Elderly Interactions

We had quite a few interactions with elderly people this week. I mean that's pretty much every week but we had some more interesting ones this week.

The first interaction was a humbling experience.

I got destroyed by this grandma in badminton (over 70 years old). I don't have much experience in badminton but I'm not too bad at racquet sports so I figured I could take her. But apparently my form was bad and so I was using way more energy by swinging with my whole arm rather than just my wrist which is the easier more effective option. I'm still sore from the encounter. We were playing badminton for our ward activity, but me and my companion actually plan to go back and play with the old people again and try and teach them, cause a lot of them were curious why there was an American there and they were asking a lot of questions

The second interaction was a happy experience.

We went proselyting as a district, and somehow found ourselves dancing with this random lady by the subway station! People who were walking by even began to film us haha. We were able to get her number and 2 other people's numbers who were interested in learning English that night. Join the photos to see the rest of the dances 

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

Another multiple little experiences happened on an exchange I went on on Wednesday. Me and Elder Cutanda from the Philippines were able to do a lot of proselyting and talk to a lot of old people at a park. It was really nice for me to get out and have real conversations with people cause I don't have as much time to proselyte in the office these days. I learned a lot about having meaningful conversations and teaching while I find rather than just handing out a card and being done. Elder Cutanda is very talented at proselyting and I learned a lot of valuable things. Even though we didn't get any phone numbers, we shared our testimonies face to face with people and were even able to teach people about our beliefs. There were some elderly people meditating at the park and we asked if we could join them and they seemed enthusiastic until the leader of the group said no cause he knew who we were 

pic after the exchange

Other highlights 

Elder Beardall returned home safely and got his long awaited chick-fil-a

Lotte Tower

Spiritual Thought

Faith in Jesus Christ is a gift, but receiving it is a conscious choice that requires a commitment of all our “might, mind and strength.” It is a practice of every day. Every hour. It takes constant learning and determined commitment. Our faith, which is our loyalty to the Savior, becomes stronger as it is tested against the opposition we face here in mortality. It endures because we keep nourishing it, we keep actively applying it, and we never give up. On the other hand, if we fail to use faith and its convincing power by acting upon it, we become less sure of things we once held sacred—less confident of things we once knew were true

The fire of yesterday’s testimony can warm us for only so long. It needs constant nourishment to keep burning brightly.

This is an excerpt from Elder Uchtdorfs most recent general conference talk. I specifically like the second part which talks about constant nourishment of the testimony. It is important to keep nourishing our testimonies, no matter how great or how many spiritual experiences we have had. So it important to use the gift of faith in our lives and keep choosing Jesus Christ every day, and keep kindling the fire of our testimonies

젠슨 장로

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

추석 / Late Nights

 안녕하세요 

After countless people asking why I didn't send an email last week (just my mom) I have decided to write an email this week 

We had a holiday in korea this past week called 추석 that is like Korean Thanksgiving. We had a fun P day with the mission where we made some traditional Korean foods, danced, and played volleyball (our team won). after p day our mission president invited me and my companion and the APs to dinner with him so we all went to a restaurant that ended up being really far so we didn't get home until after 10 haha

We had something called teaching camp this week where the APs had a bunch of missionaries come to our area and they had a bunch of trainings to learn about how to become better teachers. The APs only had one day to plan the whole 2 day long teaching camp, so we helped them. We ended up doing 3 trainings at the teaching camp, and since we had to stay up to prepare it we didn't get home until like 11. The teaching camp went well though so it was busy but good.

Expensive Burger 

Meal with bishop's family 

Us after a member gave us a ton of food

I tried getting everyone excited for district p day at the aquarium (I think it worked)

After Japanese class this week I shared the spiritual thought and after that one of our teaching friends that has been attending announced to the class that he's decided he likes our church and will continue to attend. It was kind of a random thing to announce haha but good for all of us I guess 

That's all

젠슨 장로 

District p-day at the aquarium 

Mr. Jin meets Mission President

 

Traveling / Dancing

It was a long week with a lot of surprises 

Highlights:

 

~ got to travel to Bucheon and visit their district council and relive some old bucheon mems

~ got to eat 김치찌개 twice  (kimchi stew, or soup, idk what it is in English really. My bad sometimes I just forget English )

~ got to travel to gangnam too and visit the old house. There's not 6 people living there anymore so it's actually like a normal house now 

~ got to travel to youngdeungpo for MLC (missionary leadership council)

~ found out some good news: Mr Jin is on date for baptism!! For those of you who remember him, he was the teaching friend in sokcho who wrote me a lot of nice texts. He's also the one who got naked when we went hiking. Anyway, after I left sokcho he started going to church. And this week I had a meal with the mission president's wife cause they are always around us, and while we were talking she said she was going to sokcho this weekend. 

So I told her to keep an eye out for Mr Jin because he's been going to church recently. I also told her that I think he's going to get baptized someday because I had a dream that he did haha. So on Sunday, I got a text from Mr Jin, cause we still stay in contact, and it was a picture of him at church with the mission president and his wife haha. And later I found out that apparently the mission presidents wife convinced him to set a baptismal date while she was there haha so yeah. It might take longer than we're expecting cause I know he does drink, but that was still amazing to hear.

Other interesting moment:

Randomly we got a call this week from some sisters in an area saying they got 500 referrals at once. Which is not normal at all. So we looked into it, and the people in provo said that the english referalls have been getting a little clogged in the system but when it resolved they all sent at once to a single area. So we had to go and send them throughout the mission to wherever they lived. I think one area ended up having like 80 or something hehe (sorry Elder Morris) but yeah hopefully we get some people to English class from that 

Spiritual Thought: 

For the spiritual thought I'd like to share one of my favorite of President Nelson's quotes in his honor. 

I might have shared it before but that's okay. 

As we strive to live the higher laws of Jesus Christ, our hearts and our very natures begin to change. The Savior lifts us above the pull of this fallen world by blessing us with greater charity, humility, generosity, kindness, self-discipline, peace, and rest.

I know that President Nelson was a prophet of God, and by listening to his words, we can hear and learn the things God will have us know through his messenger. Striving to follow the prophets words is also striving to follow the Savior. And by doing that, we will be blessed with charity, humility, generosity, kindness, self-discipline, peace, rest, and so much more

I guess I didn't talk about dancing at all yet. Oh well, I'm out of time. Maybe next week 

젠슨 장로

https://youtu.be/opPZzFfUhAY