THIS WEEK

Hello everyone! I love you all and I hope this week was spiritually packed for all of you like it was for me haha!

I'm still working on opening my mouth and talking to everyone.  And we've actually been finding great people that I hope will righteously use their agency and decide to meet up again! We have a teaching appointment set up with someone that we met that we're excited for! And also we have a district prayer program and so the members of our district have been praying for us to find a new investigator.  And we had a neat experience.  This investigator from like 3 years ago randomly called us up to meet! So hoping that works out well!

I really want to talk about yesterday, Sunday.  In the sacrament I had the thought to read D&C 33 which talks about "open your mouth and spare not...and ye shall be laden with sheaves on your back" so I commited to talk to EVERYONE.  And while I was reading I had a realization, talking to people is fun! Why be scared, and really felt peace.  Our investigator Ku Minjoon came to church again, but couldn't stay for second and third hour.  But after sacrament meeting he talked to us for like 20 minutes and we committed him to be baptized on the April 2nd! The last day of this transfer! Ahhh so excited! He's a great dude.  Hopefully he can find the time to meet.  He's a Senior in High School which means he has school six days a week, so Sunday is our only option, and we still need to teach lessons 4 and 5. But I'm pumped!

So we got to work after church and I decided to push myself.  We talked to everyone! Got some good contacts to hopefully meet later.  Here's the fun part of the night.... We decided to make sunday tracting a weekly thing.  So we went back to the apartment complex we started last week and started the second thing of 15 floors.  We had a few people open the doors, weren't interested.  But 9 floors in this security guard comes up.  We got bounced! (I've wanted to get kicked out of an apartment complex for so long!)  But anyways he was escorting us out and we were waiting for the elevator and it was silent so I just thought eh why not. And asked "Do you have a religion?" And we just taught briefly about the restoration in the Elevator and then left.  Super fun! After that I felt really brave.  So I invited 2 people on the street to be baptized right there.  One accepted. Not really sure how strong of a yes it was but still cool and the other only had foreigner interest so avoided it. 

Anyways to tie it into a message to strengthen all of you. We all have fears.  Mine is talking to groups and couples haha.  But you might be afraid of school, or work, or a big responsibility at church.  Whatever it is.  If you just forget your fears and do what the Lord wants you to do he will lift those.  But you first have to act! Always Look up and align with the will of the Lord in the words of Elder Choi of the Quorum of the 70.  He will take away the fear! Love you all! Have a great week!

My Kimchi Squat is getting better!

My Trainee that I went on splits with!

I'm sorry but I really can't think of titles for my emails anymore. It's really difficult.  It would be easier if my keyboard would type in Korean.  

This week has been great! After the hard week last week I've started to kick it back into gear.  One night we were jundoing like always and we were stinking, letting people pass by, only talking to people that were on their own.  But I stopped, I was ready to punch myself I was so frustrated at how much of a noob I was being.  I said pull out the faith card (our card with faith scrips) and we read some scrips and were about to pray but this guy walked to the light we were stopped at so we talked to him.  And he was super interested it seemed and then he said I can't get in contact later, I go to Gundae (Korean military) in two weeks! So sad, but he has a Book of Mormon and he said he will read it. But the talk with him ended up leading us to a weird street we never go on, so we walked a few minutes, and then said, there's no people lets go back.  And this dude stopped his car and got out to talk to us!! He had been to Utah and learned a bit about the church and wanted to know where ours was in Miryang! So he gave us his business card and we will be following up to meet with him! It's amazing that as soon as the Lord knows he can trust us that he will give us his work that needs to be done.  He will lead us to people like this.  I don't know what will happen with these two, but because of this they have a chance that may never come again to learn about the restored gospel.

Also the next day we talked to this man, and he said he was busy which means go away.  But Elder Barnett asked for his number and he gave it to us and said he had investigated the church in the past and that he was willing to meet again! It's all about having the faith to do the Lords will, and then he will work miracles in your work and your life.  

While I was studying on faith I realized it said that you must have faith, hope, and charity.  But charity is the greatest of these.  So I studied charity in the section on christlike attributes in PMG, and I did the attribute activity at the end of chapter 6 and I found that I was really lacking.  So yesterday we had 6ish hours to jundo and I really found it easy to talk to a lot of people.  It's still hard to talk to couples, it's so awkward.  But no one else went by without the gospel being preached.  Or tried to be preached.... I really started just a little bit to see everyone as a child of God, how God would see them.  His heart breaks at the guys who look like they have had a rough life, and don't realize there's something missing(the gospel). And yesterday I started to feel like that just a little bit.  

I met this man, and he said he had investigated the church and that he didn't like some principles, and he just wanted to smoke, that was important.  So I felt that I should just bear my testimony to this man.  And so I did and we left him our card.  And I felt the spirit so strong, there was no way he didn't feel it too.  But he wasn't having any of us.  It's so sad.  The world needs the gospel so badly.  It's the only thing that can fix the holes in the hearts of the people.  I'm so grateful for this opportunity to serve the Lord and bring people this message that the atonement can heal them.  Love you all! Have a good week! 

PS I knocked doors for an hour, it was only the third time I've done this on my mission.  But I was really excited to tell you that. Pic included....

