Daily missionary life

This week, Monday was the usual. The activity was pingpong. We only had one less active, Geer Jeen young, show up. 

Tuesday found us at our service project. This guy runs a Korean style soup kitchen out of his flower shop. We help set up tables outside and serve the food to the people who come. The meal is usually rice, a Korean soup, and some ban chan (different types of fermented, salted, candied, marinaded or whatevered vegetables, fruit, beans, nuts or meat. There are thousands of different types of ban chan. Kim chi is usually eaten as a ban chan.) The people at the service project really like us. They say that we work really hard. Through this service project we have been able to meet some investigators. After the service project we made up a flier for our new English class. Unfortunately printing it in color was 70 cents a sheet so we went for black and white. Finishing the night we met with a couple that we found on the streets a couple weeks back. The wife is from Turkey and the husband is Korean so we did the lesson in English. Teaching in English was actually kind of hard. I have all of the lessons organized really well in Korean in my mind. I haven't had much practice teaching in English so it felt really awkward. The investigators were cool though. They are in their late twenties. The wife likes American media so she's heard of our church a couple of times and just wanted to see what we're all about. The interest level right now is just them being curious, but the feeling in the meeting was really good so I think we'll be seeing them a lot more from now on.

Wednesday we went to one of our district meetings. There are two districts in my zone. They both have distinct characteristics. The Sujong district, the one we are in and the meeting that we attended, is really fun. I feel like all of the members in this district were popular in high school. They all played sports and have a lot of excitement and energy for the work. (I've actually really come to love basketball and soccer during my mission. We only get so much time not doing missionary work so I've learned to go hard when we play. Because the members of this district are all athletic we've been doing a lot of sports p days.) The other district is the Youngdo district. These would have been the nerds in high school. They're all great missionaries. They could learn a bit about energy from the Sujong district though.

After district meeting our plans for contacting on the street were crushed by this big storm. We had English class then a coordination meeting with the sisters. We planned out member visits and stuff like that.

On Thursday I went to 광안 Goangan area for an exchange. This past transfer the Goangan elders have been doing really well. They've actually really surprised me. The number of lessons these two elders teach is almost the same as the number of lessons taught in the Youngdo district (four missionary teams). Part of the reason for going was just for me to see how they are doing what they are doing. Elder Miller and I spent the day meeting a couple of the people that they had found on the streets and then out teaching lessons. I got to watch Elder Miller. His secret is just making every moment count. He teaches lessons as he leaves his apartment, rides the elevator, waits at a bus stop, buys a snack at a stand on the side of the road and anywhere else that he is. He was really good at smiling, getting to know people as he talked to them and committing them to meet again or read the pamphlet he had just given. 

Nothing interesting on Friday. Just out on the streets. Got to teach a couple lessons but none of them are coming to mind right now.

Saturday, We played soccer with some other churches in Busan. I saw Van Tu and my last companion Elder Oh who is now living in my first area, studying English. He wants to go to BYUI next year.

I met this really cool guy on Saturday. He is about twenty five. A couple years ago he served a two year mission for his church in Mexico. Since he has come back he has gone less active(in his church). He was really interested in us (we met him at a bus stop). We walked away from the bus stop with him and introduced him to the book of Mormon. He was really interested. We told him how we can become closer to God through this book than through any other book. He told us how he has been feeling distant from God lately and how he would like a relationship with Him in his life again.

Sunday was normal. We got one of our LAs out to church and he stayed off of his phone during the sacrament so that was a success. We also met our family investigators. They didn't keep the commitment to read from the book of Mormon. We took the opportunity to teach them about the importance of the book. They said that they would definitely read it this week. Also we finally got a friend for them in church so getting them out to church should be easy now. 

Anyways, that's it for this week. Good luck on whatever you're up to this week.

Love

James

We are all God's children

On Monday I headed off to Mission HQ for our transferly exchange with the AP. Elder Trentman and I had a good time  out on the streets trying to bring people to Christ, then back at HQ talking about how to help the missionaries in my Zone bring other unto Christ and to go unto Christ themselves. The next day we met one of the AP's investigators who just dropped her baptismal date. We had a good talk with her. She is really concerned because she hasn't felt that she has gotten her answer yet. We tried to explain faith in Christ and true intent. Unfortunately these are things that we can only bring unto people's hearts. They have to take it into their hearts. This investigator is having a hard time right now but I think that she will come around later. 

