WE ATE DOG THIS WEEK!

Okay last email I said it was my brother's 21 birthday. I lied. He's only 20... HAHA TYPO! But on the plus side! His Bells Palsy is almost perfectly healed!!!! YAY!

So to explain the title of my email.. WE ATE DOG THIS WEEK! And it was actually pretty good! The only part that really freaked me out was the fat. Just cause I knew it was dog fat, it was really hard for me to get down. Haha I'm on a mission in Korea. I had to eat dog at least once! Probably won't have it again though.. Those poor doggies..

Last week I ended my email pretty abruptly. We had a member bring his grandchildren to the church for a brief discussion. First of all, the grandchildren thought they were gonna have a fun day with the gramps! Until they got out of the car and realized they were at our church. He opened up 1 Nephi 14 with them (about abominable churches and stuff) and they just sat quietly while he scolded them for going to the wrong church. It was pretty... awkward. But he is such a good member!

 He has such a strong testimony and he just wants to share it with his loved ones. Maybe not the right way to approach it though.. Haha it's okay though. We cleared all the awkwardness up and gave them pamphlets about our church in case they ever wanted to learn more!

We also went to the temple this week! We haven't been since the beginning of last transfer and the end of this transfer so the last time we went was in February! TOO LONG. But it was amazing as always. The spirit you feel there is comparable to none other. I'm so privileged to be able to attend the temple as a missionary!

We have an investigator that never actually wants to meet with us. So we just do our lessons with her over the phone. Last time we committed her to read the Book of Mormon and we asked her if she had read it, but she hadn't because she had been on "prayer mountain" for 10 days. She's had a really hard past and has big trauma from her ex-husband who was a pastor. She has a hard time trusting organized religions because of the pastors. She can't trust their "angelic" image. Luckily for her, our church doesn't have pastors! Haha I told her that and she was pretty shocked! Just more the reason to start coming to our church, right? 

Anyway, she's been focusing on trying to get the bad spirits our of her on that prayer mountain. The priests there have been trying to cast out the devil inside of her... So as we were on the phone, I told her to maybe focus more on God. That as she focuses on Him, Satan won't be able to haunt her as easily. He becomes blocked as that belief and faith in God takes over! I told her that if she focused on the bad spirits and trying to cast them out, it just makes her concentrate on the bad. But if she focuses on God, then they'll just be automatically blocked out! You know...? Smart, right? haha I tried really hard to get her to come to church, but maybe next time I'll get her!

In zone training this month, we learned about diligence and obedience. What's the difference? Diligence is doing something because you DESIRE to do it. Obedience is doing something because you HAVE to do it. As missionaries, we have a saying "Obedience brings blessings, exact obedience brings miracles." But our mission president has changed it to "Obedience brings blessings, diligence brings miracles.”

 I need to work on being a more diligent missionary and working my hardest! Not just do thing just because I have to. It was actually a great training for me because I have been in a slump lately. I feel like missionary work is just numb. But now I know how to change! How to become a better missionary. I just need to be diligent and do it cause I want to(: 

 Sister April Johnson