Sunday, November 26, 2017

Happy Thanksgiving!

On P-day we went to an escape room for Sister Oh's birthday (which was Wednesdsay) It was super fun! We did a crime scene one, so we were like hand cuffed to the wall, trying to figure out the riddle before the person came back....we got killed. We couldn't figure it out.

Sister Oh's birthday!!

We went to lunch with our Young Women for Sister Oh's birthday!

This is our recent converts dog, okay its so cute. I love this dog, it's so small, but has so much energy! And it may or may not be in my suit case later.

Last one!! We had a Musical fireside this week and so after we all went to lunch at this place called Mom's Touch. Mom's Touch is pretty much American styled burgers, with a Korean twist on them, but it does the trick!




Hello Everyone!!

So much to say and so little time!! This week was Sister Oh's birthday, so we kept the party going all week. It was soo much fun. So for her birthday I got up in the night and decorated the house, we did a bunch of fun stuff. I made her Blonde Brownies and she loved them. Except after she said, that was so good, but I could never eat that for a meal. And I was like...what? Why would you eat that for a meal? And she said, isn't that a meal in America? .........no. Your mom doesn't just make a pan of brownies and you eat them for dinner? ......no. She was shocked! So we had a talk about cultural differences and stereotypes and it was hilarious. She also said she always thought American's slept with shoes on...I have no idea where that came from. And that we only eat bread, pizza and hamburgers. It was great, because then after she asked, What is the stereotype for Asians in America?? And I was like, Let me tell you about Yellowstone. Good talk, good talk.

Another bonus to this week, randomly Monday night all of our hot water, heater, and stove stopped working. We called the mission home and the APs were like...hmmm...we'll work on it. Showering was like doing the Polar Plunge, and I was already sick. We did all of our studies at the church to use their heater because its been so cold. After 2 days, we called the APs again and essentially said we were dying over here. They checked somethings, and turns out they forgot to pay our bill. It got paid and all warmness was restored in our house! It was a Thanksgiving Miracle!

So every week we help out at a Food Shelter by our house. We help dish up people who come in, and it's hopping! It's the place for all the poor little Grandma and Grandpas to come. Kind of an interesting culture thing. In Korea there isn't any program set up for the Elderly. At all. It's so sad. So to pay for themselves they walk around with this huge carts picking up cardboard, that they then sell to these junk yards for money. And most of them make little gardens in the mountains that they sell stuff along the street at the outdoor market. It breaks my heart because Korea is such a developed country, but then there are all these little hunched over 80+ year old Grandmas pulling a cart down the road full of cardboard. I don't think I'll ever understand.

Crazy Miracle this week! After our having no warm water issue, we were kindof just done. One particular night, all of our appointments canceled on us. Safe to say, it was a lame night. Right now our mission is doing a Book of Mormon reading challenge, in order to finish it by Christmas. After reading that morning we had talked about how everything happens for a reason and how the Lord lays our path. Except now here we were, cold, no appointments, and walking home down this dirt road in the dark. Super bummed, but this lady walks out of her house, we say hello and start talking to her. Turns out the missionaries used to come to her house a few years ago and she asked us to come back and visit with her. We were so excited, and now she's a new investigator. It was another testimony builder to me that everything is the Lord's plan, and if we just trust Him, everything will always work out the way it should. 

Sending Love!
Love,
Sister Stout

Monday, November 20, 2017

Earhquakes, miracles, oh and more Earthquakes

Last P-day!!



Emergency alerts we got on our phone for all the Earthquakes

And Sister Oh and I have been craving Banana bread so I attempted making some!

 I asked Sister Oh what we should do to pose, and she said, hmm okay you be the bell and I'll be the stick... She's super funny!




Hey everybody!!

This week, um yeah. SO much happened.

The week started off with going to a super famous Buddhist Temple for P-day. It was the biggest one I've ever been to. Buddhism is such a confusing, but interesting religion. 

