Hello!
I've only got like 45 minutes to type, so this might be short.
The big news this week is that Brother 정대영 (Jeong Daeyeong) (high schooler, has a lot of time apparently) has a baptismal date for the 10th of August! It was kind of a not very convincing "yes" to the date, but hey, it's still a baptismal date. There was a baptism in 해운대 (Haeundae) (kind of a glitzy, rich, party city), and we went over to check it out with him. We taught him about baptism, why it's important, and set the date with him! There's still a lot of teaching to do before he's ready, but we'll see how things go. Our ward mission leader was really pushing for an earlier date, but I kind of feel that the 10th is early enough as is...
Dad asked about what district leaders do, and I assume much hasn't changed since Dad was in Japan, but really basically...
District leaders plan district meeting, do exchanges, report stats, and do baptismal interviews.
We have district meeting pretty much every week - if there's another missionary meeting planned (like zone meetings, which are basically bigger district meetings), then we don't do it, but you usually have district meeting 4-5 times in a transfer (which is six weeks). As a district leader, I choose the topics for the talk and teaching practice (ideally, the mission president or the zone leaders would have a theme or a focus for the transfer, but I don't think there's anything specific this transfer), and assign people to do the prayers, and Korean practice (teaching Korean words or grammar or culture). It's fairly straightforward - choosing the topics is kind of hard, but everyone's really nice and willing to help out. I guess I have to conduct, which is kind of annoying but not a big deal.
District leaders also do exchanges, where a companionship changes companions with another companionship (if that makes any sense) for a day. I haven't done that yet, but I probably will this Wedsnday - I'll go to another area and work with another missionary in our district, and try to figure out what they need. I think that's the hard part - we're supposed to train the other missionaries, but it's hard to know what they're weaknesses or strenghts are.
Reporting stats is fairly simple as well. Every Sunday, and at the end of every months, each team in the district sends me their stats for the week, and I put it all together in a text and send it up to my leaders. It was really, really stressful at first because I had no idea what I was doing, and the Zone Leaders kept calling me ("Elder Luke! Put all the stats together in ONE text!!" "I'm sorry!"), but it got a lot easier after the first time. I just tell everyone to send stats in super early so that I have time to deal with everything.
District leaders are also in charge of conducting baptismal interviews for any investigator in the district. Because of the baptism in 해운대 (Haeundae), I was able to do that as well. I think most people just read the questions directly out of Preach My Gospel, so it's not really a problem. Most missionaries cover all the questions with the investigator before baptism anyways, so there wasn't any problem when I did the interview.
So that's pretty much it. District leaders are supposed to be a good example, work hard, and make sure that missionary work runs smoothy in the district, and that information flows up to the Zone leaders, and down to the district members quickly. Being District leader basically means you lose your free time at night though - you just get busy making phone calls, or doing stats, or calling people. Losing like half an hour at night isn't a huge deal though - I know Zone leaders and the AP's are way, way busier. I feel bad for them. They do a lot for us missionaries.
I know that I typed that we had a ton of investigators, but it seems like we've lost quite a few... we're down to like 3 people we can meet with regularly. Other people just don't answer their phone, or their phone is always off - we can't contact them, which is really unfortunate. I'm not really sure what the best way to find people here is either - I guess maybe English Class?
We've been spending most of our extra time working on records - for some reason 광안 (Gwangan, the area Andrew is in now) is kind of weak in records, so my companion's been making a member book (the missionaries probably don't make these in the States, but most areas have a book with pictures and names of all the members, plus other notes - like their callings, family, whether they've served a mission, etc.), and I've been working on organizing the less active records. We actually contacted one guy who says he'll meet with us, so hopefully we'll be able to do that this week.
I think that's kind of the main news for the week. It's been a pretty good week - we've had a lot of busy days! Hope you're all doing well!
Love,
- Elder Luke
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