This week was incredible! This last week we went hunting for Russians, and after a couple days, we found them! We were going door to door one day, and we found a couple Russian families, and an old lady who was Christian! Even though we can't speak Russian, we got some materials in Russian, and went back! It took us a couple of trys, but we finally got them, and we gave them a Restoration and Plan of Salvation phamphlet! I'm not sure where that's going to go, but I thought it was really funny since the other Elders in Yeonsu are teaching an incredible Russian man right now. Also, when I say "Russian," I mean, "Koreans who only speak Russian." It's so strange. We called our hunt, "The Hunt for Blazing Red June." The summers here get pretty toasty, and it's already pretty warm! Whoo!
Here's a piece of advice from Elder Ballard that I thought was really interesting: he suggests that every family has a PMG that they study from together! He said missionaries and their families would receive more blessings as they share what they learn. I think that would be an incredible blessing to the family, and would help them learn more about what I'm doing, and what they can do.
Last week was transfer calls. Since I'm still being trained I wasn't really in danger, but we lost our beloved Elder P. I was really good friends with him, so it'll be sad to see him go. However, I know that it's the Lord's will, so I'm sure things will still be good when his replacement Elder gets here.
Lately there's been an emphasis on testifying in our training, and it's really paid off! The other night we were walking home, and started talking to three kids. They were kind-of mocking us for the whole "Elder" thing, especially since I'm only 20, and I thought, "that's it." I said, "We're called Elders because we have the priesthood." And then Elder W was able to explain what the priesthood was, and I followed up with, "Also, we've been called by a prophet of God." And that was awesome. When we left, those kids really respected us. What a drastic difference! I'm certain they were reflecting on our words that night. We had a similar experience with an atheist outside a subway. My companion asked just one of his reasons for being atheist, and he told us that God's never appeared to anyone, or to him. Elder W immediately responded with Joseph Smith, and I swung in with this analogy (aided by my companion). "Have you ever been to America?" "No." "How do you know it exists?" He knew exactly where we were going, and it was like how in the scriptures it says people are "confounded." It was actually pretty cool. We were talking about that as we walked away, and I had this thought: "Is not another person's faith a picture of deity?" Isn't our textbooks about geography the scriptures, and our witnesses those with a testimony? As Alma said, all things denote there is a God.
Speaking of the scriptures, I finished Isaiah last Sunday! Lots of good stuff, but I'm afraid I didn't receive as much revelation as I would've liked. I'm sure the more I study the rest of the scriptures and grow in knowledge and understanding of the Jews of Isaiah's day, it'll become more clear to me. But for now, most of Isaiah seems pretty simple. I'm sure there's something I'm missing. Anyways, I'm in Jeremiah right now, and that's pretty good, though a bit dark. I finished the Pearl of Great Price, and I restarted the Book of Mormon, and I'm in 2 Nephi right now. Once I finish the Old Testament, I'm going to start the New, and I'm really excited for that.
We went bowling last P-Day, and it was so much fun! There's a place right by our house, and it's dirt cheap! Seriously, less than 2$ for a game. We're going to go again with Elder P today, to celebrate before he leaves. I actually did pretty well, even though we were sort of goofing off. At one point, I threw the ball, turned around as I dropped to my knees, and lifted my hands up in a victory pose. Without even looking, I heard all the pins fall down, and everybody was just stunned! Striiiiike! It was lots of fun doing silly things like that.
After church last Sunday, the whole ward got together and had a meal! There was a lot of good food there, but afterwards, the bishop had the missionaries do all the dishes! We were doing dishes for like 2 hours! It was fun though, especially with a couple of the members helping. We bonded a lot during that time, and everybody had a great time at the meal.
I had an idea for the quorom: Elder G (the financial manager-type person (a Senior missionary in our mission, who's actually fairly young)) was telling us about how he and his wife knew they wanted to serve a mission, but kind of just kept putting it off. Then, after a conference, they received revelation from one of the talks that they needed to put down a date on when to submit their papers. They did, and they got them submitted by that date. I was just thinking that if each member of the quorom committed to have their papers in by a certain date that they and their family choose, that would be so incredible! The Lord would really bless them, and it would make the mission "real," while also helping them get started on their papers. Just a thought I had.
I taught English class for beginners last week, and it was really fun! I did pretty well with keeping the other missionaries in the room involved in teaching, giving them roles, and I worked really hard at keeping each class member involved and contributing. The class went really well, and bishop brought watermelon after it was over! With everybody talking and eating watermelon together, it really felt like that last class before the summer break! The more I teach English class, the more I think about teaching as a career. It'll definitely be something for me to pray about when I return.
We started teaching a referral from the Sisters this week whose name is B. He's from the Phillipines, and doesn't speak Korean. His English is pretty solid. I'd say fluent, just without a native's vocabulary. It's stunning. We just did HBT with him and taught about how God is our loving Heavenly Father, and he accepted it all really well. He's a Catholic who hasn't gone to church in years, and he's not very familiar with the bible, but he really wants to learn more about Christ, and (here's a funny thing) he likes watching things, so we gave him the link to the Life of Jesus Christ bible videos! Hopefully he really likes those. He even mentioned how you're blessed for believing in God without seeing Him, which is amazing to hear from somebody after all these people who will say something like, "well, God's never appeared to me." He's really golden. I love him.
We were down on the artificial island Sungdo last Saturday, and we had a miraculous afternoon! As we went to visit a member, we started talking to this old lady, and it turns out that she's the second counselor in the bishopric's mother-in-law! Wow! And, she's not a member! We're going to try and get something started with her. Anyways, that member wasn't home, so we want to the second one, who lived in the same apartment neighberhood. He wasn't home, but as we were standing outside the door, two people walk down. We talk with them, and tell them the address we were trying to visit, and it turns out that the member is the woman's father! So we met this member's daughter and son-in-law, both of whom aren't members. Isn't that insane?! Anyways, we go to visit the third member, and she's home. A member we ate with last week opens the door, and we were stunned to see him! It turns out he'd been visiting her. He left soon after we got there. There was another man there, who asked us if we were from the "strange church." Obviously non-member. We found out five minutes later that he's actually the bishop in a different ward, and had been messing with us! It turns out the member, the grandma, and the bishop were all family members. Anyways, the bishop from this other ward orders us some food, and insists we eat! So we eat this delicious food that's delivered right to the house, and we're stuffed. Somebody knocks on the door, and the bishop walks over, with a thing of chicken that had just been delivered! We were so full, we had to take leftovers home. It was so good. There was this soup (some kind of fish soup; there was a mussel in one of the bowls) and it was so spicy I took one small sip, and literally started crying. It was brutal. Luckily, we didn't have to eat that. It was definitely the spiciest thing I've had in my life.
That's it for this week!
Love,
Elder Austin Lynn
Elder Austin Lynn
No comments:
Post a Comment