We also had exchanges! I went back to Pohang for exchanges...that was weird. It was like going back to my old house, but none of my stuff was there. It felt like my companion was cheating on me! Anyways, there was this girl that I had met on the bus and we texted her everyday for almost the whole transfer, because she couldn't meet because she was busy with work, but we got super close with her. Well then she randomly dropped off the face of the Earth, we were so sad, then I transferred. Well, she called them a couple weeks ago to set up an appointment, anyways, so during exchanges I got to meet her! That was awesome, a huge blessing! 
That night we went door knocking, which was actually the first time I've gone my whole mission! It's not something we do much of here! Everyone has locks on their buildings and it's just more effective on the streets, except when it's so cold outside, there is no one to be seen! We go to the first door, on the fifteenth floor, knock. Silence. We could hear them coming to the door. So we waited. Waited. Ah yes here they come, well turns out they didn't actually hear the knock, they were just leaving the house. So what do you do when you open your front door and there is just these two girls standing there? Yes, this like 25 year old man and his mom scream and jump back like we were ghosts! Well, I didn't expect them to scream, so they scared me, so I jumped back and screamed! And my companion was awkwardly tucked around the corner so no one could see her... I had no words and neither did they! So we both just sat there staring at each other for a minute horrified! Then my companion peaks around the corner and gives them a nice spill, as their faces remain the exact same, horrified looking at me, and off we went. Seriously, the most scary experience of my life, also the first and last time I ever want to knock doors again.

And...oh yes Earthquakes. This week has been insane. So we had District Meeting in Pohang, right as our bus pulls out of the bus terminal, we get an alert on our phones saying that a 5.5 earthquake just hit Pohang. Thanks to the shocks of the bus, we didn't feel anything. Our poor Pohang missionaries sure took a scare though. One of the Sisters took a brick to the head and the other the shoulder, Heavenly Father sure was taking care of them, because they're fine! And since then we've had 7 earthquakes this week! We were looking it up at church with the members and it turns out that my area is sitting in middle of a mine of fault lines that are all suddenly deciding to be active! Korea like never has earthquakes. Our MCM leader talked to us about earthquake safety at church because there is supposed to be the biggest earthquake Korea has had in hundreds and hundreds of years coming this month. ....Korea is so not built for Earthquakes. 

Now, the funny earthquake story. So after District Meeting we were able to meet with a new investigator at her house. So when we got there, woah. It was like being blasted to the past! Her house is a super old Korean house, like the floor and walls were made out of dirt and there were parts you had to duck under wooden beams. Super crazy. I've never seen a house like that before! We were able to teach her, learn about her, the lesson went awesome, and I was saying the closing prayer. Half way through the closing prayer the whole house starts shaking!! Round two of the earthquake!! She's all of a sudden screaming GET OUT OF THE HOUSE SISTERS!!! Long story short, I never got to finish my prayer and that was the weirdest end of an appointment ever. And amidst of all the crazy we found a bunch of new investigators and have been seeing all kinds of miracles!! 

I love you all!! 
XOXO
Love,
Sister Stout

Monday, November 13, 2017

Happy 빼빼로 Day!!

So my companion LOVES shopping. So we went last p-day, she bought this pretty dress, and I got the coolest sweatshirt ever. 

Translating to teach one of our less actives who speaks Russian.

Korean English

 Visiting with our recent convert and less active this week. So they all share the same living room then their rooms are connected to the living room. Our investigator lives there too, so pretty much it feels like we're there all of the time. Good thing they like us!


HAHAHA so. We were walking up the steps to the church this week with the Young Women and they were like, oooh why are all the flowers dead. Ohh sad. Then we said, oh maybe we should water them. Then...they looked at us and said, the Sister missionaries are supposed to water them....awkward. My companion forgot they asked them to before. And now they're like all half gone. 

A little boy in our ward was baptized this week!






Hey everyone!

