Struggle is Real

WE GOT OUR KOREAN NAME TAGS THIS WEEK!!!!  AHH it makes it so real that we are going to Korea soon.  This week our senior district left!  So that means that we are the next ones going to Korea!  They have the tradition here that when the senior district leaves you have to write them a song and sing it to them Sunday night.  So because I am the least musical, I get put in charge of the song.  But luckily I had one of our new missionaries, who is super musical, help me with the song.  And it turned out pretty cool and me and my companion rapped the song.  It pretty much sounded like two white girls rapping, but it was so fun.

This week we have been struggling with our lessons.  Our first lesson this week was just a disaster (like the worst lesson we have ever taught!!).  First we were tried to tell him that God wants us to go to church, but because we used the wrong "want" form and we ended up saying the God wants to go to church.  Our investigator kept asking us, "Why does god want to go to church?" But we thought he was saying "Why does god want us to go to church?"  I was feeling so confident that I actually understood what he was saying, so I was saying things to answer him like to be obedient, to follow commandments, to feel the spirit etc.  But I apparently did not understand what he was saying.  We probably sat there for a good 20 mins having him say the same question and just looking like deers in headlights trying to figure out why he was not understanding us.  Finally he dropped the questions and we just wanted to wrap up the lesson because it was just painful.  So I had him read 2 Nephi 2:28. But since Korean scriptures look just like a two year old wrote them.  I accidentally flipped to Jacob and had him ready Jacob 2:28.  Which is a verse about whores and abominations.  And when he started to read the verse he slowly looks up at the end of the scripture with huge wide eyes and in complete shock.  And me and my companion were kinda in a panic.  Then I leaned forward to take the scriptures from him to see what was going on.  And I literally fell out of my desk and he just looks at me with a really confused look on his face and asks, "Are you ok?" Meanwhile my companion is just sitting in her desk trying so hard not to laugh.

We decided to teach the same lesson again this week to our other investigator, but not mess it up this time. Before we went into the lesson we prayed so hard that we wouldn't not mess this one up... the lesson was going well until I had to ask him to read a verse.  And my mind went completely blank and I could not get the numbers right.  I was jumping from English to Chinese to Korean and I just could not get them right in any language.  It was just a hot mess.  And my companion while I am doing this is trying to not laugh. But after me struggling for so long I finally got through it.  And two minutes latter it's up to me again to tell him to read about 11 verses (side not:we don't know how to say the word through so we usually just say all the numbers) and I just went completely white looking at my scriptures knowing I have to say all of those verses.  And I just turned to my companion completely terrified.  And she ends not being able to hold it together and just starts laughing and she could not stop laughing.  And because of this my teacher and I start laughing and it took about five minutes just for our teacher to pull himself together and it was still hard for him to look at us during the rest of the lesson without laughing.  Let's just say the struggle is real over in the Korean district in the MTC.

We were able to hear from Elder Renlund the newest 12th Apostle this week!!  Interesting fact is that he was the 100th Apostle ordained in this Dispensation.  He talked about faith and how we need to have faith in ourselves and the Lord.  It was so cool hearing from an apostle of the Lord.
We only have Three weeks left in the MTC!!!!

Love ya!!

My Korean name tag!!!

With the Senior District that just left

Korean Consulate

Story from Jayne's Dad.

Yesterday I got a call from a lady whom I could hardly understand.  I listened to the message several times.  Finally I took it over to a guy at work who served in Seoul and he helped me decipher.  Turns out she is from the Korean Consulate out of San Francisco.  She left a number and so I called her back.  Lady answers and asks (read everything in quotes with super-strong Korean accent)
"do daughter have dual citizenship?" (she could not ever come close to pronouncing citizenship).
I tell her no, she is american.
"She look caucasian"  I'm not how to respond to this statement, so I don't but I'm thinking that even with her picture right in front of you and the packet from the church, we are still having this conversation?
"Why she name Lee?"  I explain that Lee is a common english last name.
"You send birth certificate"  I said fine, no problem, I can do it.
I scanned and sent it by email last night and she replied with a thank you.  I get the feeling Jayne that your last name will be an ice breaker throughout your time on the peninsula.

Gift of Tongues

We only have three weeks left until we are going to Korea and it is crazy how time flies here in the MTC.  I still feel like its my first week in MTC but at the same time I feel like we have been here forever.  So this week has been a pretty normal week.  We finally have the fish smell out of our room and we are now able to sleep normally!
We are continuing to learn the language and it is getting better and better everyday.  Our teacher has started this new thing that if we say a word wrong we have to talk to the wall for a couple of minutes repeating the word over and over again for a couple of minutes.  But for some reason my mouth can't say what my brain wants it to say, so i end up coming back and i say the word wrong again.  But after 5 times of being in timeout I can usually say the word.

This week in class our teacher was telling us about Korea and how they speak really fast in Korea. And I asked him how in the heck do you get them to slow down so you can understand them.  And he said 방언 의 선물 (ponega unsa)  and I thought that he meant that was slow down.  So he started to speak really fast and so i started waving my hands saying that and he just looked at me and started busting out laughing and everyone else was laughing and I didn't have any idea why there laughing and apparently I wasn't telling him to slow down, I was actually saying Gift of Tongues.

We are leaning lots and everyday is kinda the same it's weird how everyday is blended together.

But love you all lots!!

 Me and my new zone.

Also I (Jayne's sister) have to add in a story Jayne emailed me...

So in Korean the word missionary is son-yo-saw but I was saying song-yo-saw.  And they pretty much sound the same, but there is a huge difference! Song-yo-saw is prostitute.  So I have been calling my self a prostitute for the church of jesus christ of later day saints...

