Hey!! (Week 5)

I had a great week! I love being a missionary! I'm getting better at Korean and I'm constructing sentences in my head much faster (granted, I'm still super slow)! My companions and I taught our investigator, "kim-hahn-been" this week and had an incredible experience. I got to testify to him that Jesus Christ atoned for his sins and that Christ loves him personally. It was amazing. I felt so happy after our lesson that I jumped for joy. I felt like Rachel and Preslee when they get excited haha.

We got to teach a native Korean speaker named Mikayla (her American name). She is a recent convert of 5 months. We taught her about receiving personal revelation through reading the Book of Mormon. She was so awesome! She filled out an evaluation. On the bottom of the paper she wrote that her experience with us made her want to be a missionary someday. It melted my heart. I'm so excited to go to Korea and meet more people like her!

I lead the music in church on Sunday and it made me super nervous because we sing in Korean, but I only messed up a few times :)

I spoke Korean in my sleep last week and my companions tease me about it a lot. I kept saying "kahm-sahm-ni-da Sister!" ["thank you Sister!"] for like an hour straight! Haha.

In a lesson with "jwae-sohng-geen" this week I asked him what he had read in the Book of Mormon since our last visit. I began talking about the "nanu" (tree) because I thought he was talking about the tree of life...instead he had said that Lehi had just died, so he was really confused when I started to bear testimony about a tree haha. We had a good laugh afterward. 

An Elder in my class is convinced that I have a Russian accent when I speak Korean. I have no idea what that means, but it's pretty funny! 

Oh, tomorrow I will be wearing a bright-pink shirt for the Relief Society Broadcast so I shouldn't be too hard to spot! It has been a really cool experience to sing in the choir! I'm so lucky to be a part of it! It's going to be so fun! I get to go to Salt Lake tomorrow! Maybe I'll get to meet the prophet! :)

I love the Lord so much. I'm so blessed to be His missionary. I know that I can do all things through him :) I know that as we turn to the Lord, he will change us and will strengthen us. 

Have a great week! 

Sister Naatjes

Hey!! (Week 4)

Hello!!

I don't have much time to write today because I went with a sister to Urgent Care to get a CAT scan. She has been having kidney pains all week AND had bed bugs. Poor girl!

This week has been a really good one. I am growing closer to the Lord each and every day. I am learning more and more about his goodness and love for His children. 

I get to sing in the General Relief Society Conference next Saturday!! Watch for me on T.V. I'm really excited about it! I'm surprised I made the cut considering we filled out a survey with our choir experience and all I could put is that I have sung in ward choir before. I'm super excited about it! We get to go up to Salt Lake! Woo!

Our investigators (kuu-doh-jah-duhr) are doing pretty well. We are struggling a little bit with new vocab and sentences, but we're becoming more confident teaching in Korean. The sentence structure in Korean is totally different from English structure, so I have to think a lot before speaking each sentence. It's fun to bear my testimony to non-korean speaking missionaries because they think I'm good. haha. Someday I actually will be able to speak it well.

I've learned so much this week! We have talked about patience a lot this week which has been perfect! Learning Korean takes a lot of patience! We watched an Elder Uchtdorf talk called "Continue in Patience." He said,

"Continue in patience until you are perfected"

Patience refines us and makes us better. The Lord always keeps His promises. He will always help us. I will learn Korean as I work hard, am patient, and have faith. :)

I am the Lord's. He is my strength. As I try to forget myself and go to work, I find joy and happiness. I love the Lord and I am so excited to share the gospel with people in Korea! 

Love,

Sister Naatjes

Hello! (Week 3)

Hi everyone!

No bed bugs this week! Yay! Yesterday my companions and I taught our investigator, kim-hahn-bean hyung jae neem. We have two investigators and teach one every day. We prepared a whole lesson on Jesus Christ, repentance, baptism...etc. We had all of our sentences planned out in Korean, but he asked some questions at the beginning and we changed what we talked about. We taught a whole lesson in Korean unscripted! I spoke to him in Korean without using the sentences I planned! That was huge! My Korean was probably really hard to understand and completely wrong grammatically, but I did it! It was pretty cool. The problem is that we can never understand what either of our investigators are saying when they answer our questions or ask us questions. 

One of my favorite things to teach about is definitely the Atonement of Jesus Christ and His love for each and every one of us. We are never alone. We are loved. He knows us by name. In Christ we can find true joy. I get to tell people that they have a purpose in life. I get to tell them that they have a Savior! Can it get better than that? 

