Rebecca's Observations on hat sizes: or what to wear

Dear Family,

Reason number 233 on why I love Korea: You can wake up to go to the public bathhouse at 5:30 AM and there are already grandmas awake sitting outside on their stools chitchatting.

Not to put any unnecessary pressure on you, but for those of you where were interested in sending me a birthday present (September 12th), but had no idea what to send, I compiled a short list of suggestions:

• money
• church pictures (Christ, Joseph Smith, women...)
• The Joseph Smith play soundtrack
• Mo-tab
• Those tide pens
• money....

This birthday is the first time I get to skip a year. Because in Korean age I have been 23 since the Chinese Calendar New Year (February 14th) then I guess I never really get to be 22, except for a couple of months when I go home. To be quite honest, I'm always a little confused on my age and usually just settle with something around the beginning of the 20s...

A while ago one of my previous companions wrote home to her family expressing some of her concerns on the difficulty of mission life: the heat, the lack of investigators, learning a new area, and a concourse of various other difficulties. In reply she did not receive condolences but instead a chastisement from her father who told her if she was going to complain it would be better not to write at all.

"You knew it would be hard," he wrote, "so why are you complaining."

At first I thought it was a little harsh, but then she explained that he often expresses his love like that. While she was growing up he was always the sharpest with his family, stating that faith was something that could not be wavering and that although he had faith and if he was righteous he would make it to the celestial kingdom, it would mean nothing if he was there alone. For that reason he wanted to make sure that his children always made the right decisions.

It reminded me of an anecdote about Dr. Kim Ho Jik, the founder of the church in Korea. One of his young students wrote in his book that one day when he was a young student he went into Dr. Kim's office to accept a church calling from him. The student felt inadequate, but knew he could not outright say "no" so instead he said "this hat is too big for my head." Dr. Kim looked sternly at him and then said "you had better make your head grow to fit fast."

Sometimes I feel similar inadequacies, but as I give my weaknesses to the Lord and let Him stretch me I find that there is no need to complain, there may be pain and hardship, but I become fit to take it. I become more of what God would have me be and I become more qualified for the blessings He would give me.

So when we feel beat up and picked on by the Lord, like the butt of some cosmic joke, sometimes we just need to realize that He is molding us so that we can fit the hat.

Love you all.

--

Sister O'Bryan

Daejeon PO Box 38

Daejeon-si

Chungcheong bukdo 300-600

South Korea

Moral of the story: Always throw away your fingernail clippings

Dear family,

Life is good, I've been going outside a lot to exercise in the mornings and after my knee scabbed over it's been a lot better. There's something really refreshing about running at 6:30 in the morning. One of my favorite things is the fact that in the park where we run there is a bench that is permanently occupied by about 5 old grandmas. They kind of stretch, but mostly they just sit and chatter and yell things at me as I run laps, things like:

"Oh, you exercise so well"

"Slow down, don't work so hard!"

"Wow, you're so pretty" (this one I know is a blatant lie, if you saw what I looked like when I first rolled off my mattress in the morning you would know)

The other day while we were out working hard we walked past a small park where some middle aged women and their children were having a picnic. We went up to talk to them and as we were sharing the gospel one of their boys (maybe 9 or 10) came up to me and just starred. He beckoned to his sister and then reach up and poked me. I tried to talk to him, but still unphased he just kept saying "foreigner, foreigner" and poking me to see what kind of material I was made out of. It was one of those moments when I wanted to say "I'm not an animal, I'm a human being!" But knowing that the reference would be cast on deaf ears I refrained and offered to let him touch my hair. Usually that's what they really want anyway, to see my non-brown eyes and see if my not-permed hair feels different from theirs. Oh how I love little kids.

This past week we went out to visit a girl in Danjin. It's a nearby city and while we were on the bus my companion told me some traditional Korean fairytales. One that I particularly liked I thought I would share:

The Punk Kid, the Monk, and his fingernails:

Once upon a time, there was a teenage royal kid who lived in his palace-like home somewhere in the midst of Korea. He was really bratty, never really listened to his parents, didn't study, and was just an all around punk of a kid. One day a monk came by his house. Usually monks will bang their little drums, pronounce blessings on your house and then ask for money. However, this punk of a kid just kicked him out and made fun of him, so intead of a blessing the monk put a curse on him. A few days later the punk kid cut his fingernails, but being a bit of a brat and a slob he just left them on the ground. The next morning he woke up and next to him was a copy of himself. He and this replica argued for a little while and then his parents came and found him. Not knowing which one was real they kicked out the real kid and sent him on his way. Crying and not knowing what to do he went on his way until he found the monk. The monk asked him if he was sorry for what he did. The boy apologized and said that in the future he would always throw away his fingernails instead of just leaving them on the ground. So the monk went back with him to the parents house, mumbled his magic words and the replica boy turned back into a fingernail which the punk kid quickly disposed of.

