February 25, 2013

TRANSFERS ARE THIS WEEEK!!!
Transfer calls were Saturday night at 9:45!!! We were super excited! I'm being transferred and my Sister Pak is training again!! I'll have another sister!! :)
I'm leaving 부평 and going to 화곡 and Sister Marcy is going to be my new companion!!! I'm super excited, but sad to be leaving my greeny area! It's weird how attached you get to places and the people you serve, but I'm excited to see all the miracles that happen in my new area!! I had to speak in church on Sunday and cried of coarse haha. It is so weird to give a talk in Korea because you can't really say anything other than what is written down in your notes lol. So When you feel the spirit or something you can't just say something else, you just end us crying at super weird parts of your talk. Either way it went well and I didn't make too many mistakes.

Yesterday is 15 days after 설날 so its tradition in Korea to eat this meal with rice beans and different veggies. My sweet companion made me the rice and soup for breakfast and then this little old lady that lives 2 doors down from us knocked on our door last night unexpected and was holding this tray of food!!!!! She is the sweetest and brought us the entire traditional Korean mean because she was worried we wouldn't have it since we are away from home. ( I'll attach pictures) We Heart attacked her door after to say thank you :).  The moon is supposed to be the biggest of the year last night, but the picture you can't really tell.

Here are some photos of my last day at church with some of the members!!

I don't know if anyone really read this Blog, and since I can't really post too many of my experiences teaching investigators, so if you wan't to e-mail me personally you can do that and I'll try to respond individually to a few people each week. That way I can share more personal experiences!

Love you all so much!

<3 Sister Sulz

Korea from a giraffes eye view:

THANK YOU FOR THE VALENTINE!! You are the best!
Fun facts:
1) When people move they hire a moving company ( see photo)
2) Sometimes you find random teddy bears in the church parking lot... weird.
3) Miracle Wall!! Every night we add 2-5 miracles from each day, you should start! It's amazing to see the blessings God gives us!

February 17, 2013

Hello Family :)

I was studying the new manual on teachings of president Lorenzo Snow and found this quote I fell in love with && I wanted to share it with you!! 

" Do not expect to become perfect all at once. If you do, you will be disappointed. Be better today than you were yesterday, and better tomorrow than you are today. The temptations that perhaps partially overcome us today, let them not overcome us so far tomorrow. Thus continue to be a little better day by day and do not let your life wear away without accomplishing good to others as well as to ourselves. 

Each last day or each last week should be the best hat we have ever experienced, that is we should advance ourselves a little every day ,in knowledge and wisdom, and in the ability to accomplish good. As we grow older we should live nearer the lord each following day." 

I love that quote by Lorenzo Snow, Even though I am faced with challenging times of difficult days - Each challenge I'm faced with makes me stronger and allows me to more fully embrace God's love in my life. I've found that it's often during the hardest times that make you into the person your supposed to be. This week went by SUPER FAST! It had it's ups and downs - but thinking back there were so many times Heavenly Father poured out his blessings upon me. It really isn't fair how much we are blessed for the things that we do. 

Someone asked me what the hardest part of missionary work is… I've been thinking a lot about it, and besides having to carry around my huge scriptures everywhere the hardest thing is how clearly I am beginning to understand God's love for his children. That sounds kind of silly that its the hardest thing for me, but the more I learn about my Savior and Gods plan for us, the more I realized the importance of it, and the stronger my desire to share it with others is. Which makes it even harder when people reject our message. Each day I am built up spiritually and then I realize how blessed I am, but everyone has their agency and can chose whatever they want to believe in. I'd say its hard to know and to see the miracles in my life, and trying earnestly each day for others to see even a glimpse of God's love for them, and they can't. Or they simply refuse to and hate us for trying to simply give them the opportunity to let God bless their lives and bless them and their families. But everyone has their agency, and I'm not called to force anyone to believe what I believe, I'm called to love, serve, and help them… But it still makes it a harder pill to swallow when they simply don't care at all. 

