Sunday, April 26, 2015

Transfer 16, week 2 (April 27, 2015)



Hello!

This first week is already over.... we actuallly didn't have too much to, but I think we did a good job keeping busy. And we were able to see a lot of miracles as well, haha.

Elder Wunderli and I ended up visiting with members a lot this week - we maybe visited with 5-6 families or so. Basically Elder Wunderli got here and we spent a lot of time the first few days making calls to members, and people were really willing to have us over I guess! So Elder Wunderli had already met with maybe 1/5 of the ward (well, maybe not that much, I'm not sure) before actually coming to church, which a really good start. I think we'll try to keep up the momemtum and use Elder Wunderli as an excuse to visit everyone!

Kind of bad news - we were talking with our ward mission leader (well, we had MCM is what I mean), and he says to give 이진산b (Bro. I Jinsan) more time. He says for now, as far as lessons go, consider him a drop and not try too hard to teach him for the time being. On the bright side, the young men planned an activity for him - 이진산b really likes soccer, and so the young men will be having a soccer game this Saturday, and they already invited him and everything. Not sure if he has time, but we're hoping that this will be a good opportunity for him to make some more friends in the ward, and get to know Elder Wunderli as well! And of course, hopefully that will lead to him coming out to church more! :) Oh, he didn't come out this last Sunday though.

This transfer is probably the least busy I've had as Zone Leader - We've just got one meeting, which is Zone Conference, which means that President Barrow and the APs plan it for us. We'll probably have to give a talk or do some teaching practice or something, but that's it. And then we only have SPM once as well, which means that we've got a lot of time freed up to try and focus on 상인 (Sangin)! That's something we've been wanting for a long time, but when we actually get time, it turns out we don't have anything to do, haha. So we hit the streets and spent a lot of time on 전도 (jeondo). Normally, 전도 ("tracting") isn't that effective - you give out a few pamplets to people who don't really want them, get a phone number maybe, but it's hard to find people who are really really actually interested in the gospel.

We stepped out probably Tuesday, and the first person we talked to told us that he was a less active of 30 years, and then we had a nice conversation which ended with them telling us that he'll buy dinner for us sometime (kind of a Korean culture thing). Is he interested in coming back to church? Honestly, probably not, but it's really good to have his phone number, and have just one more person to contact and figure out how to work with.

We had a couple of experiences like that - just like better-than average 전도 (Sangin). We met this one guy, and I talked about our church a little bit, but he didn't seem interested. As he started to walk away, Elder Wunderli mentioned English Class, to which he said he was interested (we ran into him again like an hour later, and he said that he'd call!), and while we were talking to him, a lady in a nearby shop was listening, and came out to ask us for our number. Now again, neither of them have called us yet, but on somedays, meeting people interested in just English is hard, but we were blessed to find two.

We also met this one other church goer who really liked us. I guess his favorite church minister/pastor/church leader is American, and so he was really excited to meet other American Christians. We gave him a pamphlet, he took a picture with us, and we parted. I think it was the next day that he called and said that he had read the whole pamphlet, and had some questions. Elder Wunderli talked with him for awhile on the phone, and he said that he wanted to meet and buy us hamburgers sometime (because we're American...). Again, I don't know if he's super interested in conversion, but he's yet another person with some potiential to meet, and from there we can kind of see how things go.

And then we also spent some time calling former investigators - we met with one who turned out to really like missionaries but wasn't really that interested in the gospel (really common scenario in Korea...), and we've also been contacting another former investigator who seems willing to meet but busy.

A member up in Seoul gave us a referall of a friend, and so now we're meeting with Brother 이재덕 (Ee Jaeduk). He hurt his leg in a work-related accident some 8 months ago, got surgery, and is now receiving rehabilitation treatment (that doesn't sound correct). He spends a lot of time at home, and is pretty free to met us pretty much whenever. He's a little bit older, maybe 60 years old, attended a Presbyterian church for a long time, and seems to really like us.

The first time we met, I thought he was super golden - he took everything in well in a typical Korean old man kind of way (old people either accept everything or absolutely nothing), and he told us to come over often.

We met him the second time yesterday, and I don't know how interested he is exactly, haha. Maybe it's just that he doesn't understand what we're doing as missionaries, or maybe it's because he's just really lonely sitting at home all day, but he talked a toooon during the lesson, and kept taking the conversation to "not the gospel." He read from the Book of Mormon though, up to 1 Nephi 4, and he understands really, really well. I think he's understood the best of anyone I've ever taught - probably his church background helps him understand scriptural language. He seems to totally accept that the Book of Mormon is scripture (he was like "well, I gotta read it if is that Word of God, right?"), so he's doing really well there. Again, he wasn't super focused in the lesson, so we'll have to figure out a way to teach him in a way that works for him. He called this morning because he "wanted to hear our voices" so maybe he just likes the company of two handsome young Americans visiting him. We'll have to meet him a few more times to see where he goes. Oh, and he says that because his leg hurts, it's hard for him to come to church. :/

So that's about it! Elder Wunderli and I are working well together, and we've been really blessed to see some good things happen this week! I think things will continue to go well this transfer. Thanks for everything!!!

Love,
Elder Luke

Here's a few pictures....





Here's a picture of the kids at an orphanage where we (kind of) teach English...




And lunch after ward conference...




A few pictures with 이예진s and 이진산b, and then one we took at McDonalds at 4:30am the day Elder Boome left. We woke up at 3:00 to get there, haha. It was fun though!






No comments:

Post a Comment