NEWSFLASH!!! I finally ate dog soup!!!

November 23, 2014

Hello everyone!

I hope you're having fun getting ready for Thanksgiving!!!! Not gonna lie. I'm a little jealous. But just a little. We're living it up over here, and we're doing it well. As you may have guessed, Sister Nielsen and I ate dog soup this week. A member took us out and I'll admit I was little disappointed. I wanted something super crazy, but it was basically just meat in a soup. BUT IT WAS REAL DOG MEAT. So yeah. Living it up.

Remember the woman who ran up to us on the street last week and gave us her number? Well, her name is Sooky and she is our miracle girl. We had an appointment with her this past week, and she started asking us all these questions about missions that showed that she knew quite a bit about our church's missionaries. Turns out she has two cousins who are members and they both served missions. THEN these two cousins met and married two foreigners who were members who'd served missions in Korea. CRAZY, RIGHT? That's what we thought. She said she had English interest and she wanted to learn about what we believe. Well, we can definitely help with that. We set another appointment and Sister Nielsen and I left feeling pretty in awe. The Lord truly prepares people for the gospel.

This past week, we've been able to have more success finding new people than we've had for a long time. Investigators have been introducing their friends to us, and we've seen so many miracles with meeting people on the street and being able to set followup appointments with them. We have a lot of appointments this week and it just shows how involved the Lord is in this work.

I'm about out of time so that's it for this week! I love you all and I'm so excited to see you soon!

Love,

Sister Bonney

Faith, hope, and street contacts

November 16, 2014

Dear everyone!

I hope you're all having a great week and that you're getting excited for Thanksgiving!!!! In Korea, Thanksgiving was back in September, so we're still just trucking along. Sister Nielsen is fantastic and our elders are cool and the Lord is good, so I'm happy. We were blessed to see several miracles this week so.......

Alright! At the beginning of last week, we realized that we don't really have any investigators... Not really an uncommon occurrence though. So we started to think of what we could do to find some new potential investigators. We really had no appointments and we had no one to visit, so we were feeling a little helpless. Sister Nielsen had the idea that we fast, and so we planned to fast over the next couple days. We started our fast right after a member appointment, so we basically prayed on the street to start it.

Back track to the previous night: Sister Nielsen and I had been looking through all our records to see if there was anyone we could visit, and we found a less active man whose wife was a nonmember and either Filipino or Vietnamese, according to the record. We really felt like this was a great opportunity, so we went there with a lot of faith that she could become our new investigator.

So we start our fast and go to visit the less active/nonmember's house. And they weren't home. Surprise! Anyways, we figured that it wasn't the will of the Lord and started to put up posters for our English class and Kids English Class in that neighbor. Not even 10 minutes later, a woman came running up to us. For a moment I was afraid she was going to get after us for putting up posters (which may or may not be 100% legal... we're not quite sure...) but.... she introduced herself and asked how our English programs worked and said she had a lot of interest in that but also that she had seen us missionaries around a lot and was really wondering what we do. She said she wanted to meet us, gave us her number, and ran back to her running car, which she had stopped to chase us down. Miracle? Oh yeah. We said a grateful prayer at the next corner and oh my goodness, you guys! God is real. He is so real.

Next miracle: So we proselyted on the street as much as we could before we finished our fast and got one other contact, a high school senior boy who came to English class on Saturday. Sister Nielsen and I were trying to evaluate what we could do better and how we could be more diligent as often as we could, but we were still having a hard time finding people. The next day, (THIS is the miracle) we were out proselyting and it was late, so we were heading home. There hadn't been many people out on the street and since it's getting colder, people aren't as willing to talk to us, so we were a little down, but we were trying our best to find people to talk to. We stopped at a stoplight, and there was an older couple. We said hello and started talking to them, "Where you heading? Have you ever seen missionaries with a black nametag before?" "Yeah! We had two of your man missionaries over to our house for dinner a few times." They named two of the elders in our mission who had served here about a year ago. "We really liked them, but we got really busy so we couldn't meet. We should meet sometime!" She gave us her number and then we went our separate ways. Miracle? Oh yeah. I'm so grateful God lives. He's loves His children and He's preparing them to hear the gospel.

