June 20, 2016 (Week 79)

June 20, 2016

Ok, this week was fun.

Traditional Korean Wear

Monday nothing really special, except the fact that people in Korea go just as nuts about bingo as Americans do. So excited over a simple game.

Tuesday as we were leaving the house, we hopped on a bus, then a guy called us. We gave him our card on Monday, and he wanted to learn about our church!  So we hopped off, hurried to the church and talked with him. He's a nice guy. He's slightly special, but lesson went over well... that was a cool miracle for us. After that, we headed into Seoul for the conference on Wednesday... Good ol' 3 hour bus ride. Nice nap though..

Wednesday was mission conference with Elder Yamashita.  Really funny guy.  He gave a great training.  We did that from 9-5, then hopped on a bus back here.  Today was sweet though, I got to see all my buddies from the mission, some of them for the last time before they go home.   Man, so many people I've never seen, and I didn't realize I knew so many people, haha, some of them I haven't seen since I left Seoul last year, so that was cool for me.

Thursday we had just left the house when a random former investigator called and wanted to meet. So we hurried down to the church, met him at a cafe nearby, and then showed him the church... he said he didn't have much interest, but we think theres a little since he called us up to meet. Following him, we headed down to the catholic college.  Pretty good time, but a lot of people are bouncing town for vacation.  After, we were talking with people when one guy says he's busy, but his friend wants to meet us, so gave us both his and his friends numbers and then left.  After that was just good ol' English class.....

Friday we had weekly planning, and studies, and then we went and met 한웅(Han Oong). We met him when Elder Swan first came.  He is doing good. He wants to believe in God, but doesn't.  But he likes meeting us because he feels good around us and respects us.  That was cool to hear, so we will try to build off of that feeling with him.   Right after, we rode a taxi down to meet our referral from yesterday.  Really nice guy. 전동호 (Juhn Dohng Ho).   He met missionaries as a high schooler, but got busy so he quit meeting, and wanted to meet with us again, so he was pretty excited to meet us.  Nice guy, but reaaally likes to talk... a lot... about random stuff.  We managed to get across our goals with him, and expectations..

Saturday wasn't much. We had English, then met Thomas. We went and ate pizza together, then taught him the Plan of Salvation.  He took it really well and liked the fact of no heaven and hell.  We set a plan for him to get baptized in Guatemala, so hopefully that will go through.

Member hand-me-down Piano

Sunday we had church, then after 전동호 (Juhn Dohng Ho) met us, and we got the branch president to teach with us. It was good, but those two just talked together for 30-ish minutes about who knows what.  Random stuff I couldn't follow.  So, we eventually got around to a lesson, went well, says he's down for baptism. Not much else happened...

Well, love you all,
-Elder Mortensen

June 13, 2016 (Week 78)

June 13, 2016

Oki doki.

Branch President and Family

Monday, we went on the hike with the branch members. That was cool, good time. The festival was pretty sweet. A lot of sellers, some amusement rides, all that jazz.  There was more cultural stuff that we wanted to check out, but due to the hike, that was kinda hard.  After that was just Family Night.

Tuesday I was with Elder Coleman on exchanges.  That was a good time. Today we started out our advertising at the festival. We found a little bridge in the middle of the two walkways, so we set up camp there, and then advertised for Gospel and English, but when nobody really went for gospel, we focused more on English, since everybody here is affected by that.  It's hard to describe how much they study/like/need English. You walk down a street and can count more English academies than cars on the road it seems. After, we met So Hahn Suck, the 89 year old recent convert. Good man. Nothing else super special happened..

Wednesday was an interesting district meeting. I planned it all in just regular English, then just felt the need to do the whole thing in Korean, so it was a little rough, but it was good. Talked a lot about the Spirit.  There's a great talk called "Know thyself, control thyself, give thyself".  Kind of an older one, but really good.   After that, I did teaching program with sister Jo Hey Won. Pretty much role play the missionary lessons, memorize words, and work on better teaching. It's a pretty fun thing now, hated it as a greenie though.  Then we met Gayan. He is from Sri Lanka, and is studying here at school. Good guy. We talked about religion with him, comes from a Buddhist background but doesn't really care about religion, kinda just thinks all are good.  Hopefully he is willing to try out our church, not sure though, funny guy though.  We did a little advertising, then met Go Young Ook with sister Jo Young Ah. It was kind of awkward, we all sat on a bench outside his lab, read Enos, and tried to apply it to him.  It went over somewhat well, but after, she says,  "yeah, he doesn't have any interest, just English/friend interest. I kind of feared that already, but it was hard to hear. So we dropped him. We might visit occasionally, but teaching side is over... sad.

