EQUATION FOR SUCCESS

Hello mother and family!!!!

Sounds like a good week!!!

I am glad that the Spanish branch seems to be doing well. It is almost as big as some wards in Korea (Gong Ju).  Seems like Melissa and Rachel are doing well and enduring the whole high school thing well. Mission week sounds interesting. Good experience for the kids to share the Gospel to their friends. (In Korea talking to people on the street, the #1 reason that people start to attend church (if they weren't born into it) was through a friend referring them).We had a youth in our ward start bringing a friend to church and she will be getting baptized next week. We had a soccer activity this past Saturday, and the youth referred two more of their friends. Youth power!!!

Our new investigator said that he would meet today, so we are excited to work with him.

We met our English Australian Canada bound investigator and basically recommitted him to taking the lessons. He came to church again and has a belief in God, but does not yet realize the message of the restoration, etc. We are excited to work with him and help him to get adapted to church. We are trying to set him up with the Korean ward that is in the city he going to in Canada. 

The Halloween party will be fun, and a great opportunity for referring people and bringing investigators and members together. 

I love you all soooo much!!!

Have a wonderful week!!

I love you.! 

Spiritual message to ponder:

Understanding Identity (Your Potential, Your Privilege) and Commitment to Purpose (Aesop's turtle and hair) = fulfillment of Potential.

SINGLENESS OF MIND

Hello mother and family!!!

This week went by fast, as usual, with lots of work and some new people!

We were not able to meet the new investigator, but we will meet him this week and hopefully he will keep his commitments and work towards the waters of baptism.

Our worldly investigator came to church. That's a little bit of improvement, but he needs to retake the lessons. We had a talk with him and he has stopped praying and thinks that all churches are the same...and so we will try to meet with him and get him to have a personal testimony. He goes to Canada (he got his visa) in December and so we are hoping to help him join the church before he goes so that he will have a big support system when he goes to Canada. He is still great and he says that the reason that he comes to church is because he believes. That is the start that will hopefully propel into his conversion experience.

Our other investigators continue to be busy now and so we are very diligently looking for ways to find people to teach. We are having a Halloween party (there's no Halloween in Korea) at the church and so we are hoping to get referrals through that method.

We met a new investigator this week who called off of an English advertisement wanting to learn free English. Turns out that he spent time in Canada, and so he is almost fluent in English and really just wants to practice keeping his English up. So, we met with him, and he told us that he attended a Presbyterian church in Canada and that since he has gotten back to Korea he has not had the opportunity to attend church. So, we met with him and invited him to read the book of Mormon and to pray, and so hopefully he will do so and come to know Christ more and convert.

This past week I read the sermon on the mount. I liked the verse talking about how the eye is the light of the body and if the eye is single then the whole body is filled with light.

The eye is part of the body. However, if single, then the whole body is filled with light. When I ran track Tyler always would tell me that if I was in a competitive race "Run for place and the time will take care of itself.". Running for place was a small part to focus on that would affect the whole. In like manner, our eye (or our desires and especially motivations) will affect the whole body, or our entire lives. The hardest part is obtaining "singleness" which in my mind went to a refracted light ray vs. a concentrated bright ray. We have to work to focus our desires and our motivations singly to, as the Joseph Smith translation puts it, "to the glory of God". Anyways, through that our whole lives will be filled with light, in other words, we will build upon the rock of Jesus Christ, whereon if men build, they cannot fall. I know that Jesus Christ has been resurrected and lives today. He stands at the head of His church. I know that the Book of Mormon has a power in it that reaches much beyond words of ink on a page. I know that the church restored by Joseph Smith is true and the original church that teaches the fulness of the Gospel as had in previous dispensations.

I love you all so much!!!

Have a wonderful week this week!

I hope you have a wonderful fall season!!!

PERSONAL REVELATION!

Hey mother and Family!!!

This week went by very well! Yes, we were able to see General Conference which was absolutely wonderful. I am so glad that we have the opportunity to hear the words of the living prophets every 6 months! 

This week was fairly empty. Our old man investigator starting to have a personal problem, and so he couldn't meet with us, our other investigators were busy with work and other things, but, we were able to meet a new investigator... He is very prepared.  We asked him if he was happy and he said that he was not. We talked to him about what our message could do for him and he told us that he really wanted to change. So, we begin again to work with him and help him to come to Christ and change his life. He is a great kid with tons of potential in life!

This week we also had great work with members. We visited a member last night and helped him to work toward referring someone to the missionaries. The members here all have great faith. They all know that they need to and when we come over and talk to them we get to hear about their concerns, but eventually the always give in to the spirit and decide to work towards a date. I am so happy for the opportunity that we have to help the members of the area fulfill their missionary responsibilities as well as working to find and help others that we meet on the street, etc.