Were reading Alma right now for our mission tour that is coming up in March and in Chapter 28:8 it states that this is an account of Ammon and his brethern's sufferings, sorrows, afflications…. and incomprehensible joy. That seemed to stick out to me, they experienced all these hard difficult experiences but in the end had Incomprehensible Joy. Seems backwards logically, but that really is how missionary life works. The challenges I'm experience allow me to more fully understand my Savior and allow me to exercise faith and see how much power is available to us when we stop relying on our own abilities and let God take over our life. 

I love the scripture Alma 26:12 - " Yea, I know that I am nothing; as to my strength I am weak; therefore I will not boast of myself, but I will boast of my God, for in his strength I can do all things; yea, behold many mighty miracles we have wrought in this land, for which we will praise his name forever." 

Weekly Recap: 

Like I said this week just flew by! On Wednesday we had district meeting where Elder Moon asked me Tuesday night to give a talk on Faith. I have been studying it for the past week or so, but didn't feel like I fully understood it- nevertheless I was grateful for the opportunity to talk about it, there is so many blessings teachers are given to have the opportunity to search study and pray before teaching. Often I think the teachers learn more than the ones being taught. Either way it was a blessing to be able to help out with some of the training, even though it was me who learnt the most from it! 

Thursday was Valentines Day! We had a party at the church in the evening where we made cards, watched Charlie Browns Valentines day and played "a minute to win it". It was a lot of fun! Our 3 potential investigators we planned it for didn't show up last minute tho :(, Luckily God was looking out for us and this random guy walked into the church to use the bathroom and we invited him to join us. He said thanks but then left… a little while later she came back and brought 2 friends with him!! They stayed the whole time and had a lot of fun. Miracle :) 

Yesterday after church we rand into these preachers from the " I love Jesus" church, normally they aren't very nice to missionaries but I took their flyer and gave them a pass along card! They were super nice and friendly and encouraged us to work hard, I thanked them and told them the same with a big smile. Then they gave us popcorn!!! haha awesome! :) Nothing makes me happier than people being nice to each other. Those two old guys made up for all the people who yell at us. 

It's often the little miracles that make the biggest difference in my life. <3 

Well I love all of you so much! Keep watching out for those little miracles in your life and let me know about them! 

Love always, 

Sister Sulz 

이설지 자매 

Korea From a Giraffes eye view: 

The sun was shining and it was beautiful today I thought about you and hope whenever the Sunshine's on you, you remember that I love you and so do these crazy Korean people!! Do yourself a favor and go out to great Korean food this week! ( It wont be as good, but Kimchi always makes people happy!) I love you girl! Stay strong. 

February 12, 2013

Happy 설날!!!!

Hello Family! :) :) 

This week was full of miracles and amazing experiences. Life as a missionary is really so great haha ( Maybe I'm just weird) But really I love being a missionary far more than traveling or teaching english in China or Ukraine. There is just something special about having this ability to love others so much and want to do everything in you power to help them and to see a change for good in their lives. Missions are hard of coarse, but life is hard- and let me tell you the challenges I face on a mission are way less difficult to overcome because I am able to see the blessings and miracles God is giving me each day. God wants to bless us so much, we just need to let him! 

This morning was amazing! We woke up early and headed to the temple. The missionarys who are returning home were giving their farwell testimonys, and it was so good! One of the Sisters said something that I loved! Our goal every week is to talk to 140 on the street or knocking doors or whatever it may be, but 140 is the goal. And sometimes we look at it like "ughhh, I have to make 68 more contacts… or I have to talk to 84 more people who don't want to listen to me" and she said that she looks at it like " I have the opportunity to bear my testimony 140 times this week!" - I just thought that was such a good reminder to me that each person we talk to truely is a child of God, and we really should be putting our whole heart into trying to help them realize the love their Heavenly Father has for them. I am guilty that sometimes the people I talk to are more Korean practice that me bearing my testimony, but today that was a good reminder that each person should be an opportunity to share the happiness I have in my life. 

