Happy (late) Halloween!

Hello family,

So this week all the sisters in the mission met together and had a Sister's Conference, which was pretty fun, we got to watch the General Relief Society broadcast ate American food (it was weird to eat home made rolls and pasta salad) and other nice things.

Then on Sunday since we had no appointments, it was Halloween and my companion had never celebrated it before we dressed up and went reverse trick-or-treating to all the families in our branch. We gave them candy, sang a song and took a picture, I'll send some next week when I get them from my companion. I think she enjoyed it and we got to visit a lot of less actives that always say they are too busy for us to come and teach a message but were suprisingly nice when we showed up looking like fools and bearing candy. It's surprising what a black wig and a guitar can do.

Today we went to visit a huge Buddha so I don't have a lot of time, but I thought I would share a few thoughts that have been running through my head lately.

We have an investigator who doesn't really have a lot of interest in religion because he thinks that mostly ministers and preachers try to take away people's freedom of choice by forcing them to come to church and telling them they will be damned if they don't. So he really loved the Plan of Salvation learning about free agency as being one of the main reasons we came to earth. However, when we gave him the pamphlet for the Restoration and it talked about apostacy he again put up a wall. Basically it says that an apostacy is when people refuse the prophets and that it results in unhappiness.

His question: why does it result in unhappiness. I know lots of people who don't go to church who are happy. So I thought about and was thinking about how the reason that we have prophets is to provide us protection. Really when refuse their words or consider them as only "wise men" then we are missing out on that protection, it is like when you turn off the lights before bed and try and get back to your bed, you almost always stumble on something or have to shuffle your way back. They provide that guidance that we need. I then came upon an article in the June 2006 Liahona by Elder Eyring talking about prophets and loved it.

This past week at Sisters Conference we watched President Monson and I talked about how much I love him. Because my companion was less active for a lot of her life she didn't really know much about President Hinckley so on the bus ride back I spent a good hour just talking about his stories and how much I love him. It's always such a testimony strenghtener to see the prophet speak and to see him with his family. I wish I could take part of that feeling and share it with everyone. Maybe if I had a small portable TV with General Conference on it....

Anyway, I love you all, have a great week.
--
Sister O'Bryan
Daejeon PO Box 38
Daejeon-si
Chungcheong bukdo 300-600
South Korea

It's all about the small victories

Dear Family,

Another week in Korea.

After finishing the Old Testament I started the New this week and I realized that although the Old Testament is a beast, because I read it I am able to understand Jesus a lot more. Jesus is not only perfect, he's really witty. I would recommend the New Testament to anyone.

Last week we invited one of our investigators over to our ward mission leader's house for Family Home Evening. When I became a senior I decided that one of the things I missed most about being a missionary is not having FHE more often. So since then almost every week I've tried to set up FHE with a member and either an investigator or a less active family. I think technically we are supposed to wait until we are invited, but most of the people in Seosan are converts and so they don't really know how to do FHE or don't do it consistently so they don't mind us inviting ourselves over.

Last week we played a fun game which involves dice, socks, a hat, chopsticks, and lots of pieces of candy. I took a video of it, but unfortunately gmail wont let me attach it, so you'll just have to wait until I get back to see the full thing, but I attached some pictures. Basically you start with a pair of dice and the beginning person rolls, every one after them has to try to get that number. Until someone does roll that number the person puts on the hat, the socks, and tries to eat pieces of candy from a dish with chopsticks. It wasn't as challenging as you might think because they are Korean so amazing with chopsticks, but it still made me laugh until my sides hurt. We then compared eating with socks on your hands to having sin and how it's so much easier to get rid of the socks/guilt and repent. (Yes, I made that up on the spot). One of the resolutions I have made as a missionary is to always have fun FHEs for the rest of my life.

The other picture is of my companion. We were walking to an appointment when we happened to come across a festival and since our appointment canceled we stopped there to have dinner. I love Korea, check out the hanging toilet paper in the background-- it's brilliant!
--
Sister O'Bryan
Daejeon PO Box 38
Daejeon-si
Chungcheong bukdo 300-600
South Korea

Blessings of Obedience

Dear Family,

This week was a mixture of frustrations and miracles, we got to hear from one of the seventy, Elder Choi. He spoke in General Conference a year or so ago and gave the talk about "Loud Boys". During the mission tour he talked a lot about obedience, using those loud boys as an example. He said before he gave that talk he had to meet with them to ask if it was okay to use their story. While meeting he mentioned that it would be nice if they could come to Utah to see him give the talk. The next day one of them called him:

"We've talked about it and decided we will be there, we just need you to say it is okay, please say we can come"

Elder Choi thought about it. He loved them very much, but also knew that they didn't really have the money, they all are in their early 30s and have families and jobs and would have to drop everything to come to Utah for a week, not to mention the expense of the plane ticket. So he talked to his wife and told them no. They were disappointed, but because he said not they were obedient and didn't go.

