Sister Lund vs. the World

So... once again.... i have overstressed the situation. My companion is only a little out of her mind. She is like 4' 9" and i tried to bench press her last night and it almost worked. She is the first convert in her family and is a gentle sweet little thing. She kinda cries a lot. like a LOT. but it turns out sister missionaries like to do that so i just make her hot chocolate and hand her tissues. Last night we had dinner at Robert Holly's house this returned-missionary-turned-famous-comedian who lives in one of our wards. It was kind of a miracle because i heard he doesnt really like sister missionaries. but dont worry. I totally made him love us... i hope. Anyways his wife gave us pumpkin pie and it make me feel all tingley inside.  So the relief society had a big cooking competition and invited us and i wanted to participate and bought this horrible korean cookie mix. Also i could NOT get the oven to start. We prayed and tried again and of course it immediately started working. Our cookies came out looking and kind of tasting like dirt clods. but i didnt even care because they were miracle cookies. We brought them to the activity and they entered them into the contest. Our area is known for the amazing cooks and these women totally brought the heat. Their food was UNBELIEVABLE. we all introduced our items and I explained that our cookies were made by Gods hands. Everyone thought that was pretty funny and they LOVED our cookies. and get this: WE WON. Our cruddy ugly little cookies beat out all the Korean cuisine!!! hahahahahhahahaha i have pictures. Ill show you in like 11 months ok? This week i got lots of love from home and it was pretty AWESOME. Shout out to Larry Jones, momma oldroyd (the zucchini bread made me cry a little), and of course my mom who is the envy of every missionary in Taejeon. Im speaking a lot more Korean- thats pretty exciting. hmm... k thats all i think i have to say, Except maybe I love being a missionary. SO MUCH. even when my companions are completely nutso. maybe especially when they are crazytown. Remember when i got set apart and my blessing talked about how i would love my compys- its totally true. Sometimes ill be in the middle of a crazy situation and im just able to have a clear head and not get mad and just feel love for them- definitely strength beyond my own. I love you. i love this work. I love korea. Kisses!! sister lund

Happy Pregnant Korean Day and Steve Jobs Died

Today is pregnant lady day in korea which is so appropriate considering EVERYONE is pregnant back home. Congrats to all my Georgia loves. Way to follow the prophets counsel! I will be spending pregnant lady day as a bystander for SURE. i still dont speak Korean. also I dont know if anyone heard but Steve Jobs died and Korea is pretty crushed. Like every one has pictures of him in their store windows. I feel kinda sad too. Who will think of really awesome devices to help me waste all my time? oh well. CONFERENCE CHANGED MY LIFE. If any one isn't quite sure if the church is true just watch conference and you'll remember. I am totally blown away by how inspired the bretheren are. I feel so motivated to be better, try harder, repent more, practice more faith and stop being such a boo boo cry baby. To me, conference was all about realizing how blessed i am and to stop focusing on what im unsure of and realizing the Lord has everything covered. Everything is going to work out just the way its supposed to especially if im doing what im supposed to. i JUST got transfer calls. Im getting a korean companion Sister kim. she doesnt speak english. pray for me. Anyways im all of a sudden completely distracted- what was i saying..... i dont know. Sometimes missions are hard.... kinda feel like my life is over.... but im done being a boo boo cry baby rememeber!? Ok honestly insane things are happening. like we have three baptisms scheduled for dads birthday. I totally plannediton purpose dont even worry about it. Our investigators are unreal. So prepared and so lovely. I love love love them. I pretty much think about them all the time. Its getting kinda coldy outside. I love it. but im freezing to death kinda. can someone send me some leggings? I got the Nuskin stuff. THANKS! It was better than christmas. I almost cried. Im sad sister sherwood is leaving. It kinda feels like Camelot is ending... trudging off into the dark ages.  ok for realsies its gonna be fine. ok i gotta go we have a crazy day, I LOVE YOU! I love being a missionary even when things are weird. love you! sister lund

