July 7, 2013

This week was pretty good for us here in Gongju. We met our new mission president and his wife, President and Sister Shin. They are such kind people, I'm really excited for our mission here. President Shin used to be Executive VP of Samsung here in Korea, so he commands a lot of respect so he'll be able to influence our mission a lot. He is trying to focus on getting the wards more interested in missionary work and member responsibilities (particularly with the massive amount of less active members) so I'm so excited to see how it all goes. Our investigators are doing good though, Edna and Michelle (our Filipino investigators) are doing good. We met Edna in the middle of the week and Michelle came out to church (Edna was sick so she couldn't make it..) but they are both doing good. They want to learn more about God and Jesus Christ, so we teach them really slowly and simply in English because they aren't very good at English or Korean. We're working on getting the pamphlets in Tagalog so that they can fully understand what we are teaching them. This week we've got a few appointments with some investigators as well that we're looking forward to. One of our members' daughter is going to Utah soon to learn English so she told us to come over every night for dinner to help her daughter get used to speaking English, so we're looking forward to visiting them a lot! They are such a sweet family, the husband isn't a member, but he sure does love feeding us! I've got a little bit of time left here so we're trying to make the most of it! 

June 30, 2013

Hello everyone! Only 4 more emails to go after this! Time is winding
down very quickly.......it's crazy to think that 2 years ago this
month I was preparing to head to the MTC, and now I get to go home
again....I'm partially happy, and partially sad. I'm going to miss
serving here in Korea for sure. This week we actually got a new
mission president, his name is President Shin and he was actually all
the Korean missionaries' MTC Branch President so everyone knows him
very well. I'll only have the opportunity to serve under him for 1
month, but I'm looking forward to the experience. Last week we had a
farewell for President and Sister Furniss and I will definitely miss
them. I learned a lot from them and I definitely look forward to
seeing them after my mission. It's weird that now they are
on their way home to America, especially since I will be following
them shortly after. I don't have a lot of time left, but we're
making the most of it out here in Gongju! Last week we were
able to find 2 new people to teach so we're super excited
to meet with them, it gives us more stuff to do! Hahahahaha, anyways,
our Filipino investigators Edna and Michelle came out to church again
yesterday and they seem to like it. Next week they said that they are
going to bring out a friend so it should be interesting.
It's kind of difficult because they all have young children that make
a lot of noise and our investigators/their kids aren't really good at
English nor Korean, so it's kind of hard to communicate. We have 1
Filipino Sister in our ward so we're going to have to rely on her
heavily for translation help. It should be good though, we hope that
all goes well this next week as well!

June 23, 2013

Hello everyone! Well it's coming down to the end pretty quickly.....I
have a little over 1 month left to be a missionary and I'm definitely
going to miss it. It's been so great serving, I'm always so happy
because we're able to serve other people, it'll be weird going back to
a regular life. This past week was pretty good for us, I got my final
companion last week. His name is Elder Osguthorpe and he is from
Ogden, UT. He's in his third transfer right now and is excited to work
so I'm excited to spend my last transfer with him. This past week we
saw a miracle in that one of our members brought 2 Filipino women that
work at his office with him. They seemed to like our church a lot so
we're hoping that they decide to keep coming out each week. I'll keep
you posted more next week!

June 9, 2013

Hello everyone who reads my blog! Right now I'm still here in Gongju
and it's been really fun. This past week was kind of crazy for us
though. So we had been meeting with a recently re-activated family in
our ward in order to prepare their daughter for what we thought would
be a convert baptism....but it turns out that she's still 8 years 11
months and 20 something days old..... so when she is baptized next
Sunday it will be a member baptism, not a convert baptism. I don't
know how that information was found out so late, but we just found out
yesterday and I was super embarassed because we had essentially been
doing the discussions for no reason at all. Maybe there was a reason
behind it that I don't know yet, but it was pretty crazy to me. That
was kind of the crappy part of last week, the good part was that we
had an investigator who planned out a whole tour of Gongju today for
our zone so that was really fun. He set it up so we had a tour bus and
lunch provided and we were able to visit a bunch of historical sites
today which was really awesome. He is so kind, unfortunately he
doesn't have a ton of interest in the gospel, but he's always willing
to help us out so it was amazing. Hopefully we'll be able to find some
more people soon to teach, I have less than 2 months left which feels
really weird, but we're making the most out of it!

