안녕하세요 (Annyeonghaseyo)!
오늘 여러분이랑 통화할 수 있어서 좋았어요! 근데 이미 이야기했으니까 쓸 일이 없네요…
It was good talking to you day! I feel like the hour went by fast; maybe next time, I think of some stories or experiences to share so you can hear something that’s a little bit more fun. And I’ll try to remember to get Skype set up, though I’ll probably be in another area by then, so who knows how things will go!
We had branch conference this week, which seemed to go really well. The branch presidency really pushed for people to invite others to come to church, and for members to visit less actives and invite them as well. We normally have 50 people come to church, and we had 70 this week – around 10 less actives and 10 nonmembers showed up, so I think it was a huge success. Elder 이영호 (I Yeongho, his companion) said that it was the second most “대박” (daebak = "jackpot"?) branch conference he’s been a part of. We invited almost all the nonmembers we’re working with (investigators and English class people mostly), but our turnout wasn’t great. We did have one English class member show up a little late, so at least someone showed up!
There’s this one English class member, 전옥근 (Okguun Jun), who’s shown up to English class a couple of times. She’s been busy or something, and hasn’t been able to make it the past few weeks. She missed out the English class where we invited everyone to church, so she wasn’t invited.
We got a feeling that we should invite her though, and so we gave her a call and did. After a bit of confusion (I called her at first, and she for some reason didn’t understand a word I said apparently… she called back later because she was confused, haha), she said she would come to church – she even said she would cancel another appointment to make it!
She didn’t make it. Another English class member did, haha. Anyways, I guess the impression we got to call her gave her the chance to use her agency, right? We were pretty disappointed when she ended up not coming to church, but we did everything we could.
That’s one of the big things that I’ve learned, and am still learning, on my mission. We do what we can, and we trust that God will bless us to turn our work into His work.
We really wanted 이창준 (I Changjun) to show up to church, but he didn’t come. We invited him twice, but he just said, “I’ll think about it.” I guess with this too, we have to let him exercise his agency.
He’s been doing good though – last last time we met, he had prayed and read the Book of Mormon. He’s read up to chapter 8 now I think – we were surprised; he read much more than we had expected. For example, we gave the introduction to the book of Mormon as assigned reading, but he read all of the stuff in the beginning of the Book of Mormon, and read up to 1 Nephi 2. He prays better now too – at first, he only said “Thank you for letting us spend good time with good people,” but now he says like two sentences instead of one. :D
Last time we met, he was busy and couldn’t forgot to pray and read, but we have an appointment with him today, so hopefully, all will go well and he’ll have remembered to do those things.
So this is Elder 이영호’s (I Yeongho) last week as a missionary. He says it feels really weird, but it’s weird for me too. I don’t have confidence in getting around, so we’ll probably end up getting pretty lost a few times. Maybe I’ll be companions with a Korean, and then I won’t have to worry as much… Come to think of it though, I’ll probably be with my next companion for at least 2 transfers (3 months), since 3 transfers is usually minimum in an area. We get to find out what happens this Thursday!
Oh, this is kind of random, but I wanted to write about our eating habits here. In my other areas, we would almost always eat lunch and dinner at our house, but we really don’t do that in 포항 (Pohang). Our church is like 10 minutes by bus from our house, with busses coming around every 20-25 minutes, so it can be a little bit time consuming. I don’t know if that’s why, but we’ve barely gone shopping – maybe like 2 or three times this transfer?
Normally, we eat lunch at our house, and then dinner somewhere outside. There’s this really cheap restaurant right by our church – you can get dinner for like $3 a person, so it doesn’t really make sense to spend a lot of time on a bus, and spend money on bus fare when we can eat right there. Granted the restaurant isn’t thaaat good (it’s not bad), and it seems a little bit on the sketchy side, but the price is good.
Anyways, I don’t know what will happen next transfer, but I hope we go shopping; I hate feeling like there’s no food in the house, haha (or should I say, I hate there being no food in the house?). But we survived for these past 5 weeks, right?
Uhhh…
I don’t know what else to write, so I think I’ll end it here. I’ll send a picture of me with my companion – it’s like the only picture I have of us together so far.
I’ve learned that God blesses us with joy in life as we do our best. It’s not easy, but to paraphrase someone in General Conference quoting someone else (…?), “God gives us, along with the commandment to love, the ability to love others.” Likewise, God had told us to do our best, as we strive to do our best to do what’s right, to keep the commandments, and to help others, we’ll be helped and lifted. I know that the gospel was given to us so that we can be protected, blessed, and happy in life!
Thank you for all your prayers and support and love!
Love,
- Elder Luke
Notes:
According to Google Translate, the first line means "Today you can be talked to the good! Marilyn was already written but the story happens eopneyo...." Clearly, the first sentence is probably "It was good to talk to you today!" I have no idea what the second one is supposed to be.
대박: Daebak = "jackpot"? I'm guessing this means "successful."
이창준: I Changjun, an investigator mentioned by Andrew two weeks ago.
"I’ll send a picture of me" -- he didn't.
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