More Glorious and Bright: TINKERBELL SINGS!!

I'm so OLD! Next week we won't be the newest Korean missionaries. We celebrated our two week-iversary yesterday! Everyone's moms kept sending various food. Our classroom looks like Willy Wonka's chocolate factory. And to celebrate two weeks yesterday we ate almost all of it.

I'm exhausted but I've never had so much energy! We get up at 5:45 to go exercise and go to bed around 11. We sit in class 11 hours a day, but that's been better since we got new desks. With the old ones we had to hold our stuff on it so it wouldn't slide off; they were the size of a thimble and about as helpful to our class. Also, they were out of chocolate chip cookies yesterday. Truly we have endured trials here at the MTC.

I have made some awesome friends here! My roommates and companion are all incredible. Everyone brings something unique. My zone is just AMAZING. Everyone is a homecoming queen or president of some club or fluent in Japanese. It's a little hard not to feel out of place here. But everyone is so welcoming and loving that we feel like a family already.

Monday was Elder Schilling's birthday. The sisters had noticed that the last couple of days he had seemed a little down (completely understandable. Have I mentioned Korean is HARD?) so we decided to do something special. He's kind of a health nut and has everything he wants, so we were at a loss for what to do for him. Finally someone suggested giving him a banana as a joke. Everyone in our zone ended up taking 2 bananas from the lunchroom every meal and hoarded them in our room without him knowing. We ended up with about 20 bananas, and before class the sisters sneaked over to his desk and covered it in them. He didn't stop smiling the whole day -- he was so happy that someone had taken notice of him and celebrated. It was a wonderful feeling!

Sunday night my companion and I (side note: we're best friends and find something more to love about each other every day) watched Character of Christ by Elder Bednar. http://seek.deseretbook.com/character-christ/i I would absolutely recommend it to everyone I meet. It changed my life! It talked about turning away from yourself and unto Him -- everything a mission should be about. In forgetting yourself and finding Him, we find our purpose. This week it has been something I've really tried to focus on. After all, it's SERVE a mission, not travel to a different location and eat food and complain.

We've been making a lot of goals this week. Our teachers showed us a video where these elders that went to Turkey learned 100 words a day and memorized like 5 scriptures a week, and in one month they were fluent. Just so everyone knows, these elders were actually robots developed by the Church Science division. Trying to learn that much of another language would make a normal human brain explode. I've been here two weeks and I don't think I even know 200 Korean words. But my companion and I made a goal to learn 20 words a day and 1 scripture a week. And with the Lord's help we've been making good progress. So far we're doing okay -- retention is the hardest part, as well as application. Sentence structure is brutal. My biggest goal is to finish the Book of Mormon in Korean by the time I get to Korea -- seven more weeks! I can't even read the English version in 7 weeks. But even if I can reach half my goal I will have done pretty well. My reading has already tripled in improvement these last couple days.

In the MTC we teach Korean investigators. All of us felt very betrayed when it turned out our first investigator, Sister Kim, is actually one of our teachers. Now, all of our teachers double as our investigators. In some ways it's easier to teach in Korean than English. You have to keep the message simple, and that makes it a lot easier to both say and understand. Our first night in the MTC the room of newly arrived missionaries taught one investigator. We got a microphone and answered their questions about the gospel. One girl stood up and tried to teach one investigator about the Millenium and the three kingdoms. The first thing I ever learned was to keep it simple!

The devotionals are amazing. Last Sunday we had the international president of the MTC's, Kelly Mills, come talk to us. His talk was awesome. He showed before and after pictures of missionaries. The before pictures were of people, sometimes smiling, sometimes not, sometimes people you wouldn't want to meet in a dark alley, sometimes people you wouldn't want to meet at all. The after pictures were amazing. Everyone was smiling so huge. They wore less makeup and no dreadlocks in some cases and you could almost feel the light coming off of them. I think that my before and after pictures would already show a change; I feel so enriched by everyone and everything around me. The Spirit is so strong in this place.

I got to sing for the new missionary devotional yesterday. It was a weird kind of benchmark. I looked around at all their eager, nervous faces and thought "When I was your age..." I wish I could tell them that as wonderful as the initial excitement is, over the coming weeks it deepens and matures. It was an amazingly spiritual experience. I felt the love of God for these new missionaries and felt my own testimony pour out of my mouth.

I've only forgotten my nametag 3 times this week instead of five. Progress is progress.

Shoutout to the Markhams for helping me learn Korean! Learning the alphabet and important vocab, as well as experiencing the food and culture, was invaluable. And thanks to everyone supporting me by writing me letters and donating. Your love has gotten me through a couple challenging days. As has Amazon Prime, my Valentine this year.

The days go by like years, long and slow; but the weeks go by like moments. I'm so excited to be serving the Lord and His children! The time is almost here for me to get myself on a plane and get to Seoul, and I love the people I haven't met yet more with each passing day.

xoxo,

Sister Bell

ps There are nine new native Korean speakers here at the MTC. They are all awesome. Their English is perfect. Also, I think all the girls weigh under a hundred pounds, and their shoe sizes don't exist in America. They're so cute! Actually the elders are kind of stern, but the sisters are all like fairies. In fact the first time I went to their room I had my hair up in a bun and as soon as I came through the door, they all gasped and shouted "TINKERBELL!!!!!!" Later they found out I was singing in sacrament meeting and they all squealed "TINKERBELL SINGS!!!!!" They're all really strong members of the church too, which seems promising.