2016年7月25日

I guess I'll start with 이장석, since everybody reminded me to tell about him. I hope I didn't get y'all's hopes up with that, because it's really not a good story. He was baptized the 19th and of course attended church that Sunday and again the Sundayafter that. Then the following week he informed us that he would soon need to be admitted to a hospital in Seoul for a few months due to a mental disorder and wouldn't be able to attend church or meet with us or even have access to his phone. A few days following that, our zone leaders texted us saying they believed they had just seen him on the street and tried to say hello but he ignored them. That was obviously weird, so we assumed they had mistaken some stranger for him. Then maybe a week or two later they tell us they saw him again in the subway, at which point we're trying to still believe it was some mistake. Well then last Sunday (7/17), we went to his house to ask his parents about which hospital he's staying at and whether it'd be possible for the missionaries in that area to visit him. His mom answered the door and seemed to have no clue about any hospital or even who the missionaries were. She didn't have the door open very wide, but we caught a glimpse of 이장석 bolting in the opposite direction. She told us to wait a minute and closed the door, which was reopened after a moment by the man himself. He only spoke for maybe 30 seconds, telling us he was in the middle of a meal and he'd call later. Later he texted saying he'd have no time to meet with us the following week and he'd be going on vacation soon. No mention of a hospital. We've got no clue what prompted all this.

So that was a bummer, but the past week wasn't too bad. Highlights: Monday-To celebrate our one year anniversary, my 동기 (group with which I entered the MTC and came to Korea) had a reunion party for P-day, which was pretty nice. I hadn't even seen good ol' Elder Sabey since getting back in country. Tuesday-Had our first interviews with President Turner. He's pretty solid. Friday-Had our last lesson with 조세종, an investigator we've met with three times now who's about to move to the Seoul mission. He's progressing really well, completely contrary to what our expectations were after first meeting him. Then that night we met with a potential investigator who turned out to be a very fiery Bible-basher from another church. During said discussion (which was taking place on some benches at a small park), the totally certifiable less-active mentioned in last week's email saw us while passing by and came and sat down to teach with us. But unfortunately, the other guy asked him to leave. Elder Eddy and I both feel like it would've been good for him (the less-active) to help us out.

And there were lots of meetings with members and investigators, but nothing too noteworthy. Today for P-day, since Elder Eddy and I both served in Gimpo, we're gonna go visit 장순창, the member whom I kept emailing while in America. Should be fun.

Love you guys,

리스 장로

 

Happy birthday, Jeremy's mission

A lot of this week's noteworthy happenings seemed to be in connection with less-actives:

1. Monday night we met with 전봉휘. That's a funny story, but it'll have to wait.

2. Later in the week we met with David, who had been baptized seven-eight-ish years ago by a missionary who it seems wasn't quite as obedient as he should've been. Consequently, David loves inviting missionaries to go hang out with him and break the rules. But he promised Elder Eddy he'll come to church before his mission ends (which would be in one month), which is progress, I suppose.

3. When we met again with 김경수 (the guy who served a mission but got swindled or something by a stake leader), he offered to cut us up with an ex-acto knife to test how much forgiveness one can offer through the Atonement, and he seemed pretty sincere. But I love that guy so much (not sarcasm).

4. 김종인: Just met this guy this week. He injured his back years ago and so wanted us to help him rearranging some furniture in his newly-moved-into house and doing some farming (not sure how his back's still up for farming but not taking a bus to church, but....agency, I guess). That was pretty cool, but afterward when we tried to have a gospel discussion he instantly went off about how pollution and global warming are killing this planet and NASA's scientists better get on finding a way to shoot all of our trash into space and colonize Jupiter and Saturn (but zero mention of Mars, surprisingly). Although in a way this monologue was pretty miraculous: just a day or two earlier I had learned the names (in Korean) of all the planets, and then wondered why I'd really ever need to know them. (Not that I had wasted a whole bunch of time on it; you can learn all their names really really easily with a little knowledge of 한자 and mythology.) But then there we were. That's actually something I've seen a whole lot on my mission. Like a whoooole lot. It seems every time I learn new words, no matter how common or uncommon they may be, they suddenly pop up in all the weirdest places, and those odd 'coincidences' make it super easy to remember them. I've decided that's part of how the gift of tongues works.