A thought that has been spinning in my head lately is that missionary work becomes easier, more fun and more productive when we realize who we are as God's children with a special calling from him. This thought was brought more firmly to my mind when a member of my zone called saying that he wants to go home. His companion reported that this missionary had lost the desire to do missionary work and refused to go out that day. I was shocked. Elder Mitchell, my companion, and I immediately decided to drop what we were doing and visit these two Elders. We came to the apartment said a prayer and knocked on the door. The companion opened the door and seemed really glad to see us. We didn't get quite the same response from the other guy. Elder Mitchell and I pulled up chairs in their kitchen and we all sat down and talked. The wayward missionary, I'll call him Elder E, seemed distant and unresponsive. He had truly forgotten who he was and his calling. During the meeting I got the impression to treat Elder E just like an investigator. The missionary purpose is to invite other unto Christ by helping the receive the restored gospel through faith in Jesus Christ and His Atonement, repentance, baptism, receiving the gift of the Holy Ghost, and enduring to the end. I realized that though we apply this statement to investigators, it is equally applicable to all of us and those around us. This missionary needed to come unto Christ through a more strong faith, a lot of repentance, listening to the Holy Ghost and honoring his covenants. The atonement needed to play a bigger role in his life. I told Elder E this, plainly. I told him that there were countless people who needed his devotion to the gospel, here in Korea and back at home. I told him that he needed to repent and go out and work. I asked him, "Will you do everything you can to find your desire to serve? Will you really try your hardest?" After a minute of silence he said that he would. The spirit was really strong. Elder Mitchell and I left the apartment satisfied. Elder E's district leader the APs and us, the zone leaders, have really worked hard to bring Elder E back. Now, half a week later, I can say that I see the change happening in him. This experience (though stressful) has shaped my view of the saving of souls.

Sadly, the rest of the week was spent with investigators canceling on us. A pretty big bummer, but we did get to find some new people to meet. We had some members tell us that they're totally game for member missionary work and we're going to hook them up with a couple families that we've been teaching. 

On a happy note, the relief society got together and did a less active hunt. We had 6 LA's at church this week! 

Another week in the life of a missionary

Monday- 

Family home evening was cool because we were able to get two LA's out to it. One of them, Jung Myoungsoo, has been missing for the past month. It was cool to see him come back. Hopefully we can get him out to church.

Tuesday-

We thought that Tuesday would be our first normal day in a while until an elderly member of our ward passed away. We showed up to the funeral at 11:30. They had this ceremony where everyone placed a flower on the casket. Close friends and family members went up and bowed three times paying respect to the deceased. They then turned to the children and bowed to them three times. These bows were special, going from standing to kneeling with the forehead on the ground. Koreans only bow like that on the New Year, Harvest and when asking a parent's permission to marry their daughter. The women wore traditional gowns and the men wore suits. I wanted to take pictures but it was a funeral so I didn't.

I had a cool experience going to the funeral. I've been trying to follow the spirit more in finding people to talk to. Now when I get on a subway I say a little prayer to learn who I need to talk to. I got on the subway and walked towards the middle where there were several college students that I thought I could talk to. The spirit told me to turn around and I saw an old man far in the corner who I had missed on my way in. Instead of talking with the students, who to me seemed more promising, I went and talked to the old man. He enjoyed the discussion and wanted to hear more. We will be meeting him this week hopefully.

Wednesday-

Kind of a bummer day. Our two appointments fell through. We had English class. We divide up the class. I teach the advanced class. Mostly we just talk. My students are two middle aged women, both retired professors. They enjoy talking about weird things like globalization, but sometimes struggle with basic grammar principals. I guess my Korean is comparable. I can talk all day about the Atonement, repentance, the destiny of a human soul and other deep conversations, but can sometimes have problems understanding other things. Like elections. Korea's elections happen this Wednesday.

