New Transfer New Companion New Start

My New Companion!

I got a new companion! Her name is 손아름 자매님! But we can call her Sister Son for those of you who can’t read Korean :) She’s great. Defiantly a change but hopefully it will be good. One thing I have learned so far is Sister Stradling and I really did have it good. Something you don’t realize until it’s gone but Sister Son is great too and she’s fluent in English so that’s a plus. She went to BYU before she came out here.

 

Drinking Holy Water at Buddha's Temple

We had a lot of member visits this week because sister Stradling was leaving. When we visited with Sister Kim in our ward (I haven’t talked about her yet with you guys) she said the closing prayer to our visit and she prayed that my new companion would be able to fill the gap that sister Stradling would leave in my heart. It was adorable.

 

Eating Bab Bean Su.  Bean Ice Cream.  It was deliious

We also met with Amanda this week again! She showed up to English class out of the blue and wanted us to help her study for her English test again. We read a little bit of the “Your 4 mins” talk from this past conference with her and she liked it. We asked her to read the rest and we’ll be meeting with her again on Tuesday. Hopefully more interest sparks there. 

Our Awkward family Portrait. 
Elder Smith is mine, Elder Parks and Elder Jeongs' dad and Sister Stradling is our mom

We also met with Mary and Jani! They are so adorable. They were so confused when Sister Stradling was gone because we didn’t have time to tell them she was leaving but our lesson with them went really well. It’s really nice to have a Korean. I finally know what’s going on during all the lessons! Mainly because she updates me on what she said after we are done. I still can’t understand much. But we taught them the first half of the plan on Salvation. Then committed them to read the scriptures and pray every day. They said they would. We gave them a little piece of paper that showed them how to pray. And it was so Cute: after the lesson was over and we had prayed and everything we asked if they had ant plans tonight and Mary said she was going to pray! It was adorable. We just have to get them out to church. That seems to be the struggle recently with our investigators.

Silk Worm Larva!  Yes I did eat it.  Dad should be proud.

We weren’t able to meet with Sister Oh this week because she was out of town but she said that she would go to church in Gwang Ju (which is where she was) I think she forgot that she said she wanted to get baptized this week but that’s okay because we still have some things we want to make sure she knows before she makes that step. Like the baptismal interview questions. But I’m not too worried I know she will get baptized when she is ready :)

 

The New Group!  They got rid of two Elders adn combined districts.  It's kinda weird honetly...but good.

I had a really good last companionship study with Sister Stradling. I wanted to share it with you. I read through Elder Nelsons talk from this past conference and one line really stood out to me. It said "Daddy don’t worry about me. I know I will be alright!" when I read this I thought about how this is probably exactly what I said to my Heavenly Father when he sent me to earth. Now I just have to prove to him that I will be alright by serving him faithfully and always following him. I also thought about mom and dad as well. Don’t worry about me. I’ll be alright. I promise. It’s hard out here but it’s so worth it and I have grown so much closer to my heavenly father in the few months that I have been here. Thank you for raising me in the gospel. Because I know that this church is true I know that I, and the whole family. Will be alright if we just put forth the effort and follow God :)

I hope you all had a great week. I love and miss you all!

--

- Sister Collyer 콜리여 자매 (kol-lee-yeo ja-mae)

I ate Dog Soup!

Dog Soup!  It was nasty...

And it was nasty. Sister Stradling and I had a really hard time downing it. But at least now I can say that I ate it!

It was another slow week here in Jeon Ju but we were able to meet with Sister Oh! We taught her all the commandments. It took us an hour and a half which was really long but it was good :) and she was familiar with them so that was good :) We also set another baptismal date with her for May 25 but she didn't come to church yesterday so we might have to push it back even more :( but we still have hope. :)

We also met with Jani again and her sister who we gave the English name Mary to. They are adorable. We just went over the restoration again with them and they really seem interested so that's exciting. :) They said they would come to the fireside the missionaries put on yesterday but they didn’t show up. :( People just don’t like keeping commitments lately. But we are still praying really hard for them and hoping that their parents’ hearts will be softened as well. When we were teaching them English we got talking about the new Spiderman movie which they spoiled a big part of it for us but they had thought we had seen it. Sister Stradling and I tried to hide our disappointment. But we love them. :) They are adorable.

I got kisses from a little girl in our ward this week too! She’s so cute. She’s like 2 American age and we visited her parents and afterwards her mom told her to give us kisses and she did. I thought I was going to die. Asian babies are so freaking cute.

We also had our big fireside yesterday! We ended up doing it on the first lesson instead of pioneers (but I still appreciate the stories :) ) and it went so well! Minus the fact that pretty much no one’s investigators showed up. We had two promise us they would go and they didn’t :( but sister Stradling and I sang a duet to “Savior Redeemer of My Soul.” That was terrifying but i thought we did pretty well :) the spirit was really strong :) and all of our hard work paid off! No one in the two districts that participated could really sing except for Elder Smith who is AMAZING. And he kind of put it all together and made us sound pretty good :) Go Elder Smith.

Anyways that’s all I have for this week :) I love you all and hope you have an amazing week! 

- Sister Collyer 콜리여 자매 (kol-lee-yeo ja-mae)

Happy Mother's Day!

Judy and Me

Happy Mother’s day everyone! It was so great to Skype with you all this morning :)

This week things picked up a little bit. We finally met with Sister Oh! We taught her the third lesson and she took it really well. Our relief society president was there and it was great :) We asked her about her baptismal date and she said that she wanted to come to church first which was good. And she came to church on Sunday! She came in late so Sister Stradling and I were devastated at first but then half way through sacrament someone tapped my back and it was her! She said she really enjoyed church and loved everyone’s testimonies. I will keep you updated on what happens with her. We are meeting with her On Friday or Thursday this week I can’t remember.

We also met with the second oldest daughter of the family we met last week. Her name is Sister Moon but we gave her the English name Jani so I will use that. She’s so great. We taught her English, then when we said we needed to share a message she was totally welcoming to it. We talked more about the Book of Mormon and she told us she had read the first page and that it was hard but she enjoyed it. She said she wanted to come to church but she didn’t show up yesterday. Hopefully she comes next week! We are meeting with her again on Saturday.

Me and Judy in front of ice cream with beans in it and it was DELICIOUS! So Good

Then I got to see Judy this week!! It was so great. Slightly strange that even when we are around the world from out home town we get to see each other. But she’s doing great and it was so nice to just catch up and such. She went to church yesterday and the members were blown away at her Korean. She SO good. So much better than me. But that was fun :)

Anyways that’s it for this week. Sorry it’s only been a few days since my last email so I don’t have very much to update you on. I hope you all enjoy the rest of your mother’s day and your week!

I love you all! 사랑해요!

- Sister Collyer 콜리여 자매 (kol-lee-yeo ja-mae)