THANKSGIVING IN KOREA

Hello family/mother!!!

 

This week went by very quickly and next week will go by even faster. This week is Korea's Thanksgiving holiday, and the country literally shuts down for three full days. Because of the proselyting opportunity taken away, we will be training with the mission president and learning Korean/other lesson enhancing techniques during that time period. I am actualy very excited!

 

First, I will have you know, that, as usual, mothers are right. Yesterday the ward needed a piano player, so I accompanied both sacrament meeting and the primary (Korean children are the best!!) (Random story. We were talking about who there is in our lives that we can help. One of the questions was about how many people you can help. All of the primary children are saying/yelling "Everyone!" Then, one of the boys pops up and says "83". It was so funny, my companion and I cracked up about it later...) Anyways, yep, those piano lessons paid off, and I was able to share it with the people that I am serving on my mission.

 

This week was a little bit difficult as far as results are concerned. I've never been closer to my companion (we're pretty much brothers) and we haven't worked harder, but just haven't been finding investigators. This week being the Thanksgiving Holiday, their won't be much opportunity for finding people, so we will basically start with our progressing investigators after the holiday. This past week there were some highlights and some low points.

 

Our investigator who is progressing towards baptism is progressing very well. He is reading and keeping his commitments, which is good. We had a very good lesson with him and will continue to teach him. He came to church and enjoyed it. He is getting very busy with school, so the fact that he is giving so much of his time to the church shows that he really does care about the message that we have to share and the feeling that he gets when he comes.

 

The restaurant owners, on the other hand, have had a little bit of a turn around. We went over to their restaurant on Friday and they basically said that they understand that reading their scriptures and saying their prayers is not a difficult thing, but they said that they just don't have the desire to do it . That was pretty devastating, because he basically told us that he had given up.

But, my companion and I have plans to help get his desire going to see what the scriptures and prayer can really do for them. We will visit again today and hopefully help them realize the value of the scritpures and of prayer in a way that will help them desire and want to read the scriptures and pray.

 

Let's see. This week we helped with a very cool service project which was feeding the elderly at a park in Gwang Ju. It went very well and it was really exciting to serve the people of Korea. They really are wonderful and it was great to be able to serve and help them.

 

Last week (short letter) we had a lot of meetings. We had a zone tour and we had a training meeting. The Zone tour was presided over by Elder Whiting and was absolutely wonderful. I realize how zoned in you can get to the work of missionary work and miss the whole foundation supporting everything. It was one of the greatest meetings that I have ever attended. We were very well edified and enlightened and taught concerning the mission, other things regarding our work, and the reality of Heavenly Father's plan for us. It was great.

 

Everything is going absolutely wonderful. The weather is beautiful and people are happy. This next transfer is going to be very exciting!

 

This week I have learned some very important lessons. The message that I want to share today, that has been impressed to me is the peace that we receive from our covenants, specifically when we renew them. On Sunday, I was filled with peace through the sacrament. I cannot describe how thankful I am for the wonderful sacrifice of our Lord Jesus Christ. No matter what you have felt, or have gone through, He has been through it. We all have our Christ-similar journies in life. We all have our joyful times of our "ministry" and we all have our times in Gethsemane. Well, it humbles me to realize that each of our individual Gethsemanes--the absolute worst times of our lives--when all--all billions of them--are added together; that was Christ's Gethsemane. He knows and He wants to help. Alma 7:7, 10-16 is very clear about the Atonement. It is the most important thing. It can help us with all our pains and afflictions. He performed the Atonement to blot out our transgressions. We can be born again through the Atonement by repenting and being baptized. As we do so, we enter into a covenant to obey Him for the rest of our lives. In return for this obedience, He gives us eternal life. Christ gave everything for us; and these verses shows what we can give to Him.

 

I hope you have a wonderful week. Happy Chew-suk (추석) aka. Thanksgiving! Remember what you are thankful for!

William