You don't realize how much you get attached to people until you have to say goodbye to them, especially when you know you probably won't ever get to see them again. I have seen this ward go through a huge change since I first arrived in January. Hearts have changed, testimonies have grown, and faith has increased. Ansan ward still has a lot of room to grow, and I wouldn't categorize them as a super strong ward by any means, but they are progressing and getting stronger, and I have seen miracles here for 6 months now. I am so thankful that I had the opportunity to serve here. Lots of hugs were given yesterday, and my heart was heavier than I expected. I didn't know leaving an area could be so hard. I also had to say goodbye to my English class friends, and that was super hard too. I taught these adorable little girls who told me they didn't want me to leave. It was hard, but I am excited for my next area as well.  I know that God has a plan for all of us, and I am supposed to go to Incheon for a reason.

Yesterday we had a little miracle. It was stake conference, and we got to here from Elder D. Todd Christofferson and President Ringwood of the Asia area presidency. It was skyped from the Salt Lake City conference center. A family that had come to English class earlier this week just randomly decided to come to church. I guess they have been looking for religion and saw how happy we were at English class. They were a little thrown off because it was not a normal church day, but we invited them back next week so that they can be a part of our normal worship services. I think they have a lot of potential. :)

Well, I have to end my email now, but I love you all. And shout out to the best dad ever. HAPPY FATHER'S DAY!!! I love you so much and miss you always.

Love, Sister Maughan