Hello!
Life has been pretty busy in 광안 (Gwangan), but nothing really special. Just living a very very normal life here - I think we need like a new investigator or something break up our schedule. Here's a bunch of random stuff that went on this week:
We talked to Brother 윤영언 (Yun Yeongeon) and Brother 오삼석 (O Samseok) about baptism and a baptismal date, but they both refused - they said it's too fast and that they just want to study from the Book of Mormon right now and not think about baptism. I think they understand a little bit better about why we're meeting them as missionaries, but I also think they're pretty far from actually being baptised. Our ward mission leader kind of told us to keep meeting with them for now, so that's what we'll do. It was a little bit unfortunate - I had hoped they would respond a little bit more positively.
Elder Lees is doing well! He continues to ask questions and talk a lot in lessons - he definitely is doing better than I was on week 3; understanding is still a little bit difficult for him though (understandably). He says he can ask questions but not answer them haha.
Spend some time advertising our English class this week. It went really well. We went to a nearby college with a poster that says "Free English!" on it, and then tried to make people take a survey about their English interest. We got 10 contacts in like an hour and a half, which is pretty good. Of course, not all of them are actually interested in English, but still. We actually met one guy who said that he's interested in both our English and church (he has a friend who is a member he said), and so we set up a tentative appointment with him for tomorrow. With any luck, we can help him become an investigator!
We tried to recontact the others as well, but most of them didn't seem super interested - a few said that they would try to make it to the Saturday class, but nobody showed up sadly.
In other news, its been decided that the members will take care of a couple of the recent converts here, so we don't have to meet with them anymore, which is kind of too bad - it would have been good practice for Elder Lees and I to teach them... It kind of frees us up to do other things though; before, we were really really busy on Saturdays.
Ah, I think I've mentioned him before, but do you remember Brother 양현제 (Yang Hyeonje)? He's kind of the troubled kid who's had a few run-in with the police, who goes in and out of the hospital, etc etc. Maybe I haven't actually talked about him that much? Anyways, he showed up on Sunday to attend church - he's been in the hospital because of a bad hip for like a month now - and so we met with him, talked a lot, taught a lesson, and agreed to meet with him every Friday. The kid needs a looooot of help from everyone but hopefully everything turns out alright with him. He doesn't have a cell phone and isn't the most reliable of people, so we'll see how often we can meet with him...
I've been really busy at night recently - normally we finish our daily planning by 9:30, and then we have kind of free time from 9:30 to 10:30, but I've been on the phone for the past couple of days from 9:30 to like 10:20. It's been kind of stressful - I haven't been able to do the things I want to, but missionary work and contacting those people and confirming appointments with members comes first I guess. Elder Lees isn't good enough at Korean to call people though, so maybe that's part of the problem - I kind of have to do any phone calls that need to be made. I haven't written in my journal properly for like 2 weeks now. D:
Lately, it seems like our stake (and just missionaries and members) has been focusing a lot on activities. Korea has had a moderate amount of success through have lots of activities, just things that are easy for members to bring friends, and easy for members to invite like less actives to as well. I'm not sure how things will work out, but I feel like that'll be something that missionaries will be asked to do more often in the future - plan activities, parties, whatever it takes to help investigators and members together and like.... forming friendships.
We were talking with our ward mission leader the other day, and he said that that's one of the most important kind of member missionary work.
Well, one second, let me talk about the children's English class first...
We taught the children's English class for the 2nd time this week, and we had a lot more help from the members; some 3 families and an investigator and her son showed up, so we had good turnout. What ended up happening is that we all started together, and once we started actually teaching, most of the parents left to go chat in another room, and us, like one of the parents, and the kids stayed together and studied.
So back to our ward mission leader - he said that point of the children's English class was not actually for the kids to learn English, but for the parents to have time together - that way, the members can make friends with the investigators, and then invite them to church or other activities or whatever. I hadn't thought about the children's English class that way before, but it makes a lot of sense. Missionaries transfer every few months, but members stay for a long time, so it's much more important that the members know investigators than it is for the missionaries to know investigators.
I don't really have that much more to add. Life in 광안 (Gwangan) is going good!
I wanted to send some pictures but the computer it not reading my camera (or anything for that matter) right now, so maybe next week.
Actually, I think I'll just wrap it up here. Thank you so much! Have a good week!
Love,
- Elder Luke
Notes:
Brother 윤영언 (Yun Yeongeon) and Brother 오삼석 (O Samseok): Friends that attend their English class as well as take missionary lessons. Andrew has mentioned these guys several times before. Their photos are in his letter here.
Brother 양현제 (Yang Hyeonje): Actually, I'm pretty sure Andrew has never mentioned him before.
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