From conference I really liked all of the talks. There were some great overall themes, but one that really was prevalent was "earning a testimony" through personal revelation. It is true that revelation and a testimony are gifts from God, but they come in response to the agency that we exercise. I know that the honest seeker of truth will come to know the truth if he/she asks God the source of all truth in the name of Jesus Christ if something is true or not with faith in Jesus Christ, real intent, and a sincere heart. I know that God hears and answers my prayers and all of yours. Listen to the words of the prophets, especially Elder Scott's. He was very bold and very simple. There are things that need to get out of our lives and things that we NEED in our lives. Through the whisperings of the Holy Spirit we can know how to improve our prayers, our scripture study, our family home evenings, and our temple attendance. The members here are members because they do those things. If they don't then they went less active a long time ago. It is so clear. I know that through prayer, scripture study, family home evening, and regularly attending the temple that we will be spiritually fortified in a spiritually insensitive society. I hope that you have a wonderful week! Don't forget to apply the things we learn at General Conference, otherwise we are the hearers of the word and not the doers! I love you sooooo very much!

YOUR POTENTIAL, YOUR PRIVILEGE

Hello Mother and family!!!

 

I am very excited for General Conference!!! Glad that Dad is getting use out of the Big Van! There is a family in the ward where I serve that have a Korean "big van" but it is no match to our big van. He calls it a truck as well :)

 

This past week went by quickly as usual. We were very busy in the work of the Lord. Right now we are working on finding people to teach. This week we found three people. Two of them called off of English fliers and the other one we met on the street. The first one is a kid who is getting back from the 2 year required military service next week. He had a break and so he came to English class as well as to an activity that we had on Saturday at the church. He is looking for a part time job (weekends) so we will see how far he goes in the religious aspect of things.

The second guy is an old guy who is quite peculiar. He married a wife from China and is now just living by himself and wants to learn English. He wants to marry a foreign wife. He doesn't quite understand the difference between churches (he invited us to come to church with him...so we will teach him the Great Apostasy tomorrow) and so we will help him to read the Book of Mormon and hopefully come to a knowledge of the truth.

The third guy we met on the street and invited him to the activity that we had on Saturday. He came with us and really seemed to enjoy it. After the activity we had a lesson with a member and it ended up that they worked at the same place! He seemed to enjoy it, so hopefully he will have potential as well.

 

The Family was really busy...and the man in the world was also busy, but he promised to come to church next week. There is also an important back story with him. I met the missionary that was here before me and the missionary told me that the first time that they met the missionary told him kind of jokingly to pray for a hard life so that he could believe in God. In the closing prayer, he did, jokingly, and then his dad died, he tore a few ligaments in his knee, got in a car crash, and now has insomnia. He is not very happy. But, he definitely believes in God now. We just have to help him realize that he needs to follow Jesus Christ all the way to commit to give up alcohol and be baptized. He is a great guy, and we are really hopeful for him to come to Christ!

 

This past week we watched the Mormon message "your potential, your privilege" in English class to help with hearing and get the gospel in. In this Mormon message a man gets on a boat, because he wants to save money, he doesn't participate in any of the activities, or get food, etc., he sees all the places that he wants to, but in the end he learns that all of the activities on the boat and the food were all part of the ticket price.

The lesson that I learned is that we must understand our identity in order to fulfill our potential. If we do not understand our identity then we do not understand the privileges we have, nor the potential that we have. Thus, it is very important to understand who we really are in respect to God and His Plan. Right now, I am a missionary, later a father, etc., as we understand who we are and what privileges our identity entails we will be able to fulfill our potential. Like Christ. He understand His identity clearly and was able to fulfill His potential as the Savior of all mankind!

 

I love you all so much and challenge you to find your identity, and then live up to it!

Have a wonderful week!!! I love you all!

FRUITS OF THE SPIRIT AND AVOIDING REPENTANCE

Hey mother  and family!!!

 

This week was great!

We met with the dry cleaning man and he referred us a church man of a church that is in Korea called Sinchunji. Anyways, they believe that their founder loosed revelations and that the second coming has already come, and there's some place on earth that people don't die...anyways, this Sinchunji church is extremely aggressive and very stealthy. In fact, member will tell you that they are members of the Presbyterian church when they first meet you, they also use buildings that have Presbyterian church on the outside. Anyways we met with him and taught him the first few lessons, but he decided not to read the Book of Mormon, and so he was dropped pretty quickly. What I learned from that experience is that knowledge is not one of the fruits of the spirit as stated in Galatians 5. Yes, it is necessary, but spiritual conversion is through the spirit which is a very small part knowledge and a ver large part peace, love, etc.

