In Which Kim Jong Un Needs Religion...

This week I remembered that South Korea is actually kind of close to North Korea. It's something you kind of forget. Unless North Korea decides to throw a tantrum. Then we hear about it.

This week for instance. We were at a member's house eating an AMAZING meal when our Zone Leader called. We ignored it as the member was telling us this story (and also our mouths were full of delicious food) but he called again so I took it out in the hallway. 

"Where are you?"

"We're at a member's house eating, why?"

"Can you please head home? Nothing is wrong, just everyone needs to go home right now and stay there."

Yes, that's believable.

Add that to the fact that I could hear our mission president's voice in the background saying things like "If we have to evacuate we'll be ready" and "of course they warned us first" and I slowly started to panic. I headed back to the table and my sweet Korean companion was like "What???" She said I was scaring her because my eyes were so huge. I was like "I DON'T KNOW BUT WE HAVE TO GO!" So after making a fumbled apology to the poor sweet member we skedaddled right out of there.

It turns out that the myth about every missionary house having an emergency backpack is TRUE. It was the first time I've seen it. We were told to make sure it had everything we would need for 72 hours. Meanwhile I was like "SISTER EE IT'S NORTH KOREA" and, bearing in mind that I was trying to explain what had happened in Korean, she started laughing and I was like "SISTER EE THIS IS LIFE AND DEATH! WHY ARE YOU LAUGHING"

In English, she responded "Bell Chamenim. Calm down." Apparently North Korea does a lot of this kind of stuff. Anyways, at least our 72 hour kit is finally updated. 

My hastily-assembled 72-hour kit

As long as we're talking about funny/seriously sad stuff. There was this guy that came to English class the other day. We all went around and introduced ourselves and when it was his turn he stood up and said in flawless English: "My name is Kim Seong Seok and I am very, very drunk." And then sat down. I could feel the elders just dying a little inside.

Having a Korean companion is interesting because sometimes I'm not sure what's happening. For example, we visited our branch president's mom, who's not a member, and talked about the youth of today and then somehow we ended up in this room just filled to the brim with CORN. You could not see the floor because there was so much corn in this room. She sat us down and we started shucking it. I still have blisters. I'm not sure what happened but it got us through the door!

I finally acheived my mission-long goal of throwing up at a member meal. It happens to every foreign missionary in Korea. It's a mark of bravery and longsuffering. I think it was the octopus that pushed me over the edge. I looked at Sister Ee and was like 'bathroom', her eyes went wide and we hustled right over there. And then after that I went right back and ate more octopus because it would have been rude not to. 

A little piece of very exciting news: a sweet investigator that Sister Olsen and I taught in Choongrang-gu was baptized on Saturday! 

Anyway, quite a week and I am planning to title my memoirs "I Don't Speak Korean and So Can You" because I have no idea what my companion is saying but we still manage to communicate. The gift of tongues is real!!

Thanks for the birthday wishes and letters and prayers! Love you all!

xoxo

Sister Bell

A chocolate chip cookie oreo waffle. it's real, folks!

Deep in the ocean of Korean...

This has certainly been an eventful week.

My mind is drowning in a deluge of Korean as I now find myself totally and completely immersed in the swirling currents of all-Korean, all-the-time. The most recent gift and challenge to my language skills comes in the form of my new amazing, beautiful, four foot eleven Korean companion. 

Her name is Sister Ee So Yeun and we actually met before! We did an exchange when I served in Choongrang. We were both greenies then so Sister Olson just kind of herded us like ducklings. I'm in my fourth transfer now and she's in her third, so I'm senior. (I don't really know who made that decision but it seems ill-advised.) Sister Ee doesn't speak English. She knows some random words (she actually let loose with a swearword she learned from a movie that she didn't know was a swearword. She's the purest person I've ever met literally so it was really an experience hearing that) but we've spoken Korean only the last week. She was a little concerned about not being able to understand district meetings and such. She's the only Korean missionary in Donghae, and her last district leader was Korean, as was her trainer, so this is completely new for her. I promised her that even when we were around the other foreign missionaries I would just speak Korean. So my head is kind of exploding right now. 

We've had surprisingly few misunderstandings considering. There was one time I was trying to explain 'shoulder' and somehow she got 'tattoo' but really all things considered it's gone amazingly well. She's REALLY capable.