1984 George Orwell and three baptismal commitments

Remember in 1984 when George Orwell talks about how it doesnt matter how many people tell you you're wrong, if you're right, you're right? I have to remind myself of this pretty much on daily basis in korea. My favorite example of this happened at a sisters lunch with all Korean sisters. We were talking about how missions are 18 months and its like giving birth twice. Then the koreans were like,"but it doesn't work because pregnancies are 10 months". Uh... no they're not. "Yes they are!" uh no. I TOOK THAT CLASS! I watched that WHOLE video except the very end when I passed out. But there was no convincing them- it only ended because the Korean rage was starting to surface and i was scared.  But on to more important things- WE GOT THREE BAPTISMAL COMMINTMENTS THIS WEEK!!!!!!!! Two of them are happening on saturday. I am on cloud nine! I cannot believe the miracles we are seeing. We are planning on committing two more people thisweek and I am pretty confident its going to happen. It seems like every day we are picking up another incredibly prepared investigator.  We had ward conference yesterday and we were pretty heart broken when only two of our investigators showed up. I said a prayer and moments later we got three phonecalls in a row from lost investigators trying to find the church. We had to go on member splits and runa  half marathon to collect all of our SEVEN investigators that came. The ward was amazing and I think everyone had a really great experience. The stake president gave an amazing talk all about repentance, the atonement, and baptism. It was such an amazing missionary sunday. SO many members brought friends or family- we got so many numbers i have no idea how we are going to have time to call them all this week. I looked at our schedule this week and we have one one hour block of time that is not filled with a stellar appointment. The Lord is blessing us in such a huge way- im just hope we can keep this up. We arent taking a p day again today because there really is no time. I dont know how im going to do it. IM SO TIRED. I feel like ive aged ten years this transfer- im losing tons of weight and the weird thing is ive never been happier in my whole life. I love falling into bed feeling like death and knowing I'm doing what i came here to do.  OH YEAH- we had splits this week. My compy from the mtc came up to gwangju which meant neither of us spoke korean and I had to get us to all of our appointments all over the city and try to say something substinative enough that our investigators wouldn't drop us. I've never been so stressed in my life. BUt guess what? The Lord totally covered for us. We had an amazing couple of days. We made it to all of our appointments on time, taught our lessons to our investigators who either understood us or are just really nice. It was a humbling and incredible experience to feel the spirit guiding us in such a huge way. Its comforting to know that the Lord wont let us mess things up-  He ALWAYS has our backs.  An old lady bought us chicken the other day and there were fried chicken feet in the bucket that looked like baby hands. I freaked out inside. The korean elders tried to get me to eat them. um no thank you i'd rather not chew up a foot today. Thanks! IT sounds like everyone it doing amazing! I miss you all somthin fierce.  Lovie dovie all the time

Baptisms and Fall Festival

Fall is in full swing in gwangju this week and im starting to realize why every koreans favorite holiday is fall. There is a huge oldies festival going on in the downtown area that is SO incredible. All the foot streets in the shopping district are roofed with glowing painted chinese lanterns, all of the street vendors are selling their special fall treats that taste amazing. My favorite are these giant walnut shaped custard filled pastry things that make you feel all warm inside. Guess what else I got? cotton candy. I saw the cotton candy man and FLIPPED. We asked him to give me a lot so he made me one the size of a beach ball (heaven) Oh and did i mention that it was made on a chopstick? it was. I fall deeper and deeper in love with korea every day. The festival is fun because as we are traveling or street contacting i hear a group of koreans preforming "california dreamin" or Cat Stevens- its especially great because they dont speak korean and their pronunciation is adorable.  Its also cool to see koreans doing something other than rushing to work- actually spending time together, doing fun things.  So we had FOUR baptisms this weekend... no big deal. Except it was a BIG DEAL!! Im pretty much bursting with this deep, heart throbbing, joy. Our first baptism was kim kyung sun our 19 year old miracle who didnt even really need us- the Lord has been preparing her for a while. I got to be there from lesson one to baptism. I feel so blessed to have been apart. The guy that baptized her forgot to tell her to plug her nose and pretty much threw her into the water she came up gasping and choking and sister sherwood and i basically had to pull her out of the water- it was pretty awesome. AHH! I love that girl! Then we had our couple who almost didnt get baptized because they didnt pass their initial interview but one of the counselors in the mission presidencies came down to interview them at eleven for their four oclock baptism. wow. They were so cute and all smiles.  Then at that same service we had our little eight year old first convert in her family (except her aunt who served a mission in temple square). She was so excited and nervous and filled with light. She came out of the water giggling. I love little kids. They have so much trust and faith in people- i want to be like that. So it was an incredible weekend. We had to go on splits on sunday so we could be at both sacrament meetings for the confirmations. Kim kyung sun sat down exactly four seconds before they called her up. Hallelujah. We are extending three more baptismal commitments this week. Can you believe this place?! How are these people so prepared?! It feels pretty good to be working so hard and seeing so many miracles. Sometimes i feel like the lord isn't being sneaky enough. Sometimes his help seems so apparent. Like He is being to obvious or something. I knew He helped missionaries i just didnt know it was THIS much. It makes me kinda homesicky to be so far away on conference weekend. I get to watch it this weekend and im hearing rumors about it being available in english.... huzzah! I cant wait. Could someone send some mac n cheese? I suddenly crave it all the time. Also i need an update on Kendis roney, Alexis Kaufusi, Matt Oldroyd, and anyone else who I should know about. I LOVE LOVE LOVE YOU! I have a testimony of this gospel. Its the only thing that im 100% certain of. I know that we can rely on the Lord even when it feels like everything else is falling apart- he has our backs. He has invested everything in us and wants us to be as happy as we can. As we give ourselves over to His will, He will make us into something better than we ever imagined. I love being a missionary. Its the hardest, worst, best thing i think ill ever do and i genuinely love it. All my love, Sister lund

