A Day in the Life

Week 3- complete!

Well this week has been awesome. I cannot believe it is already P-day. I say this all the time, but time doesn't make sense here at all. Let's think. We have once again had some amazing speakers. Maria Luisa Torres, a member of the General Relief Society board, came and spoke to us during relief society. She said there isn't a day that goes by where she doesn't think about the things she learned while serving a mission. Richard J. Maynes spoke to us on Tuesday, he is the President of the Quorum of the Seventy. He is an amazing man. He talked all about being a successful missionary by understanding our purpose and living it everyday. He told us that Return With Honor will very much depend on how well live our purpose and serve the Lord by serving those around us. He really stressed the worth of one soul. Aaah I am so excited to go teach! We also had Vai Sikahema speak to us on Sunday. He was the first Tongan to every receive a football scholarship at BYU and played pro football for awhile. He is the one who scored the winning touchdown in the 'Miracle Bowl', or something like that. (he said our parents would know what he was talking about) He gave some really cool mission stories, and at the end we all stood to sing Called to Serve. The spirit was so strong, I just started to cry. I was overwhelmed with the feeling that I was exactly where the Lord wanted me. It was amazing. Also on Sunday, they gathered all the sister missionaries together for a group picture. They said it will go into a time capsule, and it may be posted somewhere else so keep an eye out! While waiting to take the picture, a male worker came running down the stairs to bring some supplies. He lost his footing and fell super hard, right in front of every sister missionary at the MTC. He jumped up, gave us a thumbs up, and kept running- this time with a slight limp. It was sad but so funny. 

I found out this week that we are the only Zone at the MTC where every member of our branch presidency has previously served as a mission president. We are truly being led by some inspired men. I love them so much! Brother Lee gave us a scripture on Sunday that made me realize why all missionaries gain weight at the MTC. It was Proverbs 28:25. Read it and tell me what you think. Sister Ahn and I decided to bear our testimonies to someone on the way to our room the other day. We walked up to some Elders and asked if we could give it to them, and then realized it was the same German Elders we bore our testimonies to last time. Luckily we were much improved this time around. It was awesome. We got new missionaries in our zone on Wednesday. Its weird not being the youngest anymore. They have put a lot of pressure on us to be good examples and learn Korean more quickly to better help them learn. They are super sweet. We got 5 new elders and 5 new sisters. Woohoo!!

Last week, we were finally able to go to the temple. It was closed our first 2 weeks because of cleaning or something, so Friday was the first time we were able to go. It was absolutely incredible!! We weren't in the same session as our Elders since they were running late. It was weird, it was almost like going to a session and leaving without a member of your family. But we all met in the Celestial room. I would guess we had close to 60 missionaries sitting in the celestial room at the same time. At one point, I looked around and was overwhelmed with the love I have for those who I am serving with. We were all gathered together, in the best place on earth, and the thought that kept going through my mind was that this is truly God's Army. We are in a battle against Satan, and each of us has been prepared to take him on as long as we remain on the Lord's side. We were probably in there close to 40 minutes, because none of the missionaries wanted to leave. Finally, we left since we had to teach a lesson at TRC. We get to go again today, and I cannot wait. The temple is the most amazing place on earth.

The MTC life is good. For gym, my roommates and I decided to go running and do the P90X ab workout everyMonday and Thursday. They call me their personal trainer. I love doing it. And it's been bringing us closer. Roommates who sweat together, stay together! Two of our Elders joined in the ab workout last time, and also another random elder we didn't know. Our following is growing, we may need to start doing it in a larger area. It feels so good to get active and sweaty again, as weird as that may sound. Our teaching is improving. My speaking is still very limited, but I understand more and more every lesson. Luckily, Sister Ahn is pretty fluent, so when I stare blankly she can respond perfectly. It's cool though, even when I can't understand what they are saying, I still get impressions to share certain scriptures during the lesson. It's awesome to see how the Lord works. Life is great. The church is true! I encourage everyone to look for missionary opportunities wherever possible. I love all the letters, Dearelders, and email! Thank you for your love and support. I love you all so much! Until next week, 

-Sister Seegmiller

p.s. hopefully the pictures work! These computers are a little confusing, so please let me know if they don't. A little description, one is of Sister Ahn and I with our teacher, Sister Saegers. Another is of our district after we taught our first investigator, who is the little Korean lady. We decided to do 'Potty Pilates' one day, another is of Elder Smith 'studying' very hard. The rest is of our district and some of the other sisters in our zone. Our last p-day I was so exhausted and pretended to fall asleep on the floor. Sister Ahn gave me her bag that our Korean books came in as a blanket. And another is my nametag, hopefully you can see the Korean writing. When we get to Korea our names will be in Korean as well. I think that's all. I hope this works. Enjoy!

