Empty Chairs and Empty Tables

This week the district that has been with us the last 6 weeks just left and we are the oldest district.  3 weeks!

Quote of the week goes to Elder Medina (part of the district that left today). We were all at lunch and he says,
"It is like a mine field in there.  Everyone is so sensitive. One will start crying, and that sets off another one and then they are all crying! "

So many fond memories! They will all be missed.

Lost in translation

We got our korean badges this week!!!! YAY!!! so my name is missing an r and v's dont exist.
so it basically sounds like Shyayeebo #koreandoesntromanize

However Elder Corona name translated too well and actually means something in Korean.  It mean from the nose essentially booger. lol  But I know it will be an amazing conversation starter :P

Once Upon an Aussie

So during one of our lessons with one of our teachers acting as our investigator, my amazing companion was trying to explain that we all have sinned. but instead with a very serious expression said, "We are sin."
our investigator lost it. and we both had no idea why she was laughing. we all laughed together for a good 2 min before regaining composure.
It was funny :)

Uplifting

SO one of my favorite speakers from this past general conference came to speak this last Tuesday's devotional! :D Wilford F. Andersen!  You may recognize this quote that is so beautifully displayed on my planner that my amazing sister created for me.  I am going to paraphrase and share my own thoughts on the topic "knowing".
There are 3 different types of knowledge:
head knowledge: head knowledge is academic.  It is knowing something on a intellectual level.  How it works and functions.
heart knowledge:  This is the knowing that gives feeling and desire.  This is when we know it with our heart and know something to be true even if we haven't figured out why. Heart knowledge is obtained through the Holy Ghost or Light of Christ.
soul knowledge:  Knowledge that is obtained through applying heart and head knowledge. It requires practicing the principle.

If you spent the next 3000 hours reading about how to dance would you then be able to go and audition for the next Nutcracker?
No that would just be head knowledge.
No matter how much I want to be a Korean Language master I will never learn if I just sit on my hope chest and wait for it to come to me.

When I first began dancing, I had a lot of heart... but not a lot of head knowledge.  I could feel the music in my heart, but there was no head knowledge.
After I obtained the head knowledge, how the feet were suppose to move, how body flight was suppose to flow, I still struggled convey that head knowledge to my body. #thestruggleisreal
After hours of dancing, and before I left on a mission I was still just learning, I learned with my soul how I was suppose to move.

Same with horseback riding, and learning the piano, or even engineering.
soul knowledge is the experience.

When learning about the Gospel head knowledge is the doctrines of Christ.  As we come to know the scriptures, we learn the pattern for happiness, but that does not mean we believe it our want anything to do with it.
We need the heart knowledge, the desire to change and to act.  We can obtain heart through feeling the Holy Ghost sometimes through another's testimony, the explementary people we find, and noticing God's hand in our lives.   Those powerful spiritual experiences that tell us there is more to life than living. :)
Soul knowledge it doesn't matter if we know it with our head and our heart and we do not act... Soul knowledge is becoming.  We have to become a disciple of Christ.  Just like we have to become a dancer, an engineer, a horseback rider, or anything else worth becoming.  It is a process.
This pattern is found through out the scriptures.  It is beautiful elegant and simple :)
One of my favorite examples of this is Amulek.

Alma 10
5 Nevertheless, after all this, I never have known much of the ways of the Lord, and his mysteries and marvelous power. I said I never had known much of these things; but behold, I mistake), for I have (head knowledge seen much of his mysteries and his marvelous power; yea, even in the preservation of the lives of this people.

 6 Nevertheless, I did harden my heart(no heart knowledge), for I was called many times and I would not hear; therefore I knew concerning these things, yet I would not know; therefore I went on (soul)rebelling against God, in the wickedness of my heart, even until the fourth day of this seventh month, which is in the tenth year of the reign of the judges.

I love the scriptures :)

So this week I am focusing on the Christlike attribute of Knowledge, and I invite you to join me in finding in what knowledge we need to see a little more :) for me it is head knowledge.  To obtain more head knowledge I am focusing on learning where passages are in the scriptures that I will be able to share them and know where they are when I need them :)  Have a wonderful day!

Cheers!

Sister Shaver

Pictures :)

Just doing some family history at the MTC . . . I found my cousin Nathan. ;)

Best friend! 

