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!

April 28, 2013

Everything is well here in Suwon, but I feel like my days are being
numbered. Transfer calls will be next week and since I've been here
for the past 6 months I expect a call, I'm not sure where I'll go (if
I go at all), but it has definitely been fun serving up here. This
past week we had a ward picnic on Saturday and it was really good to
see some of the ward members get out and mingle together. That's one
thing that is really hard in our ward; we have a lot of members that
are really busy with work and other church callings that they can't
make it out to ward activities. We have about 100 members that
regularly attend church and about 40 were able to come out to the
picnic so that was really good. We played soccer, dodgeball, had a
treasure hunt, and of course ate together. It was a blast and it was
really fun to spend an afternoon with our members. Last week our
investigators were really busy so we weren't able to meet a whole ton
of them, but I talked with a lot of them on the phone and they all
seem to be doing good. It seems like in Korea March and April are
really busy months so our work has kind of been slow recently, but
it's still been really fun! My companion got his visa last week so he
is all clear to go to the U.S. next month to begin his mission so I'm
really excited for him. Tonight we have a ward FHE at the church and
we are in charge of planning the activity. Hopefully at least maybe 30
members show up for it this time, last time we didn't have a ton of
members who showed up which was really disappointing, but we're going
to make it fun so hopefully they enjoy their time there tonight!

April 21, 2013

This week was good for us here in Suwon. We were able to visit one of
my investigators who we hadn't seen for about a month and a half so it
was really good to meet with him. He's been doing good, we visited him
in his Chinese restaurant and ate with him and talked for a while.
He's been super busy with work recently so he hasn't been able to meet
with us, but he said he might have time next month to meet. It kind of
sucks though because I think that by then I will probably transfer, so
before then I will have to visit him a few more times because he's
been my favorite investigator that I have met here. Other than that
this week was a little slow, I've been battling a cold that has kept
me inside for a few days, mostly just a cough and a runny nose, but
the weather outside hasn't helped. It got cold all of a sudden again
and the wind has been blowing more recently than before. So that's
kind of sucked, but the best part of last week was that my companion
and I were able to spend the day in Seoul! He had his visa interview
at the U.S. Embassy so we were able to spend a day up there. I ate a
turkish kebab for the first time in about 7 years and it was sooo
good! It was really overpriced, but I couldn't complain because it had
been so long. I also ate a crunchwrap supreme at taco bell for the
first time in about 2 years so it was just a day of happiness for me.
We visited some popular sites while we were up there and took a few
pictures and just had a blast up there. It definitely was not what I
was expecting though. I was expecting more like Tokyo or Hong Kong,
but it was a little different. It felt a little smaller and less
developed compared to the other 2 which was a little disappointing,
but it was still really fun. I'm looking forward to going back there
in 3 months when I finish my mission and get to spend a day up there
before returning home!