Thursday we did more advertise, and English class, nothing too special.

Friday we had weekly planning, then we went and did advertising, then came back ate, and walked to some less-actives houses again.. Again, nothing really special.

Saturday we had sports day with the entire church district (stake). We played soccer, tennis soccer, had a race (I came in second, behind Elder Coleman! wohoo, I'm not too out of shape!) and ate a ton of meat. More than healthy, thick bacon and duck meat... (duck is really good).   A kid named Thomas came, cool kid from Guatemala, he is here studying, and his family is all Korean.

Thomas

Sunday Thomas came to church, that was cool. We had a good lunch, then advertised, then met Thomas again.  He is a normal 16 year old kid, likes books, games, pop culture, but seems to like our church.  Hopefully we can help him before he leaves next month.

Well, take care,
Elder Mortensen

June 6, 2016 (Week 77)

June 6, 2016

Ok... this week...

"Take up thy bed and walk"

Monday, we went and saw the ocean, ate a buffet. That was P-Day for us.  After that, we went and did flyer-ing for English class before Family Night.  Family Night we played baseball with a ping pong paddle and ball. Pretty fun time.  Our college buddy came again too!

Tuesday we went and had Pizza Hut (super expensive here. It's a nice sit down restaurant here.. ) with Jay Won. He lived in South Carolina for a couple years, Connecticut, and other places, so fluent at English. We've ran into him a couple times before, so we finally got an appointment with him! He was really cool, he took a Book of Mormon, read a little bit of it, and seemed to have interest. After that, we visited So Hahn Suck, the 89 recent convert.  Visiting him is always fun.  Everything he says is just, "well of course God made it that way, nothing else makes sense".  Such strong belief in everything we teach.  Then we just confirmed a couple more less-actives houses, then headed back for calls/dinner, regular proselyting.

Wednesday we had Zone meeting. That was cool. I got to sit with Elder Hall again.  He is doing good, loving it up in Soak Cho. The Zone training was weird.. .all about the "mysteries of God". I don't know,  Zone meetings are always kinda weird in general, that and President was here, so the zone leaders looked to him for everything.   After we got cancelled on twice, one guy just said "sorry, but I don't believe in God"... We went away thinking "so why did you agree to meet in the first place, then confirm it later??"  Man, this country sometimes... So we tried snack proselyting, but it was just the same high school students looking for a snack, like kids in Costco... Probably won't do that for a while again.

Thursday we went up to Joo Moon Jeen, toured around that area for a little, then came back for English class... Same old, same old.

Friday we went to the college but everybody has tests, so they won't meet us for a couple weeks.  Dang it, that's our whole teaching pool. We spent the night in that region.
Saturday and Sunday was prepping for the festival going on this week, making boards, planning, getting things done, nothing too cool.

Switching "L's" and "R's"

This week wasn't the most exciting, talking religion is hard with these people.. (they treat it like a business job.. I'll explain later... )

Love ya,
Elder M, over and out.

May 30, 2016 (Week 76)

May 30, 2016

Alrighty,

Receiving "Mountain Top" Inspiration

Monday we did email, played basketball, then played some billiards. Pretty weird. We played 4 ball billiards, not the usual pocket ball.  Pretty fun time though. After that we had ice cream waffles (waffles, smother some ice cream in the middle, eat like a sandwich.  It's great.)   After P-Day we went and met 최세민 (Choy Say Meen) our buddy that came last week, but it turns out he has 0% interest in gospel. He wouldn't watch a movie, let us pray, talk about church. He just sat there playing games on his phone wanting to just talk and hang out.  So he dropped pretty fast, but he enjoyed Family Night, so he might stick around for that.  That night we played clothes volleyball. We sit in chairs, 5 on 5, and have a ball made of clothes and play volleyball, pretty fun.
Tuesday we met 고영욱 (Go Young Ook)  and 이동훈 (Lee Dong-hoon). 고 (Go) doesn't really have a lot interest anymore. We tried to bring up prayer, help his smoking and his commitment level to all of that dropped a lot, so we probably wont meet him a whole ton anymore. We'll still keep in contact, but pretty much dropped as an investigator... kinda sad. 이 (Lee) is doing good.  He says he believes in God 70%, and feels lacking still, but we are trying to work with him to get him to see that that is good enough. Good guy though. After, we dropped off Elder Keil to go in to Seoul, then just proselyted the rest of the night.
Wednesday sent Elder Hall off to his new area, right next door.  Then we did studies, cleaned and picked up the new comps. Elder Swan is pretty cool. He is from Cottonwood Heights, likes Jack Johnson, sports, and plays piano. (Sound familiar?)  Pretty cool, we get along good, haha. We just did tracting all day, then did some streetboarding at night.
Thursday was just more walking around, a good nice welcome to Gangneung for Elder Swan, haha, but it was good.  We talked with a couple less-actives, then had English class.
Friday we had a couple people punk us, but we had a good time anyway..

