Josh's Mission Video!! (Mom Post)

Here is the mission video that Rick made for Josh! Love it! 

Josh's Homecoming!! (Mom Post)

Today was Josh's missionary homecoming! Everyone headed to church and we were able to get a quick family picture outside of the church building before the meeting started. This was the first time everyone in our family was together in three years! Jaiden had left on her mission in August of 2023 and then Josh left on his mission August of 2024. It was a wonderful meeting. The meeting was also Ethan's (Jenna's boyfriend) missionary farewell and so that was fun to have he and Josh speak together. Ethan did a great job on his talk and so did Josh.

Jenna sang "Nearer to Thee," with Ethan's mom, Paige Allred, and Ethan's brother, Josh Allred, played the cello. Rebecca Gulbranson accompanied on the piano. It was a beautiful number! Jenna and Paige blended well together and they also looked very beautiful! We were grateful for a spirit filled meeting!

We had lunch at our house afterwards. We kept it mostly family, but we also invited a a few friends, as well as the ASL sister missionaries. We had pulled pork sandwiches, several salads (potato salad, broccoli and cauliflower salad, pasta salad) and a veggie tray, lots of fruit (watermelon, strawberries, grapes, apples and dip), chips, and dessert. Ellen ordered a cute cake that followed up with our welcome home chant "Josh, it's time, cross the line!" We all got a kick out of that! I made peanut butter bars and we bought cookies. It was fun to eat and visit! 

Later on the bishop and his wife dropped by to bring Josh his missionary plaque. After they left Jared led all of the young adult children in some games on Jackbox. Then later that night it was just Rick and me and Josh and Jenna. Rick taught a nice Come Follow Me lesson and then later gave Josh and Jenna back to school Priesthood blessings. It was a nice day! 

Josh is Home!! (Mom Post)

We were busy getting things ready for Josh's return! We headed over to the airport around 5:15. His flight was expected at 6:25. Usually when we have picked up our missionaries, they were the only missionary flying into St. George. But today there were several! The first family we met also had an Elder Jensen coming home! We said, "That's perfect, we will all be cheering for Elder Jensen!" 

Then another family arrived and it was Mark Tarr and his wife, the family we had met two years ago at the Golden Corral when dropping off Josh to the MTC! Mark was in LD Singers with me at Snow. At the time we laughed about how we had also run into them when we were dropping off Janelle to the MTC and they were dropping off their daughter to the MTC! Their son was also going to Korea, but the other mission. So it was funny to run into them again at the airport for the return of both our boys!! 

We also ran into people we knew from our ward and area who were welcoming back a sister missionary. There were also a couple other missionaries coming home from Korea (but the other mission). So there were lots of Korean flags, and posters, and people, and excitement! The missionaries came out one at a time, instead of all at once, which was nice because each one could greet and get hugs from his or her family and then move off to another area to make more room for the other families waiting for their missionaries. 

Josh was one of the last missionaries to come out. He had gone to change into traditional Korean robes, which was fun! A lady who was on the airplane saw our banner and said, "don't worry -- he is coming!" It was wonderful getting that long awaited hug when he finally did come! We all did our hugs and took pictures over by the baggage area and had him run through the finish line! The chant Dad decided on was: "Josh, it's time! Cross the line!" (repeated three times getting louder and louder). You can see our cheesy chant in the video! 

Then we all headed to the house. Josh wanted Dominoes pizza for his first meal, which made it easy! Rick ordered it and Janelle and Bryton picked it up at 7:30. We ate and then Rick, Josh, and I went to the church to meet with President Rowan for Josh's release. We then went back and met back up with the rest of the family. 

We have a tradition for our new returned missionaries where they teach our family right after they get home. Josh gave a very nice lesson and it was very touching! We have loved this tradition. The lessons of our new returned missionaries have always had such an impact on all of us! 

대한민국 만세

Well my time in Korea has come to an end. I will forever cherish the memories and relationships I have made here. I am grateful that I had the opportunity to grow closer to Jesus Christ while helping the people of Korea to do the same. Although my time as a missionary wearing a badge is over, I have learned that "you don't have to wear the badge to bear His name" (Steven J Lund October 2022 GC). I hope to continue to bear His name to the best of my ability for the rest of my life.

