홍천 Fun / Less actives / Thanksgiving

 My p day got moved to today cause we went to Seoul to have a Thanksgiving feast with an acquaintance hehe 

Highlights 

Went to 홍천 to meet with our new friend 김영락. We met him at the bus station a few weeks ago but he said he lived in 홍천 which is kinda far so we didn't really have a chance to meet with him, but since we didn't have p day on Monday our day was really open so we just went then. He said not to force him to go to church but he likes hearing good messages about the gospel so we'll see what happens. He fed us 토종닭 (korean traditional chicken) as he called it, and it was pretty good

Less active member visiting (the sunset was magestic so we took a picture) ~~ we had our church activity on Tuesday, when suddenly a man walked in that we'd never seen before. And then he told us he got baptized in 춘천 50 years ago! He was baptized in high school and then moved away and stopped attending church. But then he moved back to his hometown and noticed the church light was on so he came to check it out. We ended up talking for a few hours and I think he's gonna come to church this Sunday! We learned he's been drinking and smoking and stuff, but it would be great to help him learn to live the gospel again. And he would probably have to be rebaptized cause he doesn't have a church record cause it was so long ago. He did text us after asking for us to set him up with a bunch of blind dates though...but I'm a missionary not a matchmaker so idk if I can help him with that

After that we became interested in finding other people like him so visited some less active members. We went to this one house and a grandpa answered, so we asked if the guy we were looking for lived there. He said no, but I decided to keep the conversation going in case it let anywhere. After a few minutes, I was like, "so you don't even know this person??", asking about the less active's name, and he was like oh well he's my son. So I was like bruh you could've started with that. But his son still lives in 춘천, just another area, and he gave us his number so we're gonna call him

Found the best restaurant ever 

This guy is named Ming, and he's from China. After he said he was from China I spoke some Chinese and he was so surprised that he said more than a few swear words! His friend is from Brazil and they were friends but could only communicate through broken English haha. It was so cool. A Brazilian and a Chinese guy living in korea communicating through english. That's the kind of adventurous life I want to live. But I have other things to do I guess. Nonetheless, we got their number

Spiritual Thought 

Alma 37:37

 Counsel with the Lord in all thy doings, and he will direct thee for good; yea, when thou liest down at night lie down unto the Lord, that he may watch over you in your sleep; and when thou risest in the morning let thy heart be full of thanks unto God; and if ye do these things, ye shall be lifted up at the last day.

In the spirit of thanksgiving, I want to highlight the importance of having a grateful heart. When we rise in the morning with a heart full of thanks to God, it will make our entire day better, and our lives more positive. I'd like to invite you all to say a gratitude morning prayer this week and thank God for the things you're grateful for! 

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

Thanksgiving Blessing (Mom Post)

My former missionary companion, Juliette Landsem Holdaway, now lives in Korea with her husband, who works for the military. Juliette also served her mission in Korea for a short time before serving in the ASL program in Atlanta, Georgia. She knew our son, Josh, was serving in Korea and made arrangements to pick up Josh and his companion and bring them to a nice hotel on base for a traditional American Thanksgiving feast!! It looks amazing! 

Not only that, but she had asked Josh and his companion what treats they missed from America that they weren't able to find in Korea. They surprised them with a total haul of treats!! Josh was in heaven!! Josh loves Takis and Korea doesn't have them and so he was excited to receive Takis along with everything else!! Hearing about this experience made my mama heart so happy! Thank you Holdaways for treating our missionaries!! 

JAMES SAVED THE BAPTISM / Mr Jin Reunion / Red Dots 🔴

 Well this was quite a week! I'll start with the Mr. Jin Reunion...

Mr. Jin was my teaching friend in 속초, and came all the way to 춘천 this week to visit me! He talked to us about a lot of stuff, and told me how the missionaries invited him to be baptized. But he said he said no, because he wants me to come back to 속초 to baptize him haha. The chances of that are not super likely, but I said I would be honored if it ever becomes a possibility. He's been attending church still and reading the Book of Mormo,n so that's good. 

Red Dots 

We've had a couple interactions with some pretty interesting people recently. One was a lady who found our card on the street and called us, but upon further inspection. We found out she was a red dot (which means do not contact). Anyway, she said she'd come to English class that week and so we had no choice but to see what happens. She came, and even brought us some Ramen! Aside from mumbling to herself a little bit, she seemed pretty normal at least. 

She also talked about having like 5 husbands, one from America, one from Japan, one from Germany, which was weird but I figured I must've just misunderstood the korean. So anyway, my comp invited her to church. He said "oh by the way, we have church tomorro-" and then she interrupted, sticking her hand out for a handshake while replying "I know 10 AM? " so we were like uhh yeah, and she came the next day. My companion sat next to her and noticed she was taking some pictures of people, specifically the missionaries. He also noticed her screen saver, which ended up being her "German husband." 

