Week 52 - Just a Week

Well sorry about not writing you a letter, but in my option they were not that good to begin with.  I took about Five minutes on each and sent them off. I’ll try harder to write a great letter for you next week since today was spent up with another stressful game of screen golfing. Uhg... I just didn't learn the first time did I. Well, I just hope that it piled some good 정 (jung) with our investigator. The saddest thing is that one of our other investigators friends decided that they would also like to take us Screen Golfing sometime. Ahh! i just hope that we can't get permission for it this next time, if he was serious. Anyway, things are looking up here we have many people to meet with and they all have different days and times that they can meet. So that is a great bonus. This week was very slow and disappointing or some what upsetting. The first thing that happened was either the question someone had or splits this week. I'll start off with the question. So on thursday or tuesday we had a lesson with an investigator and the bishop, we needed someone there to be able to teach with. Unfortunately our Investigator takes the whole time re-explaining the same thing that she told us the first time we meet. I never thought anyone could or would take the time to say the same thing over just in a different way. Well then we finally got her stop and listen for two seconds. When out of the blue, she randomly asked us to explain to her the meaning of Revelations 13, in Korean! "What are you thinking lady, do you think that I’ve studied this kind of stuff for twenty years," was what I was thinking when she asked. I don't think most people understand who we really are. I feel that they often look past our age and think that since we are missionaries that we are these scripture experts who majored in the field of religion.  Anyway, that was alright in the end, we told her that we didn't know what was going on but that we would see if we could help her find an answer. Now, as for splits. Well, the day itself was not bad just that the day they chose, it happened to also be the same day as our Member Shisa (식사), or dinner appointment. Which I totally missed, our members prepared steak, potatoes and other delicious things- while I enjoyed the next morning molding bread and jam. That sucked and surely I got the butt end of that deal. Next, It would have sucked even more if the result hadn’t ended differently. Sㅐ the day of my year mark someone thought it would be funny to throw a fish at me in the shower. Whoop dee doo so smart, so I got in the bathroom and prepared to take a shower, when I heard laughing and the words "Year mark". And my thoughts told me that it wasn't going to be good. So I made the decision to line up the bathroom floor with flip-flops to stop the door from opening, which totally paid off. They tried opening the door and they could barely get it to a crack. So I calmly walked over shut the door and got back in. Then they tried a second time which was when they were successful at opening the door. But I was prepared and rush behind the door to safety. Ok' this made me laugh, but right now I'm in a bad mood. So this week was not bad at all, just a little rough. It sounds like you had a hard time this week too. The only thing that I see that you should be thankful for is the great lessons you learned giving a talk and that you are at the end of Dad’s crazy Diet. Well I love you and miss you too.   Bye

Week 51 - It's Okay :(

   Well this week was a little sad. We learned even though 梯僥謙 is doing good and is trying to stop drinking, he still can't be baptized until he has gone at least ten days without drinking. It makes a lot of sense for it to be that way. He already feels so bad when he falls into peer pressure and slips-up. It would be worst for him to slip-up afterward knowing he has already received baptism. Anyway he is doing good and understands why he needs to wait. Anyways, today was fun...well sort of... 梯僥謙 took us to Screen Golfing. We spent so much time there, and all I have to say about golf is that it's not for me. The whole time I found it so frustrating and annoying. There were many times I would hit the ball and nothing would happen. Sometime that was good because of the shot we made was bad. Also today it seems as though time has moved so slowly.  I feel like someone keeps pushing the pause button at the dullest part of the day.

   So this week was filled with many promises and so few meetings. However we were able to meet some new people during the week.  The first meeting was a little difficult. Our Mongolian member, who I thought was becoming less-active, just came back from Mongolia. He called us and told that he wanted to meet with us this week. So on friday we meet him and his friend. Both of them are Mongolian and are here to study Korean. They only speak a little Korean and even less English. Ahh. It was such a stressful guessing game we played in order to understand what was going on. They would say something that we didn't understand or we said something that they didn't know. Yet, despite that mass confusion, we had a good meeting and the friend liked us and asked if we could meet sometime again. Now we are on the hunt for a basketball court since he wants to play a game, then we could share something after.

   Also this week we meet this really old lady who looks ten years older than she is. It's probable because she was a teacher at some university, very stressful.  At first we thought she was only meeting because she wanted to hear about the gospel, but she was just another person wanting to learn English. aw~ every time I here that word I think of something I had another missionary tell to me. He said, “ I came to Korea to be a missionary but I feel more like I am an English teacher.”  Anyway,  she almost gave me a terrible fright at our meeting. She told us that she believed in Jesus Christ, which was alright, but then she told us how she went to her church every day to pray to God for one hour. That caught me off guard and I thought she'd be another one of those Koreans who say, "you are Eedan, you don't believe in Jesus because you have more than the Bible," saying people. But I was so wrong about her. She was calm and respectful and listened really well. She told us how she was a catholic, then she got married and stopped going to church because of her mother-in-law. And after many years she stood up to her, the mother-in-law, and told her that she was going to attained church and that she did care what others thought about her. After sometime her husband and his parents were baptized as Catholics. And the whole time I was thinking about how much faith she had to follow Christ. So after her story we introduced the Book of Mormon. We told her that it was another testament of Jesus Christ. Then she said some thing very interesting that I hadn't thought of , she said," Oh! So there is the Old Testament, the New Testament, and Another Testament..." wow, that was cool.  Oh anyways, the meeting went well and she accepted a copy of the Book of Mormon and she will be meeting with us again next week.

