November 17, 2014 Updates from 목포!!

November 17, 2014

Updates from 목포!!

Hey Family!!

How was everyone's week?  We had a good one but winter is starting to set in...!!  

This week we had a combined district meeting with our zone focused on becoming one as a companionship, district, zone, mission, members, and with Christ.  It was a super good meeting and also gave missionaries time to open up a bit more and talk about our concerns.  Our zone leaders ended it with a fun activity.  We blew up a billion balloons...well really I just watched since I can't blow up balloons..and then on a balloon we all wrote one thing we are going to do to help our mission become one.  Then we put them on the ground and zone leaders put a table on top of them and then started having missionaries stand on the table.  Then there was a smaller collection of balloons and a table which we called the "Busan Mission", haha!!  and then saw how many people could stand on that!!  We all got a good laugh and it was an example showing us that if we all start improving one thing at a time we can help our whole mission improve.  Which is the same in families, wards, with friends, and others.

Lately we have been teaching our investigator Sister Jung about the word of wisdom, law of chastity, and other commandments.  She is a mother and she really thinks that our standards are really good but she asked us and gave us homework to tell her about how we can live these standards because the world has changed and so our beliefs are so different from the world.  Wow, good question.  Me and my companion thought and talked about it and came back with our answers.  I think the most important thing is our desire and reason for keeping the commandments; if we just keep them because that is what our Mom tells us to do then we have no motivation, but if we keep them because we know it will bless our lives and bring us closer to God then we personally have a desire to keep them. The second thing is, no matter how alone we feel we have our families, friends, wards, and members all over the world who are living the same standards and facing the same opposition.  So, as we stand together we can strengthen each other.  With another investigator we have been studying the story of Esther. (I think Esther has one good name^^)  She had so much courage to do what was right even at the risk of her own life.  We all know what is right and as we stand up for our beliefs and be an example we can have the companionship of the Holy Ghost to help us.  Sorry that was so long, just the things I have been thinking about and learning about this week.

Sunday we went with some members to visit a Phillipino member in our ward.  Her family is having a hard time right now so the sweet members brought them a bunch of food and are trying to help her oldest son find a good job.  It made me grateful for the church and that ward members support each other out of their own free will.  It also made me and my companion so grateful for all we have and for the families we grew up in.

This week one of our investigators introduced us to our friend so we are now studying the Bible in English with both of them.  The friend is very curious about the church so it was a big blessing we could meet her.^^  This week we also get to go with our investigator Sister Jung to  her English class she teaches because her students (moms) want to meet a foreigner.  Should be fun and maybe we can find some new investigators.  She also has a teenage daughter who is quite a handful, but her daughter showed some interest in meeting us so we get to meet her this week.  Hopefully she will feel comfortable with us and we can talk with her a lot.  Our investigator really likes the things we teach her but I think she would be more likely to come to church if her family also had the desire to come.

My companion is most likely going to be going home in December, the same time as me so we are not really sure what is going to happen to our area, we are praying there will still be sisters here.  But the goal is to give it our all this last month and help our investigators progress and learn as much about the Gospel as possible before we leave.  This home stretch is definitely not easy but we are trying to motivate each other and give it our all.

Love you all and hope you have a great week^^

Love,

Sister Jacklin

Pictures:-our zone meeting activity:)