Soy Sauce is the Key to Happiness

Thank you everyone for all the letters!! Its so fun reading them and hearing about life in the outside world. That's really what it feels like. When we leave the campus to go to choir or the playing field, we feel like such rebels. Because our life consists of about 4 buildings where we spend 99% of our day.

Life here is so good! First off, the Devotionals are the best things ever! We had Jenny Oaks Baker come, she is Elder Oak´s daughter. She plays the violin and went to Julliard. We had Jay E. Jensen speak to us. He was previously a member of the Seventy. Rosemary Wixom, the Primary General President came and spoke to us in Relief Society on Sunday, and on Tuesday... Drumroll please... Elder Richard G. Scott came and spoke to us in a devotional that they broadcasted to the MTCs around the world. IT WAS AMAZING!! He is so cute and so sweet. He talked all about prayer, how to pray, how to receive answers, and how to act when answers are received. He gave us an apostolic blessing that we would be able to receive the gift of tongues and perform our best if we give the Lord our best. He told us to be good, and stopped to wave four times before leaving. He told us he could feel his sweet wife with him there, even though she passed away 18 years ago. It was amazing. We sang in the choir for the devotional. We sang Jesus, Once of Humble Birth. It sounded incredible! So much better than we ever had in practice. The Spirit was so strong!

On Sunday, we got some new callings. Elder Easton became the Zone Leader, Elder Wilkinson is our District Leader, Sister Ahn is the new Sister Training Leader, and I am the music coordinator. Woohoo! They are my favorite people here, so its awesome that we all get to work together! Our musical number went well. Singing in Korean is getting a lot easier. Our district will go find a piano and sing together on a regular basis. It helps relieve stress and bring the spirit so much! it´s great. We also watched the Joseph Smith video in Korean. I understood a few words so that is progress. 

Speaking of amazing people, I love my district. Sister Ahn is the greatest. We have so much fun together, and she is the sweetest person alive. I´m so grateful to have her as my companion! She works hard, laughs a lot, and has such a strong testimony. Elder Easton always gives us stickers for different accomplishments, like teaching investigators, being on time, or just because he wants to. Elder Wilkinson is awesome! He gave us each a scripture that reminded him of us. He gave me Alma 56:45, because it was about courage and humility. It was super sweet! Elder Wilkinson went to Harvard, and Elder Smith went to MIT. They were in the same ward in Boston and are pretty good friends. They always get into a battle of wits, using words we often don't understand. But it's so fun to watch. They try to outsmart each other in every way, which makes pure entertainment for the rest of us. My roommate Sister Tehei is from New Zealand. She is hilarious. She loves my eyebrows! She tells me all the time how great they are, and she wants to take a picture of them to send to her sisters at home. Not a picture of me, just my eyebrows. Um.. Thank you!  My good friends Sister Richans and Sister Baty are both here for two weeks, so its really fun seeing them around. Two German elders came up the other day and asked if they could bear their testimonies. They did it in German, and I actually understood most of it. It was awesome! Then we said ours in Korean and we walked away. This happens often, and I love it so much! We have the best teachers in the MTC. Sister Saegers is a linguistics major, so she can help with the language so much! She speaks Arabic, Hebrew, English, Korean, and wants to learn Greek and Japanese. Its so nice having someone like that help us to understand this language. Our other teacher, Brother Madsen is apparently amazing at Korean. He is white, but those who know Korean have said that his accent is perfect and that you wouldn´t know he wasn´t native by listening to him. So he helps us a ton with pronunciation. We also have some missionaries from Korea here, so we talk to them as much as possible to learn how to speak properly. 