Exchanges were this week tooo!! So much fun, haha I always have fun and learn on much on Exchanges. I was with Sister Washburn, she goes home this next transfer and is just the sweetest sister I've ever met! We had a lot of fun laughing about silly things in Korea like the crazy traffic, or on the bus we sat down next to this guy holding a blow torch haha. Just randomly. haha, yep I love Korea. Conference was super funny! We had P.J. Rogers speak to us about Korean Culture and is was really good! I learnt alot, and got a bunch of tips on how I can learn the language. Rachael just sent me Adrians Blog post from last week and it reminded me that the time for missions all changes because of the MTC training time changing. So everyones mission is being cut down 2 weeks :( Super sad, that means I will be hitting my 1 year mark in 2 weeks. I can't believe how fast time goes by, I feel like I just got here. 

Because of the holiday we weren't able to meet with as many people because everyone goes out of town for the hoildays. I had one of the most amazing expereinces earlier this week with one of my investigators being in the hospital and being able to arrange for our Zone leaders to give him a blessing. I won't go into details but it was probably one of the most amazing experiences I've had so far on the mission! Faith is incredible thing. Speaking of faith Ive been studying faith this week and sacrifice. Its amazing what miracles you see when you put the two together. I think too often I think I'm lacking faith, when really I've jusy stopped exercising my faith. We can't forget that faith is an action word!!!! Your not going to see the miracles or the power that comes through faith if you don't do something! It takes work and sacrifices- but the blessings and happiness that comes through such a small effort out weighs the sacrifice 100 times. 

Thanks everyone for the letters and love! 

( Random… Adrians Aunt Terri… I can't find your address anywhere for some reason, If you could give it to my sister Rachal Robertson that would be awesome! haha I have a letter waiting here to be sent but no address :( ) Jenny && Sarah Your babies are SSOOO cute! they are getting so big its insane!!! :) :) But man I have the cutest niece and nefew ever! ( If you want there are SO many cute toddler clothes here… let me know if you need some shopping to be done on one of my p-days :P) 

Korea from a Graiffes Eye View: 

I can't even express how good it is to hear from you!!!! I got 2 letters from you this week at conference and made all the missionays in our MTC group super jealous! I love you so much and think about you as much as time allows. Keep being strong girl, You are where you are for a reason! Don't even stop looking for ways you can bless others lives. And just remember that to me, you will always be Sister Gelder. :) 

Love Always, 

Sister Sulz

 

 If you look closely you can see the red crosses lit up on all of the churches outside her window.

 

February 4, 2013

Its 설날 This week!!!!!!! :) ( Which means that I need to go into Seoul to buy a Traditional Korean Dress.... which means I don't have time again to e-mail :( Sorry!!! )

This week I am amazed at the amount of Miracles God puts in my life! As I continually try to Aline my will with Gods I am seeing how in control of this work he is! Gah! I wish I could just record all my of experiences and show all of you!  The Book of Mormon is true! I believe (in) Christ and all the promises he's given us if only we exercise out faith!!! 

This week was SO good! The work is progressing rapidly and we are seeing so many miracles and working hard! 

Also I FINALLY passed off lesson #1 in Korean haha and Memorized the first vision! It's been taking forever but I finally did it! haha :) Yay! 

Each day keeps getting better and better! Being a missionary you have the ability to love others and see them as God does! It's awesome but some people think were weird cuz we really are so excited for these people whenever anything good happens to them! haha 

My companion is amazing! She's SO funny I love her.

 

This week was CRAZY WEATHER!!!! It POURED rain earlier this week then was really HOT! I couldn't wear my winter jacket. Then this morning we woke up and had over a foot of snow!!! haha on our way to e-mail I walked under a tree and a huge pile of snow fell on me :P haha too funny. 

We'll I love you and I hope you are doing your best where ever you are with whatever your doing ! I learn this cool Korean Phrase this week:  최설 다하자 it means- Let's do our best! Whatever you do do your best, and I'll do mine :) 

LOVE  YOU!! 

Korean From a Giraffes Eye View: 

I LOVE YOU! <3