Hello Hello!

This picture looks all lame, but it was soo high up and we were sitting on the ledge of the rock. We obviously need to work on our angles.

Sister Oh is soo scared of heights, so she was freaking out that I was touching her up high.

This is the monk from the story! He took the one picture, and the other I took from above before he called us over to come talk to him.

And the last one was the best day every. Ignore my face, but we woke up that morning, got ready, and then Sister Oh was like, woah it happened. And I was like...what? "You look like a Korean." YES nailed it!! 

Hey everybody!!

I don't have a ton of time, but wanted to share the coolest miracle we saw this week. So on P-day we went hiking with the Elders. My sweet companion was a trooper, because she seriously hates hiking so much. She didn't say anything about it until we got there and started hiking, but she did great. So one miracle, she made it there and back alive! She was convinced she would die up there. The hike we went on was a Buddhist hike, so the whole way up there are different statues you can stop at, and it's super cool. Anyways so we made it to the top (again, that was one miracle) And there was a cool Buddhist statue that we missed, so we were trying to find it. Finally we saw it down below, but couldn't figure out how to get down to it. All of a sudden this monk appears at the statue and is yelling at us to come down and tells us how to get there. We all start running down to meet up with this monk.

(Random back story, Sister Oh and I have been studying Polygamy. Why? I don't know. She's been a member of the church for 6 years, so she doesn't know a lot of the history so I've been teaching her some. But one thing we were talking about last week, was she didn't know that Brigham Young and some other prophets excersized Polygamy. So we have been talking about that and researching it. Fun stuff. Except we kept thinking, this doesn't seem like what we should be spending out time on studying. I just shrugged it off and felt like it was important for her to know!)

We get down to this monk and start talking to him, and he realized who we are and says, hey I've been to your church! And we were like..what? "I've been to your church in Salt Lake!" .....what? He was in Utah over 10 years ago and went to General Conference in Salt Lake and toured Temple Square, but had never talked with the missionaries before, and he had tons of questions about our church and beliefs. It was SO cool. So we sat up on a ledge up in the mountain, over looking the valley, next to this huge Buddha, teaching him about our church and answering all his questions. (It was so beautiful, like out of a movie.) One of his major questions being about Polygamy, and it was all stuff I wouldn't know if we hadn't been studying the history of it. He invited us to come to his house that following Friday, so we were able to meet with him again. It was such a huge testimony builder to me of how the Lord always puts people we need to meet in our path and everything is his plan. Everything is always his plan!!

Now, forwarding to that Friday, we went with the Elders to his house. He lived like up in middle of nowhere. So we went and were able to talk with him, and finish answering some of his questions. And he wanted to tell us about our future. I didn't know that Monks did this, but apparently they read your palm and depending on your birthday, will tell you about your future. Mistake. So he did me first, and for some reason he liked picking on me because he just kept coming back to me and adding to my future, except I don't know if he had anything good to say about my future! To sum it all up, he said I'm going to have a hard time keeping a boyfriend, won't get married before I'm 30, and if I do it'll end badly. When I finally get married my first born child will have a lot of health issues and my husband will work far away from home and I'll only see him on the weekends. That I have a weak heart, and I get my energy from the sun, so in order to keep my heart healthy I need to live somewhere warm. That I am always happy and my heart has no room for anger. That I shouldn't study nursing, it doesn't fit me, that I need to study counseling, because he says he thinks I like to talk a lot and have a strong mind. He kept saying, "You had a boyfriend and you never listening to anything he said did you? Because you are strong minded and like to do what you want. " And I was like whhhat??? It was really embarrassing and also really funny. I also learned, I never want to be a monk because it would be so lonely and their bathrooms are like little outhouses in the woods. (If you ever visit a monk's house, don't ask them to use their bathroom.) The Church is true!

I love you all!

Love,

Sister Stout