Going to miss this girl!

Good-byes are not my favorite :(

Selfie for the day!

Sister Jo makes me laugh!

Woodland Maiden outfit. Now I just need some birds to fly around me.

From the mouth of babes....

Week 5!

GENERAL

So we got the opportunity to host this week!!! It was SO much FUN!  It brought back so many memories!  I am so glad we had that privilege!  It was also SNOWING like real SNOW! They were the largest snow flakes I had ever seen in my whole life!! I did not even know how to act, and my coat does not have a hood... I really represented AZ well... it looked like I hadn't seen snow before, but seriously this snow was crazy and awesome!

Pre Hosting!!!

So the amazing chess board you see before you was created by Elder Megargel.  A true engineer.   It is quite awesome.  If I weren't writing this blog I would try to recreate it :P

Impressive right!

UPLIFTING

This last Tuesday Elder Zwick and his wonderful wife spoke at the MTC devotional.  It was definitely top 3 devotionals I have ever heard.  Sister Zwick shared a video her grand daughter took of herself baring her testimony.  It was one of the sweetest testimonies I have ever heard.  She said something to this effect, "I am in kindergarten and it was really different just like the MTC is different for you guys, and even when we feel alone and like no one likes us it is okay because God likes us.  Sometimes it is hard, but it is okay because God will bless us when we listen to him.  My sister is on a mission right now and we miss her a lot but its okay cause she will come back and she is doing what Jesus would do. I hope I can be a missionary someday and it would be a great opporunity for me.  Good luck."

Everyone... I pretty much just sat in my chair and cried and this was like minute 5.
This 5 year old was SO profound.  Mission are not easy. Life itself isn't easy. and that is okay.  Because our Heavenly Father loves us and takes us from where we are and helps us become something more than we could be on our own.  Through Christ atonement we can become perfected in him, as we accept his grace.  We have to be willing to humble ourselves to accept it though. Truly making a commitment to change.

Elder Zwick called up his son Scotty who has downsyndrom to come and bare his testimony.  I had already been so moved by the spirit. I was already crying intermitantly throughout this whole talk, and I don't consider myself one to cry in public... This however, struck a chord.  Someday I hope I can bare such a powerful and simple testimony.  We could feel this man's love for the missionaries.  We could feel his deep love for the Savior, and for the Savior's atonement.  Sometimes, we all like to make this life and having faith way more difficult than it needs to be.  When it comes down to the basics, it is very simple.

When we humble ourselves to repent we can be clean through Christ's atonement.
When we love God we keep his commandments. When we understand how much God loves us, we can love others no matter the circumstance, and invite them to partake in this joyful plan.

I know this to be true, and it is not as difficult as I have made it out to be in my mind in the past.  The examples of Scotty and the Zwick's granddaughter are perfect examples of love and faith.  Children may be said to be naive, but we are to have faith like unto little children for such is the kingdom of God(Matt 19:14).  and from the mouth of babes is perfected praise(Matt 21:16) (3Nephi 26:16).  I hope this week I can work on being more childlike.  They hear correction so much easier than adults do, and I want to be teachable especially as I learn the Korean language and the language of the scriptures, and most importantly the language of the Spirit.


LOST IN TRANSLATION

So I am already pretty much a baby in Korean... or at least I talk like one.
So this one time, in the MTC, there was a teacher who asked us why we were learning Korean(all in Korean of course).

I was trying so hard to remember what I had learned on TALL(computer language program) that I starting just taking a stab in the dark.

I wanted to say, "I am learning Korean to preach to the Korean people."
instead I said, " I am learning Korean to oppress the Korean people"

I PROMISE that I really meant to say preach... however, my Korean teacher just about lost it laughing, and was like what are you trying to say!? it was pretty hilarious.  The lesson to learn here is, when taking a shot in the dark do not be surprised when there is "collateral" damage... The true hilarity of this blunder though, is that oppress and preach are NOT even remotely pronounced the same... unlike the other mistake I made the other day with "to feel" and "to be greasy"
I will romanize what it sounds like
nookeeda vs nookeehada
We have fun. haha

ONCE UPON AN AUSSIE

So this one time I had this conversation with on of the Aussies in our branch,
Sister Aussie "I like that rangur's dress"
Sister Shaver "huh?"
Sister Aussie "I like that rangur's dress"
Sister Shaver "The red head? what did you call her?"
Sister Aussie " that's what we call red heads in Australia, Rangur' like orangutan."
Sister Shaver "I can't wait to email Sister Shaver(the red head one)"

Also, one of the Australian elders going to Indonesia is leaving Monday and someone asked if he was excited and he said it was mixed feelings. When asked why he said, "I'm not going to have any toilet paper..."
Count your blessing everyone....

