The Best Two Years

We saw a family traveling around town in this. They let us take a picture with their little boy

This is the dresser we have in our home. Best Two Years anyone?

AAAH IT"S ALMOST NOVEMBER!!!

Oct 26

This has been a really fun week, full of the spirit and also fun quotes. People are fun. And possibly we are socially awkward to the max by now thus the reason certain things are funny, but I will share them nonetheless. 1) We have a sweet less active, Kang Jee Eun, who really loves English and practices when we meet. She was having a hard day because of a coworker, and explained her as such. "She is so fat. She's even fatter than..even fatter than.. An American missionary!!" My companion and I (both American missionaries mind you) looked at eachother and said, "Wow, she must be huge." To which she strongly agreed and continued her story. Confidence boost! 2) I decided to actually wear my hair down to church on Sunday (gasp!). I walk in and Elder #1 says, "Wow, Sister Seegmiller, you changed your hair. It looks nice." A few minutes later, Elder #2 walks in and says, "Wow Sister Seegmiller, you look like a lion." Apparently it got mixed reviews. 3) A sweet old man in the ward was watching me clean up dishes after a ward lunch. After several attempts to tell me something in Korean, he finally says in English, "You the very best kind of missionary." Totally made my day. 4) we do a service project every week, and have become really good friends with the man in charge. He was talking to us afterwards told Sister Evans and I that we were the 'dream team'. We agreed ;) 5) not really a quote but fun fact. In ward choir, they have asked me to sing in the soprano section (yeah, that's new). Well, in our song the very last note is a high G, which no human should sing. Joking around (and trying to reminesce on the Phantom of the Opera days in the car with Shawn on family vacations) I sang it nice and loud. To which the director said, "Oh great, we will let Sister Seegmiller sing it." Um... yeah. It sounds like.. well me trying to hit a high G. 6) Maybe shouldn't share this but oh well. During companionship study we were practicing for a lesson, and decided to try it in English first. (we were both deliriously tired at this point, but were trying our best) It was going pretty well until my companion said "We don't do that, but we do do this." Me, in my highly sophisticated and mature fashion, totally lost it and laughed for a good 5 minutes. Oh dear. Missions are fun.

 

I don't have any grand conversion stories or miracles to share this week. Just the simple testimony that God really does answer our prayers, and that miracles happen all around us every single day. We just need to take the time to recognize them in our lives. #1) We were talking to people on the street as a district, and a lady was looking at the Book of Mormon really interested. So I walked over, and it turns out she was a less active who hadn't been to church for a really long time, but wants to meet!! #2) We had a dinner appointment with a member, and the other sisters were asked to share the spiritual message. Before leaving our house, I felt like I should grab my hymnbook. Hours later, when they started the message they asked if we could start with a hymn, and needed the hymnbook I had 'happened' to grab that day. #3) We were visiting homes, and found a less active who hadn't been to church in at least 20 years. She let us in, and told us she only let us in because of how shocked she was to see us. She informed us that she ALWAYS is at work at that time, and this was literally the first time in months she happened to be home. And it was the first time we had ever attempted to stop by her home to visit. #4)Yesterday we were looking for less actives, and got to an apartment building. The apartments have front doors that you cannot get into unless someone beeps you in, or you know the code. But every single time we do visits, we pray that we can get in somehow and without fail someone has always come by to open the doors. So, we prayed and waited. But no one came. So we visited some more homes, and came back later. Still no people. I decided to try the doors one more time, and to our surprise,  it was unlocked! It's hard to describe, but these doors always automatically lock after being shut. So having it shut and unlocked is 'impossible'. Unless of course the Lord is on your side! Then we can do all things through Christ which strengtheneth us! :) #5) There is an investigator, Yoo Oak Roar, who has stopped responding to our texts and calls for weeks. We text her a scripture everyday but no response. But then, on Wed, night she texted us saying she would call tomorrow. On Thursday we called, and she asked if we could meet at 4pm the next day. OF COURSE! So we met her with a member, and taught the Restoration. As we began the Joseph Smith story (one of the most incredible stories in the world) the Spirit was so incredibly strong and she could feel it. We asked her to be baptized, and she said she would prepare to be baptized on Nov. 23!! :):) It was an absolute miracle!

 

I want to testify to all of you that I know God hears and answers our prayers, every single time. Maybe not in the way or time that we are expecting, but He always does. He is our literal loving FATHER in Heaven, and wants the very best for us. And as we take time to reflect on our day, no matter how crazy, hectic, or boring it may be, His hand is there guiding us back to Him. I know that the church is true. I feel it so deeply I want to burst sometimes! This is the most incredible message ever, That God lives, He loves us each personally, and is anxiously engaged in each and everyone of our lives. We are never alone! I'm so grateful for this opportunity to share it with this wonderful part of the world in Korea. I love all of you. Have a great week!

 

-Sister Seegmiller :)

Or maybe it's Costco that's the universal language...

Costco-sized bag of pretzels- should of lasted forever but we opened it wrong, and how have ziploc bags full of pretzels around our house.

