So Many Blessings

Sounds like you all had a great week, as did I!!!!!!!  Thank you thank you thank you for the birthday packages, notes, letters, etc.  

This summer has gone by super fast!!!  So crazy!  I'll be there the end of next summer which is super crazy!  It has almost been 5 months since you dropped me off at the MTC.
 
We have seen so many blessings here this week!  Obviously, Heavenly Father is hearing all of our prayers here, as well as all of yours at home!  Amazing things are happening!
1. I haven't gotten us lost yet.  i'm pretty proud of myself.  Even on the buses!  Remember how scared I was to ride the bus to the U the first time?  Well now I can navigate the buses in Korea (more or less...wouldn't be suprised if we got lost this week haha) so that's exciting!  And i got us to Busan the other day.  Thank you Heavenly Father!!!
2. We have a super solid new investigator.   On Tuesday, she came to English class. She started asking us questions about English and missionaries, which led to a gospel discussion and she asked why we were so happy all the time!  Perfect way to introduce the church eh??  So she shared a little about the plan of salvation and then called me over to help.  She said, "if it isn't too much of a problem, could you possibly meet every day this week and we could talk about English and your church?"  WHAT?!?1?!?!?!?! Nobody says that!!!  We already had  few other appointments, but we met with her on wednesday and Friday.  We got permission to do the 30/30 (30 min gospel and 30 min english) program with her.  She is trying to learn English (She said she doesn't know what sparked her recent interest in English, but we do.  Obviously Heavenly Father wanted her to find us!)  so when she got there on Wednesday, the first thing she wanted to do was read the intro to the Book of Mormon in English since we had already read it with her in Korean!  Then we told about our families a little bit, and taught the first part of the restoration.  We try to teach as much in korean as we can, but she likes us to speak English, so we are trying to find a balance to the point that she can still understand.  THEN on Friday, she brought her 2 daughters to meet with us as well!!!  One is 15 and the other is 11.  SO CUTE!!! They didn't come to church yesterday, but we are hoping we can stress the importance of church this week and get her there next!  Ahh!!  We are so excited!
3. We met with the less active we meet with every week, and had a really awesome lesson with her and got her to consider coming to church next week which is a huge step for her!  I have already seen her faith grow so much in the last 9 weeks i have been here!
4. We met with another less active who was baptized last year.  (Really sad that she's already less active and got baptized less than a year ago.)  Anyway she reads her Book of Mormon every day and it is super marked up, but she has had lots of trials in her life, and had to move a few times.  it's kind of a long story, but it was neat to hear her talk about how she can see even though she has the trials, she prays that she can receive help from Heavenly Father to forgive people.  She wants to go to church in the neighboring branch and not ours, so we're not sure if she went yesterday or not, but we are definitely going to keep an eye on her and get her to church so she can learn from the spirit there too!
5.  The girl who got baptized 2 weeks ago answered so many questions in Gospel Principles yesterday.  I was so excited to see how she has taken what we taught her and let it into her life:)
6. I got to celebrate my 20th birthay in Korea!!!  We got up early and took the bus to Busan!  So i got to eat tacos there for lunch at the mission president's house, which was delicious haha and we got treats there and the way back.  Basically I used it as an excuse to try all the treats I have wanted to here!  Then for dinner, we went to a Korean BBQ place (I will send pictures) and bought a cake at Paris Baguette--the bakery that is literally everywhere here. 

So I was reading Alma 5 this morning and loved verse 13 where it talks about the people having a mighty change wrought in their hearts.  I got the institute study guide for the Book of Mormon at the mission office the other day, so have been studying it along with the Book of Mormon which has been awesome!  I read this quote in it about being converted and thought i would share!  (It is super long so I paraphrased...)  "When you choose to follow christ, you choose to be changed.  The Lord works from the inside out.  The world works from the outside in.  The world would take the people out of the slums.  Christ takes the slums out of the people and they take themselves out of the slums.  The would would shape human behavior, but Christ can change human nature.  To paraphrase Harold B. Lee, they set fire in others because they are on fire.  Not only would they die for the Lord, but most importnatly they would live for him."  -President Ezra Taft Benson

I love this!  First I love thinking about it as I teach others and want to help them draw closer to the savior.  I can help them see the light of Christ in their lives, and then help their lives improve because of it.  Then I love applying it to my own life.  I have to continue to convert myself to the Lord more and more each day, and as I do, my nature can change because of the atonement!  I know that you can do the same as you let the power of the atonement work inside of you.  it is amazing what we can do when we do it with the Savior!

Love you!!!

Em