More Glorious and Bright: Of mountains and molehills...

It feels like YEARS since I've emailed. This last week we did a hundred hour week! Sister Olson and I got up every morning at 5 and left at 5:30. We didn't have study time, exercise time, or mealtimes -- if we were hungry we ate on the road! I have never been so sore in my life. But at the same time it was the greatest thing ever. I exceeded all my personal goals! There was one day I felt scared to ask for numbers, so the next day I resolved to ask for 3. I ended up getting over twenty! It was insane!

One of my favorite days this week was Sunday night. The day before had been pretty hard. I got rejected like ten times in a row when I tried to talk to people, and a couple people told me they hated the gospel. We're trying to film this music video thing, because the Church is starting this big new website in Korea. This elder came all the way from another zone to film....but we couldn't figure out where to do it. We ended up going to this random apartment rooftop, and it was awesome, but before we could do anything the clouds came out. (Also, there was a naked man bathing on the next roof over. We named him Bathsheba.)

12-week Mission Conference with Sister Christensen

But the next day, Sunday, literally everything I was worried about got fixed. I had some awesome conversations with people, and the video ended up working out too. I don't know exactly what's happening with it but there were tons of really amazing things that happened. We found this gorgeous park with a waterfall and a huge pool and an observatory thing that overlooks tons of trees. It was magical. (Except the waterfall was turned off. I know. Welcome to Korea.) We started singing and playing guitar and pretty soon all these cute little Korean kids gathered around us, totally unprompted. We sang some Korean kids songs with them. They stared at us with their mouths open. It was like a movie. It hopefully will be a movie! Fingers crossed! If anything else happens I'll let you all know.

with Elder Anderson

There were so many cool things that happened this week. I'm having trouble thinking of just a few to write. One of my favorite things this week was probably when we met this sweet old lady on the street. She was carrying this huge bag of rice all by herself. My superstar companion ran over and grabbed it from her and we ended up going home with her. She lives alone at the top of these REAALLY steep steps! Her house is basically just a hole in the wall. She was adorable and gave us some of the most disgusting Korean drinks ever.

My saving grace this week was Sister Olson! It would have been ten times harder without her. But she wrote me some really nice notes and we commiserated about our sore feet. We actually did 108 and a half hours this week. It felt amazing to just give my all to everything. It also felt like I might die. But Sister Olson is a machine! We just kept going even when we thought we couldn't.

I've noticed one particular quality that all missionaries seem to share. They NEVER complain about the big stuff. Some missionaries will murmur all day about a tiny blister on their foot, or that their muffin was a little stale that morning, or that the taxi they took smelled like smoke, or that that darn dog peed in front of their apartment again. But you will NEVER hear them complain about how hard missionary work is. About the heartache over an investigator that doesn't want to meet anymore. About how really, they don't understand what anyone is saying to them. About how a family member passed away and they decided to stay in Korea because if they went home they might not come back. I never hear about that stuff. So if you hear a missionary talking about how they didn't realize one sock was navy blue when they put it on, it means "I'm having a hard time, but I love what I'm doing and so I'm going to complain about the molehills instead of the mountains."

This letter is crazy short for how much happened, but I think I'll end there. Most of what happened can't be really put into words anyways. No matter how hard it gets, I would never choose anything besides a mission.

Thanks for the prayers and support!

Love,

Sister Bell