Gwang-Ju Week #4

This past week was a week that went by very fast. This week we focused a lot on member work--visiting the members. We met with a few members who were absolutely incredible! Overall, it was a pretty great week. The work is going a little bit slow right now, but it will pick up.

Right now I am in Gwang Ju, which from what I understand has more than 10 million people in it. It is huge. It is built around a mountain range that we hiked this morning to do personal and companion study as a P-day activity. It was 910m tall (about 2800ft) and had a wonderful view. Let's just say that the city extended from the middle of the horizon (which was where the mountain range stopped existing) and stretched all the way to the edge of sight, and as far as you can see. It is soooo big. You can't even understand how amazing it is. Our mission president is awesome. To him, there is Gwang Ju, and then the rest of the mission. He is really focusing on Gwang Ju right now and getting it going as far as missionary work. His dream in the Gwang Ju Temple! We are excited to be apart of his work (and also His work).

This week we met with the owners of the restaurant, but we were on a time constraint, had a little misunderstanding, and so were then not able to teach them. That was sad. They also had a funeral to attend, so they were not able to go to church, which was absolutely sad as well, but we are over it and working hard to get them to church this next week!

Many of our other investigators have lost interest or not had a really sincere desire this past week. They seem like church is just another part of life, like another class they take, and they are satisfied with the classes that they are already taking in the school of life. However, we are trying to show them that church is something that supports all the rest of the classes and makes the entire school so much better. It is so hard for someone to understand that!

This week we worked really hard, but did not see a lot of results. We worked through dinner times that we could have taken in order to get in everything that we wanted to do. The lesson of this week is how insignificant our efforts are in comparison to God on the whole. We can think that we contribute a lot to the work, but really, it is God who allows everything to happen. That is not an excuse to slack off, but a motivation to work harder because the harder you work the more God will open those opportunities that He can for you to help His children into the church.

I want to comment about the couple that we visited last night to build Jong. They were an amazing couple. Amazing. Celestial couple. We walked in, talked about his previous Job as a calligrapher (he was 70 and she was 66) and then I motioned that I could play the piano and in no time we were singing all of our favorite hymns. It was beautiful and amazing! He then pulled out a harmonica and played Sweet hour of Prayer on the Harmonica to our surprise and thrill. It was awesome. Then with his guitar, my companion played a soft melody that was great. In Korea you don't visit people without getting food, so we had a little dessert, gave them a spiritual message, and then left. It was amazing and perfect. We talked to them about trusting in God and asked about their experiences with trusting in God. We learned that this man had become the Branch president of the Gwangju Branch only 6 months after he was baptized. From there he continued in leaderships positions until he was President of Gwangju stake. His wife commented that when he was Stake President he was always at church and she was always at home taking care of the children. She said that it was really hard, but at the same time, she had seen how much the Lord had blessed him. She then humbly, so Korean by the way, that Heavenly Father had not blessed her with any sort of responsibilities such as being Relief society or something like that. We quickly responded that her support for her husband with their small children was the greatest responsibility and a great blessing to him. They are the greatest couple. They know how to live life. They love each other so much and they are so happy. We talked to our sisters who told us that they have companionship study every morning for an hour! What great examples! After having a rather down week, it was a wonderful way to end the week. There are such wonderful people all over the world!!!!

Hmmm, we had dinner with a missionary who had recently gotten back from Seoul and a member from our ward. They were awesome, and when we were there the missionary spirit was raging. It was great--we were sharing experiences and miracles that we had seen (right before we had arrived through a series of "random" events we had found many people who had literally come up to us and asked us about the church (we didn't have to initiate--they did!)) and we also so one of our less-actives that we had been working with, which was amazing and really great because I love him sooo much. Yep, wonderful experience and really helped me realize the great importance of this work!

I think you will be excited to hear that we have a meal appointment set up today with the moped man, which is great! We don't know exactly how much gospel interest he has, but we will find out!

The man  that we met that I talked about last time hasn't been responding to our calls. We know that he needed that conversation at that time; however, and so if any thing, we have prepared him for later interactions with the Church and with missionaries. He is a great man and will hopefully put his life into order with his family.

This week we also met with a lawyer, who took us into his really nice office for a chat. He was more interested in our foreigner status and practicing his english than the Gospel, but we were able to actually teach him a ton about what we believe. He is part of the Roman Catholic church and is actually the chairman of their organization to build a new building, so we will see where that goes. Pretty much the only thing that he knows is that Utah youth do not live the same as other American youth. We explained to him a lot about the church and invited him to be baptized, which he said would not work (with his position and his father, and family tradition in the religion), so we will probably visit him one other time to check his interest in the Gospel, and then move on. But, it was an interesting visit--he was one of the people that approached us on the street before the meal appointment with the members.

I can honestly say that every single day of my mission I have either seen a personal or a companionship miracle from the Lord. It is an amazing work and He blesses us so much for it. It is also a really hard work. It is a straining combination of intellect, emotion, spiritual, social, and physical that is constantly exerted. There is no end. It is also the most joyful work. The other day I was talking to a Hakseng, or a school student on a bus. When I told him that I wanted him to be happy, I made the greatest friend in the world. He wasn't interested in Religion, but I taught him about who God was, and that we can pray and told him try out prayer sometime and see if God would help him. Seriously, when I got off that bus I was one friend up in the world. I would have done anything for him, and I really think that he would do anything for me. It was such a great feeling to have made such a special bond in such a short time. I guess the cost of the greatest joy is the greatest efforts...who would guess?

This past week I also saw a miracle as I went on a split with the other missionary who came in the same time as me on Wednesday. We were at the church for our second investigator lesson which we had invited a member to, and our investigator did not show up. Unfortunately that happens sometimes. We had a member there an everything, it really was too bad. But then...another one of our investigators just walked into the church, and without a scheduled appointment we were able to teach him a lesson with an awsome member present. It was a great miracle that shows that God honors our efforts and will reward our intents. We actually had a really awesome day together as we worked really hard. What a great experience...haha, neither of us can really understand that much.

Alright...time to go! Love you so much, keep up the good work...and share the message!