April 14, 2013

Everything is going well here in Suwon, the weather has been kind of
crazy but other than that all is well. We are still in the process of
finding new investigators at this point, but the ones we have are
doing well. One is named Jang Deok Hwan and he is really really really
smart. He's a psychologist and majored in religious studies so he's
really knowledgable on the different religions in the world so it's
always fun to meet with him. His conversion process will most likely
be a pain, but he's reading the book of mormon so that's a good start.
He has really cool theories about religion that are really fun to
hear. One that he told us was about the background of the buddhism and
Christianity, essentially how they came about. His belief right now is
that religion was created as a way for us to live better lives and to
guide us, I'm not entirely sure if he actually believes there is a God
or not though....he says he does, but his ideas sometimes conflict.
Anyways, he was saying if you look at an agricultural society, in
order to thrive they need to work together and share things because it
is a society in which you don't really move around. You grow your
plants and pretty much stay there, so it is good to have a big group
of people gathered together working together in order to thrive. But
in a desert society, you have to move around and hunt for your food,
so it's usually better to be in small groups or go around individually
because resources are so scarce and it doesn't make sense to provide
for a big group of people. He compared this to Buddhism and
Christianity. In India, it was largely an agricultural society where
they shared things so when you look at there religion, most likely it
would be based off of sharing and non violence. There are many Gods
who "share" their godhood and they work together non violently. But if
you look at Jerusalem (a desert society) they had to thrive
individually so their God would most likely be individual and in turn
that's why we are only allowed to worship 1 God. Anyways, 
his ideas were pretty cool, I bet I sound pretty retarded trying to
type them all out here, but it sounded cool when he told us. Anyways,
aside from hearing his theories every week, everything is pretty much
the same, we had General Conference this weekend (my last one as a
missionary) and it was really good. It was kind of sad because about
1/5 of our members actually came out and saw it, but those that did I
hope were at least uplifted in some way. Last week was pretty cool
also because while we were visiting our members and giving them
message cards we got invited in by one of our members who's husband is
a non member and she fed us. It was so cool, we had a great
opportunity to talk with him and get to know him a little bit. He
really likes golf so that's all I talked about with him which was
really cool. Before I left he gave me a sleeve of nice golf balls as
well so I'm excited to use them in a couple months when I get home! I
have 3 1/2 months left which is pretty crazy to think about, time is
moving so fast so I have to make sure I get the most out of my
remaining time here in Korea!

March 31, 2013

So the past couple of weeks have been pretty good for us here in
Suwon. My companion is still awesome and still really funny which
makes doing missionary work a whole ton easier. Right now though it's
a really busy time in Korea with University starting and stuff like
that so we've been having trouble meeting some of our regular
investigators recently. We haven't met my favorite man Choi Sung Yong
in over a month! But luckily we are going to visit his restaurant
tomorrow and catch up which I'm excited about. We're still playing
baseball in the morning with our ward and it's going ok, we're able to
get investigators out which is awesome, the thing that sucks is that
our ward members don't come out......Last week we had 2 come out which
was a complete failure, they all say that they are busy, but just no
one makes time for activities. I know if they wanted to they could
come out, just a lot of them don't see the purpose in gathering
together as an Elder's Quorum which makes me sad. But it's ok,
hopefully this week we'll be able to get some members out and play
some baseball! So transfers were last week as well, but nothing
changed with me and my companion so I don't have a ton to write about
it. This will be my 5th transfer in this area and hopefully my last.
Don't get me wrong, I love me ward, the problem is is that if I stay
another transfer I will most likely finish my mission in the new Seoul
South mission because our stake will be part of the Seoul South
mission as of July 1st. So I just have my fingers crossed that this
will be my last one here because I want to finish my mission in the
Daejeon mission. So let's just hope I get transferred in 6 weeks! This
week looks kind of exciting for us, we get to go to Daejeon for some
training program thing. That's pretty much all that's going
on here, hopefully we'll start picking stuff up soon!

March 17, 2013

So this past week was a pretty busy week for us, our investigators
were finally able to meet with us which was really good. The past
couple of weeks it's been weird because we haven't been able to meet
our investigators are regularly as in the past, so we weren't as busy
as we had been in the past, but this week everything worked out and we
were able to meet with them. They are all doing pretty good, we have
one ivnestigator named Jang Deok Hwan and he's pretty awesome. He's in
his 60s and is a psychologist and also knows the bible well. He's
reading the Book of Mormon right now and he's reading it in really in
depth because he wants to know what our church believes. He even
traced footnotes back to the bible! It was really cool to see how in
depth he is reading. He obviously still doesn't have a testimony or
anything like that, but we're hoping that he keeps progressing.
Another fun thing that happened last week was we played baseball with
our investigators and members on Saturday morning. We've been doing it
for a few weeks and this past week's turnout was definitely the best
that we had seen. We finally had enough to have full teams which was
fun. We had a couple investigators out and they brought their friends
so it was awesome to see them mingle with our members and get to know
them a little bit. We're hoping that they can keep coming out every
week and get closer to the members and hopefully establish some
friendships.