February 8, 2016
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| Lovin' the snow |
Ok, well this week in two words 설날 & snow.......
설날 is the lunar new year, so Korea kinda just shuts down for a week to party with the family. Plus, we got 20cm of snow this week, so this past weekend hasn't been much besides just shoveling.
Monday was the trip into Seoul, then we came back, and went to Family Night, since our bus trip took longer than expected. For Family night we played board games this week, since we were coming late, the other elders didn't show, and we didn't have much planned anyway. We had our 3 Chinese friends come though, which is cool. (all three are pretty fluent at Korean. I'm pretty sure they are technically Chinese, but lived in the little pocket of Koreans there... sorta like Koreans in Los Angeles, where they are American, but learn only Korean.) One of the guys, Kim Doeng Bum 김동범 we met on the street, then he brought his friends, so that was fun.
Tuesday we went and taught the other elders' 89 year-old investigator, since they are in Seoul, and he needs daily contact to keep things fresh. It was kind of a weird awkward lesson, but he is super nice and says he is willing to leave the Jehovah's Witnesses in a heartbeat now that he believes in Joseph Smith. He even took the whole, Jehovah is not God speech pretty well. So we stopped by there, then came back to get stood up by a guy... We confirmed the appointment that morning, he said he wanted to bring a friend, that night, he said he was on his way, then about half an hour later we called him to see where he was, and he was just chilling at his house... nice.
Wednesday we had zone meeting, then I went on an exchange with elder Kim She Hyun (translates to Kim Vision, haha) 김시현. We went right over to 이상준s house, and reviewed the restoration since he said he had a little trouble understanding some parts. So we did that, then went a little bit into the gospel of Jesus Christ, and he accepted a 3/19 baptismal date! Super cool, he said that he's been praying and reading, and his parents have no issues. (Hopefully we can meet them, too.) After that was dinner, and movie night. We watched The Testaments, and our Chinese friend Kim Doeng Bum brought his friends again, and throughout it, he was like "hey, that's Jesus... isn't there also a Jacob in the New Testament? (due to translation, James is Jacob, kinda like Spanish...) so we talked, and he read the entire Bible, and took a Book of Mormon, and we talked about it a little. Super cool, he seems to have interest in the church.
Thursday, we studied, closed the exchange, then rode and hour up to his area, then an hour back to our area, then had dinner and singing practice, since we have a musical number this week for the mission conference... great... the most musically untalented district (us) got selected.... English after was just as fun as before....
Friday we planned, then had singing practice, then we tried to visit our couple from last week, but they were out of town... So we went back, had dinner and tried to find some more less-actives, since nobody is on the streets anymore...
Saturday we shoveled. The snow came down pretty hard Saturday. We got almost a foot of snow probably. So we taught English, shoveled, went out for a couple hours, then shoveled the church and other places nearby. That led to a lot of "thanks, but we don't drink coffee" discussions, since they always offered it... Man, if we were to drink coffee and beer, missionaries here could have unlimited free drinks for life. That was about all we really did that day.
Sunday we only had one hour of church, due to everybody being out of town. But our buddy, Kim Doeng Bum came to church, and brought his other friend! That's super cool. He's brought three friends now! We talked a little bit there, and the members all talked with them, which was cool, but a bit overwhelming it seemed... having 7 members surround them and talk with them... But cool to have them come. After we sang, then went and shoveled other places, since one, there was nobody really out, and two, it got people to like us, and three, people were more willing to talk it seemed. So that was fun, but kinda tiring. We met up with the sisters and sang some more (we need a lot of practice...) and then had dinner. Yeah, that was about our day.
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| Man with a load of bricks |
So, pretty fun week this week. Today we cleaned our house, tomorrow is P-Day, and Wednesday is a mission conference (well just another zone conference, since we are out in the boonies of our mission)
Love you all, take care this week,
-Elder Mortensen
Read 1 Nephi 17:51 (kinda need to read a little bit before the verse to understand it better, but kinda funny how Nephi simplifies life for us... God can do all these things, how simple is it to help us out with our tasks in life?)
