16.1.24

This week was frigid!
On Monday we met with C, one of our young men who's
preparing to go on a mission and practiced teaching him the third
lesson, the Gospel of Jesus Christ. Elder Lowe has been focusing on
that lesson for the past two weeks, as part of his first 12 weeks in
Korea. He's doing a great job learning to teach it well, and we spend
lots of our time in studies practicing teaching.
Tuesday was a terrific day for this week. After studying, we went
out to meet a new investigator. We sat down with him in a cafe and
talked about our program for studying English and the gospel together.
He took a real liking to me; he wasn't very good at English so he and
Elder Lowe had difficulty communicating. We're going to meet him
again, and begin teaching English and the gospel. That evening we met
with our Bishopric's first counselor and his wife at their home. They
fed us beef rib soup, which is delicious. We also shared a message
joy, and talked about two of their children, who are on their missions
right now. Their children's missions are having a huge impact on their
parents. The mother said that there's never a happier time in your
life than when your child is on a mission. The father said that he's
understanding the gospel more than ever before, despite his thirty
years of membership. Meeting with them really inspired me -- there is
so much value in family, and in missionary work. The two directly
support each other.
On Wednesday the weather dropped dramatically. Actually, it was
freezing on Tuesday too, but we stayed inside most of that day, thanks
to appointments. On Wednesday though, we experienced the brunt of the
cold. To offset the part of the day spent freezing in our slacks, we
spent the evening making phone calls. Elder Lowe put in work for quite
a while, which impressed me. I was pretty afraid of making phone calls
when I was a young missionary.
On Thursday we got to participate in a worldwide missionary
broadcast. Receiving training from apostles and other church leaders
was a terrific chance, and a historic one: they haven't done a
missionary broadcast like this in ten years. As a result of the
broadcast I committed to talk more often about Jesus Christ, whom I'm
here to represent. He -- not Joseph Smith, not apostles, not the Bible
or Book of Mormon -- is the center of God's plan, and our Savior.
Friday was another highlight for this week. We met with our
recent convert Y Y J who's probably entering the military as a
SEAL in a month or so. We talked about the power of patriarchal
blessings and encouraged him to go get his own. He was pretty excited
about it; and as always was really energetic. We ate dinner with him
after our lesson, then ended our evening by visiting the less-active
who works at our apartment complex. We read the first few chapters of
the Book of Ether together and discussed how God provides us light,
but in response to our inquiry.
As usual, we taught English class on Saturday, but unlike the
usual, last Saturday our Bishop invited us to his home. We had a
wonderful lunch with him and he put in an effort to learn everybody's
name and hometown. We talked a lot about the ward's goal of focusing
on finding joy in the gospel, and shared a little with him. He talked
about how important dreams and goals to reach those dreams are in the
context of finding happiness.
Sunday was a typical day of church, with a baptismal service for
a member's daughter afterwards. It was a wonderful event for us to be
able to watch, and the food provided afterwards was definitely not
unappreciated. We got to talk to members for a while and find a few
more appointments for this week. Working with members is the best!
Will it be easier or harder in my native language back in America?

Love,
Elder Austin Lynn