I know this is His work and I'm so incredibly grateful to be a part of it. I love Him so much, and I know He lives.

I love you all so much!

Love,

Sister Bonney

There are children singing all around the world....

November 9, 2014

Dear everyone!

I hope you all had a great week and are enjoying the beautiful fall colors. :) It's been beautiful in Bangeojin with the leaves changing color and the breeze off the ocean. Aaaaand enough about the weather.

Alright! This past week, we had fun. We are living it up missionary style and having the best time sharing the gospel and learning as we go. Sister Nielsen is so awesome, and I love her so much. We get along great, and she's so loving and kind. So grateful she's my companion.

This week we had our stake musical night! Our branch sang Let It Be and I got to sing a solo for our stake. It was pretty fun.^^ I mean, how many people really get to say that they sang the Beatles for 300 Koreans? Yeah. That went in the journal. We also got to sing as a zone (all of the missionaries) at the activity. We had planned to sing Come Lord Jesus from Savior Redeemer of the World and we were all pretty nervous that it wasn't going to go over too well... I had been asked to organize it all, and I was also accompanying. We all weren't too sure how it was going to turn out, but, oh my goodness, it turned out well. The sisters sang on pitch, the elders came in on time, and the Spirit was strong. It was amazing.

We also have two new investigators! They're both men and they're both foreigners (not Korean).  One of the is Rolito. He's from the Philippines and such a sincere guy. His wife and family are still in the Philippines and he's working here to support them. He's reading from the Book of Mormon and we'll see what happens! We've invited him to church a couple times, but the language barrier makes him nervous. I get that.

Our other investigator is Chula. He's from Sri Lanka and is originally the elders' investigator but since the elders don't speak English, we're teaching him now. He has such strong faith in Christ and he believes the Book of Mormon is the word of God! He has a smoking problem, but we're going to do our best to help him.

The highlight of the week was definitely the primary program on Sunday. The church is truly universal. It was the most adorable sacrament meeting ever. The kids were hilarious too. The little girls sat quietly on one side while the little boys half undressed themselves and beat on each other on the other. Even Juwon and Jubin, Sister Kim's children participated! Jubin may have started to cry when it was his part in the program, but it was adorable.

The gospel is true! So stay true to the gospel. I love you all so much!

Love,

Sister Bonney

And thus it begins!......For the last time...

November 3rd, 2014

Dear everyone,

Today marks the first day of my last transfer. Crazy. I kept thinking and saying, "Time goes so fast! yadda yadda yadda" But it didn't really hit home til I woke up this morning and actually felt it. We had our transfer meeting as a mission today, and I realized that at the next transfer meeting, I will be going home. I will be one of the missionaries giving their last testimony and saying goodbye. The only word to describe it is bittersweet. It's so happy and exciting and at the same time sad and heart-breaking, but missions just are that way. They come to an end. But it's not the end yet! We've still got 6 weeks to go. We're going to live it up the missionary way.^^

Sister Hurley headed off to a new area today and I came back to Bangeojin with my new companion, Sister Nielsen. She's such a sweetheart, and I'm so glad we're companions. I love her so much already, and I'm so grateful that we're companions. It's going to be a great transfer. Both our elders are Korean, and it's going to be an adventure. They're both so great, and I love serving with Koreans. They're so kind and considerate. Between the four of us, we're going to have a great time lighting up the area and getting the message of Christ out to everyone we can.

I feel recently like there's less and less to say, but I've felt more and more of the Lord's hand in my life personally these past few weeks. I've felt so much peace and a sure knowledge that this is His work and that we are merely helping Him. He chooses to work through us, and being able to feel used by the Lord is a feeling beyond description. I've gained such a testimony that the Lord knows each person individually. I know He loves each of us, and I know without a doubt that He lives. He is our Father, we are His children, and together we do His work.

