Ashley Farr	9:42 AM (5 hours ago)

Hi Family!

I miss you all! How is everything going?! Thank you so much for the packages and letters! It definitely makes my day! The whole top shelf in my room is full of sweets, so thank you!

This week has been really good. Last Friday, I was having a hard time with the Korean alphabet and remembering it. The Korean language has sounds that our mouths don't know how to say and they are also very similar sounds with only a very slight variation in how long you hold the "w" sound and a few other sounds. I was getting really sad because I was working so hard at it and I was not remembering it. I finally remembered to say a prayer that night. I prayed that I would be able to remember and retain everything that I am being taught. After I said that prayer I woke up the next day and started to practice reading and the alphabet and I could read! I am now reading, writing, and saying Korean words! I don't know what I am saying but I am so glad I now understand the characters! (I can say a prayer in Korean, testify in Korean, and ask a few questions in Korean.) It was such a good feeling to be able to understand more of the language so that I can keep progressing.

General Conference was so great! There was so much on missionary work and I loved it! I really believe that everybody is a missionary. When I am in the mission field, they want us to have a church member at every meeting that we have with a investigator. There is so much for everybody to do! I also really liked President Hollands talk. It was beautiful! I have gained so much by watching general conference and I feel bad I never really watched it in the past, but oh well! 

For the entire last week we did lots of studying. We get up at 6:30 and go to bed at 10:30. It't not very hard to keep this schedule. We spend about 10ish hours doing different kinds of studying. It's a lot of work, but after doing Comic Con this is so manageable. I am so thankful I know how to work late a night and all day. 

Our district is the best district ever! Everybody works so hard and is trying their best. We all are helping each other out and love being around each other. Its so much fun! Everybody is super intelligent and this is really such a good start to my mission! I couldn't of planned it any better. 

We have taught three lessons in Korean so far. It is really an cool experience, because we know they are fake investigators but we can still feel the spirit in our lessons. Our first two lessons were really hard because we didn't speak Korean, our Investigator was fluent in Korean and we had to teach him about the gospel. We had him look at pictures and tried to say our lines from the book. Looking back on it now it makes me laugh, but during the moment it was so stressful and overwhelming. On our third lesson we were able to understand things that he was trying to say and pick up words here and there. We taught a really good lesson and we asked him to be baptized and he said yes! I think it is so interesting how to church asks us to invite people to be baptized in the first lesson. We didn't know that, so we just asked him after meeting with him a few times.

I am singing in the MTC choir! It is super fun! We will be in in the Tuesday night devotional this week. My district will also be singing "I Am a Child of God"on Sunday. We have been practicing all week and I am super excited! 

Each week we are supposed to prepare a talk in Korean. On Sunday they will randomly pick two people to speak and give the talk they prepared. I am so nervous and I really hope that they don't pick me this week because there are several other missionaries that have been here for weeks! 

The MTC really is such a great place. I love it so much! I had no idea it could be this fun! There is so much to do and the spirit is always with us! I love it! 

Thank you again for the lovely notes and packages.

I love you all so much! Keep being awesome! 

Love you,

Sister Par (This is the romanized pronunciation of how people with say my name in Korea. It means 8! Haha so they will be calling me Sister 8!)