6 months

We should have had transfer news by now, but they changed it, so now we don't find out on Saturday and go the next Thursday, we find out Wednesday night and go on Thursday. I guess so that missionaries will not be lazy once they know they're getting transfered. Kinda sad though, cause that was usually my most productive week, cause it was a great chance to meet with a bunch of people cause you can say you're leaving and won't be able to meet them again.

Anyway, I told one of our teaching friends that I might be leaving, and she wrote me a note. The end of the note said this: 

I can give you my entire being, and my whole heart. Like The Lord, I love you so much. I love you. I love you.

Not really sure what to do about that haha.

Last week we cooked lunch for the ward, cause our mission president said we should. We were kind of scared cause apparently the missionaries a while back tried to cook and it went horrible and the members wouldn't eat it. But we decided to make bibimbap and it went okay. We planned it out very well cause we didn't it to go bad and the members liked it so we're gonna cook once a month now.

Yesterday at church we had 4 minutes until church started, and there was only 3 people there, me, my companion, and the bishop. But then these people came visiting from another ward and also a lot more people at the last second so we ended up having like 16 so that was good. 

Went to Seoul and back again this week. I think we went once a week 5/6 weeks in the transfer 

Talent show

Take Up Our Cross - october 2019 GC

Please remember that the Savior’s gift of grace “is not necessarily limited in time to ‘after’ all we can do. We may receive His grace before, during, and after the time when we expend our own efforts.”

This quote is a good reminder that as we do everything in our power and try our best, we are qualifying for the Saviors Grace that will fill the gaps when we fall short! We don't only receive his grace after, we can receive it during the process as well! 

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

I chipped my tooth 😔

We had a good week, met with a lot of new people for the first time, some were interested, some weren't.

Met with this grandpa named 황형춘 for the first time, and we ate 춘천 닭갈비! It was delicious  he wasn't super interested though and used to attend purification church, but now he is atheist

Another guy we met with had interest, and even said he would come to church on Sunday! He was very interesting and also wanted us to translate his poems for him from korean to english and help him spread them to the world. He read the poem for us and warned us that people usually cry when he reads his poems, and so he told us there was a chance we might cry. Even though he never sent us the actual poem, it went something like this: title - When Snow Falls

        When snow falls, upon the ground

        Morning birds, but not a sound

        Covering the trash, cities become white

        Night turns to day, darkness turns to light

        The stains of the world, as well as all the dirt

        If only for but a moment, disappear with all the hurt

        When snow falls, upon the ground

        Life becomes pure, until the sun comes around

That's my rough translation of his poem. He also told us another but I can't remember it. Anyway, he didn't come to church, but hopefully we can meet him again. 

Last day before the river probably melts for good

I'm out of time so thats all for now. Oh yeah but I chipped my tooth biting into a metal chopstick  I'm not happy about it. I won't be showing any pictures  

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커피 타임 ☕️

 Lots of things that happened this week. I'll start with some lows and then finish with some highs~~

Low #1 - 이호준

First low: 이호준... last week we met with him, had a nice lesson about the restoration, even gave him a book of mormon! He told us he used to attend lots of different churches, but is currently Buddhist. He used to have a friend from America who was a member of our church, and loves Americans. It was the perfect situation. Until Wednesday. We met with him a second time, and this time we had to rush to Seoul that night for a meeting the next day so when we told him, he suggested that we eat together at a restaurant next to the station. So we said sure and went to eat together. But on the way we also picked up his wife cause he had to drop her off someone else on the way. So he introduced us, and she was actually quite nice! I thought, "nice, maybe we can teach the wife too!" But after a conversation between the 4 of us in the car, they started muttering korean amongst themselves. And I guess they underestimated our korean ability, cause I heard EXACTLY what they said.

 이호준's wife: so what, are you thinking about joining this church or something? (Said with sarcasm btw^^)

이호준: what? Of course not! Listen, they've got time to spare, I've got time to spare, this is just a hobby.

Us: ()

~~10 minutes later~~ (in the meantime, his wife gets dropped off and it's just back to us) 

*rrring rrring*  (이호준's phone rings)

이호준: 아 예, 목사님!! (Oh, hey pastor!) (It was his church pastor calling)

Us: () 

So in the 10 minute car ride, we found out a lot about 이호준...

