A great week ...

So this week was crazy -- a lot went on! On Wednesday our two investigators, Hyun and Yoon, committed to baptism! We're so excited for them; keep them in your prayers! They're going to be baptized on May 11, if all goes well.  The  super awesome thing that happened this week: on Thursday we had 12-week training follow up, so I got to see all my buddies from the MTC! That was great.  President and Sister Christensen gave a couple of great talks and the spirit was so strong. Then we got training from the APs. It was super good and it was on evaluating ourselves so that we can learn from what we're doing, and molding our lessons to better fit our investigators. I definitely got a lot out of it and they did really great!

On Thursday I went on exchanges with Elder Bishop, who's only a transfer ahead of me.  So we spent 24 hours trying to talk to people with our zero Korean that we know.  It was definitely a good experience and I came out of it speaking better than I had before.  My Korean is getting to the point where I can hold a small conversation with more teenagers and students -- I still have a ton to learn!  On Saturday, we had ward  family home evening, which was super fun -- we played a bunch of different eating games!  I also -- drum roll -- made a full phone call in Korean!!!  It was nuts!  Elder Leavitt had to help me script it all out, but I did it!

On Sunday, we decided to start finding and talking to less-active members, so we went out to a member who used to be in the bishopric and went inactive after he was released.  Our ward probably has more inactive people in it than active people.  So we went out into a little city called Namyangju to go and find this guy and his family.  It was like a 4 mile walk out to this apartment building and then they didn't let us in.  We're not giving up on them, though!  We really want to work on bringing people back in; it's soooo sad how people just get baptized then go inactive! We're gonna get them back, though!

I love you guys! Everyone stay safe and happy!

Rob

Pictures!

1. Me totally stoked about making a phone call with my script :P

2. Elder Miller and I at 12 week training -- it was so great to see him!

When Kimchi attacks ...

So this week was super routine.  Just lots of jundo-ing.  We have been trying to talk to as many people as possible and trying to get the word about the gospel out.  We taught 2 lessons this week -- one to a guy about the restoration, but he was only interested in the church because he want's to find a wife who's also Christian.  It was really awkward and he kept on telling us how much tithing he gives at his church.  Apparently he's going to come to church next week and see what our church is all about.  Then we also taught a man named Frank who is in his 40's with no family.  He used to take care of his parents who were old and ill, but they passed away and he's all alone now.  We taught him a really quick lesson because he was short on time.  We're meeting with him again and we're going to teach him the Plan of Salvation next.  We had 2 former investigators come to church on Sunday.  They're both seniors in high school, so they're going to start coming to church every week and we're teaching them a lesson on Wednesday.  

The people here on the street really don't like missionaries a whole lot; it's interesting how rude people will get when you have a name tag on.  People seem to totally change once they realize you're a missionary.  

I had the spiciest kimchi ever last night. We went over to a member's house and she made us try some of her kimchi.  I seriously wanted to cry, it was so spicy.  Elder Leavitt did cry -- haha.  We get to watch General Conference this upcoming weekend and I'm really excited for it, getting a spiritual recharge is exactly what I need right now!

 

Love you all!

This is a view of the Han River:

This is the view of Guri from the other elders' apartment:

 Have a great week!

A week in the trenches ...

So this week has been pretty uneventful! I've been out every day talking to people on the street. We still haven't really taught a lesson yet, which is sort of frustrating. People don't seem too interested in our message, but that's no reason to give up! We have two appointments set up later this week, so we'll see what happens with those! I'm really hoping that we'll get an investigator at some point this week.

 

Last week on P-Day after email we had a really weird experience. We were waiting at the subway stop and some guy walked up to us and started talking to us, which is really weird cause Koreans usually don't approach us for some reason. We asked where he was headed and he responded rather quick and said, "Heaven," Which just made the whole situation weirder, but we realized that we could talk religion with him. We asked him if he was religious and he was, but doesn't attend church at all because he hates all the strife and conflict that happened amongst churches during the middle ages. We started talking to him about our church, and he told us that he had already read all of the Book of Mormon when he went to Salt Lake City during a tour of the USA a few years ago. He told us that he didn't believe in the Book of Mormon, but he agreed to meet us again. So we met with him on Thursday with a lesson on the Restoration and the Great Apostasy prepared. We meet up with him and talk to him about his religious beliefs and get to know him some more. Here's where it gets really weird... as we're about to start out lesson he whips out a super ghetto-looking book that's compiled in a three ring binder. Turns out the dude is a self-proclaimed bible scholar that is writing his own fan fiction based off the Bible. Apparently this fictional book answers some of the worlds mort important real-life questions such as...

 

"Did the Garden of Eden really exist on earth? If so, where was it?"

"Did the City of Atlantis really exist?"

"Did giants once roam the earth?"

 

It was the weirdest thing, and he started talking about how Adam and Eve had dinosaurs and it was just really awkward. Then he started to bible bash with us and tell us that everything we believed in was wrong. He refused to read any of the Book of Mormon and then pray about it. So we talked with him for a bit then left. It was a huge waste of time and was really frustrating, but it makes for a great story. I honestly think the dude is crazy. He wants to meet again this week but I don't think we

 

The ward here is super awesome and is full of recent converts. Almost all the youth here have been baptized in the last 6 months, so it's really cool getting to know them. We get fed all the time by the ward members and I'm used to the food here now. The phrase "don't ask what it is" applies at most meals. Some salad I had the other day definitely had small octopus tentacles in it. I almost enjoy salad now because it's one of the more normal types of food here, same with fruit. All the food here is crazy spicy, David would love it.

 

I seriously love and miss all you guys!

 

Rob