If you'd like to hear more about my mission experience, feel free to come to my homecoming this Sunday the 23rd at 10:30 AM! 

Address: 3040 Santa Clara Drive, Santa Clara, UT 84765

Anyway here's some highlights from my last week 

이인구's baptism! My last Sunday in Korea was everything I could have hoped for. So many people pulled up for the baptism and one of our other progressing teaching friends even participated in our special musical number haha

Sunday night we had a meal with some members and other friends. The members prepared a special gift for me since I am returning home and it almost got me emotional

Yesterday we had a goodbye meal with our good friend Zechariah Kim, and he even brought his wife and another one of his church friends. Although we are different religions, we had a great time in each others company, and the three of them all mentioned how they enjoy being around us because we have a light about us!

우정희 자매님 bought us over $100 worth of Texas Roadhouse and then left. Also they just happened to be playing the 2022 world cup final Argentina Vs France on the TV, I have no idea why, but that was the greatest world cup final of all time (also the only one I've ever actually watched) so I'm not complaining 

I don't really know why we took this picture but I remember there was a reason

I've had about 5 meals that look exactly like this the past few days

이인구 baptism pic

https://photos.app.goo.gl/NE4hqKEuajBNpJgu5

젠슨 장로 

영의 속삭임

Few quick shoutouts:

First:

Shoutout 이태진 for finally coming to church! 이태진 is totally down to learn about the gospel but he said he couldn't come to church cause his parents disapprove! But we were able to grow closer with him this week by eating pizza together, so he came to church on Sunday and we had a great lesson! We're gonna meet him again on Tuesday. 

Shoutout 황혁이! We weren't sure what his interest was cause this was our first time meeting him in person, but we were able to talk about the book of mormon and give him one. And he knows nothing about missionaries or missionary work, but he knew I'm going home soon so he bought me a present; a set of gold spoons and forks no idea where he got that, but we concluded it's either really expensive, or he just found it on the street or something.

Shoutout to 냉면 (ice ramen). I forgot how good 냉면 is, but I realized I'm not gonna be able to eat it soon so I lowk ate it like every day this week.

Shoutout 남궁희정 자매님 for painting a picture of me.

Shoutout Zechariah Kim for praying for us at his own church haha.

Shoutout to this nice sunset 

This week I have realized the importance of recognizing and following spiritual promptings! There was a less active member that we called and wasn't super friendly over the phone, but a few days later we ended up in her neighborhood and were debating if we should call and ask if we could visit her house or not. I thought based on the way she acted over the phone surely she'd say no but after feeling prompted a few more times we decided to call.

She ended up telling us to go over so we were able to meet her and her family and sing to them! And one of them is not baptized so we'll prob try and go again. Another spiritual prompting experience was during one of our lessons when we were talking about baptism with one of our progressing teaching friends. Something that he said reminded me of a quote I put in my farewell talk, when I wrote it more than 2 years ago. I felt prompted to share the quote, but I had no idea what talk it was from and the only place I could think to find it was on the Google doc that had my farewell talk written on it. 

At first I was like yeah no way, I don't even remember what the quote is fully about anyway, and it will prob take so long to find that Google doc. I also knew that the talk wouldn't have a Korean translation so I would just have to translate it sentence by sentence while sharing the quote. But after dwelling on the prompting I decided to look for the quote and share it. (I also had some time to search for it cause the member we had in the lesson was a yapper) anyway I ended up sharing the quote, and because I trusted in that prompting, I felt that I was able to explain everything I needed to say, and I felt the gift of tongues in action more than I probably every have! 

Usually when teaching lessons, I only share or plan to share what I know is within the limits of what I know and can say when it comes to the language I am learning, which you know I feel like is common sense, you shouldn't plan to teach a lesson on something you have no idea how to teach about in another language, or, if you want to teach the plan of salvation, you should probably learn all the vocabulary in the language you plan to teach in first. 

But I learned an important lesson from this: that when we are asked or prompted to do something, even if it is something we know nothing about, if we exercise the faith to do that thing, then God will do the rest and help us fulfill what he has asked. After all, "the Lord giveth no commandments unto the children of men, save he shall prepare a way for them that they may accomplish the thing which he commandeth them." (1 Nephi 3:7)

Anyway sorry that was long. 

젠슨 장로 

https://photos.app.goo.gl/NE4hqKEuajBNpJgu5