July 29, 2012

This past week was super good for us, but also really really busy as well. The week started off with an AP split where both APs came to our area and we made it a 4 man area for 2 days, which meant that we needed to find double the work. Luckily we had a lot of potential investigators that we were able to meet with and we met with our regular ones as well so it went really well. On Tuesday night Elder Choi of the Seventy had a little fireside at the Stake Center so we attended that with a few of our investigators and it was really good. He answered their questions and our investigators seemed to like it. We saw a lot of success this was week with Kang Gir Gu, we taught him faith and repentance this past week and he said that there are some things that he wants to confess to proper priesthood authority so he is going with our member this Friday to our mission office to meet with our mission president which we are really excited for. He has such a sincere desire to come closer to God and share the gospel with all those around him. He's bringing his daughter to church this next week so we're really excited to meet her. We had a lot of new investigators this past week and 2 of them were able to come out to church yesterday. They are boyfriend and girlfriend and they seem to really like our church. They are both 20 and are really nice, so we're excited to continue meeting with them. Last night we had a really funny experience with one of our investigators with a baptismal date. He works construction and because it was really hot yesterday he went out drinking at night, then came and met us. He was really drunk and told us that he wanted to be baptized right then. He was like "Don't doubt me! I believe this, hurry up and baptize me!" It was really funny, then he started scribbling stuff on the board and he said "This is neither English, nor Korean." Anyways, he's doing well though, I was just glad that he had such a strong desire to be baptized, his date is on the 9th of September so we promised him that we would baptize him on that date instead of last night. 
On Saturday my less active member in Mokpo came to Jeonju and visited me which was really fun. We had dinner together and then he sat in on our lesson at night which was really fun. He is going up to Seoul for vacation for a little bit so he decided on his way up to stop by and see me so I was really happy to see him.

July 22, 2012

This week we saw a lot of miracles here in Jeonju. In the beginning of
the week I went on a split with an Elder who is serving in Gunsan
right now and it was really fun to be with him. He's a greenie right
now so that made it even more fun of an experience. Our investigators
are also all doing really well, they are keeping their commitments and
progressing which is pretty much all we can ask for. The bearded
miracle we saw last week is still going super super strong, he's
reading right now in Mosiah and is loving every page he reads! All 3
of our progressing investigators came to a baptism this Saturday and
all enjoyed their time there, especially Kang Gil Gu (the bearded
man). One lady shared her testimony there and he was so touched by it
that he was crying. He also is reading in the Gospel Principles book
right now and read how when Jesus was getting the nails driven through
his hands he said "Father, forgive them for they know not what they
do." He was so moved by it that he cried and was so amazed. We sang
hymn number 180 at the baptism and he said that the words in that hymn
describe exactly how he feels right now. I would quote it, but I have
no idea what exactly it says, all I know is that it was really cool
when I read the words this morning in English. All 3 of our
progressing investigators also came to church, and Kang Gil Gu is
fitting in really well with our members. He's truly a remarkable man
and we're excited for his baptism on 8/19. In Korea right now they are
doing an YSA Basketball tournament and our Stake got 3rd place, Suwon
Stake (where I used to serve) ended up winning the tournament and they
will go to Japan and play some Japanese stakes up there which is
really cool.

July 15, 2012

This week was really good for us here in Jeonju. The first half of the
week kind of went by really slowly because we didn't have any
appointments or anything like that, but it really picked up towards
the end of the week. We ran into a older guy on the street with a huge
asian beard (thin enough to see his chin skin still, but it goes down
to his chest area) on Wednesday and he was really nice. We explained
who we are and what we are doing, gave him a copy of the Book of
Mormon, and set an appointment to meet him on Friday. Anyways, when we
met him 2 days later he had already read up to 1 Nephi 18! He had
decided to read the Book of Mormon that day so he read for 2 hours
before our appointment and read 18 chapters. He said that it was
really interesting and he loves the story (who wouldn't right?).
Anyways, he told us that he had been thinking a lot about God the day
we first met him so it was really a miracle that we stopped and talked
a little about our church. Anyways, we invited him to be baptized and
he accepted a baptismal date for the 19th of next month and he kind of
self invited himself to church as well which was awesome. We picked
him up on Sunday with a member and he greeted us outside his apartment
Book of Mormon and Bible in hand wearing a suit! He seemed to like all
the meeting although church was really weird this week. We sung weird
hymns (one's I've never sung before) and in Gospel Principles they
talked about Eternal Marriage and how we can become like Gods with our
wives (really deep for somebody who's coming for the first time). He
accepted it pretty well which was a huge miracle because if he accepts
some of the deeper doctrines he will have no trouble accepting the
simple parts of the gospel. We also saw another miracle in one of our
investigators calling us again after spending 2 weeks in a psych ward.
He suffers from paranoia schizophrenia (sounds a lot worse than it
actually is) but he said that he's all cured now (we hope). He was
completely normal before though, he understood everything well but he
was just paranoid about certain things all the time because he would
always watch CNN. Anyways, when I first came to this area he told us
he was going to "Italy" aka Pysch Ward, and that he'd be back in 2
weeks. We weren't sure if he would meet with us after that, but he
called us yesterday and we set up another time to meet with him so
we're really excited for that!