An aside about Korean missionary culture. Korean missionaries have it rough. When we proselyte, the people only talk to them -- not the foreign companion. The ward pressures them a lot. American missionaries are interesting and therefore get a tiny bit of respect on the street. Korean missionaries get rejected fairly harshly, fairly often. Also, the ward has given us more referrals in one day than they did in 2 transfers. The perks.

Anyway, I was really nervous about being senior since I can't really do anything. Literally anything. So when the first person we talked to together didn't understand me I died a little inside. But then it turned out she was completely deaf and couldn't understand a single word Sister Ee said either. So that was hilarious. Sister Ee cupped her hands around this poor woman's ear and put her mouth right up to it and just YELLED. "HELLO. HOW. ARE. YOU. TODAY." And the lady still didn't understand. 

One of my favorite parts this week -- we stayed at the temple for transfers. They have dorms. All the Kangwondo (country) sisters got to stay there overnight. It was really special because I have really missed the temple; Donghae is too far away to ever go. So I went out into the hall and just read my scriptures and prayed. I was really nervous for transfers but it all kind of melted away right then. I'll never forget that night.

Anyways, I love you all so much! Thanks for all the love :)

Farewell to Sister Murdock (작별 내 친구)...

Hi all,

Missionary Quote of the Week: (while hiking through the forest) "Hey, look. A field. It's white. It's ready to harvest. AND IT'S ALL THE WAY OVER THERE SEPARATED BY A DITCH. Isn't that a lovely metaphor."

Well another week has come and gone, and so has another companion. That's right. Sister Murdock and I were nervously awaiting transfer calls. We loved serving together and we thought we might have one more transfer as a companionship. Every time the phone went off we jumped. Then finally our AP (assistant to the president) called. He's so nice and always makes small talk. (We know you don't care how our day went, Elder Miller, and we just want you to do it like you're ripping off a Bandaid. But thanks.)

South Korea has been incredibly hot this week!
I'm going to miss Sister Murdock

Sister Murdock is going to TAEBAEK. We screamed a lot. Let me put it this way. If Donghae is like the Sahara in terms of no one living here, Taebaek is like the moon. The Sahara at least has obscure tribes of people with strange customs. Donghae has small tribes of people living in hills. TAEBAEK HAS NOTHING. I don't know who my new companion is -- we have a new rule about that, probably because people will dig up anything they can on their next companion -- but I get to stay in Donghae. It really is the Garden of Eden.

I know Sister Murdock will do great anywhere she is planted. We saw a bunch of super cool miracles and talked with so many people! She is so kind and great at Korean and it was awesome coming out of greenie time with her as my companion.

Speaking of greenie time I got to talk to my trainer, Sister Gil!!!!! I was at a funeral and she's at school in Hawaii so it was a little different than we were used to haha. But it was so wonderful to hear her voice <3 Honestly, missionaries are one of my favorite parts of being a missionary. So many people to look up to and be inspired by.

Sister Murdock serving hot dogs at English camp

This week we did an English camp. It was really fun! I fell in love with all the kids that came. We made hot dogs and burned them slightly so we told them it was American style.

We did also go to a funeral, which was a really intense experience. There were a lot of rituals involved. None of us were quite sure what to do but it turned out okay.

Anyway, kind of a lame email so I'm sorry but I'm going to leave you all with this spiritual thought:

“Go ye out of Babylon; gather ye out from among  the nations, from the four winds, from one end of heaven to the other” (D&C 133:7).

There's an awesome talk by D Todd Christofferson entitled Come to Zion. In it he describes the difference between Zion and Babylon. Paraphrased, Babylon is all the worldly things we get distracted by. Zion is the things that really matter. In Korea -- and this is something I could talk about for hours -- technology is everything. I think I'll send an email about it next week. I never realized how insidious it could be. But it's something that's been on my mind. Go ye out of Babylon.

Anyways, love you all! Thanks so much <3

xoxo,

Sister Bell

Bing Su--my favorite dessert
Mango, cheese and ice cream on top of shave ice

Of strange packages in strange places...

Hi all,

Dangerous criminal on the loose...

Our new Army friend!

