7.5 Weekly letter

       Leanne Noelle Chun <leanne.chun@myldsmail.net>

Sep 24 at 5:36 PM

A Beautiful day walking with my companion! I laugh so much when I'm with this woman because not only am I already super happy to be around her, but she is SO hilarious. 

We were standing in the middle of this giant river thing._)

We walked along these cool stone things.
I think this area is potentially a river, but, as you can see, there be not water.

This was just hanging out in the water...

Zone activity to celebrate District Conference! 

This bus was so full of missionaries, it was ridiculous.
Elder Gilmore made the comment that he had never been in such a bus. 

·         

Good autumn, world! How dost thou fare? 

Well, I think probably the most interesting thing that happened this past week was that we had District Conference (stake conference equivalent). So much fun! And, of course, delicious food, both physically and spiritually. A member of the Seventy visited (I am so sorry that I didn't quite catch his name... I'm working on that), and he gave some really good talks. The missionaries sang "The Spirit of God" for a special musical number at the adult session, so that was pretty fun. 

Yesterday was a little long because we had a 식사 and then immediately following there was an hour and a half training on how to use social media to "open [our] mouth[s]" and do missionary work. Really cool, really fun. I guess I've sort of forgotten what smartphones are like (because the missionary phone is literally a grandma phone, and that is absolutely not an exaggeration; in fact, I've seen grandmas with nicer phones than we have...), but, man, 여러분, the internet is an amazing thing. The Sister giving the presentation made a really interesting point: If we spend 10 minutes using technology, if we give 1 of those minutes to doing the Lord's work, we would be super honest tithe payers. :) But when you think about it, how much time do you spend on your phone just sort of doing whatever? If you took a few of those minutes to click on a Latter-Day Saint blog or something church sponsored, those sites become more popular, and when full-time missionaries' potential and current investigators google "Mormons", the top finds will be not anti-Mormon things. I guess that's my challenge to you: google things like "Mormons", "The Book of Mormon", "LDS", and then find and click on LDS stuff. The more that happens, the more Google will register that those are popular hits, and the more likely it will be that potential investigators will find good stuff about the Church. 

The other thing that was impressed upon me this week was the importance of the Book of Mormon. I'm so grateful for that book! I've finished pretty recently (wait, it might have been this week, but I don't really remember), and I started it over, no problem. So amazing how many different things you can get out of just one book. 

Okay, I love you all! I hope you have a good week! Go out and be the missionaries I know you can be! ^_^

Love,

Sister Chun

This flower is giant and beautiful, so I took a picture of it. ^_^

Exploring the other city in our area, Samcheok. There was a big river!

SISTER CHUN SHOULD NEVER BAKE ANYTHING

We've kind of been living off of ramen for a few days, so we decided to eat
some _real food_ at the kimbap heaven
(which basically just has a huge spread of the all the basic Korean foods).
We definitely downed all this food!

Re: 7.4 Weekly Letter3

·         Leanne Noelle Chun <leanne.chun@myldsmail.net>

Sep 17 at 6:18 PM

Hurray missionary work! ㅎㅎ It's actually maybe a little slower right now than it could be, but that's okay! We keep working, keep walking, keep talking, keep teaching, keep studying... Yeah, yeah. It's good. 

This past week we had another exchange! And 바보 Sister Chun definitely forgot to take a picture! 

I dyed my hair. I don't think I regret it... But I have yet to get a really good picture of it. I'll work on that. 

I've been reflecting a good deal about all the people that I've already met on my mission. I've met a lot of really good people here in Korea. All the missionaries that I've had the privilege to work with, especially my beautiful companions; all the members; the investigators; the recent converts; and even just regulars at English Class. 진짜 a pleasure to know them all. And how grateful am I that I decided to serve a mission! I'm so grateful that the Lord saw fit to send me to Korea, and let me serve in DongDaeMun and DongHae. 

I've also been thinking a little bit about the Godly attribute of mercy. I don't know about you, but for most of my life, whenever I've heard people talk about God being merciful, I've been a little confused. "His mercy comes into play when we're standing in front of Him making an accounting of our lives, right?" But it occurred to me the other day that His mercy is perfectly intertwined with His love, made manifest through His atoning sacrifice for us. His mercy, at least for me right now, is manifest in blessings that I don't necessarily feel that I deserve (i.e. all the people in my life). How grateful I am for those blessings! I hope that I can continue to strive to be worthy of them.

In other news, I'm fan-girling about General Conference talks right now. I love them so much. I was feeling a little regretful the other day that I didn't pay better attention to General Conference when I was younger, but I was actually a little surprised at how many of the talks seem familiar to me, so I guess I'm not totally hopeless. :) 

I love you all! I hope you have a good week! 화이팅!

Love,

Sister Chun

You can kind of see my hair in this picture. Basically I'm a red-head.
Not sure if I pull it off, but it just sort of turned out like that.
The color fades pretty fast, though...

Happy Honduras Independence Day! Sister Castro was so excited about that holiday,
so we celebrated a little bit. 

Heaven

7.3 Weekly Email

·         Leanne Noelle Chun <leanne.chun@myldsmail.net>

Sister Castro let me borrow some lipstick.
Not going to lie, I felt like a little girl who got into her mom's makeup
and just scribbled all over her face. But 김금순s liked it. ^^

Presents from a former investigator. So cute!

Sister Castro wasn't feeling great when we took this picture, but she's still gorgeous, huh_

So much bus. But we survived!

We at 부대찌개 and it was amazing

Weather was beautiful on our way to church!

We ate this ice cream. And then the next we had no money because of all the travel we had done. #nailedit

Sep 10 at 7:52 PM

I'm dyeing my hair! This is the before picture.