May 26, 2013

This week was a really awesome week for us here in Gongju! The week
started off pretty normal, we had some regular appointments, but other
than that it was pretty dead. We were able to meet our investigator
with a baptismal date and she is so adorable. Her family went less
active for a little bit, but is now coming out to church again so she
is about 10 years old so we're preparing her for baptism. She already
knows all the lessons and everything so it's all a review, but it's
super fun to meet with her and play games with the family. She will be
baptized next month on the 18th, so we're looking forward to that. One
big miracle we saw last week happened on the way to one of our
appointments. It was in the morning and we were going to meet one of
our investigators when I man sitting at a table outiside a convenient
store stops us and asks us to sit down with him. He was talking about
how his father had passed away a month before and that he had a lot of
guilt and stuff like that because his father never attended church and
that he might have gone to hell. We taught him about the spirit world
and how this isn't the end of our life and that this life is just a
really small moment in the eternities and he was so excited about
that. He was so thankful to hear our message and recognized that God
put us in his path that morning to meet him. It was way awesome, we
got his phone number and we're planning on meeting with him this next
week. He lives in Seoul, but he comes to Gongju pretty regularly.
Worse comes worse we refer him to the Elders in Seoul, but he's pretty
much awesome and hopefully he'll make a decision to be baptized in the
near future! Just a second ago too we got a phone call from a woman
who wants to know more about our church so we set up a time to meet on
Friday so hopefully all goes well with her.

May 19, 2013

This week was pretty slow for us here in Gongju, but it was still
rewarding. Last week we weren't able to meet with a lot of our
investigators due to scheduling conflicts, but we were able to spend a
lot of time with our members which was really good. On Wednesday we
got a call from one of our members and he asked for our help because
he was closing down his English tutoring place (In Korea they call
them Academies, but they are like tutoring offices? I don't know what
to call it in English). He hardly ever asks for help from the
missionaries so we were really happy for the opportunity to serve him
and talk to him, but at the same time we were really sad because he
had to close his academy and now has to find a new job which really
sucks. He's such a strong member and 2nd counselor in the stake
presidency, but he has a lot of hardships in his life right now so
we're trying our best to help him and his family. On Thursday night
our ward had a campout for Buddha's birthday so even though we
couldn't sleep over we went on both Thursday and Friday and spent the
day with our members. It's been a miracle that we've had so may
opportunities to interact with our members and get to know them. I've
been so happy getting to know the people here and I know that as we
continue working together we'll be able to see a lot of success
together here in Gongju! We have 1 baptismal date right now and she's
an adorable 12 year old girl who's parents are both members and
starting to come back out to church again. She will be baptized next
month so we're realy looking forward to it. Our ward pretty much
consists of 2 families, which is really funny. Everyone is brothers or
sisters or cousins, so it's almost like every week at church they are
having a family reunion or something! Haha, but it's really good, we
love our members and they love us so we're making the best of our
situation!

May 12, 2013

Hello everyone! This is Elder Miller and for the first time in 7
months I'm out of Suwon! I was transferred this past week to a little
teeny town called Gongju, and it's way out in the sticks. It's not
like rice paddys and not apartment buildings small, but it's
definitely not city by any means. Each city that I've served in has
had something similar to a Walmart where we would go shopping and buy
groceries, but this city has none of that, so it's definitely the
smallest city that I've actually lived in. It's really good though,
since it's smaller it has a much kinder feel and the people are just
generally nicer which is lovely. They smile more and are more polite,
but they are all really really old! I swear the only people I talk to
nowadays are 60+ in age. But it's ok, they are really nice so it makes
it worth it. I'm really sad that I had to leave Suwon, I met a lot of
wonderful people there that I will miss, especially the members. We
were really close with a few of the single male members there and I
miss talking with them and doing stuff together. But all will be ok,
the members here (all 40 of them ;) ) are super funny! They love to
joke around and have a good time so I'm fitting in much better than I
did in Suwon. We've seen miracle after miracle already in the short
time that I've been here. I really wanted to get to know the members
here quickly because I don't have a lot of time here, so we scheduled
to visit members quite frequently. On Saturday we helped one of our
members with an activity that he was putting on and at that time I was
able to meet a few members, and one of them invited us over for dinner
that night so that night we ate at the bishop's house and I had a good
oppurtunity to meet them and get to know them so that was cool. Then
on Sunday after church we got invited to lunch and dinner by 2
different members, so we were able to visit them in their homes and
share messages with them. We've been so blessed to get to know the
membes quickly and I'm hoping God provides a way for us to get some
more sudden dinner invites so we can continue to build a good
relationship with our ward. This week we have some appointments with
our investigators and since I haven't met a large portion of them yet,
I can't really say how they are, but from what I've heard they are
really awesome so I'm excited to meet them. I'll let all of you know
how well it goes!