I love you all so much.

Love,

Sister Bonney

Happy Halloween! Trick or .... miracle?

October 27th, 2014

Dear everyone!

Happy Halloween!!!!

Don't have a ton of time cause we have a mission 5k today! It was actually a lot of fun, but it took a lot of time so here we are at the end of P-Day typing at high speed. Missionary problems. But it was worth it! :)

Alright! So this week was probably the most crazy week we Bangeojin missionaries have seen in a long time. Why, you may ask? Because 1) we had a Halloween party on Saturday, 2) the Relief Society president decided that 150 people were going to show up, and 3) it was our (us missionaries) responsibility to get those 150 people there. 

You know how in America, wards have activity committees that put together and plan the activities? Well, in Korea, they have the missionaries. The Halloween party included a haunted house that we had to make in the basement, and games that we had to put together, and a ton of other things that we needed to make work on a budget of missionary funds. (That's not much, by the way.) We worked like crazy all week to get the church decorated and ready and everything planned. It was hard because it meant we couldn't do normal missionary work, like proselyting and teaching, but we had faith that it would be worth it.

Oh goodness, was it.

Miracles happened at the Halloween party.

We have an investigator, Sister Kang. We invited her and she said she wanted to come with her kids and her husband. We were really excited to be meeting her family all together for the first time. They came and were having a great time. And then religion came up.

"So have you heard about our church before?" The husband had. 20 years ago, he met missionaries on a bus. They gave him a Book of Mormon. He read it in a day! But he never saw the missionaries again. Until he met us! We were able to have a lesson about knowing the truth about the Book of Mormon right then and there in the middle of the Halloween party. It was amazing and the Spirit was so strong. It was amazing.

Then we went upstairs. One of our other investigators, Sister Kim (the one who met the missionaries 10 and 25 years ago...miracle woman basically) was talking with one of our members, Sister Choi. They talked for about 40 minutes together. I had been worried about Sister Kim earlier because she's a little different. Very inverted and she has a hard time in new situations. We had tried to teach her before but she couldn't understand our lessons and she said she wasn't interested in joining our church, but it turned out that she and Sister Choi had been friends and played at the church 25 years ago together! Miracle.

I got to go! I love you all!

Love,

Sister Bonney

Well, that's what happens when you xerox your face...

October 19th, 2014

Dear everyone!

So this week, Sister Hurley and I began to discover the mysteries of the universe. We talked deep. We talked about things that matter.

But before we get into that, we did have some funny moments this week. And the best of those is... wait for it...... did you know that you can copy your face? Like on a copy machine? We're preparing for a huge Halloween party and we were thinking of anymore scary decorations we could make. One of the elders figured out that you can copy your hand. It looks pretty creepy, but then Sister Hurley and I took it to a whole new level. What's even creepier than a xeroxed hand? A xeroxed face. We may or may not have used up what paper was in the copy machine.... right before we needed to make copies for English class. So we spent the next little while running around like crazy trying to find more paper so we could have our English class... The next day (Sunday), we were in the computer/copy room again doing things and one of the primary kids was hanging out with us. I asked him, "Did you know you can copy your face? Like on the copy machine?" He didn't! So I showed him how. And then he tried to do it. And then of course that the exact moment when the elders quorum president walks in... Well, copying your face is really fun. I recommend trying it out sometime. Did I mention that missionaries are easily etertained?^^

Anyways, back to the important stuff - things that matter most.

It all started on Tuesday (we're both not quite sure how) and led into questions like "If God knows everything, then He knows what we're going to do before we do it. So do I really have a choice? Do I really have agency?" (We found the answer by the way.) and more. When you have a companion, you're together 24/7 and it's so easy to either run out of meaningful things to talk about or to get stuck in the rut of not focusing on what matters most. This week was amazing because we spent almost everyday continuously talking about the nature of God, how personality affects our agency, why we need to experience life on earth if God already knows what's going to happen, is personality really important in the context of Christlike attributes, judging another person is ultimately forgetting to trust that God has a perfect plan for everyone, and so much more. It helped us come to so much understanding that is hard to put into words, and we've grown closer and stronger together than we've ever been before. These talks characterized our week, and they're continuing too! We're both so excited about what we're coming to understand together. And we're seeing miracles...