He also told a funny story about his son, Sunbeam (I love Korean names). In Korea there are three things every boy has to do: mission, school, military service. Usually by the time you are done with all these you are about 28 and that's when most people decide to think about getting married because it's hard to do the other things if you have a family. Sunbeam had been home from his mission for a year or two and was going to school, but had no plans for marriage in the near future. His father, however, had different ideas. It just so happens that among the loud boys one of them is the bishop in their home ward. So Elder Choi gave him a call and told him to talk to his son. The bishop called Sunbeam up and in an interview told him he needed to think about getting married and that in two weeks he was to come back to his office with a name of a girl. That weekend Sunbeam spent one entire Saturday going to the temple, from the earliest session to the last one. He said that he started with a lot of names, but each session it would get fewer and fewer. A few weeks later he met with his bishop again and the bishop said "Have you thought about so and so*?" Sunbeam was a little surprised because it turns out the girl he mentioned had actually purposed to him a year earlier, but at that time he was not interested in marriage. So 6 weeks later they were married.

He also talked about obedience in his own life. Or rather his wife did. She told us a story about when he was 16, he was a recent convert at the time and was asked by the Stake President to give a talk at Stake Conference about preparing to serve a mission. He declined saying that he didn't think he would be able to, frankly he wasn't planning on serving a mission. His dream was to be a general in the army and the training that it required would make it impossible to serve a mission. However, after refusing he felt so bad that he prayed and thought about it a lot. He then forsook his dream and decided to serve a mission.

After his mission he got married and picked up a new dream, to be a successful business man. He went about getting more and more fame and climbing the social ladder and as his wife said "we were about to be REALLY rich". But then he got a call from the President of the North Asian presidency asking him to be in charge of the church offices in Korea (I can't remember the real name of the job). He came to talk to his wife. Taking the office would mean that he would make a LOT less money and his ambition in life to be a big business man he would have to give up. At first his wife asked him

"What language did you talk in?"

"English"

"He's Japanese, your Korean and you were speaking in English? There must have been a misunderstanding, call him back"

Anyway, after talking they decided that better than his ambition to be a great business man was his ambition to follow the Lord so they accepted the calling and never looked back. What a great example.

Hope you are all doing well, I love you lots.

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

I let my companion cut my hair, she did a pretty good job, huh? She was excited for a new experience--- it reminded me a lot of when I let Josh cut my hair, except maybe because she's a missionary it actually turned out good from the first time.

The people you meet

Dear Family,

Have I ever told you how great it is to be a missionary? You can really feel how much God loves his children, you get to have new experiences everyday, and you meet ALL kinds of people. For example, we received a referral from our Elders the other day of a lady they met while street contacting. She seemed somewhat interested (or interesting), but because her husband was rarely home they could not go to meet her and instead just referred her to us. We called her up and she immediately agreed to meet and asked how soon she could see us. We were, of course, excited, and went to go find her. Flash forward three and a half hours later... so she was a little crazy, and may be writing her own bible based on supernatural out of body experiences she has and a few other things not really fit to tell you about/I didn't really understand... but she's still a daughter of God.....

Then you have really pure hearted 14 year old who you teach every Saturday who you absolutely love. If you were as sweet and as obedient and pure as she was you know that your mother would have been eternally grateful. Except she doesn't have parents and attends another church. Every week she talks about how much she wants to come to your church, but she can't because every week she has to prepare the rice as her pastor is sick and she is the only one who can do it. She also talks about how much she wants to get baptized and become a missionary one day. Let's just say I've never prayed so hard for another church's pastor in all of my life.

This past week in General Conference I really loved how much you could really feel the apostles and the prophet's love. I love the words that they speak, but there's something more, there's the spirit in which they say it. When they speak it's as if they are standing next to me and I can feel it more than I can hear it. One of my favorite's was President Monson's story about the family who celebrated Thanksgiving with nothing more than an old jack rabbit and a lot of thanks. It's good to be reminded of the blessings we have received. Whenever I feel down and out I just pull out a piece of paper and start listing my blessings, it's one of the best medicines I have found.

