Great Week!

Hello everyone! This week has been pretty great! 

It started off REALLY slow, but picked up towards the end of the week. 

We had interviews with our Mission President this week and it was awesome. I got a lot of insight about where I want my life to go and how I want to do it. I guess this week has just been really interesting in that regard. For some reason I started to see a different way that my life could possibly go, and it's something that really excites me. It's cool to see just how being on a mission changes your outlook and expands your view of life. You start to see that so many of the things that the world regards as important are really just minor little things in life, that we could really just go without. The only thing that really matters is that we're doing the simple things that God expects us to do: reading scriptures, praying, and serving others. If you're doing those things, you're pretty set in life. 

I also had the chance to read the King Follett Sermon this week, which was SO cool. It talks about the relationship between man and God in a way that REALLY makes things seem simple and lays it out very clearly. If you have the time, go online and read it. It's worth the one hour or so that it takes to read it. And, if you're prepping to go on a mission, you HAVE to read it, cause it deals with so many things that you'll be asked on a daily basis. So go read it!  Now! 

We're working with two Cambodian investigators right now who are super cool! One of them should be getting baptized in a few weeks and they're really progressing. We taught with a Cambodian member this week and it was awesome. It's a miracle that 1 of 2 Cambodian members in Korea lives about 40 minutes from us. It's been awesome. I really think that this baptism will pull through! 

It's such a great week. I'm loving it here! Talk to you all next week! If you respond I'll reply back :) you've all been lame and not responding!

Love, 

Rob

Pictures!

1. THE AWESOME CARE PACKAGE I GOT!!! I love all my Copperhill Ward youth! I think I've eaten all of it now! And the In-N-Out Hot and Batman socks are AWESOME! And everyone that put letters in it is going to be getting letters back!  

2. My Cambodians! They're so awesome! (Sorry, Mom, I shaved my head again. Deal with it!)

Goodbye, Seoul -- Hello, Countryside!

Hey everybody! I left Seoul this week and headed to the countryside! It's a blast! People here are far less "busy" than they were in Seoul and really have the time to just talk. I'm in a little town called Geumchon that's right next to North Korea. My area actually includes the DMZ! It's SO cool! I love it! 

I'm now with Elder Buck, he's from Tooele, Utah and he's been here for about 3 months longer than me! He's a real blast!

I've just been working hard out here in Korea, other than that, nothing else is too new! 

I love you all! Be safe! I can't wait to hear from you! 

Rob

This is GyongMin, he's more or less my best friend in Korea. This was the day before I left Seoul!

This is JinSuk and YoonKwon they were also my investigators in Seoul! I miss them a ton! 

And this is the view out of my new, 12-story apartment.... It's a ton of farmland. It's so awesome! 

A Lovely Christmas ... December 28, 2014

This week was great! I really wish I had time to type up a huge email ... but I don't!  So, here's my week in photos! 

It's a tie!  Also, a new white Polo button-down Oxford -- a missionary's favorite kind of shirt.

The day after Christmas I met up with my trainer and recent convert in Seoul and we had some Korean ice desserts.  Here's the old crew!  Elder Leavitt goes home in two weeks and Yoon Jay goes to college next month.  These guys are great!

Then that night we went to this crazy buffet in Seoul and this was the view from the outside balcony! 

Busy, busy, busy ... December 21, 2014

This week was SO busy. Elder Choi and I both know why we're here and what we want to do, and we're just trying to work hard. This week we had a ton of people at family home evening. We've been working to grow the family home evening in our ward since we got put together as companions, and we're finally getting people to turn out. It's slowly getting there! 

We had our huge Homecoming Day Celebration this week! We had 3 investigators at church, one of them brought 4 friends with him. We got two referrals and it was SO AWESOME. ON Saturday when we spent all day preparing for it, we really wondered if it would be worth all the time we were spending -- it definitely was. Our district got SO much work done! 

This week I went on back to back exchanges! The first one was with Elder Sederholm, our beloved greenie. He is SUCH a hard worker and really knows why he's here. He might be brand new to the mission and not able to communicate as well as he wants to, but he doesn't let that stop him. We really got a lot of stuff done. 

Then I went on exchanges in Dongdaemoon with Elder Edwards. Every time I come out of exchanges with the zone leaders, I'm so motivated. I've been so blessed to go on exchanges with them almost every transfer of my mission, and I can't imagine not having them there for that exchange every transfer. 

We made Christmas/Thanksgiving Dinner last week on P-Day. We ate really well. Chicken, stuffing, mashed potatoes, and gravy. 

Photos from the week!

I love all you guys! Everyone who's on this email really means a ton and I can't wait to hear about how your Christmas was next week! 

Be safe and email back!!! 

Elder Woodall 

LETTER!

It's been an interesting week this week. My missionary work has really changed a lot of the last week. I feel like I'm starting to lose a lot of the fear that I've had in the past about talking to the people and stepping out of my bubble. It's been really weird and really hard. I'm not afraid of people at this point.