On those days that we chose to have conversations of a higher level and focus on those things that matter most, we were so blessed. Two investigators called us to make appointments! One of our investigators just showed up at the church at the exact moment that we were there and we were able to teach her the Plan of Salvation lesson right then and there. We met potential investigators and were able to teach more lessons on the street and in buses than we've ever been able to before as a companionship. We felt so much love and concern from the Lord, and it strengthened our faith and our trust in Him so much.

Last night, as we were finishing our weekly planning session, we were about to make our personal goals for the week and we looked back at our goals for last week. What did both of us have written down? "Focus on the things that matter." It was really cool actually.^^ Neither of us had even remembered that goal. It was such a testimony building moment for me that the Lord is there and He is always aware of us. In the Gospel of John, there's a scripture that says, "Henceforth I call you not servants; for the servant knoweth not what his lord doeth: but I have called you friends; for all things that I have heard of my Father I have made known unto you." (John 15:15) In Doctrine and Covenants, the Lord said, "Draw near unto me and I will draw near unto you; seek me diligently and ye shall find me; ask, and ye shall receive; knock, and it shall be opened unto you." I know that that is true. The Lord will sometimes allow us to continue without knowledge of the future or certainty of His plan so we will learn to trust Him, but I know that as we seek Him, we will find Him. Sometimes that seeking involves continuing in the darkness as we trust that He is guiding our steps. But He will always give us the knowlege we need exactly when we need it. I know He lives! I know that He is omnipotent and all-knowing and that His love is infinite. He is always near.

I love you all so much!

Love,

Sister Bonney

Proselyting and pregnant women...

October 12th, 2014

Dear everyone!

Alright! Not too much time, so here's the lightning version of this week...

We didn't have a ton of teaching appointments this week so we got to spend a lot of time proselyting with our elders. It's a great way to talk to a lot of people in the time that we have. Team work! And for some reason, it's been pretty hilarious recently. There are a lot of couples out at night. Some of them are newly married, some of them are still dating, and then there are the couples expecting a baby. We try to proselyte to their interests (from what we can see), so we try to give the students English pamphlets, the families family pamphlets, and so on and so forth. We try to help out the Spirit by using our agency well. It's a work in progress. At one point, one of our elders goes, "Dang! I think she's pregnant! And I just gave her an English flier.." At that moment, I noticed an obviously pregnant lady, "Well, she's DEFINITELY pregnant. Get the family pamphlets out." It wasn't that funny, but as I go to give her a family pamphlet, I just lost it laughing. I couldn't walk up to her like that, so I retreated. Sister Hurley: "Sister Bonney! haha Are you serious?" She goes up to give her a pamphlet, but she busted up too. Finally, one of the Korean elders, who hadn't understood or got our joke, gave her the family pamphlet. We thought it was SUPER funny. But maybe that's just missionary humor.

HUGE miracle from this week: Remember Stacy? The Australian lady we met last week? Well, we texted her to invite her to watch conference with us. We weren't sure what would come of it, but we gave it a shot. And she actually came! On Saturday AND Sunday. She sat through the morning sessions both days in our English room with six missionaries. She had a great experience and we're hoping we'll be able to teach her this week!

Did you get to watch conference???? Super good. I especially loved Elder Jorg Klebingat's talk about gaining spiritual confidence. How would you feel if you had an interview with the Savior one minute from now? I was so grateful for his bold, straight-forward counsel about how we can live and act so that our "confidence may wax strong in the presence of God." (D&C121:45)

I love you all so much! Have a great week!

Love,

Sister Bonney