I ate SO MUCH MEAT this week. So much I think I broke that one Word of Wisdom stipulation that everyone living in Idaho seems to forget about. I definitely did not eat it sparingly. There are meat buffets here. I am not kidding. Meat BUFFETS. Incidentally the word for missionary is really close to the word for fatty pig meat, so when we tell people we're seongyosa's they get really excited because they think we said samgyeopsar's. Then they realize what we're saying and they aren't as excited. 

Anyways.

Monday: PDAY~ We finally made it to the beach! We went to 망상 which is a huge tourist destination. It was so weird feeling sand between my toes. It was really cloudy and everyone was wearing weird clothes but it still felt a little like California. It's so strange to think that my family sees the same ocean I do! We took some pictures, and then this lifeguard came over and was really excited to meet Americans. Then we told him we were missionaries and he suddenly remembered some responsibilities he had to do.

​
​Tuesday we tried walking to the same beach we had gone to Monday. There had been a lot of people on the road then. Tuesday there was NO ONE. We wandered in the mists and forests of Korea and then came out and had no idea where we were. We saw signs that said 'Busan'--like a lot of them -- and we thought we were in Busan Mission for a little bit. So we were a little freaked out. But then this sketchy grandpa motioned us onto a bus and somehow we got home. We were in Donghae the whole time. Donghae, as it turns out, is basically Narnia. You THINK you're going into the forest and somehow you end up by the ocean. 

We ate so much meat. We came home for a bit after and literally just lay on the floor groaning in pain. Truly Korean missionaries suffer.

​Wednesday our District Leader gave SUCH a good devotional! He talked about living below our privileges. We all have so many blessings we can take advantage of. I've been studying David A Bednar's talks recently and he talks a lot about how our morning prayers are a continuation of our nighttime prayers. If we live life from prayer to prayer wouldn't that be an amazing thing? 

We also visited a furniture shop lady and she talked a lot about arranged marriage. That was one of the first words I learned in Korea. A lot of people immigrate here and get married. It's sad -- they're usually pretty miserable.

Thursday we visited every single branch member in Donghae. Granted, it's not huge, but Donghae is, and the members are spread out all over the place. Also, that day it was simultaneously the hottest day of the year AND raining like crazy. I felt so sweaty and gross and greasy. We were on a bus and this woman sat next to me. I felt guilty but I really did not want to talk to her. I felt so disgusting, and it felt like I would do more for the church by NOT being the first missionary she ever talked to!

But then something strange happened in front of us. There was this strange old man with a strange old coat holding strange packages. He booted a younger college guy right out of his seat and tumbled into it himself. He fussed around and got situated. Then he tapped the man in front of him and thrust a package into his hands, gesturing for him to untie the plastic strings. The man did so with some sideways glances, obviously not sure why he was doing so. He finally unknotted it and handed it back. In return the man pulled out a loaf of bread and handed it to him. The other man was so delighted!

I realized we don't always know why God sends us to people or places, or why he asks us to do weird things. But when we do them it inevitably brings blessings we don't expect. So I talked to the lady and we had an amazing discussion, and I gave her a Book of Mormon. She was so interested in modern prophets. I had no idea she would have this interest when I started talking to her, but when I untied the package there was something amazing inside.

Friday we did an exchange and had some amazing things happen. I went with Sister Evans, our STL, to Wonju. We had just started 전도 with a woman crossing the street when I heard this big, deep voice say "Hello, Sisters!" I looked behind us...and then looked up. There was a six foot six white man standing behind us. He was SO TALL. Normally I would have been a little unsettled but he had said “sisters", which is a term most people obviously don't use. I talked to him while Sister Evans kept 전도 ing and learned his name is Joseph, and that he's stationed here with the army. He's a member of the church with a cute little family living in Idaho that he hasn't seen for 15 months. He hasn't been able to find a church building since that time. So when he saw us walk past he immediately did a double take. In his words..."White girls? Wearing SKIRTS? Must be the sister missionaries". So we took him to the church building and introduced him to the elders. The miracle was that our bus had been late. Buses in Korea are NEVER late! But because it was we were able to walk past right when he looked up. The next day he was able to go to a music concert with us and he was so happy to hear church music!

Saturday: We ate MORE meat. And went to this really awesome opera concert! The guy was amazing! He had a huge voice and range and I died a little inside because it was SO BEAUTIFUL and I never thought I would MISS opera that MUCH. His cute daughters played violin too. It was really special. Then I got back with Sister Murdock and we complained about how much we had eaten. 