Wow~! We had a crazy week this week! Besides Saturday and Sunday, Sister Castro and I were on a bus every single day! Monday we went three hours into Seoul, Tuesday we went three hours back home from Seoul, Wednesday was hour and a half total to and from Gangreung, same on Thursday and Friday. Hurray for no money! #thatpoormissionarylife But it was awesome.

Tuesday we had a big meeting for zone leaders and Sister Training Leaders; Wednesday to Thursday we were on exchanges; Friday we had another full day of meetings. The good news is, we felt the Spirit and we learned a lot. Now we just have to apply what we learned. :) It was a busy week. 

I've been thinking about miracles a little bit, recently. I think one of the greatest miracles that the Lord can perform is change, especially in His children. When I read in the Book of Mormon all these stories of people going from being the worst to not only loving God but doing everything they can to follow Him, it just seems pretty miraculous to me. When I see investigators go from being adamantly against things like paying tithing or giving up alcohol to caring about the little things, such as wearing skirts every Sunday and coming to church on time, I marvel in the Lord's power to change us. When I think about who I was before my mission compared to who I am now and who I am becoming... I don't know, it just seems kind of amazing to me. I'm really grateful for the changes Heavenly Father asks us to make. I really believe that those changes are for our benefit.

I love you all so much! Have a good week!

Love,

Sister Chun

Is this a Chrysanthemum?

Elder Steward, 함형준b, 김영민b, Elder Huillet, Sister Castro, 김금순s 식사 after church!

김요안나s is literally one of the best, hardest working missionaries
I've ever been with. Fun exchange!

이주경s and Sister Calda's present for her. ㅎㅎ

Mini exchanges while waiting for our companions to arrive from Seoul.

Anna and Sister Calda.
We were on a cool beacon-thingy (1)

• Leanne Noelle Chun <leanne.chun@myldsmail.net>

  To:Beth

  Sep 3 at 7:45 PM

  Wow! The beginning of a new transfer! I just want you to know, this transfer is going to be crazy. There's going to be exchanges every week (considerably a bigger deal out here in the country since we all live 1-2 hours away from each other), zone conferences, finding new investigators, and hopefully helping other investigators to move toward baptism and 끝까지 견딤! Basically, it's going to be a little hectic, and SUPER fun. 

  
  

  My new companion is a beautiful Honduran angel named Sister Castro Espinal. She just goes by Sister Castro, and I think she has the same conversation with every single person she meets:

  "My name is Sister Castro" 

  "Cast?" 

  "No, Castro. I'm from Honduras." 

  *short pause while they try to make sense of the Konglish and then realize that they don't actually know where Honduras is* 

  Then, "Do you know Mexico? It's-- [below Mexico]"

  "Ah!! Mexico! 네! Wow, Mexico!"

  
  

  It's very entertaining. Slightly frustrating, though totally understandable. I'm going to learn the word for Central America really well this transfer, I think. Regardless, Sister Castro is awesome, and she's going to make this transfer really fun. :) 

  
  

  This past week was basically just a lot of eating. We had four or five invitations to eat from members just the first couple of days alone, to see Sister Calda off, and one or two once Sister Castro was here. These members are the best! And they make really good food! 

  
  

  One of the dishes was made my 
• Leanne Noelle Chun <leanne.chun@myldsmail.net>

  To:Beth

  Sep 3 at 7:54 PM

  Sorry weird things happened. That's not the end of the letter....

  
  

  made by 변광수b (Byun Gwang Soo): Chicken feet. I want you to know that I ate the chicken feet. Well, I attempted to eat the chicken feet. I put one in my mouth and munched on it for a second, and then I remembered all the chickens that we had growing up and what they walk around in and I very quietly took it out of my mouth. You know, it's actually really good. What isn't bone is really flavorful, really yummy, but I guess my brain couldn't quite conquer all the memories of chickens. Also, working that hard to get all the bones out of a piece of food is not my favorite. 

  
  

  Something cool that happened this week: Sister Castro and I went to the beach to do our weekly planning (because, you know, it's there), and we ran in to a few of the branch members. We sat down together and ate snacks and talked; it was so much fun. I think it may just be a function of having not very many members in the branch, but I feel so much like I'm surrounded by family when I'm with the members. Of course, I don't always understand everything that's going on, because I don't speak Korean nearly as well as I want to, but then again sometimes Englishing is hard, too. :) 

  
  

  I'm so grateful to be here in Korea. There are so many cool experiences and amazing people and so much good food; sometimes it's hard, and sometimes I have to grit my teeth and do things that I don't really want to do (looking at you, roleplays), but I'm so grateful for the opportunity I have to learn about the Gospel of Jesus Christ. I'm grateful for my loving Heavenly Father and His wonderful Son Jesus Christ. I feel so happy when I learn about Jesus. 

  
  

  I love you all! Hope you have a good week! 

  
  

  Love,

  
  

  Sister Chun

• 

  Morning of transfers. Sister Calda made the biggest transfer yet! 

  
  

  

  Playing piano at a member's house on Sister Calda's last day.

  
  

  

  She's basically a model...

  
  

  

  And then there's me ㅎㅎ

  
  

  

  Bigger than my head! 

  
  

  

  Ocean!

  
  

  

  This says _Walmart_

  
  

  

  We got so close to this water! 

  
  

  

  Sister Castro! Her first time eating 밥버거.

  
  

  

  Visit with the most recent convert. She is the cutest lady.
  And she couldn't really remember where Sister Calda was from.
  It'll be interesting to see if she can remember Honduras.



김금순s fed us fruit. She always feels bad that she can't feed us all the banchan in the whole world,
but the fruits are just as good! 

• 

  Amidst all the eating and packing, Sister Calda still found time to make us this delicious breakfast.
  Hurray for companions who cook!

  
  
•