PICTURES :)

Twinsies! Sister Sweetnam

My Aussie Comp on a real snow day! 

Sister Thornley (Utahian), Sister Amende (Kiwi), and me.

This Sister is hilarious! She makes my day. (matching old school YW medallions!)

Quotes of the Week:

Elder Corona, "I can't think of a horse without thinking of you" (referring to when I neighed at my investigator)

Happy Month Anniversary!!!

Yep I am 1/18 done with my mission.  See it isn't that long.  ;)

So... y'all... I am kind of competitive....In case you didnt know... I broke the wall sit record at the MTC.  They gave me a little certificate and everything :P  But I plan on re-beating it, cause I had to quit after gym time ended.  My time was 11:30 min.

I Win! Yep . . .  I feel like I'm 4 again. :)

#ldsconf

My favorite talk was probably Elder Wilford Anderson's talk and he compared discipleship to dancing!!! What a great analogy! If you haven't seen it ( https://www.lds.org/general-conference/2015/04/the-music-of-the-gospel?lang=eng ).

But my favorite quote was "I can teach you to dance but I can't teach you to feel the music" Isn't that the truth!  We can't teach people to feel the music.  It is something we have to feel for ourselves. People can give tips, and explain how they feel it, but ultimately we have to figure it out for ourselves, and it doesn't happen immediately for everyone. Similarly we have to figure the truth out for ourselves.

I hope you had a happy Easter!! :D  Mine was filled with love, Easter bunny ears and general conference! :D  I am so grateful for my Redeemer.  I know that Christ died for all of us, that we may live again, and if we believe on him have eternal life.  I hope we all listen to President Uchtdorf, and as he put it, never lose your sense of awe.  How amazing is it that Christ died for us?  I was overcome with emotion this weekend as I realized how much he loves us.


Humblings

So today, we were sitting eating lunch in the cafeteria, and this Elder we did not know from South America, came up to us and said this,
"Hello, we opened this bag of chips thinking we were going to eat it but we were not hungry anymore."
The MTC is not in a chips shortage.  Far from it, but this Elder reminded me of how spoiled I have been my whole life.  Here he was not wanting to waste a small bag of lays chips, and came across the cafeteria to give them to the 5 of us, which was far past the trash bin. While I probably grab an extra bowl of whatever looks good on the off chance i want it later. But I am repenting. I hope I can be more like this Elder, filled with gratitude and consideration for resources and other people.
Once upon an Aussie, I'm not going to specify which aussie this was, but I decided this had to be shared.
We were all working on different phrases in Korean, and this particular phrase this sister was working on was please bless us to diligently work at becoming obedient.  However, instead of obedient said pregnant in Korean. The devil lies in the details...
This language is crazy, and wonderful.  I am slowly falling in love with its many complexities.  It's like math...

Lost in translation.

Once upon a Korean class, my friend was trying to say God loves us, and instead said the great hippo loves the ducks.  Yes the words for God and Great Hippo are that close.  So just a reminder the Great hippo loves ducks, and God loves you.

Other fun facts

the word for abomination kajung
the word for testimony kanjung
now imagine testimony meetings...

Quote of the week:

#greatandspaciousbuilding #ldsconf

Picture time!

Happy Easter!

Eating Korean food

Selfie after food

Elder Royce makes the best faces! haha

Temple time! 

So I found this on my camera . . . Elder Selfie Medina 

Good looking missionaries. :P  Sister Amende is hilarious. Love this girl!

The Time I Onomatopoeiaed

Alright, I feel like this was over hyped, but I hope you enjoy my awko taco moment recreated with hand drawn wii people.

So this was lesson 1 or 2, and I still couldn't even utter a prayer with out it being written out. Yet there we were going to teach a lesson.

