So I got my new companion. She’s from Australia (which I’m so happy about because that means I’ll start and end my mission with an Australian)! Her family is originally from Tonga and her name is Sister Tui for short. I’m super excited to serve with her. It’s actually really cool because I had received a prompting about two months ago on March 11 to start praying for the people in the MTC, and it was so interesting that I had actually written about it in my journal. But then I had forgotten about it. I asked Sister Tui about the date and she told me that day (in Korea) would have been the day she entered the MTC in America! So cool! It’s FATE!
One of the first lessons we taught together was actually with a missionary from another church. We were talking to people on the street when I ran into this lady, and we were both excited to share with each other what we believed so we set up an appointment to meet for the next day.
To be honest, the church she was from has a really bad and scary reputation in Korea and I had heard a lot of bad experiences from other people about this church which made me second guess whether it was right or not to meet with her. We prayed about it and felt that whether she would accept or reject what we believed, we should still give her a chance to know more about it. We also felt that regardless of all the bad things we had heard about the church, we should focus on seeing her as God sees her, and treat her as such.
Our meeting with her was a bit wild, but because we had decided beforehand that we were going to treat her as God wants us to, we didn’t bash any beliefs. She tried a lot of the time to convert us to her beliefs, but we told her upfront that because we had read the Book of Mormon and gained a witness of its truth for ourselves, we couldn’t turn away from what we knew was true. We listened to her beliefs and testified of the truths that were in it; then she listened to what we believed. In the end we concluded that both of us didn’t have any plans on changing religion soon, but that we respected each other for what each of us were doing. A situation that could have caused a lot more contention ended in us nicely getting smoothies together.
It taught me that we should see everyone as God sees them, and eliminate any judgement that could lead to negative or un-Christlike feelings. It was a fun week with a lot of lessons learned!
Mission Moments:
❤ Sister Stastny
Seoul Sister 