Sunday, January 31, 2010

Saturday, January 23, 2010

Oliver and the puppy






Once a week I try to take Oliver out for a few hours. On Weds. we went to the mall. We headed straight for the puppy store. It was such a deluge outside that the store was empty. The lady let us pick a puppy and take it into a booth to play with for awhile. We chose the cutest puppy in the store, a chiweenie! A cross between a chihuaua and a long hair dachsund. This is the cutest puppy I have ever seen. She was tiny and sweet with soft black curly fur. We stayed in that booth for over 30 minutes and had a ball. Is it true that I can't ever, ever again have a puppy?

It looks like we l live in SLC





After an entire week of non stop rain, the sun came out today and revealed the mountains behind us. Do we live in SLC? This picture is taken at around 2:00 pm. You should have seen it this morning at 10:00am!

Thursday, January 21, 2010

Laura's letter this week:

SO, big surprise of transfers this week...we are now a companionship of three! So crazy, I was so sure I would be transferred out of here because I feel way too at home, so when we got the call Sister Moynihan and I were way shocked. Our new companion is Sister 길 의 진 and I absolutely love her. She is just the cutest Korean ever. So full of energy and happy. It will be a very nice change of pace since Sister Moynihan is on her last transfer and is wearing down a bit. However our apartment was definitely not made for three people so that will be very interesting... Also we thought this would be our area's last transfer and yet not only are there three of us sisters here now, but two elders were put back into our area again. So, we are trying to think of ways to revive the area, which has been a little dead to say the least as of lately.However, our investigator 노 지 손 is still going to get baptized this week so that is so great! Also, we are teaching a 12 year old girl named 모 수 연 and she is doing very well.. Originally her parents let us come over because of the gospel English program (where you teach English for 30 minutes and then gospel for 30 minutes) however as of lately her parents have not been there so we have been focusing more on the gospel. This past week she read 19 chapters of the Book of Mormon! So rad considering the Korean Book of Mormon is way hard to read and we have a hard time getting adults to let alone this 12 year old girl.
So disturbing thing of the week...we were out proselyting in this new street market type area we had never been to before, and as usual there was just tons of raw meat everywhere. Entire pigs cut long-ways in half just hanging and tons of cow...that was normal. Then all of the sudden my companion and I look over and see this familiar looking piece of meet for sale and we look at each other and go...is that a dog? Yes. It was a dog that had been frozen and then cut in half down the middle long-ways. The creepiest part was we weren't even fazed. It was just kind of weird. Too disturbing to send out a mass email, but anyone who wants to know, remind me when I get home to tell you how they kill the dogs. It is actually way sad.
Anyways, well I am so excited to start this new week in our little companionship of three! So fun! Hopefully we can find some more people to teach.

Laura asked us to post a couple of photos on our family blog.

The first photo is of the apartment complexes that Laura lives in, which she says are fairly typical of how most city dwellers live in Korea.


The next photo is of Laura's district of missionaries (apparently, the photo was taken before her new companion, a Korean Sister, arrived).








Monday, January 18, 2010

Nicole, Andrea, and Annie



The three muskateers




Cute girls!



We were so saddened at J.R.'s passing. It is so heartbreaking to lose someone so young. We will miss him and we mourn with his parents and siblings and will keep them constantly in our prayers.



Mom and her girls











cousins get together












Amelies first plane ride























Saturday, January 9, 2010

Karen cutts b-day

My dear friend Karen has pancreatic cancer. She is a fighter though.
Karen and her husband Jim.
Karen and I

Happy Birthday Karen!!!

Thursday, January 7, 2010

Laura's letter this week

I love the Korean people. They are so hillarious. SO one of my favorite Korean moments this week had to be when this memeber and his wife were giving us a ride home. First let me explain the parking situation here. There is like no parking. So people have come up with many clever ways to make more space. For example everyone has their phone number on their car so that you can block anyone in and then when you need out, you can just call the person and tell them to more. The best is that in lots people will put their cars in neutral when they are paralelle-parked so that you can push the cars really close together for more space. I didnt know about the whole put your car in neutral thing so I thought it was hillarious when the member who was giving us the ride doesnt want to loose his parking spot so he gets out and pushes the two cars on either side closer so that it will be less tempting for people to park there. So funny. So it has been a way crazy week. Everyone has told us that Korea has not seen this much snow in 100 years. (Down here in the south it's not too bad though). However my companion got me sick so that hasnt been too fun running around in the cold with a cold, but it's all good! No worries. Also on monday my old comp from the MTC sister O'Bryan and I went on a GREENIE split. So fun. Just the two of us running around my area with our horrible Korean. Luckily all of our teaching appointments were moved to different day by our investigators way randomly, so we couldnt mess anything up too bad. it was pretty funny though with me leading the area for a day...we didnt get lost at least! We decided from the begginning though that it was not going to be some schmoozer split. we were like well if all we can do today is street contacting and door knocking then lets do a good job at it. So we set a pretty high goal for contacts and actually way surpassed it! So fun. When we told our trainers the next day that we hasd contacted 117 people they didnt believe us. So yay for greenie power! We met with that preacher from the "God's Power" Church this week. it was deffinately interesting. We took the senior missionary coupld with us (I love them, they were called to serve in their hometown for their mission!) just in case we needed the extra support. so to make a long story short, we end up all 5 of us in his church to teach him. SO he explains that he wants us to teach him in English and my senior said that was okay for now. But I wasnt feeling good about it. I mean his English was good, but not good enough for him to understand all of the gospel terms, which is kind of important. So, while my comp and I are teaching my comp translates some into Korean. But I was feeling like it was all wrong. it was interesting becasue you would think I would feel more comfortable teaching in English rather than my horrible Korean, but I keept feeling I was called to teach the Korean people in Korean. So I am kind of freaking out in my head the whole time saying a little prayer and trying to figure out a way to turn this into Korean without going over my trainer. Finally after about 20 minuets the pastor starts speaking in Korean to the senior missionaries (they dont really speak english) and then he looks at my and apologizes for speaking in Korean and I was like okay here is my chance! So I explained to him that I was called by God to teach the Korean people in the Korean language and that I actually felt much more comfortable when everyone was speaking in Korean even if I didnt fully understand. So for the rest of the time everyone spoke in Korean and I was so glad. In my heart I was like "Thanks you so much Heavenly Father! This is how it should have been all along!" It was a great experience. Now I am just praying that we can keep it in Korean. I talked to my trainer about it and it sounds like she feels similarly. In the end I commited him to pray about what we had talked about (in Korean :) ) and he agreed to meet with us again!Well I am sorry this is so long. I have more to say but it proably would bore you and time doesnt really exist for me to write more anyways.But I will tell you all that I love you so very much! Thanks for all your support! Every letter means more to me than you could ever know. I am so thankful that Heavenly Father has called someone as insufficent as me to teach the wonderful people of Korea.Much love!켈 리 자 매 Sister Kelley