With one of our investigators after teaching about the plan of Salvation we gave her the assignment of drawing what she imagined the Celestial, Terrestrial, and Telestial kingdoms to be like. (Sorry I have those in the wrong order, in Korean it is simply the Sun Kingdom, Moon Kingdom, and Star kingdom, so much easier). So I attached the drawings my companion and I made (mine is the shabby one-- I'm not really good at drawing so I tried to make up for it with all the colors). It was really fun.

This week's challenge: Draw what you think the degrees of heaven will look like and send me your pictures.

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

p.s. the other picture says "Kentucky Hot Dogs" I almost peed my skirt from laughter, who knew Kentucky was so famous for their hot dogs?

Scripture Power

Dear family,

I hope that you all enjoyed General Conference. Hopefully I will too. In Korea we watch it a week later so next week I will go to watch it, usually they have it in English as well, but since I am in a branch I wasn't sure. When I asked our wonderful ward missionary leader his reply was, "where would you watch it in English? I don't think they have it. That's okay, you don't really need it in English, right?" Heheheh. . . if only he were joking.

Anyway, on to happier things, this past week in church we focused a lot about the blessing of the scriptures and then during testimony meeting after everyone shared their testimonies and things that they did to help them with their scripture study they announced that there will be a new translation of the Bible in Korean. Yeah! Although it's not published by the church (due to copyright laws we can't make a translation for another 20 years or so) it will be nice. In Korean there are two different words for baptism by immersion and sprinkling and in the current edition it all says sprinkling (so it is John the Sprinkler instead of John the Baptist). In the new edition that will be changed. yeah! Closer and closer to the truth.

It made me think about how much the scriptures mean to me. I remember before my mission that I had a hard time staying awake at night to read for 15 minutes and I wondered how people could study for hours. Then for the first couple weeks or so at the MTC when suddenly I had an hour of study time it became the most precious time of the day. It was the time when I didn't have to think about anything else, when I could just read and read and feel the great spirit of the scriptures.

In my patriarchal blessing it tells me to make sure to read the scriptures and especially on the words of modern prophets (or something like that). For a long time I just took it to be something that every one's blessing says and didn't pay a lot of attention to it, but as I have spent more time studying the scriptures I have realized how much they mean to me. On my mission I have also gained a huge appreciation of the Engisn. A quirk I have developed is that every time I get it I can't put it down. It's like a spiritual addiction, and then suddenly when I finish I realize I am crying. It kind of made my companion worried and she thought I was having a really hard time, but I just look at her through my tears and said "it's just so GOOD".

I'm not suggesting that you should be as weird and obsessive as I am, but I do hope that each of you can look to the scriptures to find peace and direction and that spiritual boost that you need to get you through the day. I love you all, I love the scriptures and I know the Lord speaks to us through them.

As promised, the story of how Korea began (I can't remember names, sorry)

LONG LONG ago there was a bear and a tiger. They both really really wanted to be humans, so they went to the god of the earth and asked him how they could change. The god of the heavens and earth told them if they stayed in a cave for some exorbitant amount of time (30 years?) that they could have their hearts desires. So they both when in a cave and ate only garlic and leaves for a really long time. Except the tiger didn't make it, he left. The bear was the only one that could make it and then after the time was up the bear miraculous changed into a beautiful woman. She was so gorgeous that the son of the god of heavens and earth decided to take her for his wife. They had a baby and that baby is the first king/man of Korea (Dankun).

Funny huh? I love Korea. picture: I got new glasses!
--
Sister O'Bryan
Daejeon PO Box 38
Daejeon-si
Chungcheong bukdo 300-600
South Korea

And the answer is...

Dear family,

Another transfer has come and gone, but it's okay, because it turns out that I will be staying another 6 weeks with my wonderful companion Sister Lee Kyung Ran. I know I shouldn't be biased, but she's probably my favorite yet-- one day I will convince her to come to the United States and you can all meet her. Or you can come to Korea (take me with you)!

I have been learning a lot of stories about Korea, thanks to my companion and her amazing ability at telling folk stories. One of my favorite of late is about a girl called Shim Cheong.