Outside of that, we weren't able to meet with super-golden 김돈 again; he says he was still busy but will finally this week be able to meet us. We picked up a new investigator, 조세종, who's pretty solid but will move to the 서울 mission in a week. President and Sister Turner attended our church yesterday, which was pretty cool. President Turner's Korean isn't too bad for how recently he arrived, although he did use a translator of course for his sacrament meeting talk. We have our bi-transfer-ly interviews with him tomorrow. (Speaking of bi-transfer-ly things, we will henceforth only be going to the temple that often (as opposed to each transfer), because a member of the North Asia Area Presidency thinks we go to the temple "too often." Because, you know, that's a problem that a lot of people have. But I'll follow my priesthood leaders.)

Remind me to write about 이장석, the guy who got baptized right when I got here, next week, because it's a story too long for the time I have remaining. In other news, while you guys have your above-100 heat indices, the past few days over here have been real cool. I would even have called Saturday morning 'cold.' Of course it's usually pretty warm, but the summers here definitely have nothing on Texas.

사랑으로,

리스 장로

Happy 7-11 Day (alternatively titled: "Donald Was There")

사랑하는 여러분,

It definitely won't be possible to keep that length up, sorry. I didn't read or write basically anything out of that one last week. Concerning the guy who chased us down on the street, he lives in the first ward, so not our area, but I asked those elders about him and they say he's been coming to church. The golden investigator will be able to meet again sometime this week.

The ward is easily the biggest I've served in yet. About 130 active members. It used to be two and a half wards, but the boundaries got redrawn about a year and a half ago.

The past week was pretty cool. On account of 추지웅 장로님 transferring, Monday and Tuesday pretty much consisted of appointments with lots of members who wanted to say goodbye. When 전운봉 (the member who owns the bakery from which we bought Elder Eddy's birthday cake) heard about our cake getting eaten he went ahead and gave us one for free despite our best efforts to pay for it. It was delicious. Wednesday a girl in primary got baptized, which was pretty cool. We got to be a part of the confirmation. The group that left on Friday consisted of 18 missionaries (and only 5 came in), including my trainer Elder Ellsworth.

On Thursday we tracked down a less-active guy; he was home and super excited to see us. He's mid-twenties and was baptized last year while living in Canada. 김영환 (but he just goes by Kim in the English-speaking world). Right now he helps his grandparents on their farm every weekend, but pretty soon he'll be starting school again and plans to be coming back to church then. Also, he might refer the rest of his family to us, which would be pretty awesome.

And some other stuff happened, but nothing too noteworthy. Yesterday I was thinking that the most frustrating part of missionary work is that it ought to be so much easier than it is. Ideally, it should be as simple as: "Here's this book. Read it. Pray about it. And when you get an answer, then nothing else matters. Just do it. Do all of it." Then of course the missionaries would have to spend some time explaining what exactly "all of it" is, but people should be totally willing to do it. If you just got a witness from God--aka the omniscient, omnipotent Creator of the very universe--that this is true and correct and what you're supposed to be doing, then how much can any sort of obstacle matter? But instead people come up with the craziest reasons to not get baptized or to go inactive or even to not take those simple steps in the first place. I don't get it. But I guess that's life. And besides, I don't remember the last time something worth doing was easy.

Love all you guys!

리스 장로

P.S. The guy in the picture would be 이종순, an investigator who was referred by a friend who just went to the New York New York South Mission. (Also, said friend (who came from our ward) got to pass the sacrament to all twelve of the Apostles while in the MTC!!! What??)

P.P.S. This Friday marks one year from when I went into the MTC, which is much more time than what I feel like has gone by.

If you happen to see America around, tell her happy birthday for me.

사랑하는 가족,

It's been a pretty crazy week. Monday and Tuesday I was on an exchange with Elder Dray in a neighboring area. He's only a greenie, so I fiiiiinally got to be the missionary doing most of the communicating, which was a blast. (The Korean's basically all back now. It's hard to remember exactly how well I was doing before I left, but I might be back to that level. It's actually harder with a Korean companion as they tend to take over all the communicating.) We had two lessons scheduled, but both cancelled, so we were basically proselyting all day, and it was a ton of fun. About dinner time on Tuesday we were walking down the street when somebody starting calling out to us from way behind us. He ran up and seemed really, really eager to talk with us and pulled us into a nearby cafe, so I assumed he was some 전도사 (basically somebody working for another church who just wants to Bible-bash). But then he dropped his life story on us, saying he used to be all about drinking and hitting up nightclubs (and was even on a pro soccer team but got kicked off for drinking too much), but then last year he "met God" and gave that life up. (Not that he actually claims to have seen God, but he came to believe. "Found Jesus.") Then he spent a few months just out on the streets preaching at people (and spent so much time doing so that his wife divorced him), but he doesn't do that anymore. But since that time he's been attending different churches looking for one to join, but he doesn't like that they're all established by the pastors themselves and really just want to get big and make money. He also said he feels like most people don't really have a direct relationship with God but instead just believe their pastor's words. So we pretty much taught the first lesson right there. He liked it a lot and said he'd come to church. I'll have to ask the other Elders whether he did.