Talking to Jayne

I just wanted to share some photos I snapped and a few videos from when we talked to Jayne on Mother's Day 2016.  It was so fun talking to her and weird to hear her speak Korean!  Looking at these photos makes me smile because look at all those genuine smiles that only Jayne could bring to our faces!

(I can't get the videos to upload right so I'll add them in later)

Fish Smell

This week I got to talk to my MAMA!!!!  It was seriously so nice being able to talk to my family!!  30 mins was way too short but it is better than nothing!  So this week we got all of our new missionaries in our district.

We now have two new Koreans in our room and it has been interesting.  They are super nice but we started to notice that there was a slight fish smell in the room and it was getting stronger and stronger everyday and when you think of a fish smell think of rotten fish mixed with stinky feet, and rotten eggs all together.  It was THEE worst smell I have ever smelt.  We found after much searching that they had in a zip lock bag with a can of fish that was open under there bed.  And after about 2 days the smell was getting stronger and stronger.  The bag started to puff up under the bed because of the gases and we were completely disgusting.  It got so bad that every single time we went into our room we were gagging and spraying at least 12 lbs of air freshener each time, let's just say we went through a couple of cans of air freshener.  It took a lot of willpower to go into our room I really just wanted to sleep outside in the hallway.  We were also leaving the door open constantly and we had the air conditioner blasting so it was pretty much a fridge so we wouldn't cook the fish smell.  And we went on like this for about 5 days because we didn't know how to tell them to throw the can of fish away, because that is all they had from Korea and we had food.  We thought they would eventually eat it.  But we were wrong!!  So we deiced to start dropping hint to them to get rid of it.  We kept saying what is that smell and then my companion would ask me if it was my feet that were stinking.  We even asked them if they had food that was stinky and they told us they didn't have any food, but 10 mins latter they offered us Korean food...  We finally with help with our President were able to get the fish out of our room and now are room still smells like fish, but the smell is fading every day and so now i am ok to sleep in our room ask long as i have a blanket over my head.  We found out that it was fish guts that had been dried and then preserved with a ton of salt and then put into this soup mixture and cured for a very long time... so its nasty smelling fish guts.

We also have found out the Koreans love face masks and so one night this week we all put on face masks on in out room.  Me and my companion have found out that our faces do not fit Korean face masks what so ever and so when we put them on the masks are way to big and they do not fit our noses and so the Koreans thought we looked pretty funny and we thought we looked like old men!!!    And afterwards we were trying to figure out what was in the face masks and we found out after wards that they are made from SNAIL...... i don't know how i feel about that, but i'll let you know.

So we also got the shock of our lives this week when they told us that we cant use any notes in our lessons any more.  You should of seen me and my companions faces because do they not know that we cannot speak Korean!!  Let alone give our lessons without notes.  But they actually have been going good... except during one of our lesson we were having our investigator read from Joseph Smith History later, but I forgot to tell him where to stop at verse 20 and so he was looking through it and then I thought he said you want me to read all of this?  And I said yes really confidently... and then our investigator just started laughing and we had no idea why he was laughing it took him about 5 mins to stop laughing and we just thought that it was because i might of said the sentence wrong. But our teacher came in later and told us what actually happened.  So apparently when i asked him to read he said do you hate me?  and so i told my investigator i hated him! I am going to be a great missionary...

Love you all and i hope you guys had a great mothers day!!!

Our Korean face masks

Our New Zone 

(Side note: I asked Jayne what they are doing with their hands and she told me that is how Korean's make hearts in Korea)

Me and Kayden Wild and Becky Parish from Timpanogos

Me and Becky

My bed...thanks Mom!

Korean is hard, God is good, I love you all, and the gift of tongues is real

So this week has been pretty exciting.  So the first thing that happened was we had the fire alarm that went off in our residence building this week.  Someone was cooking popcorn and forgot that they put it in the microwave and so the whole entire third floor.  So the whole building had to be evacuated it was pretty funny because half of the people were just in towels.  But it ended up being a really cool experience because we ended up outside for an hour just singing hymns and where else would that happen but in the MTC.

So we have two investigators now  that we are teaching and one is "ejason" and "oh- ming chung"
 So ejason is 14 years old(he really is over 6'6") but he is always falling asleep in our lessons if we stop talking for like 30 seconds when we are trying to remember words.  And so that was awkward and we never no what to do.  But it hasn't happened in a while because we are getting better and better at teaching our lessons. and being able to use less notes for our lessons it is crazy how fast we are improving because a week feels like a year and a day at the same time.  So my teacher called on me randomly in the middle of class to bear my testimony in korean and i was completely shocked and not ready for it.  I just started speaking and i don't remember what i said and i know i didn't say everything correctly but it was one of the strongest times i have ever felt the spirit and i the holy ghost just testified to me that this is where i am suppose to be and i am doing the right thing.

We also got callings this week and i am the music coordinator.... i don't know what the Lord is thinking about that.  But apparently they want me to be musical and they probably will regret their choose later... haha but really it will be good for me.  I also have to teach the relief society lesson on sunday and i don't know what i am going to do without Pinterest, but ill be fine.

So we get new koreans this week!!!!  So our senior district left this week and so our room has been pretty empty and it has just been weird only having 8 people in our zone.  But were getting new people today and so were super exited.  So last night around midnight we heard a know at our door and we got really scared because who knocks on your door at midnight in the MTC.  But we found out that one of the new korean sisters came here early and they were dropping her off.  But she doesn't speak a word or english.  So it was really funny us trying to telling to help her out at midnight because i really couldn't even introduce myself to her in korean.  But i am so exited to have them in our room because hopefully our korean will get so much better.  And we will get better at charades.

So the last night the senior district was here we did korean face masks and they really are the funniest things.

But korean is hard, God is good, I love you all, and the gift of tongues is real.