"God uses the unlikely for the impossible."
Elder Nelson, of the Quorum of the 12
Because of Lunar New Year, appointments were extremely hard to get. Traditionally, Koreans travel to their hometown, and spend their time with their family, reviewing and updating their family genealogy, and just partying. Not a lot of room for foreigner missionaries. This is a regular issue every year, so this year we spent our time doing different things. Even regular proselyting isn't very effective, because the streets are empty! For the three day holiday, we had three full-day activities. On Wednesday, we delivered individualized cards to every active member of our ward, crisscrossing our area. From the reaction on Sunday, they really enjoyed the cards, especially a foreigner in a hanbok (한복) -- traditional Korean clothing.
Our Lunar New Year card's picture:
On day two, the main day, the entire zone met together. Since it's the week after transfers, there were several new faces. We all introduced ourselves briefly, then played some games to all get a bit closer. Hello, Bang! That was really enjoyable. In a sense, it was kind of like P-Day, but with more people. After, we ate lunch then departed for a local mountain. We climbed, climbed, climbed and I took lots of pictures. Part way up, we took a brief break, and regrouped in a clearing made of large boulders. As we started moving again, I stepped up to a rock table, but stumbled. So, in the middle of saying something to the group, I hurled my upper body towards the ground, leaving my legs dangling. It was pretty funny, but everybody was worried I was hurt. I immediately sprang up, and put my hands on my hips, and, after assuring them I was fine, commented, "I'm doing this just in case anybody's taking video." A lame joke, but I was desperate to break the cloud of awkward concern. At the mountain's peak, we had a zone training on the topic of charity, my favorite Christlike attribute. We had a really great discussion, and a big thing I picked up from it was that motives like wanting to impress some one, reach a higher level of performance, etc, will all fail -- except for charity. All motives outside of charity eventually burn out. Perhaps that's why Moroni and Paul wrote that, "All things must fail, but charity never faileth."
After the hike, we regrouped at the church and had dinner. Then, the moment everybody was waiting for...
We watched "Meet the Mormons!" Our mission has one copy (I think) and our Zone leaders managed to procure it! What an awesome movie! I hope everybody's seen it! Right now, my favorite profile was "The Candy Bomber." What a story! I loved the history behind it.
On Friday, we met as a district, and discussed my idea for the ward: a ward meal, after church. We decided on grilled cheese sandwiches, spaghetti, deviled eggs, mashed potatoes, and cookies. We went out, got the ingredients, then spent some time playing games at the church. That evening, our bishop took us out to dinner, and asked me to speak at church on Sunday.
Saturday: One day till meal time. We made mashed potatoes from scratch, and boy, was that intense. If I ever had an orphan sweatshop, I think I'd make mashed potatoes. I've never mashed so many potatoes in my life.
Sunday: Game time! During sacrament I gave my talk, and it went pretty well, since I'd written it all out. I talked about culture, starting from how missionaries accept their country's culture to show their love, and how wearing the hanbok symbolized that. From there, I discussed how God has a culture, and He wants us to accept it. I contrasted the culture of Gods with man's culture, which has been drastically different since the fall of Adam. Ultimately, we can accept God's culture through the Gospel of Jesus Christ, which is designed to change us, and make us better -- perfect.
That's a really condensed version. I was pretty proud of it though, so I'll send a full manuscript next week. From there, I skedaddled out to start making sandwiches with my companion. We must've made over 70 grilled cheese sandwiches. There were so many! I flipped slices of bread for probably an hour. We didn't know exactly what we were doing, so in addition to that we had to figure out a method for making cheese melting deliciousness.
In the end though, it worked out. The ward loved the food, including, surprisingly, the mashed potatoes. It was a huge success, and everybody was really impressed that we cooked for them. It was a big change, providing something for the ward, instead of vice versa. It was a wonderful opportunity for us to show our love for them.
This week's pictures:
Most are from a hike we took with the zone; a few more are from meals, and the ones of the paper taped to the back windshield reads: "Sorry, sorry, new driver."
One from my companion. Last week during weekly planning, the other elders pranked us. We took it in stride, and took a moment to remind everybody that, back in the old days, missionary apartments were so small they had to study in the bathroom!
With Love,
Elder Austin Lynn
Elder Austin Lynn
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