   Well that’s all I remembered about this week besides...HAPPY (late) BIRTHDAY!!!  

So I wore one of my green ties for that day, since that’s all the green I could find. 六六六.  Well it seems that your B-day wasn't too exciting but at least there are still people who love you. Wow, I just thought how I've been out for almost a year now. Oh, it is going so fast. The time seems to be flying away and I can neither stop nor catch it. Well I hope that you and the others are doing well and that you are happy. I love you mom and miss you too. Oh, and thank you for the address’s and the photo's. So many people will be happy to look through them, more than just me. Really!!!  I'll try to send some pictures home soon as well. Love You...

Week 48 - 50 (Sorry, didn't get these posted)

2-26-2012   “Brrr – No Heat !!”   (week 48)

So this week has been alright, not much more has happened since the last time I wrote you. It seems that the weather doesn't want to decide if it should be warm or cold. So it's been back and forth. I would say that this morning was the coldest so far, only because our boiler gave up yesterday so we had no heat. Brrr !!  I think that this is the fourth time we had to call the boiler man. He's a nice guy and all... but he has no idea what to do. Anyway, our investigator on the other hand is doing great. He meet with us last night, along with his wife.  He had a concern with some news article that talked about our church and how they called us 이단, or saying that we don't believe in Jesus Christ. He told us that this was not a good thing and that it was a lie. He also told us how he thought that this article would be bad for those who knew nothing about our church. Wow, he sometimes surprises me with how much he already knows and his thoughts. So as of now, receiving baptism is his first goal and finding a new job is the second. He still hasn't chosen a date yet, but we hope to help him finally pick a day. As for his wife, I have no thought or clue on what she is thinking right now.  She already has a religion (which is catholic) and I don't know how she feels about him getting baptized.  Anyway, right now not too many people with good intentions are to be found. Only a guy named Brian Kim, I don't know his real name. He's open to the lessons as long as we don't put too much pressure on him.  He seems to be real good guy. Right now it seems that he is a little sad since he failed a very important test to help get him a job or better a one.  So as of now he has plenty of time to meet and learn both the gospel and English, that was what his test was, an English test.

As for me... I'm doing well. I feel like I need to a apologize for demanding pictures like that, especially since I haven't sent that many pictures home. Anyway. I feel like I’m still healthy and doing all right. It really hasn't been too cold and it seems to be warming up over here. So being outside is not as bad as it was before.  This week we've spent some time finding some of the lost 200 members of our ward.   So far,  20 are totally lost and we did find one.  So that is good, we are 10 percent done with the work. Also this week we have been trying to increase the wards involvement in missionary work.  So far there has been very little luck.  One of our appointments had to be cancelled because we already had another appointment elsewhere.   Also we meet this family who had a missionary return home due to illness, that was really sad.  It got me to thinking about how good of care am I keeping of myself? Which has been okay, in my opinion. So, Right now I'm still in the same area, my old companion went to a new area which was just over the river. My new companion is awesome.  We seem to get along really well, so there are no problems there. We have been walking a lot and I think that I've never felt as tired as I am right now.

So are things at home going okay? It seems as though you have been a little stressed lately.  I hope that you don't get to over-worked, that isn't good for [someone] to run faster than he has strength- some verse - 24 in Mosiah I believe. Well on the other hand... thank you for praying for our investigator. I'm sure that he will be blessed. Well I need to go soon. I love you and I miss you too. Hope that and pray that you will have the strength to bear all your burdens. And I know that you can because God loves you and wants you to be more than you are now. Remember that please.

Bye...

3-4-2012    “Subway Confrontation”   (week 49)

Well I hope that you are having a nice outing right now. As for me I'm doing well and there are many new people are popping up here and there.  An investigator from my last transfer showed up at church, 갑자기.  I guess before he got a new job he would come out to church and so he decided since he had time this week that he would come to church. Also we have this girl who is constantly asking about her friend that she sogae'd (referred) to us. The only problem we have is that this friend doesn't want to meet right now. So it's a pain for us with the member breathing down our necks. Also we called some old man yesterday, he was a past investigator who didn't have time to meet with the missionaries for awhile. The only thing with him is... he kind of weirded us out last night with his repeated phone calls. Now as for 김문종 형제님, he is doing good and we are still meeting with him. He has decided that this month he will get baptized but when ? ... he still hasn't chosen.  The good thing is that now he is bringing his wife more and more to our appointments.  So may be we will start teaching her about the church too and all other sorts of good stuff.  Also our bishop is trying to push the ward towards missionary work more and more now.  It seems that he wants us to do all these things that will help members become more involved in missionary work, but so far not much is working out for us and the ward.  They would appear not to be such busy people for how old most of them are. Some members seem as though they would have plenty of time.  Anyway right now it seems that our bishop is trying so hard to stop the slow but steady decrease of members that are coming to church.