September 18, 2011

This week was unbelievable. We saw so many miracles! We have been working our heads off and it is paying off ten fold. We picked up six new investigators this week. SIX. And they are real investigators too! with genuine interest!!! One of them is a stay at home mom with three crazy kids. She called about a free english flyer but when we showed up all she wanted to talk about was the church. After calling us she researched our church, found our website, watched our church videos, read some of the book of mormon online and told us, "all my friends told me you guys were a cult but i think they are wrong, i think it might be true". She is amazing! Also her son is unreal. He's this 6 year old ball of energy and the minute i sat down he jumps on me and gives me a bear hug and tells me im pretty. He did this a few more times during the lesson so i totally didnt see it coming when he grabbed my cheeks and kissed me on the lips! We are soul mates probably.  We also picked up a Chinese girl whos english is better than her korean so we teach her in english. She is so prepared. Everytime im around her I feel the spirit. She WILL be baptized. we also met our little ex nun they other day in a coffee shop. I was worried it was going to be too loud and crazy and the spirit wouldnt be there but He WAS. We read from the book of mormon and bore our testimonies. We both felt guided and prompted throughout the whole lesson. I even made a few coherent sentences (the church is true) She told us she thinks the Book of Mormon was inspired by God and that she feels Gods love when she's around us- is there any better compliment in the world? i dont think so. Ah! I could go on and on about all our new investigators. We are so busy that we aren't really taking a p day today because we have so many appointments.  I love being busy! On the way home last night this grandpa made me sit next to him on the bus. He started talking to me a mile a minute about how god and buddah and jesus are all one person and I would just nod my head and say yes when I thought he was asking me a question- sometimes i would add a sentence or two about my testimony and told him about the book of mormon. It was all i could do to not bust up laughing at the ridiculousness of our conversation. At the end when he was getting up to leave I tried to hand him a pamphlet. He looks at me, smiles, pats my hand, takes the pamphlet and says in perfect English, "youre a lovely person- just keep studying korean ok?" WHAT THE HECK! He was totally messing with me. roar.  We had mission tour this week with Elder Aoyagi. It was AMAZING! I feel like a new missionary. It was kind of a cool meeting. Elder Aoyagi is Japanese so he had a translator translating into english and then the assistants would translate into korean. It made for a long meeting but it was so amazing! He told us his amazing conversion story and made us feel so excited to be missionaries in Korea.  He told us about how we need to be aware of our authority as missionaries- he asked us to promise blessings to our investigators. As we have done that this week we have seen miracles in the lives of our investigators. One of our high schoolers has been afraid to tell her mom she has been meeting with the missionaries (sometimes korean parents are controlling to the max) We prayed with her and promised her that if she had the faith that heavenly father would soften her moms heart and everything would turn out ok. Guess who was a church WITH HER MOM on sunday! I honestly started crying when i saw the big mischievous grin on her face.  I have a testimony of the living Christ. He lives at this moment. He is aware of us- all our wants and desires. I know that he loves us more than we could ever imagine. He stands ready to help. I know that this is His church. He wants us to feel the blessings of this gospel but He can't make us. We have to do it ourselves. I love that people really can and do change. Do your visiting/home teaching! Read your scriptures! Have family home evening! Go to the temple! Do those things and everything is going to be ok. No matter what.   I am so grateful for my family. Thank you for your strength. I never realized how incredible it is to not have to worry about your family- i do, but not about the big stuff. I know that you're doing the important things- thanks for being rockstars. oh! guess what? I got my chemically straightened for 20 buck because the hair people freaked out about my hair being blonde. KOREA IS AWESOME! and so is my pantene pro-v commercial hair.  KK I LOVE YOU! Write me letters! Be good! The church is true i PROMISE.Pray for my korean. It is so horrible. Lovie dovie- 런 드 자 매

