Christmas in 춘천 🎄

Highlights: This week was good, we had a great day at church yesterday, and 2 less actives came, one of which hasn't been to church in 6 months! We told him we'd give him cookies, so he came haha. We also had a teaching friend come to church who we just invited to come after she came to our Christmas party, and she came! She got along great with the members and today she decided to have a meal with them. We got invited and then uninvited lol, but hopefully it goes well! Other than that the week was chill, we met with a few people, one of our teaching friends gave us a cake on Christmas eve haha. On Christmas we didn't have too much planned, and we had a bunch of little nativity things we got from the mission, so we decided to visit members and give them out. We also dressed up for the special day.

We also decided to visit James's house just cause. 

This is where our entire church supply of Books of Mormons went. James got upset when we started looking through them. See the photos for even more of his stash.

Christmas Dinner 

Spiritual Thought: 

In honor of Jeffrey R Holland I'll share a portion of his latest general conference talk "And Now I See"

The claims about this book have been attacked and dismissed by some unbelievers, the anger often matching the vitriol of those who told the healed man that he could not possibly have experienced what he knew he had experienced.

He talked about how many people attack the church, or the Book of Mormon, or our testimonies. He told a story of the blind man who was healed by Jesus. After the man was healed, people try to attack his testimony, saying that Jesus was a sinner. The man just responded, "Whether he be a sinner … , I know not: [but] one thing I [do] know, … whereas I was blind, now I see.” when people try to attack us with other thoughts or opinions, it doesn't have to make us question what we already know. If we just hold on to what we know and trust God and continue to have faith, none of those other opinions or attacks will have any effect on us or our testimonies, 

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Is it even a party without the cops?

It was a busy week! 

We started the week with MLC (mission leadership council) and learned a bunch of great things 

After that I went straight into an exchange.

Our mission Christmas party got canceled, so we decided to lighten everyone in the zone's mood by sending a video of us proselyting like this. And it even worked really well for proselyting! (It didn't work at all, everyone laughed at us) (AT us, not WITH us)

John from english class had a great time at the ward Christmas party!

Even though our bishop forgot we were having a ward party, and we had to plan it in two hours, it turned out okay. We sent out a mass text invite to every single contact we have, and from that, 6 random people came! Some of those people were pretty cool! Others ended up being a little interesting.

This random lady even had such a great time that she exchanged phone numbers with some ward members! We got her name and number too and I think we'll be able to meet with her and teach some gospel with a member soon. There was only a few complications at the party, one involving brother James and the police.

 

(James ^^) he showed up to the party in a bad mood, yelling swear words to himself. And he also had one of those box cutter razor blades on his person so our first counselor just called the cops so he wouldn't cause trouble at the party. Apparently for the rest of the party he was just across the street staring into the building cause the police told him not to come back. He came to church the next day, but he didn't show up until after it was over. He was in a much better mood though.

It makes him happy when we take pics together 

Luckily the whole police thing happened early on in the party so we were able to recover after that and have a good night and share a spiritual message too. 

Spiritual Thought:

Taking on the name of Jesus Christ, October 2025 General Conference 

We become more spiritually receptive. We have more courage to confront seemingly impossible circumstances. We are strengthened more in our resolve to follow Jesus Christ. We more speedily repent and return to Him when we transgress. We become better at sharing His gospel with His power and authority. We help those in need while being less judgmental, far less judgmental. We retain a remission of our sins. We have greater peace, and we are more cheerful because we can always rejoice. His glory will be round about us, and His angels will have charge over us

This is what happens when we take upon us the name of Jesus Christ. I think a lot of people say to begin a life focused on the gospel and take upon us the name of Christ is too big of a step because it means becoming all those things listed above. But really it's just becoming closer to those things little by little. We become MORE spiritually receptive then we were. And as we continue to live the gospel we can grow more and more

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메리 크리스마스 

왔다 갔다

I thought living in 춘천 would help me escape Seoul, but we've had to go there and back like 5 times in the past two weeks  it's okay though cause the subway ride helps me catch up on random texts and stuff that I have to do 

Zone P day

Exchange with Elder Kerestes! We randomly met one of our less active members in a restaurant so we were able to eat with him and invite him to our Christmas party! 

Nice little family that we met at one of the restaurants we like. They tried to give us alcohol but we said no so they gave us some meat instead 

It's been interesting adjusting to being a ZL, especially without a ZL companion, because my companion has a lot more free time than I do. That's good though cause he's still young so he needs to study Korean at night. I mean I do too but I have other stuff to do so 

Anyway I'm out of time I gotta get ready for ️cardfest️

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김치찌개 겸 감귤 다이어트

 Highlights: 

Our activities have actually started doing quite well! This was our board game activity on Tuesday, where we usually have only one person come if that. But this time we had a lot and in this picture we have Khazakstan (don't know how to spell that), Chinese, Brazilian, Korean, and American people. It was awesome. Most of them are college students that are going home to their countries in a few weeks cause the semester is over so that's too bad. But in January we'll get a whole new wave of students so I guess we have that to look forward to. There's a college near our church so it is a good place to find people 

We met with this guy joon who wanted to learn English! We ended up teaching him about the Book of Mormon. He said he's been a member of his other church for too long so switching is too hard, but we'll see. He came to English class too so that was good 

As the title of the email suggests, my diet now consists of kimchee cheegay () and oranges. I've never been happier. We found a ton of good 김치찌개 restaurants and now we can't stop eating it. Also it's only $5 at this place ^^

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Transfer news: I'm staying in choonchone (춘천) and becoming a zone leader with my MTC companion elder Kerestes. We're not gonna be comps though which will be a little tough but we'll make it work. I'm happy to be staying with my current comp though

Spiritual Thought

2025 general conference "forsake not your own mercy"

our first parents learned, only by tasting the bitterness and feeling the pain of a fallen world could we even conceive of, let alone enjoy, true happiness.

A testimony of the Fall does not excuse sin or a lax approach in life’s duties, which always call for diligence, virtue, and accountability. But it should temper our frustrations when things just go wrong or we see a moral failing in a family member, friend, or leader. Too often things like this cause us to wallow in contentious criticism or resentment that robs our faith. But a firm testimony of the Fall can help us be more like God as described by Jonah, that is, “merciful, slow to anger, and of great kindness” to all—including ourselves—in our unavoidably imperfect state.

These paragraphs remind us that because of the Fall, hard times, others mistakes that may hurt us, or even our mistakes that hurt ourselves, are part of God's plan. It is essential that we are in an imperfect state, and that we do make mistakes that can help us improve and keep working towards an ultimate goal in becoming more like Jesus Christ. So when those things happen, don't forget to stay centered on Jesus Christ and turn that mistake or trial into an opportunity to grow! 

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