More Glorious and Bright: Bells and Boomerangs

This week has been what we of the missionary profession call a boomerang week. Or that's what I call it in my head. When you throw a boomerang the right way it comes back, right? The farther you throw it the longer it takes to come back. And the farther you throw it the more powerfully it returns.

Coming to Korea definitely threw me! It threw me fast and hard. But this week, my mission swung around. The hard work has started paying off and we've seen mighty miracles. As difficult and confusing as these past weeks have been, they've turned into something amazing.

I'll start at the beginning.

I really miss my harp. A LOT. I have dreams about my harp. In my prayers on one of my first nights here, I tacked on "and if you could find me a harp, I know it's improbable but that would be really cool." I prayed for it a couple times. I thought, no way could I find a harp here. The apartments here are TINY, and harps are big and pretty hard to come by.

We were visiting a sweet less active lady. (less-active, meaning she doesn't go to church regularly). She is SO cute! She always has tons of food for us. Sometimes that food includes interesting items. That day it included tomatoes, which you have to eat like an apple. Having never liked tomatoes, I really didn't want to offend her so I ate the whole thing. I nearly threw up. It was disgusting! I actually prayed for help to get through it and probably thought something like 'I better get some serious blessings out of this!' But I did it. She really loves us, and over the meeting she really grew closer to us. So much so that she showed us a real treasure.

She pulled out this long black bag and unzipped it. Inside was the strangest instrument I've ever seen. It had several long strings and little things that could change the tone. She called it a Kayagum. I was really interested of course -- but then she said "this is a Korean harp”!

I can't explain the feeling of total love that washed over me. It was like a hug. It was an answer to my prayer! She let me play it and it was actually really similar to a harp. It was amazing. I explained to her how much it meant to me and she started crying. She said she had been feeling really lonely and that us coming had answered her prayers. That little apartment was overflowing with love.

Fast forward to yesterday -- a lot happened in between, but my time is running low.

Yesterday was Sunday here. The elders in our ward had a baptism. They had asked my companion and me to do a musical number -- we had practiced all week and it was pretty decent. We did 'Where Love is'. She played piano and I sang in Korean. At the end some members started clapping. It was pretty funny. They didn't let us sit down, and had us do five more songs. They really loved it. Afterwards an elder came up to me and said 'You won their hearts'. I've been trying to become closer with the members here. It was an awesome experience.

Last night was the crowning moment. My amazing mother has been working with the mission president to get The Piano Guys to come to our mission. They're currently touring throughout Asia so it was the perfect opportunity to hear them. Through miracles and the sheer force of her amazingness she made it happen. I wish I could express my full gratitude and love for her. It's an impossible feat!

The Mom Disclaimer: (because she said I could not delete that amazing mother part)

The short version is I asked my pianist friend (I owed him a lifetime of favors already... Bur this trumps anything I could ever do in return.) and they graciously accepted the invitation...

Thank you Jon, Steve, Al and Paul!

Thank you to their tour manager for making it work with short notice!
Thank you to the Mission President and his wife for being willing to listen to a mom they didn't know, of a sister who hadn't even arrive in the mission yet -- and especially for coordinating the meeting to get everyone there from around the country at the last minute...!

My heart is especially full of gratitude for the wonderful effects this night has and will continue to have.
I figured the "guys" might be interested in meeting with the missionaries, since they speak Korean: https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=o_LBkgR4kVM

We had been waiting to hear and praying for them to be able to meet with us for two weeks. Here is are our faces from when we got the text that it was going to happen:

"The Piano Guys are coming!"

They talked a lot and played beautiful music. One thing the cellist, Steven Sharp Nelson, said really has stuck with me. He said that a mission is like a scrimmage. It's okay to mess up! It's okay to make mistakes! The purpose of your mission is to help you learn and get better; we have fun along the way and maybe skin our knees sometimes but that's okay. The cool thing is he went on his mission to Korea too - so we know he gets it.

We got to bring an investigator to the concert as well! She's really sweet, from China. Her name is Hong nn nn (it's hard to say and I can't romanize it...). She loved it and wants to meet with us more regularly -- she thinks of us as her best friends now :)

And of course, one final miracle. When they were done, I prayed again and thanked God for letting us have this amazing opportunity. I knew it was a long shot, and He had already blessed us so much I almost didn't want to ask but I asked if he could let us meet them. My companion REALLY wanted to. And so did I! They're missionary celebrities. Last night the Piano Guys gained hundreds of new diehard fans.

Anyways, the president thanked them for coming and then said, "they have to go but they wanted to say hi to some people... they know Sister Bell's family." I got to take a picture with all of them!!!! And I got to talk to them for a while. It was amazing.

My companion and I had been talking about the concert the week before and were saying things like "if they played any song which would you want?" We decided on O Come O Come Emmanuel and were like, no way, that's a Christmas song! It would be crazy if they played that! https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=iO7ySn-Swwc

Guess which song they ended with?

They started playing and I couldn't believe it. I felt God's love -- that warm vanilla infused, huge comforter in winter type feeling -- so very strongly. It was incredible. That feeling of sheer joy is persisting right now, like a glow. I'm surprised no one can see it -- it feels so bright. It doesn't come from me, but from Someone who knows exactly what songs I need to hear.

Come thou fount of every blessing,

tune my heart to sing thy grace.

Streams of mercy never ceasing

call for songs of loudest praise.

Despite the turbulent beginnings, my mission has been amazing already. He has tuned my heart to the sound of His grace and it's a song I want to play forever.

xoxo,
Sister Bell

more photos from the fireside: