Missionary work

Well, another week has just blown by. This week we found a new investigator! He's a middle aged man who is always in and out of the hospital across the street from the church. We met him out on the street a couple weeks ago but it wasn't until this week that we had the opportunity to meet him. He goes by Mr Kim.

When Mr Kim came into our church one of the first things that he said was that he didn't believe in God and that he was just curious about our doctrine. As we talked we came to find out that in the past Mr Kim has had bad experiences with leaders of other churches. This hurt his belief in God. He told us that he has a desire to believe that there is a God so we read some scriptures together and committed him to take the missionary lessons from us. I'm really excited about teaching him. Mr. Kim seems like the kind of person who could really benefit from the gospel.

This week we have been trying to visit all the members of our branch. Elder Jeong came to Gyeongsan in the middle of last transfer and I came at the beginning of this transfer so we're both new here. When we visit the members we give them a little card with a scripture, share a short message about the scripture, pray, and ask if we can do any service for them. It's a pretty good use of missionary time. Especially right now when it's so hot out and so no one is outside. 

​I sinned and didn't take any pictures this week except for this one. Ramen for dinner. Yep

Have a great week,

Elder Harkness 

Gyeoungsan

Hello! This is my first post from the new area. This picture was taken from the train as I left Busan. A large part of my new area looks like this. As one missionary said, "In Gyeoungsan the rice is close!" 

This is our church, or the place where we hold church. It's the purple sign right next to the New York sign. From the front it's really ghetto but the inside is nice. The members are even nicer. It looks like I will have a transfer full of meal appointments!

I thought I'd throw in the picture of this Asian pear that I bought. It's so BIG. I ate it for breakfast one morning. The fruit in korea is great. I'm really excited for the peaches to start coming on.

Last of all, this is my companion Elder Jong. He's really great. We were actually in the MTC together. 

Sorry, there's not too much that happened this week,

Have a great day,

Elder Harkness 

Music night- I should have listened to my mother and practiced my violin more

Pretty great picture right? Courtesy of my companion.

So this week we had our 음악의밤 or Music night. I'm really glad that it's done actually. There was a lot of stress leading up to it. We had to plan it and I had to pull my violin skills back from my Junior High days to the present. It went really well though. We had a good turn out and a really good spirit was felt during it.

Leading up to the music night we decided to invite a bunch of less-actives. To invite them we decided to make cards and brownies. As we were making the cards and brownies there were a couple of mess ups. In addition to that, we were on a tight schedule. I was super stressed. We got everything ready and Elder Quiroz and I said a prayer and we headed out. Once we were out on the street I realized that we had left the member records back at home and were to far to go back. We had a decent idea which apartment  the people lived in but didn't know the floor or room number. 

I turned to Elder Quiroz and told him to have a prayer in his hear that we would be able to find the houses and that I would do the same. We set off again looking for these houses. As we walked I recognized a building as the apartment that an inactive member lived at who I had forgotten about. We decided to try to visit this person. On the way we ran into some really great people who we were able to give brownies and invitations too. 

Against all odds, Elder Quiroz and I were able to remember the address of each person that we wanted to visit. It was a massive miracle. We hadn't visited some of these people in over five weeks but somehow were able to remember where each of them lived. Also on the way we ran into one of the sister missionary's investigator's son. The sisters hadn't been able to meet with this woman and give her an invitation so we gave the son some brownies. 

Another miracle that we saw before the music night was with An Onjoon, one of the members. He is about my age. He doesn't really want to serve a mission and and isn't sure what to do with his life. For the music night we had people assigned to give testimonies between each musical number. One of these people couldn't come and as we were thinking of people who could replace him I thought of An Onjoon. I called him up and talked with him for a while. 

"Arrgh, could you get someone else to do it?" he asked.

"Nope, we need you," I said.

"What about the other missionaries?"

"They're going to be busy then. We need you to do it."

"I'm not sure if I can."

Then I realized that I had left over brownies.

"I'll give you brownies if you do," I said. 

He was sold. On the night of the concert he came and gave a short but wonderful testimony. I told him how grateful I was. He said that it wasn't too bad. One step closer to that mission.

This was a wonderful week, I wish you all the same,

Elder Harkness

Korean Fried chicken

We were out on the streets doing a mixture of proselyting and looking for a couple of less active homes. No one was out on the streets and the addresses of homes we had were old and outdated. A little frustrated we decided to visit some members in the area and see if they knew any of the people we were looking for. Like true Korean Saints they refused our idea of just a quick drop by and pulled us into their home for a massive meal that they put together on the spot. Man I love the members in my area. 

This week has been a good one. We have been hard at work as usual. Lots of finding less actives and inviting them back to church. We haven't had a ton of success with the less actives but it is a lot better than just walking around and we have found most of our investigators while doing it. 

I had the opportunity to do a companion exchange this week. It was really fun. I got to meet one of the investigators in that area. He was super cool. We started out playing ping pong with him for about twenty minutes (I get destroyed every time) then he said, "Let's worship (예비합시다)" and we got to the lesson. 

Our investigators in our area are coming along great. We are still trying really hard to get them to church. Kim Eekdong is doing great. He said that he loves what we are teaching him. Our other investigator You Jaesop is doing great too. We've had the opportunity to start teaching some new people too. Teaching about Jesus Christ in Korea, you really have to start basically. The majority of people we are teaching have Buddhist parents are not religious themselves. We often have a lesson that we give sometimes that just explains who God, Jesus Christ, and the Holy Ghost are. I love this lesson because it is so basic and so powerful.

My companion Elder Quiroz loves the delivery fried chicken here in Korea. He was eating it one time and told me how a normal person could never make food so good. The gauntlet was thrown down and so I tried my hand at Korean style fried chicken. The chicken turned out really well but the sauce bombed so we didn't eat them together. Korean chicken won this time but it won't count itself so lucky next time.

Have a nice week,

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