  So this week I haven’t done much more than walking and talking to anyone who will listen to me.  Sometime I get upset at how many other churches there are here and how sometimes they are so confrontational. This week we had some man talk to us on the subway. It started out alright then he started acting funny and started to ask lots of probing questions and shoving his churches doctrine at us. Then he pull out a Bible. 역시, 목사예요. So this man (actually a priest of another church) starts telling us how we are wrong and that we don't believe in Jesus Christ. So we calmly answered his questions and there was nothing he could do but change the topic to something else.  I have to say that his son didn't look at all too impressed by his father’s desperate attempt to disprove our beliefs.  To top it off he took one of our Book of Mormons to show that it isn't true. And after five minutes of looking he gave up and could only say" Oh, it isn't true. It just isn't." At that moment it didn't really seem that big of a deal to me not until afterwards. I got to thinking, there we were two twenty year old waeguking  (foreign) boys speaking Korean, (which is the complete opposite to English) who were able to defend our beliefs against this fifty year old man who had studied the Bible for half his life.  That is so amazing to me, to see how much power is in speaking the truth. That no matter how hard one could try they could never find a fault in what the church stands for.

Well I'm running out of time now, so I would like to say how much I love you and also that I miss you as well.

Bye....

3-11-2012      "Plumbing Adventures"      (week 50)

 So it has been such an exciting and interesting week, plumbing, new faces and dinner appointments.  All I have to say is that things have popped-up here and there and the excitement doesn't seem to be stopping.  For the first time since I've been in this area we have found three new investigators in one week.   The shocking thing is that not all of them seem to only be interested in learning English.  Yah, I feel that there is hope in the future for once.  We found many other people but they were either not in our area or they told us that they felt like we wanted them to join the church. That’s smart !?!  They knew what we wanted for them but they lacked the knowledge of what they really would get in the end.  And speaking of people joining the church 김문종 형제님 finally qualifies to be baptized and hopefully that happens this next week or sooner.  And to add more to this good news, his wife finally came to church with him.  Later, she told her husband how she felt about going.  She said she enjoined the service and how we worshipped; also she made a comment on how we seemed to change into men while we passed the sacrament. I guess every time we meet with him, things kind of got out of hand. But in our defense, her husband is the biggest goofball I have ever met in Korea. So maybe over time she will want to be baptized as well and they will be sealed in the temple.

   So as for the plumbing incident. Ahh... Well to explain, all missionary houses in Korea have a water-filter that cleans our water but, some times missionaries are not the best at making good decisions. Well, when that happens, normally the next set of missionaries suffers for their mistakes. So while living in this house something strange had happened to our water.  Needless to say black gunk was floating in our "clean water".  This is not the first time this has happened and now we got tired of playing faucet roulette. So, we took it apart (the filter)  and started cleaning it out.  At first we thought that it was in the actual filter since when we started cleaning it and black stuff was on it a little.  After that we tried again to see if anything would happen. Unfortunately (or luckily) a little more came out, also at this point we realized that the tube from the filter to where the water comes out was clogged a bit.  So we cleaned that out with a stick and guess what!?   Tons of this black seaweed like material came out. Yuk... it was so gross.  So then we started squeezing the tube to see if more would come out and it did, about a handful of this stuff flew out.  After that episode we decided that we needed to clean out the whole tube. Then someone, not me, thought that maybe if we put floss in the last filter the force of the water would suck it all the way through.  So we tried that, and it did not work, the floss got stuck and eventually broke off in the tube and was stuck.  To make this story shorter, in the end the floss finally shot out after working it through the tube. Well, I now feel it is safe to say we will be drinking fresher water from now on and I will never be a plumber.

   With all the illness going around I’m surprised that I haven't really gotten sick.  There were four days I didn't feel so good and started coughing, but it was nothing and I quickly got over it.  The only thing to whine about is how cold it got this week.  So, the weird thing is the weather was getting warmer then dropped down again. The sad thing is that this is normally supposed to be best time of the year.   Yes, I'm doing well and the ward is feeding us more and more.   So don’t worry we aren't going hungry.  The only thing I wish we had was greater support from them in doing missionary work.   Right now the bishop is going crazy since the ward is dwindling. Oh and I finally finish pass-off. Yeah!!!  Well that’s all the news that I can remember. I love you and hope that you can survive this diet of dad's.

Bye....