Welcome to Korea.. That woman is probably around 80 years old riding around in the back of the bike/truck thing. I love it!

An adorable little boy in our ward, who right before we took the picture, grabbed my face to tell me a very intense story.

Elder Ross, my zone leader, and his last day here in Korea! Crazy that missions actually end..

Sister Evans and I after our morning run, where we froze to death and thawed on the floor.

Blessings, blessings, and more blessings!

Oct 19

This week was just wonderful. We visited with an elderly less active woman in our ward. She is 91 and is in a lot of pain. She tells us often she wants to die because 'people don't hurt in heaven', but she is so sweet! We were talking about loving God and others, and decided to sing a hymn. When the song was over, she was very quiet for a long time. We decided to sing another hymn, and the spirit was so strong. We pointed out that she was feeling the spirit, and she said she wants to feel it all the time and committed to pray everyday! As we were leaving, I thought she asked if we were going to walk, but she actually asked if we wanted some coke. I said yes, and then realizing my mistake quickly tried to take it back. But she was set, and poured us both a huge glass, Well, Sister Evans hasn't had carbonation in over 10 years, and I have never had caffeine. And we really, REALLY didn't want to start drinking it then. We didn't know what do to. So I asked if I could the bathroom and when she wasn't looking we dumped it down the toilet.. We felt so horrible but didn't know what else to do. But considering what coke can do to things, we are hoping it cleaned her pipes and we did her a favor...

 

Then on Sunday.. Oh on Sunday. We had two investigators say they were coming to church, but never showed up. Then the less active we are working with didn't come, and neither did one of the recent converts. We had an appointment set for later that day, which called and cancelled, and our other appointment rejected our calls. Then we started talking to a lady on the street who immediately yelled "I hate you, why would you ever talk to me!?" Oh boy. It wasn't exactly the best start/middle. But two ward members were pretty sick, and here when people are sick they eat something called Jook- which is sort of like porridge. So we made some for them, and went to drop it off. After the trials come the blessings!! The first woman had us come in, and eat some apples with her. We text her a scripture everyday, and she told us a super cool story. Years ago, she was less active and wasn't sure if the church was true. She read a verse in the Book of Mormon that really impacted her, and she realized that if the Book of Mormon was true then the church has to be true too. And she has been super active ever since. Well, a few days ago she was having a really hard day. And without knowing it, we texted her that exact scripture on that day. She was strengthened and able to do what she needed that day. The Lord knows the needs of every single one of his children! Then we visited a recent convert. It was a suprise visit, and her non-member husband answered the door. We had never met him before, but she has been trying to get him interested in the church for awhile now. We weren't sure how he would react, but he was so nice, invited us in, and made us dinner! We had dinner with their family, and were able to get to know them even better. It was such an incredible miracle that he was there, and he wants us to come back! As we were leaving, I asked if we could have a kneeling prayer. He said he is Buddhist so he wouldn't join, but asked me to say the prayer. I prayed for each of them individually, blessing them with things they needed like we always do. After the prayer, he was standing there staring at us. He said. "Wow. You blessed my whole family. Thank you." It was so cool! We had no idea he was listening, but he could feel our love and God's love for him and his family. It made me realize the power of prayer and how important it is to know people by name. If we try to tell people that God loves each of them individually by name, but we don't know their name, why would they believe us? But when we really make that effort, they can feel God's love through us. This work really is simply a labor of love.

 

I love being a missionary. I love Korea with all my heart. This is truly God's church on the earth!! We are oh so blessed! I love all of you, have a wonderful week and you are always in my prayers!

 

-Sister Shanelle Seegmiller :)

A picture's worth a thousand words, so 13 pictures is worth, like .... a lot, right?

The tiniest toilet I have ever seen.

At the DMZ!

Fun on the bus. We also visited a war prison. Pretty crazy.

General Conference is the BEST!!!!!!!!!!!

Oct 12

This week has been amazing. Because of the week delay for translation, we watched conference this weekend. And holy cow what an incredible weekend it was. Mom, you talked about Elder Bednar's comment, how the 88,000 missionaries are here to assist the members in missionary work. (fun fact, since they lowered the mission age two years ago, there has been a 30,000 missionary increase, from 58,000 to 88,000. Holy. Cow.) You said how that seems to put a lot more responsibility on the members, which it absolutely does. But as missionaries, it made us realize even more just how important it is that we involve members in this work by inviting them to lessons and teaching them how to share the gospel. Sometimes we think that somehow we can do this work alone, but it simply isn't true. Members and missionaries MUST work together in order for this work to go anywhere. And it's definitely going! So exciting! Another thing that really stood out was the emphasis on propthets and their divine calling from Heavenly Father. Over and over they talked about the importance of having a living prophet and heeding His counsel, which is untainted and directly from God. They said several times that this will be our protection in the latter-days, and if we ignore it we will fall. Pretty intense, but so incredible! We literally have the opportunity to listen to the mouth piece of the Lord, giving us direct and specific counsel how to overcome the temptations of Satan. As Richard G. Scott said, "As we do these things, the harder Satan will try to stop us and the less power he will have to do so." Now that is a cool promise. Holy cow, Conference is so amazing. I am so grateful for modern prophets and apostles who lead and guide this church today.