I hit the realization this week that what we're teaching IS the RESTORED message of Jesus Christ and his church. It's not just some feel good thing that we're going about and trying to tell people about to brighten their day up. It's something That WILL change your life, it's something that WILL bring you happiness, it's something that EVERYONE needs, and I've got to put aside my fears so that people can have the chance to change their lives. Those of the that haven't had the chance to hear it, go hear it. It's why I'm here serving and it's why I'm here trying to help people. I promise you that if you go into it with an open heart looking to know the truth, you WILL find happiness and it WILL change you life. You might already be attending church or believe in Jesus Christ or doing whatever it is that is making you happy. If you're happy now, you will be just that much happier. Please do it. Please. I promise you it's worth it. 

To those of you that I email who are members of this church and have been baptized, gain a testimony of this Gospel, the Church, and the Book of Mormon. I promise you that it's worth it. I'll be really honest with everyone here. I didn't have a strong testimony when I left to come to Korea. I mainly came out here cause it was expected of me. I didn't really know what I was doing, and I didn't know what I would be giving up to do this. When I left to come here I just wanted to get this over with to come home. Now I'm dying for more time. The last few months have changed my life, I've become someone that I'm proud of. I'm someone that I want to be. And I'm blessed to still have another 12 months of so to figure it out even more. I've come to realize that the things I was taught when I was young are true, and that the things I was taught are the things that bring happiness. Over the last year of so I've seen it not only in my life, but the lives of others too. So get your scripture out and read them. Get on your knees and pray for an answer. If you think that you're too lost to get back on the right path, you're not. Everyone can do it. Anyone can pray. You're never too lost. You can do it. Don't do it just because I said to do it either. Do it because it's worth it, it's worth knowing that Jesus Christ IS your Savior and that he is the path to happiness. So do it. It's hard, I've spent 11 months getting to this point, it wasn't easy, but it was worth it. 

~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~

So this week not a ton of real stuff went on. My companion and I baked cookies which were AWESOME, except..... The chocolate that we used melted STRAIGHT into the dough. So now we just have a bunch of cookie dough that we con't really bake because the chocolate just starts burning in the over. So we're going to try again this week!

Then we also had a stake choir competition this week. We had to do a ton of practicing for it, but it was AWESOME. The missionaries in our ward sung "Love at Home" in Korean, and Elder Larsen in our ward is an AMAZING guitar player, so he played it on the guitar as everyone else sung to it. I wish I had video of it!

I also gave a 12 minute talk in sacrament meeting in Korean. It was rough! My reading skill are going to get worked on over the next few months now. Luckily there were some people that were able to understand me! Yay!

Missionary work was a little rough this week, we had one day where we went out for 6 hours and talked to only 45 people. Normally we would talk to over 100 people in that amount of time. It just means that I'm that much closer to finding the right person. I'm just that much closer to finding someone who has been waiting for this their whole life. It's so amazing, and I'm so happy to be here. 

I love you all. Be safe, and I can't wait to hear back from you! :)

Rob

If you send letters you'll get one back ASAP! Same with packages :) Send away!

For letters...

Elder Christian Woodall

Korea Seoul Mission

Gwanghwamun Po Box

210

Jongno-Gu

Seoul-si 110-602

South Korea

For packages....

Elder Christian Woodall

Korea Seoul Mission

Samcheong-ro 9 gil 45

Jongno-gu

Seoul-si 110-230

South Korea

Pictures this week!

1. I got my 2nd letter since I've been in Korea this week! (This is a hint to send me mail!) One of the best days EVER!  

English fast ...

Nothing too huge this week. I went on exchanges to another area this week. I was with Elder Weight for 24 hours on Halloween. It was pretty crazy. Koreans don't party too hard on Halloween, mainly because every night is a party in Korea. But... We went and heart-attacked some members doors for Halloween. I've been to a lot of really weird places in Korea, but one of the members houses was literally the scariest place I've ever been to. It was straight out of ... it was bleak. Definitely an awesome Halloween experience. 

The day after Halloween I went with Elder Weight and talked to people at like one of the biggest herbal medicine markets in the world. It's weird to see the kind of stuff that people eat to get healthier, cause it definitely wouldn't be on the top of my "healthy foods" list. 

This week I also started a 40-day english fast. I've been wanting to work more on my Korean, and now it's the only language I'll be speaking for about the next month and a half. It's been REALLY hard, but REALLY helpful so far. You learn a lot of stuff that you wouldn't learn normally. If it goes well then I'll probably just give up speaking english for the rest of my mission. When I heard that Korean was the 2nd hardest language in the world to learn, I definitely didn't believe it. But ... it is! 

I really wish there was more to talk about, but there isn't! Not really any pictures either! I'll have more next week! I promise!  Can't wait to talk to you all next week!

Rob!

If you send letters you'll get one back ASAP! Same with packages :) Send away!

For letters...

Elder Christian Woodall

Korea Seoul Mission

Gwanghwamun Po Box

210

Jongno-Gu

Seoul-si 110-602

South Korea

For packages....

Elder Christian Woodall

Korea Seoul Mission

Samcheong-ro 9 gil 45

Jongno-gu

Seoul-si 110-230

South Korea

Another just pics

Just photos this week! I was too busy replying to all of you guys to send out a big email! I love you guys so much! Can't wait to hear from you all next week! 

Rob

Elder Choi with his busted foot from last week! He had to keep it elevated for a few days because of it!