Sunday was really, really, really, really, really, really, really, really, really, really, really, really hot. We walked to church at 9 and then spent ten minutes just standing in front of the air conditioner. We do streetboarding on Sundays and no one really wanted to, I think, but we did it anyways. I said a silent prayer as we prepared for it that somehow we would be able to withstand the heat. The moment we walked out there was this gentle breeze. Strange shadows were conveniently everywhere. We got to our streetboarding site only to find that a huge tent had been erected there, casting a huge shadow we were able to streetboard under. God answers prayers. He really does.

This was a really long letter...sorry! If I can't answer everyone's individual emails please know I love you all and would if I could! 

Thanks for all the support and love!

xoxo

Sister Bell

Tattoos, typhoons, and trifles...

Ocean view from Donghae

Hi All!

Another week has come and gone. I still don't know Korean but like that's okay. You don't really learn how to speak Korean in Korea anyways. You learn like a weird form of sign language. I'm really good at expressing that I really, really want to buy that weird food. 

Dried stingrays

I'm going to start with the weird stuff today and end with the spiritual stuff. There was, again, a Kim Jong-Un sized amount of weird stuff. 

So we were on our way to an appointment and these four guys start yelling and coming after us. Normally we would get freaked out but since we only have 1 progressing investigator it was like, "okay, we'll do anything"—maybe they had a referral. We were in a pretty crowded place so it wasn't dangerous anyways (love you mom). They caught up to us and then asked us to rank them in order of the most fashionable. One of them had these rad tattoo sleeves and we ranked him third, and he high fived us then pulled us in for a bro hug. Almost. We did like a limbo lean and got out of it. We ALMOST gave 4 referrals to the elders! But unfortunately they didn't come to church like they'd promised:(
I think we'll all get over it though.

Mukho view

We went to this area called Mukho to do some kakahoho (door to door) and let me tell ya, I've seen things. We got invited into like 4 houses because it was so hot! Technically right now it's the hottest time of summer, but it's also a typhoon so it's kind of raining too. The weather is a little confused. Anyway, people gave us tons of food and drinks, which was cool, then didn't listen to our message, which was sad. There was this guy with a really bad hangover hanging out his window so we gave him a Book of Mormon and talked about the Word of Wisdom. There was one house I knocked on and the gate was a little open, so I peeked inside...and there was a 90 year old woman going to the bathroom right in front of her screen door. She saw me and stood up (yep) and started yelling. I ran and Sister Murdock, who hadn't see it, was like "Sister Bell you have to finish!" Bless her.

Sister Murdock at the ocean

This one Sister, Sister Kim, came and stayed with us for a couple days. She was really funny! She wrote us super cute notes and made us food. We ate a TON during those couple days, including something called poppingsu that's made of ice and bean powder. It was SO good! She also told me that the Korean name my Korean trainer gave me actually also means Silver Gun as well as Great Blessing, so that's kind of cool. She also told Sister Murdock to stop waving her drumsticks. We're still not sure what that means but it's probably good to keep in mind.

Elders Armstrong, Brantley, Theurer, & Jones

We had a scripture battle with our elders as well. We were a little late getting in and we apologized to the district leader. He sent us this:

Alma 42:29 And now, my son, I desire that ye should let these things trouble‍ you no more, and only let your sins trouble you, with that trouble which shall bring you down unto repentance.

So we sent:

Lamentations 1:20 Behold, O Lord; for I am‍ in distress: my bowels‍ are troubled; mine heart is turned within me; for I have grievously rebelled: abroad the sword‍ bereaveth, at home there is‍ as death.

And they sent: 

D&C 121:10 Thou art not yet as Job; thy friends‍ do not contend against thee, neither charge thee with transgression, as they did Job.

So of course we sent:

Lamentations 4:18 They hunt our steps, that we cannot go in our streets: our end is near, our days are fulfilled; for our end‍ is come.

And they sent:

Mormon 9:4 Behold, I say unto you that ye would be more miserable to dwell with a holy and just God, under a consciousness of your filthiness‍ before him, than ye would to dwell with the damned‍ souls in hell.

So we sent:

1 Timothy 2:11 Let the woman learn in silence with all subjugation (because we're sister missionaries and we were dying over this verse).