Thursday-

Exchanged with one of the district leaders. I took him with me to an appointment with an old investigator and one of his coworkers that he referred to us. We had a good time. We spent the first part of the meeting studying English, then taught the first discussion. They must have liked it because we got a return appointment. After that we went to visit a family that the sisters were teaching. The sisters had to pass them off to us because they were doing an English program with them and right now both sisters are Korean.

The lesson went really well. We taught English then the first lesson. The family seems very receptive but like last time declined the invitation to come to church. Fortunately there will be a ward party on this upcoming Friday that they should be able to come to. Well make them friends with the members and then getting them to church should be 쉽다.

Friday-

Zone training Meeting. This one went really well. The topic of finding people seemed to be relevant to the missionaries. All of the talks and activities went really well and there was a good spirit throughout the meeting. I gave a fifteen minute talk in Korean. It actually felt really short. I quoted from Opa's dad's journal. In it Opa puts a note about how missionaries will not know the true effect of their work until the next life.

That night we were on our way back from visiting a LA and met a man who we taught a lesson to. He told us how belief in Christ has changed his life and how he would love to hear what we have to say at another time. We'll probably see him this week.

Saturday-

Watched morning, afternoon, priesthood and women's(by our mission president's wife's request) session of conference. Made Monte Cristo sandwiches. They turned out OK this time.

Sunday-

One funny story. I really love the bishop and his family. He has three boys aged roughly 14 11 and 9. Bishop Kang did his schooling at BYU and BYUI then worked in Boston for a while. The two younger boys were born in the US and they all speak English really well. On Sunday we watched conference as a ward. Juhyoung, the youngest of the sons, was having a hard time paying attention during  the last session of the Sunday session. He and some of the other kids in the primary snuck out and were running around, making a lot of noise. After conference I asked him if he watched all of it. He said that he had. I decided to test him. I asked him if he saw the dinosaur during Elder Holland's talk. He thought that I was joking. He asked his dad who told him that there was a dinosaur. He didn't believe him either. He asked a lot of the other adults in the church. He thinks that I told them all to say that they saw the dinosaur.

Love you 

James

Korean Funeral and General Conference Dinosaurs

Monday- 

Family home evening was cool because we were able to get two LA's out to it. One of them, Jung Myoungsoo, has been missing for the past month. It was cool to see him come back. Hopefully we can get him out to church.

Tuesday-

We thought that Tuesday would be our first normal day in a while until an elderly member of our ward passed away. We showed up to the funeral at 11:30. They had this ceremony where everyone placed a flower on the casket. Close friends and family members went up and bowed three times paying respect to the deceased. They then turned to the children and bowed to them three times. These bows were special, going from standing to kneeling with the forehead on the ground. Koreans only bow like that on the New Year, Harvest and when asking a parent's permission to marry their daughter. The women wore traditional gowns and the men wore suits. I wanted to take pictures but it was a funeral so I didn't.

I had a cool experience going to the funeral. I've been trying to follow the spirit more in finding people to talk to. Now when I get on a subway I say a little prayer to learn who I need to talk to. I got on the subway and walked towards the middle where there were several college students that I thought I could talk to. The spirit told me to turn around and I saw an old man far in the corner who I had missed on my way in. Instead of talking with the students, who to me seemed more promising, I went and talked to the old man. He enjoyed the discussion and wanted to hear more. We will be meeting him this week hopefully.

Wednesday-

Kind of a bummer day. Our two appointments fell through. We had English class. We divide up the class. I teach the advanced class. Mostly we just talk. My students are two middle aged women, both retired professors. They enjoy talking about weird things like globalization, but sometimes struggle with basic grammar principals. I guess my Korean is comparable. I can talk all day about the Atonement, repentance, the destiny of a human soul and other deep conversations, but can sometimes have problems understanding other things. Like elections. Korea's elections happen this Wednesday.

Thursday-

Exchanged with one of the district leaders. I took him with me to an appointment with an old investigator and one of his coworkers that he referred to us. We had a good time. We spent the first part of the meeting studying English, then taught the first discussion. They must have liked it because we got a return appointment. After that we went to visit a family that the sisters were teaching. The sisters had to pass them off to us because they were doing an English program with them and right now both sisters are Korean.

