A new companion

Transfer calls came in. This is a picture of me and my new companion with another missionary. His name is Elder Lee Harkgon. He is the middle.

This week came and went in a flash. We stayed busy with our usual appointments. The week's climax was when the call came in from the mission president transferring Elder Baker to a Zone Leader position and assigning me my new companion.

My new companion is super fun but really young in the mission. I am his third companion. He was actually in the MTC with me for two weeks. It's pretty strange to stick a person in their third transfer with a person in their fourth but I think it'll be a great learning experience.

Fun story from the week,

Elder Baker was teaching the Gospel principals class in church. Chang, one of our investigators, asked a question about how we can know if we are in the right church. This was Elder Baker's last Sunday in the ward and with this investigator so he went right into bearing his soul about the truthfulness of our church. I followed him up with some examples from the scriptures and the two other missionaries went into their testimony.

Chang had a confused look on her face so she turned to her husband and whispered something to him. He turned to us and said in English, "She believes this is the true church, she just wants to know how to tell Mormon Churches from other churches. Is there a sign or something?"

We all broke out laughing. This was a good lesson in really listening to investigators. :)

week 20

A lady from the ward invited the two missionary teams in 금정 over for lunch. She handed us all this piece of writing involving intense grammar forms and poetic language for us to look over while she finished lunch. You see pictured the Senior missionaries battling to translate it using the phone dictionary and their knowledge while the Juniors, who can hardly understand normal Korean, wait for lunch.
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Elder Baker has been bugging me about that a bit actually. He obviously thought it was funny too because he took the other picture.

This week has been a good one. We've seen a lot of progression in our two Chinese investigators. One of them was looking over the Chinese translation of the Book of Mormon. He said that it was really well translated. I guess that some churches produce really bad translations of the bible that they sneak into China. I feel like this just shows how much the church values our scriptures and it's message. It's been awesome to teach these two people that come with almost no knowledge of religion. We asked one what he thought about God. He said that from what he'd heard God was a being with no human emotion that was all powerful and kind of scary. He couldn't be more wrong. It was great to teach and see his responses to learning about God's love and his plan for us.

Being a missionary is awesome,
Elder Harkness


Rainy day in 금정

​Me and Elder Baker roasted marshmallows to break our fast.

week #19

Wintertime Korea

Me at a Subway feeling like I'm back in America

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Life has been pretty good in 금정 area lately. We picked up a new investigator. (The referral from Huang Sen) He has a lot of interest in Christianity. Our meeting with him was a lot of questions like who the missionaries are and why we don't drink coffee. It was fun. He's the one that I told you about last week that watched the Da Vinci code and wanted to learn more about Christ.

Of our investigators there are two Vietnamese (We're still hammering out the baptismal date with them but they are coming along great) and now two Chinese. Here in Korea the racial diversity is nonexistent. Everyone is Korean, but if you do see someone who is not Korean they could be from anywhere. I have met French, Russian, Canadian, Italian, Vietnamese and Chinese.

This week we played basketball with some less active boys in our church and taught a bunch of lessons. Really fun! Now I just need to become better at Korean :)

Love,
Elder Hakness

P.S.

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We grilled oysters out in the country with some of the members. They tasted really good.

New years

The presents James sent us for Christmas.

For New Years we stayed up till 10:35 (don't tell the mission president) and made samgiupsar for dinner. Samgiupsar is meat that you wrap in lettuce with rice, kimchi and a type of sauce. It was really fun and one of the members gave us the meet so it was cheap.

This week was a fun one. Elder Baker and I teach a Bible class to some people he met on the street before I came to Korea. We talked about the different accounts of the Resurrection of Christ in the four gospels. The awesome part is that the students always have these great questions that Elder Baker show how ready these people are for the Gospel. There are also hard questions like, "My friend is Buddhist. Can she still go to heaven?" In our class tomorrow we will introduce the Book of Mormon and how it can answer some questions the Bible can't.

Another great thing that happened was our investigator Huangsen introduced us to his friend Wong Bo. Wong Bo is super interested in our church. He says that in China he saw the movie The DaVinci Code and that was the first time he heard about Christ. He said that he was really impressed and has been looking into Christianity ever since. He ran into some church members in Hong Kong and so he knows a little bit about "Mormonism" as he calls it. Elder Baker and I are super excited for him.

Great things are happening in Korea,

Love,

Elder Harkness

Christmas Day

The Christmas tree. We had people write one of the things that they liked about Christmas, had them put it on the tree, then we tried to teach them the gospel. It was super fun. It took up most of our Christmas day.

Christmas in Korea did not feel like Christmas. We all got up and opened presents from our families but there's still no snow outside. We went to the church after breakfast and skyped home. It was really weird to see my home back in Utah but it was really awesome.

​This is a root from Vietnam that two of our investigators fed me and Elder Baker. It looks like a peeled apple but tastes almost exactly like a snap pea.

The miracle this week was our meeting with Huangsen our Chinese investigator. He comes from the most atheist background ever. Every time we introduce a new gospel topic he has responded with the phrase, "that is really hard to believe" but he keeps all of the commitments so we have met him for over two months. Christmas day he says that he was praying and that he felt something good. He looked really happy too and was so much more receptive to our teachings. I know that sounds like nothing but Elder Baker and I were freaking out. Huangsen is a nice guy but he's been progressing so slowly. The jump from "that is really hard to believe" to praying and feeling God's love is just what Elder Baker and I have been hoping and praying for. It's great to see someone that has had almost no knowledge of God progressing in the Gospel.

Christmas was odd but still good.

I hope you're all doing well,

Elder Harkness

​Me at a Buddhist shrine. Elder Boome is in the background. We went hiking earlier today.