July 8, 2012

So this week was a good week for us here in Jeonju, we were able to
see our fair share of miracles I guess. We were able to meet with 3
new investigators and we were able to set a baptismal date with one of
them for the 5th of August. We're really hoping that he will end up
getting baptized because he loves drinking alcohol, but not just beer
and stuff like that, he likes hard alcohol, particularly a hard Korean
alcohol called Soju. He's about 23 years old and we met him to help
him learn English. He's moving to Australia next month to learn
English and he said that he'll be there for 3 to 5 years, so hopefully
by the time he gets back he'll be almost fluent. Last week we also had
Zone Leader Council and it was good, we discussed ways to help our
area and zone and this week on Wednesday my companion and I have to
give a training on it for combined district meeting. We're focusing
right now on getting member referrals as well as working with less
active members. We were able to get a couple referrals last week from
some of the youth in our ward so we're hoping to meet with them in the
near future. We're really trying to involve basketball in our
missinoary work and it seems to be going well. We play on Saturdays
and our ward members usually bring their friends so we're hoping to
see some success out of that.

July 2, 2012

This week in Jeonju we saw a lot of cool things happen. First, we had one of our investigators named Kim Yong Gi come out to a choir meeting on Saturday and church the next day on Sunday. in Gospel Principles class we learned about the Plan of Salvation and  eternal families and he said that he had never heard any of that stuff at any other church and he seemed to like it so we plan on teaching him more about it later. We did a lot of street contacting this week and set up a lot of appointments to meet with new people, but unfortunately most of them punked and didn't show up which was kind of lame, but we've got more potential investigators on the way that we're excited to meet. Right now we are working with the other Elders in this city to play basketball each week and meet people through it because everyone likes to play sports. Right now we're also working with a less active family and he and his wife and daughter came out to the choir meeting on Saturday and Church on Sunday which was super awesome to see! We hope that they continually progress, as well as all of our investigators. 

June 24, 2012

This week was pretty good here for me in Korea. Last week I spent a lot of time in Mokpo saying goodbye to members and some of our investigators, and then on Thursday I hopped on a train and came to Jeonju. My new companion's name is Elder Hardcastle and he's really awesome! He has 2 transfers left as a missionary so he's just trying to make the most out of it right now. We're working really hard in this area because the work here is a lot harder compared to other areas in our mission. It's notorious for bad members and no one really wanting to help with missionary work, but right now we're trying to change that so we're hoping all goes well. We have a few investigators here right now that we're working with and we have a lot of potential to get a lot more. My time here has been short so I haven't met all of our investigators yet, but as I meet with them more I'll let you know more about them. 

June 17, 2012

Well first off, we had transfer calls last night and I'm getting transferred again. This time I'm going to go to the Jeonju Zone and I'll be serving in the Jungang ward which is in Jeonju city. My new companion's name is Elder Hardcastle and I served around him while I was in Suwon Zone so I'm excited that I get to be his companion. He is almost done with his mission and has 2 transfers left so I'm hoping that I get to stay there for a little bit of time. That's the main exciting part of the news here, this past week we met with our less active members a lot and got some lessons in with them so we're hoping that they start coming out to church again real soon. One that we've been meeting with is named Kim Seung Nam and he was a miracle find, anyways he loves spending time with missionaries so this past week we did lunch and went bowling with him which was really fun. Our one progressing investigator's name is Yoon Sung Won and he right now is still trying to overcome his alcoholism through the Church's Addiction Recovery Program. He's been doing well in it so we're just trying to help him get through it.