We spent a large chunk of Wednesday (while 추지웅 장로님 (Elder Chu) was absent) painting the walls at a member's new house. Last night we were there again (partly having dinner but first moving a piano in the 24th hour of our fast) and saw that he decided to repaint the walls a different color. But it was fun.

We met the Turners on Thursday. I was kind of surprised to see that he seems to have an approach of "Okay, how are things done around here?" rather than just coming in and changing things. Perhaps he wants to see how things are done currently before making whatever changes he feels are necessary. They want all of our parents to know that you can follow their blog at koreaseoulsouthmission.blogspot.com. They say they'll post all big group pictures and such. This is the first impression I recorded in my journal: "They're not from Texas [they're from Indiana], but one could easily see that being the case; he gives off a pickup-trucks-and-football, donate-monthly-to-the-NRA, shed-a-tear-and-yell-"Freedom!"-upon-seeing-a-bald-eagle kind of vibe." Very different from the Morrise's, for sure.

After that meeting I got to meet 김견수 (I did romanize everybody's name two weeks ago, and it was terribly painful, so I think I'll go with nicknames instead. Call this guy "Most Mormon ex-Mormon Ever."). He's quite a character. About twenty years ago he served a mission, but then soon after a bunch of his family's money mysteriously disappeared under such circumstances that made some stake leader appear guilty (I'm a little fuzzy on the details), but nobody did anything about it. He's been inactive ever since, but he still reads and knows the scriptures and loves the gospel (the wallpaper on his phone is the cover of PMG). He works at our apartment complex, so we see him around now and then. This past week we had dinner with him and a lesson (which he somehow managed to turn into throwing shade at said stake leader from way back when while still testifying of the Church's truthfulness). He's got a whole lot of energy.

Friday night we had a zone proselyting activity (basically everybody switched companions and then went contacting) which was not to be stopped by torrential rain. I'm glad it wasn't, though. It was real good.

As far as transfers, Elder 추지웅 will be headed to 이천 (Icheon), which is clear on the other side of the mission and the one area more rural than Gimpo. Elder Eddy and I will stay here until he goes home next transfer.

Elder Eddy's birthday was yesterday, so we had bought a cake on Thursday, but hadn't found any time to eat it so it was hanging out in the church's fridge until yesterday, when somebody went ahead and ate it for us at some point during church. That was sort of a bummer.

김돈 (Nickname: Gold Money. Explanation: The Chinese character behind the name 김 aka Kim aka this investigator and basically every Korean's last name means gold, and his first name, while actually of course being derived from a Chinese character, is the same as the pure Korean word for money. Also, he's super golden, so Gold Money. There's actually no nickname necessary because he's lived overseas a lot and has an English name (Tony Kim), but I like the nickname. Anyway:) still hasn't been able to meet with us, but we text him a fair amount and he's emailed us two weeks straight now. He says he's still reading the Book of Mormon everyday and also lds.org a lot. In his email this week he even talks about how he was reading in the book of Abraham. But he also says he thinks he'll want to wait for his wife to come around so they can join the Church together.

Thanks for the list of areas, Dad. I actually recognize all of those areas, and while the first one on the list, Man Su, doesn't exist anymore because about a year ago the ward boundaries were reorganized here in 인천 (Incheon), the area I'm in right now encompasses that area. Ask him if there's anyone I should say hey to! Also my MTC companion is in the area he said he went to twice.

For the record, everyone who warned me of the Korean summers has clearly never lived in Texas. Yes it's hot and humid, but it's gotta be way worse in College Station. Even now in July there are days we don't even break a sweat, whereas even back in May one would be drenched every day back home. I feel sorry for you guys.

Big congrats to Jacob on the Eagle project! And yes, basically all Koreans have to do the training (the ones who have already served in the military, that is), but they don't all do it at the same time. And while 추지웅 was doing it he was actually still in our same zone but slept at some other Elders' house.

사랑으로,

리스 장로

P.S. Attached picture was at aforementioned member's house last night. The sister on the floor, far right is going home this week, so that's what the flag is all about. She's had people sign it throughout her mission. It's pretty nifty.

P.P.S. I believe that just might be record length for an email.