We in fact, do not have time to spare. We need to teach people who are ready to listen to the gospel of Jesus Christ and change their lives to follow Him. But I think we'll give 이호준 one more chance, because I think his heart is more open than he wants his wife to believe

Low #2 - TESTIMONY CRISIS

I'm not gonna lie, I've been struggling. I mean, some of the changes that the church has made recently were to be expected. The sister missionary age change, taking away the evening session of conference, even slowing down the process of announcing Temples until we actually start building them makes sense. But taking away the sacred music app??? I just don't know...let's just say it's gonna take a lot of fasting and prayers to feel right about this one 

Highs 

High #1 - coffee time! 

We had a pretty open day on Saturday, and decided to call a gray dot. He said he'd call later, so we were just like "well, just another gray dot"', and moved on. But he called back. He called back while we were on our way to the church, and in broken English said "you come here, now." So we did what we had to do, and went! 알고 보니 him and his two grandpa friends were all drinking coffee at a coffee shop. So me and my companion got to work. He taught two of the grandpas while I taught the other one. None of them are too interested, but they said they're always there, and to go talk to them again next time. So we're gonna go back this week and find them all hehehe ×3

High #2 - English class! 

Two hours after coffee time, we had english class. This week, we had SIXTEEN PEOPLE. That's the most I've ever had in chuncheon, and anywhere outside of Seoul honestly. A bunch of our students just brought their friends, and it went so well. We split up into two classes and I taught the beginner class while the others taught advanced. I love beginner class cause they don't know anything so I have to explain things in korean so it's korean practice for me  also one of the grandpas from coffee time pulled up haha so that was funny. 

High #3 - church! ️

We had 4 teaching friends pull up to church in chuncheon this past Sunday. One was an english class student, one was our guy on date who came for the first time, and one was 이사랑. We weren't able to get any member lessons unfortunately cause our guy on date left before second our, and 이사랑 said she felt uncomfortable with the member there

BUT we invited her to be baptized again (she laughed when we invited her to first time) and she seemed more open this time, though not quite ready yet. She also started crying randomly during the lesson, I still have no idea what that was about. It wasn't even during like a spiritual part I thought, so it was honestly just kind of awkward more than anything else. But yeah she's been to church 3 times now, so she could potentially be baptized once we finish teaching her everything if things go well

Other highlights: 

Frozen river 

김치찌개 (it didn't even fill us up, so we had to get mcdonalds after)

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

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안녕👋안녕🤝

There were a lot of goodbye's and hello's this week. I said goodbye to my second son elder simmonsor simpson, as all our teaching friends called him.We had a goodbye meal with 이호준, who played his pen flute for us and then fed us 설렁탕. We also gave him a church tour and taught him the restoration. I think he has pretty bad ADHD so it got off topic a lot but it was okay. We're gonna meet him every Wednesday from now on. He also has a pen flute club so I'm hoping to learn a thing or two on the pen flute if I can. You can see a vid of him playing the pen flute in my photos 

Said hello to my previous and also my new companion, Elder Ejercito! Last time we were SNS together, and this time we will be ZLs together, so I'm pretty excited. We have no time for dance practice anymore but I'm hoping to squeeze something in every here and there to keep up my ability (I have no ability).

We used Elder Simmons leaving as a way to get a bunch of appointments, so we had a lot of teachings this week. Upon meeting most of them, I realized we should probably drop most of them...it's too bad but I have a really bad habit of not dropping people when they don't progress cause I wanna help them progress. But it takes too much time to meet with people who are not progressing so (green dot)️(Gray dot)

On the bright side, 이사랑 came to church again. I asked if she wanted to have a discussion during the second hour, and she said she just wanted to listen to the Sunday school. So I was like okay whatever, but then about halfway through she start coughing (fake coughing btw, it was pretty obvious) and then left the chapel. And then a member went out and came back a second later saying she wanted to talk to us outside. 

So I was like bruh, but I grabbed the member so we could get a member lesson and we taught her. We talked about Temples, and my companion said she should prepare to go to the temple someday, and she laughed. Come to think of it, she also laughed when we invited her to be baptized. But hey she used to laugh when we invited her to church and now she comes so I'd say that's improvement. 

She said I look like this animal. Well to be exact she said "this resembles jensen. I tend to see things as nature." So not sure what that means.

River froze over again 

This week I have been especially grateful for the fulness of the gospel. I read a talk by president oaks a few years ago where we explained why people have a need to attend church in general, and then he explained why people need to attend this church.

2 nephi 28:30 

for unto him that receiveth I will give more; and from them that shall say, We have enough, from them shall be taken away even that which they have.

This week we had a teaching where our teaching friend said she felt that she had all that she needed, and that her church and the Bible was enough, and felt that she didn't need any more, such as our church or the book of mormon. 