During the day, we have gym, class, teaching, and eat. That´s about it. For gym, we´ve played 4-square, basketball, soccer, p90x, and just walked around outside. We are teaching two investigators this week, and two more tonight at TRC. it will be interesting to see how it goes. I´m understanding more, but I have a hard time responding in a way that makes sense. Their sentence structure is really different from English. But it is improving and I love teaching so this will be good. There have been some hilarious mistakes made by a few of our Elders. One accidentally said he ate God, instead of believed in Him. Another Elder ended his testimony in the name of soy sauce instead of Jesus Christ, the words for death and a little are almost the same, so a few people have mixed up those two. And my personal favorite, Elder Smith and Elder Rencher had our investigator read a scripture in Korean. They thought she was reading about baptism, but they had marked the wrong scripture since it was in Korean. Instead, she read about Lamanites murdering wives and families. They had no idea why she looked so shocked and continued with the lesson. They realized their mistake after coming back and reading the scripture in English. I haven't laughed so hard in a long time.

Basically, I love it here so much! Its so crazy that it's already been over two weeks. They always say that the weeks pass like days and the days pass like months. It's so true! I have already learned so much in a very short amount of time. My relationship with my Savior has been strengthened, I LOVE reading the scriptures, and life is SOOO good. I cannot wait to get to Korea!! I had a really strong impression during Music and the Spoken Word on Sunday. There is someone waiting for me in Korea, someone that has been prepared for this gospel. I don't know who it is, but I will know when we meet. It was the most incredible feeling and gave me even more determination to do my best and learn all that I can. The Lord truly blesses his missionaries and we have seen his hand throughout all we do. I love this gospel with all my heart! I love you all and hope all is well. Keep me posted. And the dearelders are great so feel free to send those anytime! Pictures are also great. You are all such a strength and a blessing in my life. Thank you!! I love you so much! 

-Sister Seegmiller

p.s. I'm trying to find a computer that will let me send pictures. So far it has been unsuccessful due to lack of time. But hopefully pictures will come sometime.

Learnin the Lingo

This past week has seriously gone by sooo fast! I cannot believe it is already p-day again. So much has happened. At the end of each day, I really can't remember what happened that morning. All the days blend into one but it in a good way.  The DearElders work great. I love getting them throughout the week. It gives a little boost to the day, so thank you for those! Anytime anyone wants to send one, please feel free. They are free, don't take long, and I get them the same day or the day after.

So this past week has been crazy. We have taugh 5 lessons so far, each of them had to be in Korean. We are having a hard time teaching by the spirit when we can't even read the words we are trying to say. Because we need scripts in order to speak. Then, if we ask questions like a good missionary, we can't understand her answers and then we have a blank stare contest. But somehow depsite all of this, we have really felt the spirit in a few of the lessons and our Korean is improving. Our teacher will only speak Korean the whole time we are here, and occassionally I actually understand a word. Woo hoo!! It's a challenge but it is so worth it. They pointed out to us yesterday that everything we do here and on our mission should be towards fulfilling our missionary purpose, which is to invite others to come unto Christ. Which means everytime we do scripture study, we should want to improve our relationship with Heavenly Father in order to better teach our missionaries. We should learn as much Korean as possible, so that we can effectively teach our investigators. We should be obedient to mission rules so that we can have the spirit when we teach, and touch the hearts of the investigators. Its really cool and definitely changes perspective when you think of it like that. On Sunday it was testimony meeting. Six people in my district decided to bear our testimonies, in Korean. We wrote them on Saturday and memorized them all morning. They were very short and simple, since we had only had 3 days of Korean. However, it was really cool to see everyone trying and it was a testimony builder to me that the Lord really is with us and will help us to learn this language. We decided to join the mission choir, which is HUGE!! We sang at the devotional on Tuesday in the Marriot center. Holy cow. I was so tempted to run and shoot a basketball, but don't worry, I used self-control. The choir is amazing, just like everything else here. I love my district so much. My companion is the best ever! She is so sweet and patient and teaches me so much! We started doing ab ripper X together which is awesome! She hasnt really done much working out before, so I'm helping her with working out. She helps me with the Language. Its a good trade off. Our district really is great. They are all like my little brothers. Occassionally they remind us that they are 18-19 year old boys. But most of the time, they are amazing Elders with such sweet spirits. They have already taught me so much and its only been a week. Wow time goes by so fast. I got a cold a few days ago, and yesterday one of the Elders gave me some cold medicine for it. I've never been one for medicine before, but I was pretty miserable and decided to try it. I took some last night, and it made me super loopy. I almost fell of my bunk bed, and could not stop giggling while we were trying to fall asleep. (Yes, I just layed there and giggled, wondering what in the world was going on with my brain) We told the Elders about it this morning and they laughed so hard. Our district is going to do a musical number on Sunday during sacrament meeting. We will be singing Nearer my God to Thee, in Korean. The words are a little shaky, but seriously every Elder in our district has an amazing voice. So we sound awesome! We start everyday off with a hymn, and I love how much we have incorporated music into our studying. It brings the spirit more than almost anything! It's hard to think of everything that has happened. I love the gospel, I love my Savior. This truly is his church on the earth. It's so sad to think of all of those who are on the earth not knowing that they have a loving Father in Heaven. They don't know that Christ atoned for their sins. AAHH it breaks my heart!!! I am so excited to be a full-time missionary, and I invite everyone to look for ways to be a missionary at home. Thank you for all the letters. Sorry this is so scatterbrained, but I feel like thats how it will be for the next 18 months. I love you all!!

