Transferred!

I was very surprised on Friday to receive a transfer call. I'm now in Changwan, and area that I came to a while ago for a Music Fireside. My new companion is a Korean named Lee Seo Young. I'm really excited to have a Korean companion again cause my Korean could certainly use some native help :). She doesn't speak very much English though, so that should be interesting. I was really sad to leave Shinjung, and i was really sad to leave Sister Montgomery. I feel like I worked so hard to turn a kinda dead area into an area with lots of miracles only to transfer before seeing them come to pass. That's okay, the Lord has plans for it.

Do Young agreed to get baptized and has set the date of 24 Dec. I'm a little nervous that if her Mom doesn't start coming to Church more she won't have an adequate support system, but WE prayed to see if she was ready and the Spirit said go. Her Mom loves us---I said goodbye to her this morning and she cried--she just needs to reawaken her testimony a little. I've come to realize that less-actives aren't people who don't have testimonies, they are people who lost sight of their priorities and their testimonies suffered because of it. We just have to get the Gospel back in their view-finder, that's all.

As for Ko Young Suk (the Temple Square referral) she's doing great. The woman already figured out how to live the Gospel on her own in her head, complete with nightly repentance---she just never thought ot put God in teh equation (with the methods of some of these churches out here---I don't blame her). She's realizing that God helps her, though---and she definitely knows He's there now. She's a champ. She'll get baptized next transfer for sure---and her husband will follow shortly thereafter.

I'm really excited for my new area, but I'm still a little nervous. I've learned not to listen to rumors from missionaries (someone asked me if it was true that I'd been engaged 4 times....where do they get this stuff?) but a lot of people say that my new companion has quite a short temper---so just in case it's true, pray that I'll have patience and understanding so we can come through it and get a lot of good missionary work done in the process. I love her already, though. She's really kind and I can tell she just likes to take care of people.

Lots of good things are happening in Korea. It's getting cold, but people's hearts are getting warm. IT's hard to believe it's December, though. No snow and the Christmas spirit that we all know and love is completely absent, even among the Christians. I think maybe December is colder without Christmas lights.

I'm so grateful to all of you for your love and support. I met a foreigner from Alabama who told us about how she had a hard time deciding that God exists and loves her simply because her parents didn't really love her and it made it hard to think that ANYONE could love her, particularly a "parental" figure like Heavenly Father. I'm so grateful I have loving parents and siblings and Church leaders and friends and roommates and others who have shown me what true love is because it's helped me to understand God's love better.

Until next week!

~R~