Okay the amount of miracles we saw in 경주 this week has been unreal. I wish I had time to type them all up, but I'll just share a few!

Random fun thing that happened this week. So we are doing a Christmas Eve program and our Youth have to do a Cha Cha dance routine and we got asked to teach the Youth in our Branch how to Cha Cha. It was one of those things that I was like, wow, who knew taking Social Dance in High School was preparing me for my mission! Because if I didn't already know we would've been in trouble! Tender mercies all around.

So since we have three foreigners in our area this transfer we've been focusing a lot on our English class and getting more people to come. So in order to do that we've been going through all of our contacts and just texting everyone. Then we asked people who don't have interest to respond no, it's kindof funny hearing our phone buzz no all day, it's like "no" "no" "no" "heck no" "no" We get a good laugh out of it, but  we have 4 new investigator appointments set up for next week that we're hoping work out!! I mean they already gave us their address, so they're pretty must stuck. ;)

English class rolls around and we had 8 new people come, we were so excited. So we're sitting and in walks in three monks, like decked out in their robes with their heads shaved. They came and sat down at the basic language table, which is what I teach. So I'm started to teach them English and the one Monk says, will you please teach my friends about your God? They need it. And I was like...Yes Sir! This Monk is like well known among missionaries in this area. He has a full testimony of our church, he loves it, he believes in everything. Teaching his friends felt like I was teaching with a member. He was testifying about the truth of the Book of Mormon, adding his testimony, it was so intense. The only thing holding him back is, well he's a monk and I'm not sure how switching from being a monk goes, but it was soo cool. It was cool to see the way the Lord had touched his life and how much courage he had to share it with his friends. If a monk can share the gospel with his other monk friends, EVERYONE CAN!!!! Member missionary work is so needed!!

I love and miss you all!!
XOXO
Sister Stout

Monday, November 6, 2017

9 Months!

So the first picture on the other thing was a puppy pet shop! They're everywhere, but we were walking by and realized the one in the bottom right corner was a pig!!! It was so funny we all had to stop and stare! 







Hello hello everybody!!

경주 is so awesome. The members here are seriously adorable. They all have so many kids, well for Korea and so the branch is crawling with little kids! They make me want to adopt an Asian baby, seriously they're too cute.

My companion is awesome!! Her name is Sister 오서현. She's an angel sent from above! We're having so much fun and things are going great! 

Cool things this week. We're learning Korean sign language, or at least are trying! There is a less active from Vietnam that is deaf and we wanted to be able to share a message with her. So we thought, yes our new smart phones have saved the day!!! So we made her a cute message card to take to the hospital for her (she just had a baby) ....and we get there. She looks at it and is shaking her head and stuff...we were so confused. My sweet hard working companion had accidentally wrote the whole card in Thai instead of Vietnamese! We were dying laughing when we realized what had happened! But later this week we went with a member who knows sign language, and lets just say it went a lot smoother, and she's going to teach us some more sign language this week! 

The smart phones were awesome, and then they stopped working! Halloween night our phone just stopped. Nothing would come in, and nothing would come out. We spent forever at the phone store, where they couldn't do anything until the next day. So our only option was to go Baskin Robbins and buy ice cream for Halloween, obviously. After we got ice cream, our district leader told us to ask someone to borrow their phone to text that we were home, but we are the only girls on our floor, so we decided to just ask someone on the street. After we got a nice lady to let us use here phone, we were walking home and I explained to my companion how every scary movie goes. I don't think we've ever ran home faster after that! The next day after trying and trying and trying, our phone started working!! 

Coolest part of this week though was Sunday! There is a Recent Convert named Slova, his wife is our investigator. They're from....umm I don't actually remember, Russia? Anyways, during Sacrament I was translating for Slova, Korean to English, and then he translated for his wife, from English to Russian. It was so cool. I had the chills like the whole time!

I love you all, stay warm and have a good week!!
XOXO

Love,
Sister Stout