Billiards Activity

Saturday we met 한웅 (Han Ung) (the meaning can be translated as "one bear"... pretty cool name, haha)   We met and talked, seems pretty interested, but still got a little ways to go. He's pretty hesitant about believing in God and miracles.  Then we had English class, visited less-actives, and tried drawing proselyting... not that good, but we did talk with a Latvian person here with the Olympics... pretty nice guy.
Sunday we had church, then met 남기철(Namgicheol).  He is 25 and goes to the Catholic school. Really nice guy.  We had a good lesson with him.  He's pretty open and accepting kind of guy too. Kind of shy, but nice.  That was a cool time for us. We came back and had another not so good activity. Some activities they think of are not the best.
Overall, we met some cool people this week.  The new companion is always fun.  We're just livin' the dream.
-Elder Mortensen

May 23, 2016 (Week 75)

May 23, 2016

Allergy Season Hits!

Herro, it's me is again!  Nice to meet you...
Well, I'm staying here!!! Five transfers in a row... Elder Hall is moving next door, in the next city, so I'll see him quite often. I'll be with Elder Swan.  He was in the MTC with Elder Hall, and I guess he's a pretty sweet dude, so I'm pretty excited.

Monday we didn't do much, hit up another buffet. That started off a hectic food week.   That night we met with our ward mission leader, and had a lesson with Go Young Ook planned, but some other college kid that we met the other day came early for family night, so our ward mission leader invited him into the lesson as well, so we had a somewhat decent lesson. It was mainly me and Go talking, and Elder Hall and the ward mission leader with the other kid, Choi Say Meen. Overall good. Go opened up about his smoking issue, and other things, hoping to build off of that finally.  Family Night was fun. Kim Dong Bum didn't show up though, dang.
Tuesday, nothing really worth reporting. Found some less-actives and walked around.
Wednesday, had district meeting, then we helped out Go Young Ook with English. I really hope he comes around soon. Everytime he gives us a little inkling of hope, we try to build off of, but it hasn't amounted to much.  He's on the edge of getting dropped every week.   That night, we did "talk with a foreigner" activity, trying to talk with people and build up English class.  It went alright, nothing super exciting.
Thursday- we went up to Joo Moon Jin, and that sucked. Not a lot off people.  We went knocking on ghetto apartments looking for a less-active.  Overall not that exciting.  We met Sheem Jay Ho, our taxi driver.  He is doing good, he accepts our message well.  Hopefully he can read and pray this week, even though he is busy.  English class was alright,
Friday nothing much happened, met Choi Say Meen again, after waiting forever, then went to do "snack activity" again.  That went over pretty well, although a lot of students just come and eat all the snacks... little twerps...
Saturday we had our usual thick bacon party at the church. I didn't feel good after that one.  We got yelled at by a random person living in a former less-actives place.  So many less-actives that move, it's crazy...
Sunday we had church then a meal out in Peong Chang, the olympic site.  Really good meat there. I ate way too much again.  We all felt fat.

Well, gotta go, my computer freaked out for a little bit, so I can't say as much this week,  but still here, going good, take care, '
-Elder Mortensen

May 16, 2016 (Week 74)

May 16, 2016

Hey Family,

Skyping

Well,  Monday nobody came to Family Night, so we took the time to plan out better activities, how we can bring new faces into the church, for members to meet and connect with.

Tuesday was a rain storm that was impressive. It lasted the entire day.  We went up to the main college, then met 고영욱 (Go Young Ook) after a little bit. talked with him casually about cigarettes and marriage, and we think we found his issue. When talking about smoking he said he could stop whenever, but when we talked about it, he gave really lame reasons why... so we are going to talk about the Atonement with him tonight with our ward mission leader. hoping it goes well..    after him we met 김대환 (Kim Day Hyun). He is 25 and a college student at the Catholic school. He was cool, kinda wanted just friend status, but he was cool with us teaching him.  He says he'll come to church. nice guy.
Wednesday we had district meeting, then we went and did "snack proselyting".  Basically having people eat snacks, tell us their favorite, and then letting us talk with them.  Korea gets pounded with a lot of advertisements, and that stuff, so we are just trying to get creative with something that will spark some interest in them. It turned out fairly well.
Thursday we went and spent some time at the main college and the area around it. We tried to visit 5 or so less actives, but nobody was home, and man, it was getting hot.  It was impressive. I can't wait for the summer though, should be pretty hot.  After the college visit, we just had English class.
 Friday we planned, then hit up the small nursing college in the area... (yes, another college)  We met some nice people there.  Then came back, and tried to do a family-themed survey, but it didn't turn out to well.