-Sister Seegmiller

A Beautiful View

Saying Goodbye

First P-day

My P-days will be on Friday while I am here at the MTC. It's nice and a little weird having one only two day after coming here. However, it's pretty nice because I can catch you up quickly!

This place is amazing! The first day our teacher only spoke Korean during class and she will do that our whole stay here. Its a challenge, but we are getting much better at charades! My companion is

Sister Ahn. Both her parents are from Korea so she has some background in the language. She is great and very patient about helping me with simple things. They went over the alphabet before I arrived so

I'm behind on that. But oh well! Our teacher is having us read Preach My Gospel in Korea. The language isn't too bad. The characters are actually made up of letters, so it makes more sense than other Asain

languages because you just read like English sort of. Not quite the same but similar idea. We are teaching our first investigator tonight in the Korean language. It should be interesting but I'm excited.

We are the only sisters in our district, with ten Elders. They are all 18 years old except one who is 19. They are awesome though! Our district leader is Elder Easton. He is the happiest, friendliest Elder ever.

His companion, Elder Wilkinson, is the 19 year old. Before his mission he attended Harvard on scholarship, studying economics and statistics. Both of them are going to serve in the Sydney, Australia Mission,

Korean speaking. How crazy is that! Elder Rencher will also be serving there. Basically, our Elders are awesome!

The rooms are made for 4 people to a room, but with the age change they have started putting 6 in there instead. We have four closets, four desks, and an extra random bunkbed. But the Sisters in our room are

great so it hasn't been a problem. Plus we spend almost no time in there so that helps. A sister in our room is from New Zealand, and will be serving in Korea. Her accent is so cool! Another Elder in our branch is from Australia

and will be servin in Korea. The people here are amazing. I love it! Adjusting to missionary life really hasn't been a problem. They schedule out every minute of every day for you. Our job is to be obedient and make every

minute count. A favorite saying is, Obedience brings blessings, but exact obedience brings miracles! I can see how it would be easy to be a few minutes late or sleep a little longer in the mornings. But this is our time to

prove to the Lord that we can and will follow exactly what he has asked of us. I am so excited to see what the next week has in store.

Life is great. The church is true! I am so excited to serve a mission and teach the people in Korea!!

Love, Sister Seegmiller

p.s. If you want your letters to get to me quickly, you can use DearElder and send them through that. I would love to have emails, letters, lots of pictures, and anything else you feel in your heart to send. I didn't realize how much they mean to missionaries until now. I love you all and hope to hear from you soon! Sarang hae!

My address is:
Sister Shanelle Seegmiller
OCT01 KOR-SEO
2007 N 900 E Unit 18
Provo UT 84602