Falling For Guangu

Sorry i didnt email! It was Chusock? i have no idea how to spell that in english. sorry. Chusock is like thanksgiving and it was SO much fun. We got to make lots of doc- this rice cake sugar filled heaven. Koreans say that if you can make pretty doc you will have pretty daughters so I was feeling a lot of pressure when my doc looked like chewed gumball. Luckily i perfected my skills and by the end people stopped laughing at my doc and then they couldn't tell mine apart from the grandmas which meant that I am PROFESH. Huzzah! My daughters will be ridiculously good looking.  We also spent lots of time with members and i completely am taken with this place. The members are amazing and so strong. gwangju is so tame compared to Naju- at first it was kind of disappointing and I felt sort of out of place but im getting into the groove of things and its turning out to be SO great. I went on splits back to Naju last week. It was way fun except in the middle of the night I woke up and heard sirens telling us that North Korea had bombed south korea and we needed to run for our lives and so i woke up my companion and told her all of this and she freaked out and started running around grabbing her valuables and then stopped dead in her tracks- listened to the siren-glared at me-smacked my forehead and said it was an ambulance. SINCE WHEN DO AMBULANCES SOUND LIKE THAT?! also maybe i have an overactive imagination also maybe i was really disappointed because i really just want to be ingrid bergman in The Inn of the 6th Happiness and guide the korean children over the mountains to safety and into the waters of baptism. These are the awesome thoughts I get at three in the morning.   last week we had a special time at church... our 10 year old investigator came and started rolling around on the ground whimpering about how she hates church and then she tried to run away like six times and then she kept throwing our scriptures on the ground and then she called her dad and told him we were forcing her to stay and that church people were mean and nobody even HAD cookies. It was a real good time. We have a mission tour this week with a seventy who is... japanese. I am so excited!!! I honestly cant wait. I have something insane to tell you. I come home one year from today. This is horrible news. I dont even KIND OF speak Korean. How is time going by so fast!?!? ahhh! Happy birthday mom. I love you a bushel and a peck and a hug around the neck. I will find someone to baptize for you today. Well a million things happen every week but i cant remember them- ill just tell you when i get home ok? Oh one more thing- how is the Book of Mormon so amazing? also I had no idea that it was specially written for me. Every day I open it up and its like a special note from heavenly father telling me what i need to know. I love that book. It drives me crazy that i cant express myself well enough to explain how amazing it is to people- i just want to say "NO! You do not understand! This blue book can save your life! You NEED this!" oh well. that my life. Not being able to say what i want. roar. My companion is a doll. Its so amazing to be able to communicate and eat want I want to eat for breakfast- i never realized that those things were a right that could be taken away. Missions make you greatful. Thats for sure. Anyways I love you. So much. Thanks for everything. Read the Book of Mormon! Say your prayers! Lovie dovie all the time sista lund

Sept 4 Every little thing is going to be alright

Hey everybody it sounds like the family reunion was awesome sorry I missed it. Remember when you made me dress up as a polygamist at the last one?.... i do. NO i am not over it. I forgive you a little.

 ok so gwangju= total upgrade. Dont get me wrong- I LOVE naju. But guess what? People want to talk to us here and theres a mcdonalds and my companion only has one personality!!

My favorite investigators so far are a former nun who decided she wanted children and ran away from her nunnery into a prearranged marriage and now has two sons named dillon and andrew. She is just oozing with coolness. You have no idea. I kinda want to be her minus the prearranged marriage and being a nun.

We have another investigator who is 21 and total babe and accepted our baptismal commitment on Friday. huzzah!

We also have this little 50 year old chinese man who probably cant meet with us anymore because two years ago he went to vietnam and saw a pretty girl on the street and took a picture with her and he wants to marry her. So he's learning english so that he can talk to a translator who will ask her if she will be his girlfriend.... after he finds her.

I just feel like it might not turn out well. But he said he'd pray about the book of mormon!

My new compy is kinda great. I was really scared of her at first but shes actually a little rockstar. She's from korea/texas (yeah jer!) and is a music education major and a really gifted teacher. She's really patient and constantly teaching sometimes i get annoyed but then i realize its SO good for me. We've bonded over our love of the south (even though texas is not really the south) taylor swift and that she likes to do missionary work which is REFRESHING.

This is her last transfer so I get to kill her too- kinda sad kinda stressful because I need to learn the gwangju area in six weeks- say some prayers ok?

We cover two wards one of them is the stake center and its a really exciting time because the stake is totally pumped on missionary work right now. They are trying to get 100% attendance at church until christmas as a birthday present to jesus. They also have to give away a book of mormon to a friend once a month and they are getting tons of pressure to give us referrals. At the last counsel meeting a went to they drew a chart on the board that says 100% attendance+ baptizing all our friends = temple in gwangju. And you know what i bet they can totally make it happen. I love intense koreans.

We went to young mens young womens yesterday and theres a bunch of foreigner kids in that ward so they teach in english. One of the teachers asked what prayer is. This kid raises his hand and says prayer is like walking on the beach with God except theres no beach and God isnt there.... 

what does that even mean?! hahahaha

OK GUESS WHAT HAPPENED?! We went to the bishops house for dinner and his daughters go to BYU/ he lived in provo for a couple years and guess who they know?! Sorah Kong! Universe! youve done it again! SO im totally in with them now and they'll probs refer all their friends to us.

So things are great. Gwangju is awesome. The church is true keep being awesome and writing me letters.

Lovie dovie,

sista lundo

ching chong walla walla bing bong