It was Hitler...

She also was sending emails to a ton of random people with pictures of us, pictures of other random Americans, and pictures of Hitler, which is probably not good. So now we're kinda trying to figure out how to get rid of her  but she did buy us chicken on Saturday at english class so that was hype. My bad that ended up being really long.

The other red dot: 허용준 

I don't think he was actually a red dot but I noticed he had been silenced on kakao talk, which is a method we use to text people here. But I saw that he texted that his exams were all finished so he had time if we wanted to meet up. So I said yeah of course, and we decided to meet at a college campus. Not a second went by after meeting him that he pulled out his wooden spoons and asked us to film him playing the spoons. We were quite confused but just went along with it. After that he was like "ok, should we go get dinner?" 

He was so excited so we were like sure! We found out a lot of things, like he met with a lot of missionaries in the past, is absolutely the most happy person ever, and is very passionate about: playing the spoons, singing songs in Spanish, and making people smile! He's actually very sweet and we're gonna continue to invite him to activities and stuff, but it's very hard to get in an environment where we can teach him cause his attention span is all over the place, so idk if we'll continue teaching him. If you wanna see vids of him playing the spoons check the album 

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

JAMES SAVED THE BAPTISM 

I can't remember how much I've said about James, but I'll just keep it brief this time and say he's the crazy member in our ward. Anyway, we had a baptism this week and everything was going really well. We figured out the font and got the water a good temperature and everything, but before church started my comp said we should fill it a little higher, and I agreed so we turned it back on. 

Then, during the ceremony before the baptism, James runs in and starts yelling a bunch of nonsense. It was obvious not even the Koreans understood what he was saying. I was thinking "seriously james, today was not the today to forget your medication..." but since he was disrupting the meeting some counselors and bishop went and brought him outside the chapel to console him. All the other missionaries went out as well. And then for the next 15 minutes I kept hearing crazy commotion outside the chapel and I had no idea what was going on. 

Earlier during sacrament, James had been gathering a pile of tissues in a corner and was stepping them into the ground and making a mess, idek, but I was worried he like threw the tissues in the font or something like that. He always wanders in and out of the chapel and stuff so. But anyway, when we walked out to perform the baptism we witnessed the scene. All the other missionaries had snow shovels and were shoveling water into the bathroom cause the font overflowed . 

Chuncheon is one of the only church buildings in our mission where the font doesnt have a drain at the top in case the water gets left on. so the whole ward witnessed the scene as well, which sucked but the "whole ward" is only like 15 people so it wasn't that bad. Since I was gonna have to get in anyway they told me to go in and unplug the plug for a few minutes to drain a little more before we did the baptism. The baptism itself didn't go too smoothly either to say the least. This email is too long already so I am not gonna include any more details about that. But to sum it all up, james did indeed save the baptism 

James ^^ (just look at that smile )

Spiritual Thought 

Make Time For the Lord 

President Nelson 2021 General Conference

The voices and pressures of the world are engaging and numerous. But too many voices are deceptive, seductive, and can pull us off the covenant path. To avoid the inevitable heartbreak that follows, I plead with you today to counter the lure of the world by making time for the Lord in your life—each and every day

I love this talk by president Nelson, specifically this part, because it shows us that by making time for the Lord every day, we can receive strength to counter the deceptive things of the world. It later goes on to talk about how social media has a lot of false information, but through making time for the Lord, we can have the spirit with us, and the spirit, unlike social media, only speaks truth. I would like to invite you all to read the rest of this talk and find out how you can make time for the Lord in your life every day! 

젠슨 장로~~

춘천 성찬식

This week was my first Sunday in 춘천 cause we had stake conference in Seoul last week.

I was gonna write up a nice email about all the interesting things that happened in sacrament meeting yesterday cause there was a lot.

But

Other highlights 

We love James!

Us after cardfest 

아이 러브 춘천 (add dance videos)

Highlights 

Left 송파 

Arrived in 춘천 

New trainee 

I got transferred to 춘천 and it is amazing! It is absolutely everything I hoped it would be. And we have a lot of teaching friends who we are meeting consistently. Currently two people are on date from the last missionary here, which I think they're on date pretty early, especially cause one is still addicted to and drinking 2 cups of coffee per day, but it's okay, we will work with them and see what we can do! It's really nice to be teaching again and living with 4 people.

경복궁 palace

New Comp, Elder Simmons (He's so chill) 

I'm out of time but if you want to see me do a dance click on the link below! 

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

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