"Grandmother Power"

Dearest Family,

I love you all with all of my heart and Seoul! Thank you for your emails and for your love and support! It means the world to me. I am doing well and I am happy because it hasn't snowed yet this year and we are already almost halfway through January. I think Heavenly Father is being nice to me because he knows how much I hate the cold.

Anyways, last week was a good week. On Monday we went to Shindorim Subway Station and ate Taco Bell. Oh how I love getting Taco Bell at least once a transfer. I ended up not buying anything because I didn't see anything I liked.  I will save the money for when I see something I absolutely must have, like a Hanbok for Chuseok. Anyways, it was a relaxing pday. Tuesday we tried really hard to talk with as many people as we could and we ended up getting a lady's number and we are going to meet with her this week. Hopefully she will become an investigator! On Wednesday we had interviews with President Morisse, and Sister Morisse brought homemade cinnamon rolls. Needless to say my district entirely devoured the entire pan. On Thursday after our zone meeting I felt impressed to set higher goals. Anyways, we had a short district goal setting meeting afterwards and we ended up doubling our goals for the amount of conversations we have in the week. I was really happy that we had a higher goal that we could work towards. After the meeting Thursday as we were walking out of the church, a man came up to me and said that he had seen missionaries before and that he had interest in learning more about our church. I am glad that we were at the right place at the right time. We haven't necessarily had more success, but I know that the efforts we are putting in will pay off at one point, and it makes me happier that more people will know a little bit more about the church with each conversation we have. 

On Friday we met with one of our potential investigators, and we went to a seafood noodle soup restaurant. I ordered this soup not expecting to have to peel or crack anything to eat it. They served it to me with a huge entire shrimp right on top. I didn't know how to peel those, so I thought that I might as well just chow down on the whole thing, eyes and all. Right as I was about to chow down our potential investigator stopped me and showed me how to peel it. I felt a little dumb, but I'd seen people eat them whole before so anyways... always peel your shrimp before you eat them. There was a little crab leg in there and as I was cracking it, I flipped crap juice all over myself. I thought about all the times at home when we would eat crab and funny things like that would happen. Anyways, it was a good day. The rest of the week was pretty normal, we talked with three times the normal amount of people that we usually talk with each day and although we don't see the results of any of our labors right now, I know that eventually the people we talk with will be more open to learning about our church and more willing to listen to our gospel message. When I give it my all I can feel Heavenly Father guiding and helping me, and it is such a wonderful feeling.

On a humorous note, the grandmothers here have automatic respect because of their age. The older you are the more respect you receive. So we stopped a woman and asked her for directions. She ended up leading us to the address instead of trying to explain how and as she was talking she was walking down the middle of the road. Here in Korea, cars and traffic will stop completely for grandmothers, and they can basically get away with anything. It felt strange walking down the middle of the road and having cars stop for us. We have nicknamed it "grandmother power." And we were able to get her number as well, so that was nice.

I had a really great personal study on Wednesday as I was reading in Alma about Alma the younger and the sons of Mosiah and how they went from the vilest of sinners to men of God. In Alma 48, it compares them to Captain Moroni, and says that they were all men of God. It really struck me that through Christ we can have that mighty change of heart.  I am so grateful for that change. It was a really great personal study day.

I am happy and well, and I love being here. Thanks again for all of your support and love and prayers! I can feel them help me each and every day. I hope you all have a wonderful week! I love you all so much!

Love, Goodnough 자매