His Next Education Step?
"The Suspicious Magical School"

Saturday we went on exchanges.  I went with Elder Keil.  Basically it was all just chatting and letting stuff out for both of us. It was a good time though. We met his investigator, then taught English class, then did "foreigner proselyting."  We pretty much have them talk in English with us. Nothing to hot with that one.  A lot of high school girls trying to talk and ask if we thought they were pretty... awkward... but hey, 고영욱 (Go Young Ook) came to English class, so that was cool!
Sunday we had church, then a branch activity to pick cherries off the tree in our parking lot. That was pretty fun time. Nothing else too special happened.

Well, take care,
Elder Mortensen

May 9, 2016 (Week 73)

May 9, 2016

Mother's Day Skype Selfie

Alrighty...

 Monday we went and shopped, Elder Hall had to buy a memory card and download pictures, then we hit up some big sale place that was advertised all over town... man.. that place was a rip... nothing really good there except for a couple five dollar T-Shirts... me and Elder Hall picked up a couple just because haha.  That night we just had Family Night... Kim Dong Bum is still coming out to it, but he threw his phone with his wash, so we can't really call him for the time being... good time though.
Tuesday we went to a tiny little college in our area, the smallest one within our area. We walked around it for about 20 minutes. And made a complete trip, haha. We met some cool people there, but nothing too special. We talked with one guy who loooooved Marvel.  He's already seen Captain America Civil War three times, and was seeing it again that night. Man, he was weird. We couldn't talk about anything other than that and Grand Theft Auto.  We sat down with him and tried to teach the restoration, but he didn't really care.   After that we went up to see another college.  This one is about the size of a Weber State, big, but not like USU or BYU status. Not a lot of people there either. We talked with some people, but most college students are heading to their homes for the holiday weekends.  Bummer...  That night, we went to find less-active Lee Jeen Ho, and ended up meeting Eem Johng Myung, another less active.  He moved into the other less-actives house.  He was really nice.  He met the church through English class as a teenager, then got baptized, then sadly felt like God didn't answer his prayers, so he turned Buddhist. Dang it... really nice family though.. cute two little sons..
Wednesday we had zone training.  That was alright... The, we then went down the Catholic college and met some cool people there, but with Thursday through Sunday being holiday break, not too many people were sticking around. We got cancelled on by a couple people there too.
Thursday we had children's day here, so we went down to the park by the soccer stadium and handed out fliers to the families there. There were a lot of people, that was cool. All of them with their families, which gave us some hope for Korea, and how business-oriented they are some times.  Later we met Kim Day Hyun, the student me and Elder Megargel were meeting with.  He called us the night before (at midnight... so many late phone calls...) but agreed to meet us since he was back in town.  He's doing good, good to chat with him.  He's back in Seoul, so not sure hows hess doing right now.  After that was English class.
Friday we met Lee Dohng Hoon.  He is 29 and studying music at the Catholic school.  Really cool guy, not sure why we wanted to meet him, but he agreed. We taught the restoration, and he was the first person I've been with that says "I don't know if this is legitimate or not".. most of the time its just "ya, ya cool".  Super cool, hopefully we can meet him again.  That was the highlight for the day.
 Saturday we had music night,  which meant cleaning up, moving things around, making it all good, and hanging out with all the Seoul missionaries, namely Elder Brantley and Elder Saunders. It was good to see them again. They are doing good.  We had president interviews.  After that we had the music night.  About 100 people came, I'd say... really cool, and really spiritual night. The district presidency was all in tears by the end of it.  Hopefully this can kickstart our area.
Sunday we had district conference, then we talked and then went to knock on doors. Nothing too special.  It was cool though, for MCM (ward mission leader meeting) our leader came in and sat down and just said" alright, well things aren't working right now... what can we do? " and proceeded to help us get new plans rolling, try to work with members more.  Really good meeting.


Well, love you all.  Happy Mothers Day.
-Elder Mortensen