James- A man of many words

Sorry there is really no time today.

This week was really cold. It's hanging about -1 Celsius. That's not too bad but add in the fact that we are next to the humid, constantly wind blowing ocean and it makes things really cold. 

The boy that has the baptismal date came to church and is still online for being baptized this week. 

We have zone conference this wednesday so I am really busy preping for that.

Love you

James

Exchanges

This was the week of exchanges. I was all over my zone. The week started out with an exchange with the AP's. We had a great time running around to appointments and meeting some new investigators. The next exchange was with a team in the next area over. Again the day was full of running from place to place. We met this one nineteen year old kid. He was really nice. His dream is to become a cook and he is planning on going to Canada to study. His sister met the missionaries a couple of months ago and he was interested. We're working with him but I think that getting him to church will be a problem. 

The next exchange took me back to my second area. That was kind of weird. I walked the streets that I walked about ten months ago. It was funny. We went to visit less active members. We came to one house and knocked on the door. This old man came out and he and I instantly recognized each other. "I told you months ago that he doesn't live here! Don't you remember?" Unfortunately I didn't remembered until it was a little too late.

The next day I went back to Haeoondae. Elder Oh and I got back together after being with different companions for the past three days. We were out heading to a far off part of the city and walking up a hill. Elder Oh's neck suddenly started hurting. He stopped for a moment then we tried going again. It hurt even more so we decided to start going back. His neck kept hurting until we came to a stop light and started talking to a college student. He told us that he's been wondering about religion and been attending a couple different churches lately. We talked with him and asked him if he believed in God. He said that he was trying to. I told him that we have the method to know for sure if God exists or not. We gave him a book of Mormon and will hopeful be able to meet next week.

The last miracle of this week happened at church. There is a recent convert of one year in our congregation. He has a son that he brings to church. The son hasn't been baptized and as long as I've been here he's been avoiding the missionaries. Yesterday Elder Oh had the idea to pull him out of Sunday school and give a lesson. He was really reluctant at first, but we shared with him the tree of life vision and explained how Nephi wanted to know what his father knew. We compared it to him and his father. He really liked the scripture story. Before his dad converted they were really faithful Protestants. He said that he read the Bible a lot and that the book of Mormon scriptures that we shared were really good. He even agreed to be baptized and we set a date for the end of the month.

Referral miracle

This week I had a flash back to my last area when I was training. My companion and I were making plans for the week and he asked me if I had ever gotten a referral from the mission headquarters. I said that I hadn't. He suggested that we say a prayer. We got down on our knees right then and asked that the Lord would send us a referral. The next morning we got two. 

This week I thought back on that experience and smacked myself in the head. Why haven't I done that since then? So my companion and I got down on our knees and said a prayer. As sure as the scriptures are true a call came in from the office elders the next afternoon with a referral from SLC. They sent us a text with a name and a number. We called a couple times but got no response.  The name looked a little odd too. 

After a couple of days the office elders got back to us with this man's real name Ryoo Sangbek and an address that we could visit. Unfortunately we don't have smart phones or GPSs so my companion and I had to go find this house on foot. After a couple of prayers and an hour of walking in the wrong direction we got to the apartment complex. We rang the door but no one answered. We tried calling but the number was a bad number so no one answered that either. Finally I said a prayer in which I told God that we had done everything that we could and that he would need to make up the rest. My companion had the idea to ring the door again. He answered that time. 

Brother Ryoo went on an exchange program to study at the University of Utah. He attended church a couple of times in SLC and wanted to come to our church here in Korea. He wasn't able to come last week but he will bee coming this next Sunday. We caught him at just the right time. 

Right now I'm trying to focus on growing my desire to do missionary work and increase my testimony. I'm trying to really dedicate myself to the work. I've realized more as time has passed that my time is limited and I want to use it to the best of my abilities. The way to do that is by increasing my desire.

Have an amazing week

Elder Harkness

Rededicating myself to the work

This week saw the start of a new transfer. My companion and I are still serving together but there were a lot of changes in our zone so we were still pretty busy. 

This transfer's focus is Planning and Dedication, so I've been planning up and studying up on that. We had two mission leadership meetings this week were we talked a lot about these things and I feel like it has changed my view on missionary work. I am now focusing more on dedicating my time to the Lord. I'm trying to make every minute count. In one of the meetings we talked about how we spend our time each day. The APs put a pie chart on a projector and we talked about what we do and how long we do it. Sleep of course took up a third of the chart (even though some times it feels like the shortest activity of the day) study took up a chunk of space and eating did too. When we got down to the end we saw how much time we really have for finding and teaching. It wasn't as much time as I would have thought, so now I'm really trying to focus my time and efforts in the little amount of time that I have to find and teach.

One day my companion and I went out and went as hard as we could teaching on the streets. We met some interesting people; a couple drunk guys, a grandpa who liked to talk a lot and some students. We were able to tell all of these people about our great message (and give the drunk guys some pamphlets to read when they're sober). 

A frustrating thing this week is how many people sleep or pretend to sleep on the bus and subway. I saw a man sit down on the subway. He looked nice and I was finding a seat too so I sat next to him and tried to introduce myself. He was sleeping like a baby. Hadn't been in the seat for more than three seconds and he was pretty much snoring. 

We met this one past investigator and told him how happy he can become with the gospel in his life. Our words were a good reminder to me. The gospel is so awesome. 

More next week,

Love,

Elder Harkness