Loving Missionary Work

Hello!!!!  Sounds like you had a fun week.  

Lets see to answer your questions...
-I'm doing well!  I get to be a missionary so it can't get much better than that!
-My week was good.  We'll get to that later!
-The city where I am is fun.  In South Busan.  I don't really know what to compare it to...not big city, but not like neighborhood either.  Parts of it are kind of old and ghetto but thats ok!  Ulsan (my first city) was fairly recently developed and pretty nice so it has been different. 
-The branch is crazy!  I don't know how to describe it.  Yesterday, our branch president, who doesn't live in the ward boundaries but was here for his calling, got released because he is going to stay with his daughter in the US for a while,  I thought the missionaries were running the branch before, but literally now we are.  There were 25 people at church yesterday which seemed like a lot compared to the other weeks haha
-We are about a 45 minute metro ride from the mission home, but we saw President and Sister Gilbert Saturday at a stake primary activity, and then they came to our sacrament meeting because of the change yesterday which was fun!

So there's that haha.  It has been a good week!  We are always super busy, and then sometimes I think, "What have we even done this week?!"  which is kind of funny. 

On Friday, we called some less actives in the morning, just to check in, and two of them were like, "sure we can meet today" which was kind of crazy!  Miracle!  I think this is one of those things where you don't always see direct results from everything you do, but if we look for blessings in general, they are always there and Heavenly Father is constantly blessing us for our work. 
I feel like this is one of those classic missionary stories so i have to share...So after we had lunch with a member in Guejeon, which is the other branch we cover because there are no sisters there, we hiked up the hill to their house.  From what I understand when North Korea attacked like 60 or however many years ago, everyone from Seoul and Daejeon fled to Busan, but there wasn't room for them all, and they wanted to be up high, so they built homes on the mountain.  (Not like Utah mountain, more like really big hill.) So we climbed up to the house (I was very grateful for the exercise after a big lunch, as well as the cool breeze on a hot day) and thankfully found it.  The lady lived there with her younger sister, and they were both like 60 something and missing most of their teeth.  The house was old and dirty, with a few cats, but we sat down and started talking.  She had pictures from the missionary pamphlets hung up as well as other pictures of Christ.  I think she said she was baptized when she was 25 or so, but has been going to a different church for a really long time.  We talked about our church, asked her if she remembered her baptism (just that it was a long time ago) and asked her if she would come Sunday.  She said no--she is going to the other church--so we said ok, but that we want to visit her every so often and call her about scriptures and stuff and she said that was fine.  Then we prayed with her and I asked her if she had a Book of Mormon, which she did, and we left.  So nothing amazing happened while we were there, but while we were sitting there talking, I had one of those, "I am a missionary sitting in some toothless lady's house in Korea teaching her about Christ.  What?!"  I still have moments frequently where i think "I am in Korea?!" or "I am not old enough to be a missionary" but obviously I am and I am learning and am growing just like Heavenly Father wants me to!

Funny things this week
-We were trying to explain the crinkle cut fries to one of the Korean elders and he said, "oh!  Stairwell fries?" 
-Sister Yun described the lovey-dovey couples we see sometimes walking down the street as "Chicken-Skin couples" aka they give her goosebumps and she doesn't like to talk about it haha

This week I have thought a lot about the importance of keeping Christ at the center of our hearts.  We can't let stress, worry or other problems push Him out.  This is what Satan wants!  When Christ is the center, everything around Him will work out because of our trust in Him.  It is like what Mosiah 5:15 talks about--"steadfast and immovable always abounding in good works".  This is what helps us become like Christ.  We are able to lose the desire for sin, which is where Satan loses his power.  Things will still be hard, and I don't expect an immediate fix to all hard problems, but this is how we grow and become like the Savior!  My appreciation for this grows every single day!

Thank you thank you!!!  I love you lots and am so grateful for your letters and pictures and everything!!!!!

I hope you all have a great week!
Love you!!!

Em