Letter - 10/19/14

Family and Friends,

First I have to say HAPPY BIRTHDAY TO THE #1 DAD AND TO THE BEST BROTHER IN THE WORLD! Wow I can't believe it has already been your birthday! What a fun time that you had so I have heard through many emails. I just first want to acknowledge my dad. If many of you didn't know I am kind of a daddy's girl. Dad I am so grateful for you and for all the counsel you have given me throughout my life. Thank you for the memorie and the numerous Dadday-Daughter Dates. You are such an amazing man who has sacrificed so much for me and our family just to make sure we are happy. Dad thank you for always listening to me and for empathizing with my situations. I love you! Now, Tyler..Where to start. Yes since I can remember you teased me and tickled me but what good memories those are even though I was never really happy when it was occuring. I just want to say thank you for being the most amazing big brother and for always leading by example. I have looked up to you my whole life and admire your desire to always follow our Savior Jesus Christ. I hope you both had a wonderful birthday and that you have grown a little wiser this past year! I love you both so much! Thanks for being the #1 men in my life!!

Now for my life as a missionary. Well where to start. So I have new companion and her name is Sister Stout. She is absolutely amazing! Like I mentioned last week we lived together for three transfers in my first area and I am just so thrilled to be serving with her. She is from Illinois but grew up in Japan for 12 years and speaks fluent Japanese. She is the coolest and currently her dad took a job offer her in Korea so her family is living in the Daejon mission. Isn't that so cool. I just love her to death already! We have had quite the adventures since she has come and just by being herself she is pushing me to continually improve not only my Korean but just my way of missionary work. She truly is one who leads by example and I am honored to be serving along side her.  We both are just ready to go and conquer this little city of 금천.  We had a practice lesson with our sweet 황미주 and we taught the Plan of Salvation. The way we taught was just in so much unity and it was the best lesson I have ever taught as a missionary. This companionship truly has been an answer to my prayers and a tender mercy from the Lord. I truly don't know why but everday the Lord continues to bless me and my happiness just continues to increase. Just when I think I can't be happier I am showered with blessings and I am so grateful that I have been given the eyes to recognize them and receive them with so much joy.

One specific blessing that I really noticed this week was when we decided to go visit a particular Less Active family in which I have visited a lot before but I wanted Sister Stout to meet them so Thursday came along and we decided to go visit this family. The parents are less active while the kids come to church weekly. When we met with the parents it was actually the first time that I understood everything he was saying but at the time I wish I wasn't understanding because of the things he was saying and just continued to twist our words around. He was extremely hard hearted and the whole time and I was just praying that his heart would be softened. We shared a scripture with him to invite the Spirit and help him understand why the Lord requires us to be obedient so we can receive blessings and how we can show our love to God which is also through obedience. He then explained that he doesn't want those blessings and just told us that we couldn't talk to him and began criticizing us. It was hard because all he really wanted to do was fight and Sister Stout and I didn't know what to do. He then began telling us that we can't communicate with him because we don't know Korean so we should just leave. It was hard and it was frustrating because he was right our Korean isn't perfect but we  were able to rub it off our shoulders pretty well and just realized that we did what we could to help them.

So you may question why I consider this a blessing. Well its a blessing in disguise as I look back at the experience I can see what I have really learned as a missionary. I have learned how to be strong and not let anybody else's opinion affect what I think of myself. I use to worry alot about what others thought of me so I thought I had to be perfect in everyone's eyes and so if I would have been my old self that situation would have brought me to tears and I wouldn't have been able to handle it but the Lord has truly taught me the principle about accepting me and I am just happy to be me. I have learned to rely on the Savior and look to Him for strength through hard times and allow Him in so I can be perfected through Him. Like Moroni 10:32 says "Yea, come unto Christ, and be perfected in him, and deny yourselves of all ungodliness; and if ye shall deny yourselves of all ungodliness, and love God with all your might, mind and strength, then is his grace sufficient for you, that by his grace ye may be perfect in Christ; and if by the grace of God ye are perfect in Christ, ye can in nowise deny the power of God" It's amazing to me how I can think back on different experiences I have had, see the lessons I learned, and see how the mission has changed me.

I just love this work so much and each day I cannot express enough gratitude to my Heavenly Father. He loves me and I have been shown so many signs of His love throughout my life. How merciful, patient and loving He is to me. I love Him and am so grateful for His love. I love being a missionary and sharing this love that is filled in my heart each day. I may just be like the Brother of Jared in Ether when he prepares the stones for the Lord to touch them. In a missionary point of view the stones are people and each day I am just going out preparing people little by little so the Lord can touch them one by one and light their lives with His love. I am a tool in His work and that is all I desire to be.

Thank you for all your love, support and prayers. I will never be able to thank you each enough but know that I love each of you and look to each of your examples so improve myself and become the person God wants me to be. I hope you are all doing well and continue to remember the Lord in your lives. I LOVE YOU AND MISS YOU! Have a wondrful week full of smiles and memories!

Love,
드리스콜자매
Sister Ciarra Jean Driscoll