 

This week we had a meeting for all the new missionaries and their trainers. It is a type of follow up meeting and additional training. It was such a good meeting! We talked a lot about street contacting and how to make it more meaningful and personal for each person we talked to. As we were preparing to leave, our wise AP promised us that since we had practiced those things so much the Lord would bless us with people in our path that day who needed what we had just learned. And that's where the miracles began! We got on the bus heading to the subway station. In that 10 minute ride, we met three people who all wanted a Book of Mormon and asked if they could learn more about it. We then got on the subway, where we were talking to a woman, and the two woman beside us asked if they could see a Book of Mormon, and began reading for a good 15 minutes as we went to our stop. We transferred to another train, and met a 70 year old woman who had just lost her husband and was very lonely but had great faith in Christ. We were out of Book of Mormons, and only had one pamphlet left which just happened to be the Plan of Salvation. We taught her about the Plan, and she started to cry. She wrote down her address and phone number, and told us we had to meet the rest of her family and share this message. And it just turns out a member from another ward got on the train right at that moment, and was able to teach and testify about what we had just said. They both got off, and two more woman came over and asked if we could teach them more about what we had been sharing. This all happened in the space of about an hour. When we got back home, we were speechless. We couldn't believe the goodness of God and the incredible blessings he had poured upon us. And my testimony has grown dramatically that when the Lord gives us knowledge, and we do our best to put that knowledge into practice, He will bless us. He will always bless us and we will feel His love for us and all HIs wonderful children around us. It was a miracle. Holy cow I love this work. I LOVE THIS WORK!! It is in God's hands, his perfectly capable hands if we just get out of the way.

 

I love being a missionary. This is the greatest work in the world. I love Korea and the wonderful people living here. I love the members, the missionaries, and my adorable companion. But most of all, I love my Heavenly Father and Savior Jesus Christ. Through them we truly can find the greatest happiness. I love all of you, thank you for everything and you are always in my prayers. Have a wonderful week!

 

-Sister Shanelle Seegmiller :) 

The DMZ!!!!

Oct 5

this is being written from an ipad today so please forgive the lack of capitalization. it takes too long

this has been such an incredible week, and i will try to describe it from this awful keyboard. (seriously, touch screens are the worst. real keyboards and flip phones are where its at!) so this week for pday we went to....THE DMZ!!!! oh my goodness so cool! pictures will come next week hopefully. but holy cow. we went on a bus tour so we were able to go into this tunnel north korea had dug to invade seoul. it was only found because a north korean defector informed south korea. they have found three other tunnels before as well, and there are probably lots more undiscovered. super crazy!! we were 200-250 meters from the north korean border. i cant believe they were able to big it so big and so solid without south korea ever realizing it. we went until they blocked it off. thats the one place we werent able to take pictures so you will just have to imagine. it was about 5 feet high ish, and could fit probably like 4 or 5 people across. we also went to a look out where we could use binoculars and look into north korea!! it looks so normal from that view, but they are such a lost people!! 

while looking over at their country from the wonderful, prosperous, free south korean side, i got kind of emotional. i couldnt help thinking about the book of mormon, the nephites and lamanites. they came from the same family, they were the same people with the same anscestors. but over time they became so different. and through the traditions of their fathers the lamanites became a bloodthirsty ferocious people, and they didnt know anything different. thats exactly what has happened here!! its literally that story being played out in real life!! i felt a little like the sons of mosiah, loving those lost brothren and wanting so desperately to share the gospel with them in hopes of saving whoever they could. there are talks of reuniting korea again, having it be one peaceful country and one people again. but only the gospel is going to make this possible. oh man i want to be a part of it soo badly! they need the gospel, they need christ so much, they need that hope. and its so close!! literally a few hundred meters away. i am so excited to see what the lord has in store to make this possible. you can guarantee i will be first in line, these korean people are just too precious to let them slip away. its coming. i dont know when, but oh man, it will and it will be incredible!! 

also, this week we really tried to focus on making our prayers more specific. we prayed to find someone interested in learning more about the gospel, and met the coolest woman ever! she couldnt believe she hadnt seen missionaries before, she said she had heard about us for years but hadnt actually met a missionary before, she was in a hurry, but took a book of mormon out of my hands, took our phone to give us her number and insisted that we call her again. um.. yes ma'am! then we prayed to find someone sincerely interested in learning about the gospel, not because we are foreign but because they honestly want to learn. today we met this awesome american soldier at the travel office. she was muslim, but was really curious how we were different. we offered her a book of mormon, and she said "its fine, thats what im getting on my phone right now." she spent the next hour reading all about our church in the internet, it was incredible, the lord is placing prepared people in our path. and we find them even better when we actually ask for them specifically. who knew. the lord is just too good to us, 

i love being a missionary so much. this is the most incredible work in the world. im so blessed to be here, surrounded by such an incredible people. this is truly gods true church on earth, we are so lucky to have it, and also have a great responsibility to share it. aah i love it, i love all of you. have a great week! 

세그밀러 자매