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.