Long long ago in a little city in Korea there was a very beautiful girl who was also very loving to her blind father. When she was a baby her mother died and her father took her from woman to woman in order to get fed since he was very poor. As the girl grew she became even more and more beautiful and more and more loyal to her father. One day she met a travelling monk. He told her that if she gave 3000 pounds of rice to Buddha then her father could regain his sight. When she heard this she was both very happy and very sad. She wanted her father to have his sight, but also was very poor and had no one of getting such an exorbitant amount of rice. While she was pondering about this she heard about some sailors in a nearby town. In those days when sailors went out to ocean they always took a beautiful virgin, because when the waves came they would throw her overboard and appease the sea god.

As you can imagine, finding such a woman was a bit difficult, so for anyone who would give them a beautiful virgin they gave 3000 pounds of rice. Shim Chungi heard about this and for her father's sake volunteered. Without telling her father she went and obtained the rice, gave it to Buddha and went off to sea. When the storms came the sailors threw her over into the sea. However, the sea god heard about Shim Chung and felt very sorry for her. Out of pity (and maybe a little in awe over her extreme loyalty to her father) her he sent her back up to the sea surface in a big lotus.

At the same time that Shim Chungi came up to the surface there was a prince on the beach (why was he on the beach? I have no idea.. Riding his horse? taking a leisurely stroll, who knows, he's a prince, he can do what he wants). The prince looked out, saw the beautiful girl emerging from this huge lotus and-- of course, fell in love with her. He took her for his wife.

Shim Chungi was happy to be alive and happier to be a princess, but she still wondered about her father. So she devised a plan. She held a HUGE feast and invited every blind man in the kingdom. Her father, at the time, still did not have his sight back. (rotten, lying monk) and was wondering the country frantically searching for his lovely daughter. All this wondering however, also made him very hungry, so when he heard about this feast he decided to take a break from his search and stop by to grab something to eat.

The feast day came and as all the blind Koreans came shuffling in (what a sight that would have been-- too bad they couldn't see it... hehehe) she saw her father. She was so happy to see that he was still alive that she called out his name. Upon hearing his father's voice the man was SO surprised that *pop* his eyes popped open and he could see her.

They all lived happily ever after and the rest is history.

Next week if you remind me I will tell you about how the first Korean was born-- that one is also one of my favorites. Oh golly, how do Koreans think of such funny stories?

On the spiritual side of things, lately I have been reading through the Bible. I have to admit, while reading the Bible I often wonder how people could last so long without the Book of Mormon, but occasionally I'll find a verse that my heart really likes.

This past week while reading through Psalms I came across

Pslams 30:5 "Weeping may endure for a night, but joy cometh in the morning."

It's funny how life works in cycles like that, sometimes you are sad, sometimes you are happy, but the happy times always make the sad times worth it. As a missionary sometimes people write me really weird things. Probably the worst is when people tell me about really hard times they are having, with school, with work, with love, whatever it may be, and then they don't mention it again (it's like watching a movie, getting to the climax and then leaving). Or not hearing from you at all and relying solely on second hand information where I can get it. Seriously it is frustrating, I may be a million miles away, but I still love and care about all of you so I worry about you sometimes. Anyway, so sometimes the only thing I can do is to pray for you. Maybe it's because I'm a missionary, but I pray for all of you every day (believe or not as you will). And it's oh so reassuring to hear good news from you.

Things that have happened on my mission thus far (re-cap):

• Marriages: 1
• Babies: 2.5
• Random travel abroad/vacation: >2
• Graduations: 1

Anyway, the reason for this long windedness is that even though I don't always hear from all of you, I still know that you will be okay, because I either I'm just naive or I have some sort of faith. So even if you don't know what the future holds, I know that you'll be okay (I'd just like to hear about it from time to time).

Love you lots!

Pictures:

• This morning we decided to climb a nearby mountain, it was way pretty.
• This is what I look like in the morning--- kind of scary
• Just sitting on a bridge in Daecheon
• Sister Lee-- this is why I love her
• We were in the middle of nowhere, but hey it was pretty

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

Thanksgiving!

Dear family,

So this week is one of the biggest holidays in Korea, called 추석 it's like the Korean version of Thanksgiving, a celebration of the harvesting season. It means that everyone went to their hometown, so the big cities emptied out and everyone is on the road. Thankfully I don't have to travel on the road from Seoul to Busan, so I don't have to worry about the 6 hour long traffic jams, but it also means that for three days I have no appointments and can't really find anyone on the street and am forbidden to knock on people's doors. Yeah for three days of updating records!

I also am on a split and have no time for email, so sorry you all get shafted again on the email train. Have a great week though, even though you probably wont be celebrating it, have a great Chusook and eat lots of food.

Love you all