The lesson went really well. We taught English then the first lesson. The family seems very receptive but like last time declined the invitation to come to church. Fortunately there will be a ward party on this upcoming Friday that they should be able to come to. Well make them friends with the members and then getting them to church should be 쉽다.

Friday-

Zone training Meeting. This one went really well. The topic of finding people seemed to be relevant to the missionaries. All of the talks and activities went really well and there was a good spirit throughout the meeting. I gave a fifteen minute talk in Korean. It actually felt really short. I quoted from Opa's dad's journal. In it Opa puts a note about how missionaries will not know the true effect of their work until the next life.

That night we were on our way back from visiting a LA and met a man who we taught a lesson to. He told us how belief in Christ has changed his life and how he would love to hear what we have to say at another time. We'll probably see him this week.

Saturday-

Watched morning, afternoon, priesthood and women's(by our mission president's wife's request) session of conference. Made Monte Cristo sandwiches. They turned out OK this time.

Sunday-

One funny story. I really love the bishop and his family. He has three boys aged roughly 14 11 and 9. Bishop Kang did his schooling at BYU and BYUI then worked in Boston for a while. The two younger boys were born in the US and they all speak English really well. On Sunday we watched conference as a ward. Juhyoung, the youngest of the sons, was having a hard time paying attention during  the last session of the Sunday session. He and some of the other kids in the primary snuck out and were running around, making a lot of noise. After conference I asked him if he watched all of it. He said that he had. I decided to test him. I asked him if he saw the dinosaur during Elder Holland's talk. He thought that I was joking. He asked his dad who told him that there was a dinosaur. He didn't believe him either. He asked a lot of the other adults in the church. He thinks that I told them all to say that they saw the dinosaur.

Love you 

James

The life of a zone leader

Dear Family

I will give my best shot at this one.

At home (Korea)
This week was very busy. Probably the most busy week of my mission. It started with p day last Monday. My comp. the other Busan zone leaders and I organized a basketball p day at the stake center in Sujong district Busan. There was a good turn out and we set up a rotation of four on four. That went on for about an hour and a half then Elder Mitchel and I had to bounce to get back to Haeondae so that we could both send our emails through this stupid computer. (This week we are borrowing a members laptop. I'm still on the stupid computer though. Also the internet keeps going out on us so I'm not sure if I will even be able to send this. The internet has crashed twice.) Afterwards we had family home evening at the church. Turn out lately has been kind of lame. It's just one investigator of ours who usually comes. He's the kid with Buddhist parents. They are ok with him going to our church but not becoming a member. The message was given by the sisters. I can't really remember what it was about. We did the game. Ninja. But because we can't touch the sisters we used chopsticks instead of our hands.

Tuesday was the start of the madness with ZLTM (Zone leader Training meeting) starting at 10 at mission headquarters, a 40 minute subway ride from Haeundae. One of the topics of discussion was the church's Easter video and how we used it in our zones. (We have pass-along cards with a QR code that connects to the web sight.) The other topic was the number of lessons taught in our zones. President Barrow has been doing a push for more lessons. The mission hasn't seen the increase in lessons that he was expecting so we talked about how we could fix that. Companion exchanges, zone meetings ect.  After the meeting Elder Mitchel and I headed back to Haeundae to visit a member who is confined to the hospital. His name is Bae Youngchon and he was baptized by Gordon B Hinkley in the early fifty's. He is really fun and loves speaking to us in English. He always forgot what day it was and thought that we were coming to give him the sacrament. Spent the rest of the day trying to get out some lessons but weren't able to.