My companion said after hearing this story she always made sure to very carefully dispose of her fingernails. hehehe.

Anyway, the girl that we went to visit in Danjin is so great. She's been meeting wih missionaries for a while, but because of school this last week was our last time. It was interesting though, because she really has began opening her heart. She reads the Liahona and the Book of Mormon and then basically told us a story and bore her testimony of how something that she read and was told by one of the previous missionaries really helped her out last week. She was having a hard time with her job and everything else and wanted to know how she was going to make it, but then she remembered that Sister Cho had told her that God knows us perfectly and would never give us any trial that we can't overcome and that we can always pray to him for help. So she did. I love her, I hope next school vacation to continue to meet with her.

I hope all is well this week, I love you all, feel free to keep me up dated with your life.
--
Sister O'Bryan
Daejeon PO Box 38
Daejeon-si
Chungcheong bukdo 300-600
South Korea

Nothing like coming back to the country

Dear family,

How does one begin to describe Seosan? My current area is larger than the Seoul West Mission, but population wise it is probably about 1 city block worth of people. Every week for service we spend a day farming (I haven't yet, but that is what I have been informed). We ride buses a lot-- not city buses like I am used to, but the kind that are more similar to greyhound buses. It gives me plenty of time to study Korean, which is good because:

• My companion doesn't speak English
• My ambitious ward missionary leader informed me that in order to reach our 3 month baptism goal of 100 I need to speak better Korean (Koreans can be very blunt)

I'd been warned about our Ward Mission leader and even heard stories about him months ago when I served in a neighboring city. He's not known for his good relationship with missionaries, but I figured if he has the desire to baptize 100 people I might as well go along. So I told him 100 people is about 25 families. Currently our branch has about 12 active families so if every family refers another family and the missionaries find 1 new family a week to match, we can do it. He stared me down to see if I was serious. But I believe in miracles so I didn't blink. If he can find a way to motivate the families in our ward to give us referrals I can work hard enough to find a family a week of new investigators.

I think he approves of me because he commented on how we just need to have faith like Parley P. Pratt. I informed him that I am related to Parley P. Pratt (I 'm not actually sure if I am, but I figure since we are both white then somewhere down the line we are connected). He looked surprised and then said that he had thought as much because I looked just like the picture in "Preach My Gospel"(It's actually a picture of Dan Jones preaching in Wales, but I didn't have the heart to correct him).

Needless to say- I'm excited to be serving in Seosan.

Other exciting things:

• For Green Day (August 14h) I decided to kiss the earth-- or at least the pavement, with my knee and hand (see the pictures attached)
• We made cookies with our recent convert the other day which was way fun (I messed up the recipe and left out about 1/2 cup of sugar, but I didn't tell them because:
1. Koreans aren't big on sweet things so it was okay to taste like bread
2. They had never made cookies before so they didn't really know the difference
• We went to visit Yeosan which is known for apples (see picture attached)

Spiritual highlight of the week:

This is an activity that I like to do when we visit families sometimes. First, close your eyes and think about your role model. Someone who you really admire and who you would do anything for. Picture in your mind their face and what it is exactly about them that you love. Why do you like this person? The person that I always choose is someone who is really close and who can understand me, who always gives me the best advice and is always willing to give up anything for me. Now open your eyes.

At this point I usually go around and have everyone share what it is that they really like about the person. Then I explain that there is one person who has all of these attributes and more-- that person is Jesus Christ. Jesus Christ is not only perfect, but he loves and understands us perfectly. He is not just our role model, but he is our brother who took on every care, every worry, every thing for us.

Maybe for FHE or something you can try this activity with some friends, it's really fun and always helps people to realize what Christ can really mean to them.

Love you all,

--

Sister O'Bryan

Daejeon PO Box 38

Daejeon-si

Chungcheong bukdo 300-600

South Korea

Christlike attributes

Dear family,

Last Saturday the missionaries in my zone got together and did a special musical fireside centered around Christ and his life. Althought it was a bit hectic with the planning and getting everything to finally fall into place, it was really amazing. Our mission president, President Furniss was even able to come down from Daejeon and he cried during it. It was really nice to spend some time pondering on Christ's importance in our lives and how much he did in his own life. While we were teaching Moon Un Sook's family the other day we spent some time talking about when Christ came to visit the Nephites and looked at references in the Book of Mormon. Then as we were ending Sister Nam talked about how she has a list of Christ-like attributes in her Book of Mormon and marks scriptures that help her with them. We all went around and chose one to work on during the week. The mother, Moon Un Sook, chose patience and as we were leaving Dong Oak was asking to go to a friends house and as we were walking away we could hear him yelling "Patience, patience!"