 

We actually referred the Cambodians that we were teaching to the other missionaries in our district because they are whitewashing (coming to the area both new with no investigators). They were not able to come to church yesterday, but they will hopefully be able to come out in the future!

 

The investigator at the wedding hall seems that he doesn't want to meet anymore... :(

 

Our investigator in the world hasn't come to church for a few weeks, but he is going to come out to the family home evening that we have at the church tonight.

 

The family that we are teaching is really busy right now, and so we haven't had a whole lot of time to meet with them. They are going to be the focus of this next transfer. They have such a potential to live the gospel and to support each other in this wonderful way of living. It really is a privilege to teach a family like them.

 

The son who is taking lessons is about 28ish I think. I met him on Sunday and he has promised to continue to come to church in the future. In fact, he apologized to me for giving so many excuses and not meeting with us or coming out to church. He was so happy and so radiant to be at church, and I am so glad that I have had the opportunity to visit and to work with that family. They are so wonderful, each person in that family has such a special spirit!

 

Yep, Korean Kids are the cutest!!! They are the best.

 

This week at church the famous comedian gave a talk. It was really good.

It started with the statement. "The topic that I have been asked to speak on is repentance. Now, I am going to speak about a way avoid repentance"...at this point I'm not sure what I was thinking but it was probably of conglomerate of "am I understanding his Korean right, there's no way to avoid repenting after you've sinned!" and that is when he said that if you want to avoid repenting, you just have to avoid evil. He then spoke about avoiding evil and avoiding the even the appearance of all evil. I realized how true it really is. If you don't want to repent, If you don't want to experience the negative consequences of sin, then don't sin!!! Easier to say than to do, but the principle is so true.

 

I love you all so much!!!!

Thank you for all your prayers and emails and everything!!!

Keep up all of the great work in Alabama, Idaho, Minnesota, wherever you are!!

 

William Strahl

 

STAYING IN GWANG JU

Hello mother and family!!!

 

This week went by really fast, and I cannot believe that the fall season is already beginning!

This week some good things happened.

 

We met a new investigator who has a really good personality, and so we are hoping to be able to meet with him and help him to come to Christ and to the Church. We met with him once and it went really well, but since then he hasn't had any time. hopefully he will be able to meet with us this week! He is 20 years old and he works at a wedding hall (American age is probably 19).

We also made the acquaintance of a dry cleaning man who is trying to refer his son to us. He invited us to lunch tomorrow, so hopefully then we can make a legit attempt. Before he had us go into the store where his son was working and talk to him about church. Apparently his son went to the army, attended church for awhile, but then came back and stopped attending church. Well, we went into the store (because in Korea you can do that kind of stuff without...tension) and we talked to him, and he said he was attending church right now. Oh so the father also told us that when we went that we couldn't tell him that his father sent us...which made it a little bit mysterious because we knew his name and where he worked...anyways, it was a little bit awkward, but tomorrow we are eating lunch with them, so hopefully something will come out of it :)

 

Our investigator in the world took another step in. He got a girlfriend who has a son and hasn't had time to meet and was too busy to come to church yesterday. He is going to take time, but he definitely has the blossoming beginning of a testimony. We will continue to help him and work with him to help him to come to Christ!

 

Of the 4 Cambodians that we have met, 3 of them we referred to a set of missionaries who were whitewashing with no investigators...and all 3 were given baptismal dates! They are really happy at church and it is great to see them. The last Cambodian came to church for the 3rd time, and met the other Cambodians. His English and Korean are not as good, and so it is really hard to teach him; however, he really likes church.

 

The Lee Family was too busy to meet, but hopefully they can meet this week!

 

Other good news is that the daughter of restaurant owners in my first area came home and her brother is now taking the lessons!!!

 

This transfer is staying the same. we are in the same area with same companion :) that is good^^

 

This past week I thought a lot about repentance and opportunity. Opportunities are extremely precious because they are perishable. There is a time factor that limits the availability of an opportunity (thus it is an opportunity...). This life is a opportunity restrained by the duration that we live here. Throughout life there are many different opportunities that face us at all different times. However, thinking about this I realized that the greatest opportunity given to mankind is the Atonement. We always have the choice to use the incomparable opportunity given to us by our Savior Jesus Christ. The opportunity of the Atonement is a blessing that can come to us each day, if we so choose. Every single day we have the opportunity to repent. To change ourselves a little bit, and become better, more Christ-like Saints. Just one weakness or shortcoming at a time. If we really use the Atonement every single day, then we will show the Savior how much His sacrifice means to us. (During the day we really have infinite opportunities, but only the most important ones to us get used).  I invite you to just spend 10 minutes at the end of a day, reflect on what you could have done better that day, and then ask the Lord for strength through the Atonement to overcome that particular part at night and also in the morning. I know that if you do, you will feel the power of the Atonement and the joy that it brings more in your life. I know this work is God's work on the earth and that the scriptures are true. I love you all so much!!!