...but Korean is still really hard. We had 4 sisters from Korea come the last couple weeks and when they would talk to each other I couldn't understand anything! (especially because I only know gospel vocabulary). I loved those Korean elders and sisters though. They were amazing! 

We got a whole bunch of new missionaries going to Korea this week. One of the sisters is from Cambodia and another is from Taiwan. They both speak very little English and will be learning Korean from English. I have nothing to complain about. They're amazing.

In choir this week we sang, "Where Can I Turn For Peace." I absolutely love choir here! It's powerful to sing hymns with so many people. Devotionals were great...

I saw Ellen Johnson this week! She is living in the same building on the same floor. It was nice to see a familiar face :)

I love being a missionary. I already love Korea. I am actually beginning to really like the language. I already love the Korean people. I'm so excited to go serve them and share the joy I find through the gospel with them. I feel the Lord's love each and every day. I love my Savior, I love the gospel, and I know that The Church of Jesus Christ of Latter-Day Saints is the restored gospel of Jesus Christ. 

I know this is late, but I'm so excited for MaLese, Landon, and family! Congrats on the baby! Aubrynne--you're at BYU!! Crazy! You should write me because I want to hear all about it.

Love,

Sister Naatjes

don't let the BED BUGS bite!

Hi! 

It's been a CRAZY week. On Saturday morning, Sister Lyon discovered itchy bites on her ankles, wrists, and neck...a girl in our zone checked her bed to make sure there weren't bed bugs and found several in the first 5 seconds of looking. They like to hide under the tags on mattresses and in the cracks. Gross! Luckily I didn't get any bites, but as I was getting ready for the day, I found one crawling by my closet...eww! We told the front office and they immediately told us to cancel our plans for the day because we had a lot of work to do. We had to seal all of our belongings in garbage bags to suffocate the bugs, wash all of our clothes, spray our suitcases and shoes...It was a lot of work. Some of our clothes needed to be dry-cleaned. Turns out that Saturday was the worst day to get bed bugs because none of the cleaning services or dry cleaning was open until Tuesday (Monday was Labor Day). We washed only what we needed for the next four days, and moved into a new room. They gave us this super toxic spray, face masks, and gloves, so we felt pretty intense. 

But the fun didn't end there! Tuesday morning we had to unpack everything ans move into our new room and do all the laundry that we didn't do on Saturday. We had 9 loads of laundry all together. Now anytime I see a fuzzy on a shirt I freak out because I think it's a bed bug. 

Korean is still soooo hard. Our old investigator (ee dong son) is now our new teacher! Ha! His real name is Brother Christiansen and we really like him! We have two teachers now which gives us more structure and helps us learn more. It's nice. The Lord has been helping us more and more in lessons. I can bear my testimony (a tiny part of it) in Korean. I have gotten better at looking up at the people I teach instead of reading off my paper. The Lord is definitely helping me.

I had some really cool experiences this week. On Wednesday we had a guest teacher named Brother Wade. He was amazing! He served in Seoul and told us about an experience he had there. He was walking down the street with his companion and a teenage boy ran to them and asked to use their phone. They let him then asked if he was alright when he finished his phone call and the boy immediately broke down crying. He had just run away from home because his dad was an alcoholic and his parents abused him and was trying to get ahold of his only friend so that he could stay with him. Then Brother Wade had my companions and I teach him. (He role-played and pretended to be the boy.) (in English)

I got the opportunity to testify to this boy of his Savior and tell him that he has a Heavenly Father. I told him he was loved. I told him that he is not and never will be alone. I literally felt God speaking through me. I felt SO much love for this boy who I have never even met before. I felt God's love for him. This is why I'm here. I have a message that will change the lives of anyone who will hear it. I have the truth and I'm going to share it to whoever will listen. 

God has allowed me to feel His love for those I teach several times this week. I have come to know more and more each day that the Lord loves me too. I can get really frustrated with the language and at times things are really hard, but I know the Lord is with me. I feel it everyday. When I felt down yesterday I opened to Matthew 11::28-30. 

"Come unto me...I will give you rest..." 

We don't have to bear our burdens alone! Turn to the Lord. He is always there. He will take our pains and help us through every trial in our lives. He loves us.

I love you all and hope you have a wonderful week!!

Sister Naatjes