I thought it was interesting so I thought I would challenge all of you to do similarly. Go to the Preach my Gospel assessment: http://www.lds.org/languages/additionalmanuals/preachgospel/PreachMyGospel___00_00_Complete__36617_eng_000.pdf,

p. 140 in the attribute assessment and then chose an attribute to work on for the next couple of weeks. Then send me an email and let me know how things are going.

Also, just got a phone call, I'm headed back up North to become Senior in Susan... oh golly, we'll see how that works out.

I love you all.

--
Sister O'Bryan
Daejeon PO Box 38
Daejeon-si
Chungcheong bukdo 300-600
South Korea

Just another great week in Korea

Family,

I don't have a lot of new stories to share with you of my own, except being chased by a crazy drunk man on a bike, seeing a Korean zoo, being volunteered for a special musical number in a special musical fireside, and teaching fun lessons in Korean, nothing new has really happened this week.

So instead I just thought I would share this fun story and some pictures. This is called Seoul Temple Promise by Steve Cale:

"The temple in Seoul Korea has a promise of temporal protection attached to it. I know of no other temple in the world for which temple attendance will protect the country from war.

I'm a Korean linguist for the U.S. Air Force. I've been stationed in Korea for 12 of the last 22 years. I served my mission in Sendai, Japan and then returned home to Idaho and married my wife Lauri. I joined the Air Force in 1982 and was sent to the Defense Language Institute in Monterey California to learn Korean. I was then assigned to Osan Air Base and arrived in Korea in 1984. I am an Intelligence professional.

On December 14, 1985, my wife and I were privileged to attend the dedication of the Seoul Temple. The day was very cold and the wind was blowing very strong, but as we waited in the parking lot of the temple for our session, we were kept warm by the many friends surrounding us. We entered the temple and took our seats. President Gordon B. Hinckley who was a counselor in the First Presidency at the time, was to dedicate the temple. In his remarks before the dedicatory prayer, he made a comment that was so startling, that I committed it to memory. He said, “If you will use this temple, you need not fear an invasion from the north.”

What a great promise! I also remember the remark, because during my mission, I had the opportunity to work with Elder Kikuchi of the Seventy. He was also at the dedication and afterwards as we were talking, he remarked how neat that promise was. My family left Korea in 1986 and returned in 1988 for a second tour. We stayed that time until 1991. The Saints in Korea had been attending the temple regularly and I feel this is why the 1988 Olympic Games were held without incident even though the North Koreans had threatened to disrupt them.

In 1993, my family and I returned yet again to Korea and at that time, tensions were increasing over the possible development by the North Koreans of nuclear weapons. In 1994, it actually appeared that we might go to war with North Korea over this issue. Even though I had heard a prophet of the Lord declare that we would be protected, I began to doubt the promise. I wondered if perhaps I had misunderstood President Hinckley's words that day.

That summer, many of us were invited to Seoul to a training session with Elder Boyd Packer and Elder Henry B. Eyring. The chapel in Shindang was filled with church leaders both Korean and American. Elder Eyring spoke first and then Elder Packer stood up to speak. He let us know that “training” was not the only reason that he and Elder Eyring had come to Korea. He told us that President Hinckley was concerned for the safety of the saints in Korea.

Therefore, the day before, President Packer and Elder Eyring had gone up the the Demilitarized Zone, the border between north and south Korea, and had performed a priesthood ordinance which placed guardian angels at that border. He told us that because of our faithfulness in attending the temple, we would be protected.

I don't know if I was more surprised to hear that there were actually guardian angels at the border, or that there was a priesthood ordinance to put them there. One Korean stake president, asked Elder Packer, “How long will they be

there?”

His answer was, “As long as they are needed and you are faithful in your temple attendance.”

Now I knew we were safe for I had heard the promise twice.

In 1996, President Hinckley came to Korea on his way to Hong Kong to dedicate the temple there. He held a regional conference in Seoul which we attended. During his remarks at this conference, he made reference to the temple promise, and said he was going to change it. He told us that we now needed to attend the temple faithfully, and also appreciate it. He told us that we were all being protected by the Lord because we had done as we were told. This was the third time I had heard the promise and the second time from President Hinckley's own mouth.

I know that this promise is true. I have seen events happen in conjunction with my job, in which many times the experts have been confused as to why the North Koreans did not attack. I know it is because they cannot.

As a member of the U.S. Air Force, part of my job is to help protect the Republic of Korea from attack. I feel as a member of the Church of Jesus Christ Of Latter Day Saints, I can do more to protect South Korea by attending the temple. As long as the saints in Korea attend the temple they are protected. I have been so blessed to not only witness the prophet of the Lord proclaim this great promise, but also have been here to see the fulfillment of those words."

Cool,huh?

I love you all, the church is true.
--
Sister O'Bryan
Daejeon PO Box 38
Daejeon-si
Chungcheong bukdo 300-600
South Korea