Love this sister! She is an angel.

The plan was to read the lesson off this sheet we made, which was going to be a struggle in and of itself. #newalphabetproblems

Okay I am just interpreting what I  think was said. I had no idea what was going on. Something was good at one point...

First two words of this scripture ;) but for real though. All the prayers.

I had no idea what her hobbies were... the only word I recognized was my own name... and then the question verb conjugation....

#thestruggleisreal

Under pressure that vocab bank is chopped in half...

So during class there are a lot of charades, cause none of the teachers speak English to us.  Also, my brain in an effort to compartmentalize languages tells my body to us ASL to communicate.... which isn't very useful... especially when Korea probably has a Korean sign language... 

Luckily, our sweet investigator laughed with us. and then told me the word for horse in Korean.  So the moral of this story, is when in doubt act it out.  and that is the tale of how I got the name 말 자매.

It's Not Just a Game

안녕하세요! = HI!

Woah! 3 weeks out!  Crazy, we are no longer the newest district.
We lost some amazing missionaries this last week and it chopped our branch down to 1/3 the size.  However,  I look forward to joining them in Korea in the coming weeks :)

Okay y'all. let's talk about gym time. but more specifically four square.
Here is what I have learned.
1. Four square is for past playground bullies and nerds.
2. Not for the faint of heart.
3. It is NOT just a game, it is a world warzone.
-alliances are formed, enemies are made. it's intense.
   (but solely saved for the battle field)

Also, I love four square. haha.  Probably cause it is the closest thing to dancing :P

Alright, next let's talk about how my branch is the "celestial branch".

Besides that it is the best mission ever ;)  We are on the top of every building we go to.... in really old buildings... that don't have elevators.  Hence, we go up 3 or 4 flights of stairs to get to the residence hall, and to class.  I think it is part of the MTC exercise program.  Anyway, story goes we are the closest to heaven ;)  Which we then have to earn by going up ALL THE STAIRS.

Uplifting thought.

Alright so this past week has been awesome.  I feel like the language is sort of starting to stick in my brain.  I even bore an impromptu testimony entirely in Korean(probably not proper Korean but Korean none the less).  I feel that the Lord definitely sent me here to learn some humility, cause this language is incredibly difficult, but it has been a good challenge and really has required me to exercise a lot of faith, and trust the Spirit.

The Tehs!!!

Elder Teh spoke at this past weeks MTC fireside, which is really especially awesome cause I know him and his family and they are seriously the best! They even brought me some blueberries(which are my favorite) and gave me a scripture case! which is great cause I didnt have one. :)

Sister Teh gave an excellent talk.  She spoked about the public transportation in the Philippines and how there is always room for more on the little jeepnees.  Any how they will serve the community for a long time. Similarly with the Lord there is always room for one more.  He will not give us more than we are able to handle :)

Elder Teh gave a wonderful talk about how we are called to the same work as Ammon and how Ammon was blessed for giving up his kingdom, and how we will be blessed for our service to the Lord.

Both talks were so good! :D and I sat next to his awesome children! It was so nice to see them :)

So remember how the first day I was here I ran into the first hymn in the Korean Hymal, which happened to be the hymn my grandmother wrote? Well this week while preparing a lesson for an investigator, we wanted to talk about General Conference.  Then I realized that is exactly what my Grandmother's hymn is talking about! My companion and I sang it in Korean and english together during our companionship study and the Spirit was really strong.  I love my Grandma and I know she was inspired when she wrote those words for "we Listen to a Prophet's Voice" (hymn 22 in english).  This weekend the Prophet and Apostles of the Lord will be speaking to us!  I invite you to join and watch/listen online at ( https://www.lds.org/general-conference?lang=eng ) and no matter what you believe I know you will be uplifted from what you watch and hear :)

Pictures!!!

Best P-day ever! Hanging with the Assuies and Kiwis

Saying good-bye to part of our district that are on their way to Korea! I will miss my fellow engineer.  haha

Sister Kwak and I photo bombed by Elder Eades and Elder Huckfeild.

"hmmm eating salad with a fork is significantly easier than chopsticks" -Sister Hatch

"People are people no matter how small." -Horton Hears a Who