 

Love you lots!!!

LUNCH WITH A CELEBRITY

Hey Mom and Family!!!

Sorry about last week's short email again. There was a miscommunication (how could that possibly happen in a 2nd Language) and we had to leave pretty early. So this week, hopefully I can be a little more detailed and elaborate :)

 

Sounds like Reid is doing well and will have a great time at BYU Idaho. It is such a new experience to leave the family and to room with people your own age. And then another new experience to get lots of companions who are all very different and who all contribute different strengths and weaknesses to the companionship. I am so excited for him! He will do great! Yep, the church world is pretty small. One example, at BYU when I auditted a Korean class, I met someone there who turned out to be Nathan's sister's husband's brother. If that was weird enough, when I was coming to Korea one of the Korean's coming with us talked about her sister getting married. When she showed the picture of who she was getting married to...it was him...! That is so cool that you were able to make a connection in Idaho back to good ol' Oregon. The fire doesn't seem to really be that big--which is good, but I think I know just about where that is...which is really sad. I think it adds some scenery to the run... jk.

 

These past few weeks things have been a little crazy in Korea, in case you haven't noticed. A lot of our investigators have dropped, but we still have some that are going strong.

Our worldly friend entered an English speech contest that the stake organized and had, and he spoke about how he had come to church and believe in God. It was basically his testimony which was really really good for him to share. On the other hand, in the morning we talked to him again about baptism and he told us that alcohol is "his friend". He is trying to reduce, but it seems that it will be a fairly long road to complete victory. He is really great. He got sick and couldn't come to church yesterday, but he will definitely come in the future. He also got a new girlfriend who has a son (luckily he knows enough about the law of chastity already) and so he has gotten a little bit more busy. We will help him continually

 

We also were able to meet the family that already seems like family. We ate dinner with them (ok...I have to tell you this story. So, after the speech contest, there was a little snack meal that we had (it was like a small luncheon) and Robert Holly, the really famous actor in Korea, wanted to take all of the missionaries out for dinner. So, we all go to a buffet with him...which is the first time that I have ever been in public with someone nationaly famous. It was really interesting. People pointed and stared, and took pictures, it was a really different experience. But, it was great. So then, after all that we go to the appointment...which was a dinner appointment...haha. And they prepared a lot of food...so I went home with, if you translate directly to english, "my stomach emerging".) Anyways, we had a great time with the family, and as the dad gave us a ride home we talked to him about church. They had already been once, and so I asked him about their thoughts about church and they said that they had felt recently that they needed to join a church. That is when they met missionaries. Well, they went to church once and they felt that it was kind of weird. There was no pastor, and so they felt that there was no order. This is the second family that has responded in this way. So, we talked to Robert Holly about how to resolve it (he was a former bishop...) and we hope to help them realize all of the blessings of the church.

 

Besides those two investigators, the rest of our investigators have dropped their interest, or are not ready to be taught yet, so we have gone back to working hard in finding. We have found some people lately. One of them (the one on the bus) lost his phone in Seoul...and so it's hard to get a hold of him. But we keep working and trying to find the elect that will listen to His voice and recognize us as messengers of the Lord.

 

Thank you for all of the spiritual messages that you send! They are all really great! This week we had a lesson in Priesthood about keeping the Commandments (wouldn't be surprised if it the same lesson in America). Anyways, we learned that the most important thing to do is to take the commandment that you aren't faithful to all the way and then to work on it a little bit at a time. That is good advice. Just one at a time over a period of time and then commandments become a habit of obedience! One of the questions of the lesson is how do show our love through obeying the commandments? Elder Jeffrey R. Holland said that one of the crowning characteristics of love is loyalty. The degree of our love of a person (think about spouse) depends on the loyalty that we have toward the person (not only, just crowning). I hope that we all look at the commandments that we are maybe not keeping all the way, and out of our love for Christ, we show Him that we are faithful to Him and to His teachings. I know that if you do, you will become happier. I have seen that in my own life and in the lives of others. God is our Father. He loves us. Because He loves us, He sent His Son Jesus Christ. If we follow Jesus Christ, we will be happy. The Book of Mormon teaches plainly how to follow Jesus Christ. I know that is true! I hope that you have a wonderful week this week and that everything goes well for every member of our family!!!

 

I love you so much! Have a wonderful week!