Hello!
How is everyone? Things have gotten pretty cold over here in Korea, so being outside a lot is kind of hard. I heard it snows sometimes in 대구 (Daegu), so we'll see if that happens this winter...
I got to teach my first lesson in 상인 (Sangin) this week! We met with Brother 김태한 (Gim Taehan) (can't remember if I wrote about him, but he was baptized, then got in a car accident, and hasn't been confirmed yet) this Friday (if I remember right...). We just had a short lesson about the importance of the gift of the holy Ghost. Brother 김 (oh, he's like 27ish) is kind of quiet, but he's really kind and actually understand the gospel really really well. The lesson went pretty good, and he promised that he would come to church to recieve the gift of the holy ghost.
Unfortunately, come Sunday, Brother 김 is nowhere to be found. We called him and texted him, but he didn't pick up, no replies or anything. It's been maybe a month now since he's been baptized, so while it was really good that we were able to meet him, he really needs to come to church.
We met with a couple of members this week - one of them is Brother 손지훈 (Jiihoon Son; the romanization is really bad...). He's blind, and can't show up to church super often because it's really hard for him to get around. He's really nice though, and he has a lot of faith. I guess he likes the missionaries, and so Elder 박재훈 met with him once every couple of weeks last transfer, so we'll probably do the same this transfer. Nothing too special about the visit - we shared a message, ate some food, and just talked for awhile.
As zone leaders, we do a lot of exchanges (mostly with the district leaders, but Elder 박 (Bak) does exchanges with other I guess "normal" missionaries as well), so I was able to visit the 대명 (Daemeyong) B team this week. It went pretty well - we got pretty badly lost but managed to find the person we were looking for, we gave a presentation about our church to a bunch of old people at a local college with the 대명(Daemeyong) A team (by "we" I mean "the Korean elder"), and then had a lesson.
Exchanges are kind of difficult - it's not hard to spend a day with another elder (it's a little disruptive of our own 상인 (Sangin) missionary work, but that's not a huge problem), but it IS hard to try to spend those 24 hours completely focused on thinking about how to help my temporary companion. I was with Elder Godfrey, who's been in Korea now for like 2 months. His trainer is Korean, and so I think Elder Godrey had a good time serving with a companion who speaks fluent English. We were able to talk a lot, which is really important for exchanges.
Exchanges is one of the most important way that leaders can teach missionaries - that 1 on 1 setting is really important I think. I've learned a lot from my leaders through exchanges, and I hope that I'll be able to help people through exchanges.
I don't have a ton of time, so I'll going to wrap up with some thoughts I've had. I've been thinking a lot lately, kind of trying to solve problems. We, as zone leaders, need to do a lot of planning and studying and thinking to try and help others and make meetings happen, so I'm trying to apply that to personal study. There's a lot of questions - "how can I work harder?" "how do I work better as a missionary?" "what are my plans after my mission?" etc etc, and I think it's really important that we put effort into what we do. I was praying about one of these questions (I hadn't done a lot of serious thinking about it), and a thought came to me, which said "You haven't thought enough about this."
I think God really wants us to learn, and in order for us to learn, we can't expect him to give us everything. Like it says in D&C (I probably should know the reference... section 9?), we need to study it out, and then ask God if it's right.
I think about the First Vision, and I think one of the reasons that Joseph Smith was able to get an answer to his prayer was because he did a lot of diligent study before the prayer. He went to different churches, he studied the Bible, and I'm sure he did a lot of thinking to try and figure out an answer.
One thing I've learned this week is that if we really expect to get an answer from God, we have to do our own part to think and plan, and then if we ask for help, he'll help us.
Thanks for all you do! Sorry that my emails have been short lately... I'll try and think of more to write, haha. Until next week!
Love,
Elder Luke
It's been awhile since I've sent pictures I think, so I have no idea what I've sent and what I haven't, so I'm just going to send a bunch your way.
Here's a few pictures: Elder Lees and I at the 5k, a meal we had with our intermediate and advanced English class students (this is all in 광안 (Gwangan) of course), and then a district picture.
Here's a picture of us at the pop song service activity we did with a group of blind people (I'm not sure exactly how the group was organized - I would guess it's some sort of goverment-based thing...)
Another one of our English class...
And a picture with Brother 정대영 (Jeong Daeyeong) (whom as far as I'm concerned, has NOT been baptized yet!!!!).
Here's a picture with Elder Boome (I didn't take hardly any when I was in 포항 (Pohang)) and our district went out to a "meat buffet" today, so here's a picture of that.
No comments:
Post a Comment