There can be truth and great morals found in other places, but there is no other place where people can become perfected through the proper ordinances, performed with the proper authority, that comes through worthily living the Gospel of Jesus Christ which was restored by the prophet Joseph Smith. There is no other church where you can be sealed to your family for time and all eternity. There is no other church where the prophet receives direct revelation from God to help us in this exact dispensation through the trials that we face every day in this modern time. And that is why the Bible is simply not enough. Like the scripture says, God will give more to those who will receive. To those who receive the fulness of his gospel and the book of mormon, he will give the gift of the holy ghost, and exaltation of the highest degree, as long as we fulfill the other steps necessary to get there

Anyway

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Your Prophet Looks Like Satan

This was a pretty good week! We had quite a few miracles️ 

Highlights: 

We put our friend 구담현 on date for baptism! It was actually our first time meeting, and I've never seen someone so prepared. He doesn't know a lot about church, but he is 100% ready to do whatever it takes to change his life for the better and so we told him that baptism is the way to do that. So we set his date for February 15th, and said we'd continue to teach him more to prepare him as the date gets closer. Unfortunately he didn't come to church on Sunday, but hopefully we are able to meet him again this week. 

이사랑! We have a teaching friend named 이사랑, who we've considered dropping like 10 times cause sometimes it feels like she's playing games with us. But we were able to use the new transfer and Elder Simmons leaving this week as a way to get her to finally come to church! She was recently baptized into a different church, but is still interested in ours and loved church on Sunday so I think she will come back again. Sometimes I feel like she thinks she's the main character in a movie by the way she texts, but it's whatever. She's progressing so 어쩌겠어요

Quotes from 이사랑 during our last teaching:

"Your prophet looks like satan"

"None of your business" (her reply to "what did you do this week?")

"Do you believe in destiny?"

"I think the book of mormon is only for Americans"

Transfer news night 김치찌개

Under the bridge

Spiritual Thought 

A framework for personal revelation: 2022 general conference 

The elements of the framework for personal revelation are overlapping and mutually reinforcing. But within that framework, the Holy Ghost can and will reveal everything we need to soar onto and maintain momentum on the covenant path. Thus we can be blessed by the power of Jesus Christ to become what Heavenly Father wants us to be.

There's nothing really specific about that paragraph that I wanted to share other than it's a good paragraph. I actually just really liked this talk while reading it this week and found it very interesting! I know that God gives us personal revelation in our lives to help us have guidance when we seek for it!

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

🧊🧊🧊

It's been really cold, which is tough since the church is a 40 minute walk from our house. But we've still been able to meet with some people so that's good

One of our new friends is 이호준

He's the guy in the back. We handed him a card on the street and he called us and wanted to meet sometime. So we had been texting back and forth and randomly he wanted us to go meet him at his little clubhouse or whatever you'd call it idk. His friends were there too and so we took this picture lol. I was hoping we could teach the friends but they left pretty quick after we got there. He also played some songs for us on this little flute instrument thing haha

There's this little town in our area about 30 minutes away called gapyeong and we felt prompted to set a time to go on Wednesday. So we contacted everyone we could find that said they were from there and ended up having 3 appointments. When we actually went, 2 of the appointments canceled but we were able to meet with the third. Apparently she's actually not even from gapyeong but met us there anyway. She does go there every Sunday though to go to a church there. She told us her whole conversion story to her church, and it seems like she's very faithful, but hopefully we can get her interested in the Restored Gospel

We tried door knocking on Sunday and didn't have much success, but we did find a nice sunset on a roof of one of the apartments. Most apartments just give anyone free access to the roof, cause sometimes people will grow crops up there and stuff 

The river next to our house froze over 

Spiritual Thought 

General Conference 2022 Tracy Y Browning 

Our dear prophet has taught that “our focus must be riveted on the Savior and His gospel” and that we must “strive to look unto Him in every thought.” President Nelson has also promised that “nothing invites the Spirit more than fixing your focus on Jesus Christ. … He will lead and guide you in your personal life if you will make time for Him in your life—each and every day.” Friends, Jesus Christ is both the purpose of our focus and the intent of our destination. To help us to remain fixed and heading in the right direction, the Savior invites us to see our lives through Him in order to see more of Him in our lives. I’ve come to learn more about this specific invitation through my study of the Old Testament.

I like the invitation to see through Him, so that we can see more of him in our lives. I think that this could be interpreted in multiple different ways, but the way I thought about it was that seeing through him could be viewing others, or the world, as he would view them or it. When we view others as He would, we can see more of him in our lives, partly because as we do that we are becoming more like him!

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