We were only able to attend one district meeting this week. (There are 2 districts in the zone) We went to the Su jong district meeting. The topic was inviting others to general conference. (We have to wait a week longer for the translation to come out.) After that meeting we had another meeting. DLTM (District leader training meeting). We emphasized what we learned in zltm and set some goals with the district leaders to see some more lessons in the zone. After that Elder Mitchel went to the Youngdo district on an exchange and I brought Elder Jang Saeyoung to Haeundae. We went to the hospital for a checkup. Having Elder Jang was really awesome. Last time the doctors and nurses didn't seem to trust my Korean. I gave the doctor the stone. The stone was about as big as this * depending on how big you set the text. This is kind of gross but it was the size and color of a booger. Best description I can think of. They said that they would do an analysis on it and give that to me this week. Next was English class, which was hard because the sisters were both Korean and I was on exchange with a Korean. What ended up happening was I ran an English game night. (Hang man, 20 questions and other games like that) After that Elder Jang and I went to visit Jong Changqu, one of our investigators. He is someone who really wants more spiritual light in his life. Unfortunately his way of getting that is listening to preachers. He came to our church once and said that he liked it but the preacher at some other church was more interesting. We tried explaining things like the sacrament, but he didn't really seem to get it. In spite of that he did commit to come see general conference with the ward this Sunday.

The next morning I took Elder Jang back to Youngdo and met up with Elder Mitchel. We dashed back to our area to meet with a middle aged woman from English class. We were teaching her son until he moved to Seoul. He's still meeting the missionaries there. She took us and the sisters to get a traditional Korean meal. We tried to get her to meet with the sisters but she just doesn't have the interest that her son had. After that Elder Mitchel and I spent a large chunk of time prepping for SPM (Stake presidency Meeting...I think) We make up a report about missionary work in our zone and present it to the stake presidency. We had to call all of the teams and type what they said in Korean. It was really a pain and took a long time. We had plans to visit a less active member's restaurant but we didn't have enough time for the visit after making the report for SPM. What we decided to do was just hit the streets. Right off the bat we got two lessons and a referral which was really nice. We went home successful.

Friday was MLCM. Mission leadership council meeting. As a zone leader I am part of the leadership council. The others are Sister training leaders the APs and President. We had a discussion about the stats of the month of March. Right now everything is kind of flat lining so we talked about ways to get more investigators. The meeting was pretty similar to ZLTM actually. After that we visited an old investigator out in an area called Ki Jang. He introduced us to one of his employees who said that she would like to meet with us. She is a bout 30 and wants to learn English with her son. She seems to have some interest in the gospel so we set up an appointment for Thursday this week. After that we bumped over to the bishop's house to see his family then visited the LA(less active) that we had wanted to visit the night before. He is also about 30 and just opened a cafe. He really likes us but doesn't have much interest in the church. He hasn't attended since middle school. We talked with him. We're just trying to get him to pray and read his scriptures but even that is hard for him I guess.

Saturday was the first day that I actually got a full personal and language study hour. This week was so busy! We had our first Young Adult English Class. We got two church members out. It was really fun talking with them in English. None of the people we met on the street came out, but with the members rocking social media and us putting up fliers it'll only be a couple weeks til this is up an running. English class finished and we had our area meeting with the Sisters. Sister Lee Handa served with me in my last area. The other sister Sister Lee Hongbi is a trainee. We had a quick dinner at a place called han sot. It's the same idea as Cup Bop or whatever they call the place by BYU. Actually that place made it on Korean television so some Koreans have told me that they know about Provo and BYU. After that we met my first family investigators since Vantu and Chang. It is a husband wife and little girl who is about six. The lesson went really well but we couldn't commit them to come out to church. ARGH no one commits to come out to church! Everyone's too busy!

Sunday we had church, SPM and a zone activity. SPM was a little stressful. The first counselor is a little scary and I don't have a Korean companion to back me up. Overall it went really well though. I really like President Jo Bongjae.

This week is zone training meeting (ZTM). We also will have an exchange.

Abroad (not Korea)
I guess that I need to officially congratulate Matthew on his mission call. It's really awesome. You'll have a lot of fun and be able to do a work that really matters. When in Manila you'll have to look out for Koreans. They go there to study English.

You should all send me your thoughts about conference. I'll send you mine.

Hope the house gets better soon.

A trip to Zion sounds fun. I'm looking forward to rappelling, biking and all that stuff when I get home.

Requests
Send me a photo album with new pictures. I've looked at the other ones too much. In particular, send the big family picture that we had taken before I left. Some cousin pictures would be good. Big families boggle Korean's minds.

Love James

P.S.
The computer couldn't handle the recording.