And then we won. See, everybody. Missionaries can have fun. 

Okay! Spiritual time!

I read Exodus 14 the other day and it's all about the children of Israel escaping Egypt. In verse 10 it says they were sore afraid. Fear is the enemy of faith, and without faith -- a firm belief that God will be with us the whole way even if we can't see in front of us -- we can't move forward. The Israelites were confronted by a huge ocean, it's true, but they couldn't move forward because they were paralyzed by fear. 

In Exodus 14:13 Moses tells them to fear not. When they let go of their fear, they were able to move forward despite impossible odds. I know the same is true for us. If we can forget the things holding us back, and remember that the Lord is on our side -- and that in fact He has gone through all the hard things for us so that He can know how to help us -- then we can go farther than we think possible.

I love missionary work. No matter how hard it is I love it! I love this gospel and I love sharing it and seeing the difference it makes in peoples' lives. Our investigator the other night accepted a baptismal date and, since she moved, is still meeting with the missionaries. Our other investigator has accepted Joseph Smith as a prophet. I know this gospel can bless the lives of everyone who accepts it.

xoxo

Sister Bell

A cool pinwheel path

We found the tree of life!

A puppy cafe--pet the puppies and all your stress will melt away!

Seven random observations...

(Post date: 12 July 2015)

It's been another crazy week! Donghae is literally paradise. Our branch is amazing. I LOVE my companion!

So I'm sorry all my stories are so weird...next time it will be really spiritual I promise! But so many weird things happened this week! 

1. Last week I forgot to include this: so we met this old homeless lady at a bus stop. She's SO old and SO cute...she offered us this weird drink and we couldn't just say no. She kept telling us it wasn't alcohol. It wasn't...but we're not sure what it was. Sister Murdock pretended to drink it but then the lady wanted her paper cups back, so we had to drink it all. I actually drank it. Sister Murdock threw it up in a sewer. 

2.Our power went out momentarily. When the ceiling light flickered back on there was a pause, then Sister Murdock started reciting the first vision. When the light rested upon me...I still laugh about it.

3. Members here -- I love them unconditionally --  are so interesting. 

4. Yesterday (Sunday) the gospel doctrine teacher was speaking rapid fire Korean. She shot a question at an elder. He thought she said "What's the first thing that pops into your head?" He panicked and said monkey in Korean. She actually asked "What's the most important thing in your life?" The members were all really confused. It was amazing.

5. The members commented on how much I ate. When I finished they asked why I wasn't eating very much. 

6.Our zone commitment this week is to give the baptismal commitment at least once a day. It's yielded some incredible miracles. After zone conference, we 전도'ed like mad but everyone was too busy to talk. It was raining, we had no umbrellas, we were drenched and cold. But there's something about enduring rain with a smile that makes the miracles pour like the sky. We had ten minutes left before daily planning and still had not found anyone to extend the commitment to. So we said a prayer in the middle of the downtown. Then, without saying a word, we both started walking the same direction, towards an out of the way bus stop. We found a woman there - the first thing she rather angrily said was "I attend church" but we were able to have an amazing conversation about baptism. It was a total miracle!
The second miracle was that we found four new investigators! They're four middle school students. We taught them the whole first lesson...they paid really good attention! 

7. I got to go on an exchange with my favorite missionary in the world, Sister Seo Jueun. She saved my mission first transfer and now she's my STL!! She's also one of the funniest people on the planet. A brief quote: "He went to gundae (army) and now he looks like burned potato." We had a lesson where the investigator just completely opened up and told us why she felt like she couldn't get baptized and it was so amazing. She started crying. She also told me my Korean was perfect so I also started crying. But before we had spiritual time we had English time, where we taught her English. It's a lot of weird grammar words so I had no idea what was going on. But Sister Seo would talk rapid fire Korean with her. Occasionally there would be some English thrown in. 

"Mm hmm. Fire station."

"네. Evergreen."

"Ah. Piano store."

"Freelancer."

I kid you not, those are the actual random English words she said. I wrote them down. I love Korea.

She taught me a TON during exchange. One of my favorite things she said was how if your faith is at a level five, your actions should be at level ten, and then your faith can grow to level ten.

Love you all! I promise I'll send normal stuff next week…

xoxo

Sister Bell