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....
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