Super Cool Government building we visited

Gate in front of a government building

A yummy snack! Ingo bbang! Fish bread!

The apartment that we knocked doors at

 The fountain that started because it's spring, it was in sync with the song dust in the wind.

The Weeks are flying by!

Hello everyone! The weeks are flying by. This is not okay.  But anyways hope all is well wherever you are! I had an interesting week, I learned a lot, and I'm glad that I get to share it with you.

So first off our investigator in prison, Yooir, is super awesome.  Our invitation was to teach us a lesson on the Book of Mormon the next time we visited, but he felt like he should share about faith in Christ.  He said that it really helped him focus his studies and he was able to learn a lot more.  Also he came in prepared with a sheet that had scriptures, so he could use scriptures to teach us even though we were pabos (idiots) and didn't bring a bible.  But it was awesome to see that even though he can't be baptized yet and he's progressed to the point where he really just needs to be baptized that the spirit will tell us what to do to help him progress even more!

Jundoing this week has been really hard.  There aren't a lot of students here so we jundo to old dudes all the time.  This week we haven't even been able to get past "an yung haseyo" (THIS IS THE BASIC GREETING IN KOREA) without getting rejected.  It was tough.  Friday night we had jundo'd for like 7 hours that day, didn't get a single contact to follow up with and couldn't even really teach a lot of principles cuz everyone was just not listening.  So I went home and just thought, why? Why is this so hard? What am I doing wrong? I should be having more success.  

So I went into my room and prayed.  And afterwards I decided I needed a boost of faith.  So I read President Uchtdorf's talk "Fourth floor Last door."  And in it he says basically that praying and fasting can strengthen your faith but to really gain faith, you need to do the fathers will, hit every door, talk to EVERYONE.  Even though it's sometimes awkward to talk to couples, or to big groups of students, or to the two dudes smoking outside work.  So I knew that I wasn't doing my best at that.  I gotta be bold. 

One thing that helped me was the next day in English Class my buddy Uncle Lee showed up, and we were free talking, and since I'm a missionary I asked about What religion means to them (the two people and the sister I was teaching with). And Uncle Lee said something great.  "People are weak, but God is strong.  So people need to rely on God." and I thought, wow, Uncle Lee, that is great.  

It made me think of a scripture, maybe my favorite scripture.  Psalms 27:1 The Lord is my light and my salvation; whom shall I fear. The Lord is the strength of my life; of whom shall I be afraid.  I hope that's right, I was kinda translating from the Korean scripture cuz I don't have my english scrips right now.  But with the Lord on our side we have no one to fear.  Nothing can stop us.  I like the bible video where Peter and John get told not to preach about Jesus in the temple but they do anyways so they get beat up by all the bad dudes. And then they walk out all bloodied up and they were all smiles! We can be happy knowing that even if we're persecuted God is there, and he's greater than all those that will deny us and persecute us.  But if we endure it well we will receive all that the father hath!

Sorry this is so long but I have a funny story.  Elder Barnett was asked in Gospel Principles to talk about the Liahona, so he started telling everyone about the magazine! And afterwards the branch president was like "oh, thanks you," (in English) and then showed them a picture of the real Liahona and taught about that! So funny!

HERE ARE SOME OF HIS ANSWERS TO OUR QUESTIONS:

? - I heard they let you go to the Seoul Temple before you go home - So they used to let you go to anywhere in the mission for your last P-day and then you'd head up to Seoul and go to the temple and you could do some sightseeing, but not anymore, that just ended.  The Seoul Temple is the only temple in the country.  It's I think like a 5 hour drive from Miryang.

? - What historical sights are in your area - The only historical sights I've visited is Yong nam ru.  It's pretty legit tho.  We are also gunna go to this cool ice cave called eorumgol. I can't teach you how to actually say that because it's to Korean for you....But the romanization should get you picks. 

? -  Maybe if we come pick you up we can go to Seoul - If you come to pick me up I think we go to Seoul.  And since I'm still a missionary I can teach you to Jundo! I have one line that is a good one. It means, where does your going path exist? It's my first line.

? - Are the South Koreans worried about North Korea - They like to joke about North Korea, I'll say I'm from america and then they'll say I'm from North Korea, and then their friends will start punching them haha. I don't ever hear anything about it.  An interesting thing I've heard is that some Koreans have starting getting told in their patriarchal blessings that they'll serve there. Interesting stuff.

But today at my bathhouse I went to on the news there was stuff about Kim and about north Korea shooting missiles

? - What do you want grandma to send you in a care package - And if grandma really wants to make me the happiest missionary she can send me a handwritten letter with PB MandMs! Love you gmaT!

? - You went to a bathhouse - That was my second time, you have to wake up at six on pday to go.  It's got a shower wall, with a bunch of showers.  A mini shower wall were you grab a stool and hold the hand shower, and then big baths that are like hot tubs without the jets, and a freezing tub. Oh ya and there's no curtains and a bunch of naked Koreans.  The bathtubs are like giant hot tubs.

? - Guess what I ate?  Dog!  Ya it's called yeongyang tang and it's just dog soup! It tastes a little more like pig, it's super delicious! It's just normal meat, pretty tender.

Cover for our next hit album!

Just us being weird

Me and my buddy Himang!