Ward Game Night

Thanks for your emails!

This week was very fun, but went by so fast. When anticipating transfer calls, the time will go by so slow, but will then soon pass you by, as the tricksy tortoise always does.

The weather is cooling down, so we are so happy. I love it, it sure makes it easier to be comfortable and happy when you talk to people on the street.

We met with Pastor XXXX on Tuesday like usual. He's great. His wife couldn't come, but we were still able to discuss doctrine. It seems that as soon as we started teaching him, I started to notice articles and talks in the Liahona about teaching simply, teaching only pure doctrine, and avoiding speculation. That helps a lot, because of course he wants to go deep into what each translation means, and sometimes that gets jumbled. We explained clearly our belief on baptism and eternal marriage, and he explained what he learned about baptisms for the dead. I love talking with him, but it seems that at the end of the lessons, he chalks it up to 'well, this is your translation and interpretation, and this is my interpretation.' But he still has potential. I quite enjoy meeting with him.

We referred the two girls we met to the sisters, and it turns out they're really prepared. They don't have a religion, but are looking for something.

A while ago we met a grandpa that keeps calling because he wants chocolate. Korean chocolate isn't good for you. And naturally, since I'm American, I carry around American chocolate with me. When you sent me the s'mores kit (THANK YOU THANK YOU!!), we met with him and gave him some chocolate. He was really grateful.

We also met with our new investigator, the one that called us a week or two ago and came to church. He's a b boy, a dancer like Andrew Dransfield. he's really nice, and super humble. We taught him about the gospel of Jesus Christ, and he accepted the invitation to be baptized! We haven't set a date, but I have a feeling it will be before the end of this month. He's great.

We spent the next day preparing for the game night. We sat down, made flyers, gave them to all of our members at their homes, then the next day, called all of them, then sent a mass text the next day. We really wanted a lot of people to come. It was a big success. We didn't get the attendance we wanted, but we had about 40-50 people show up, not including the missionaries. It was fun, we met members, less actives, and investigators in our stake. We played a lot of 'minute to win it' type games. We were in charge of the chopstick stacking game. They used chopsticks to stack caramels. That was interesting. They were all so good at using chopsticks so the games were intense. At the end we all tied balloons to our ankles and had a game to pop others' balloons while protecting ours. Then we played ping pong soccer, using your breath to protect your side of the table. That was so fun. We had our president show up, and he was a good sport and played all of the games! It was a lot of fun.

So overall, this week was super stressful, trying to put together a whole stake activity, but we saw miracles through it all.

I love you all!

Elder Franchina

Chusuk, A Korean Thanksgiving

Our Mission! See if you can spot Jordan....

You're right about XXXX. But he gave up tea pretty easily. He doesn't understand why we can't drink red or green tea, but we just suggested to switch to a different tea. God commanded it, so just switch one tea for the other. It wasn't hard. But, smoking is. This week was 추석, Chusuk, a kind of Korean thanksgiving. He was out with his family, so he didn't smoke at all. He was able to go over 2 days without smoking! He's doing really well, and we are really excited for him. We moved his baptismal date back a week, but we're still going to be trying really hard with him.

This week was very strange. On Tuesday we had a Chusuk party for English class, which was really fun. We had 3 investigators come and the sisters had one come. We will cancel our English class until October 1st, because we're switching books and starting a 'new semester'. Wednesday we did a mission-wide fast, so we ate at a buffet for lunch and then just went out and proselyted for hours. 

Thursday was mission conference, which was amazing. Missionary work has been going through a 'slump' in Korea over the past few years, so President thought it would be good to have a fast. They gave training and talked a lot about 'daily bread'. We watched a few videos on it that Elder Christoffersen narrated, and President talked about how we need to take missionary work one day at a time. We expect big miracles right now, but we need to be grateful for the little ones we collect every day. After all, getting manna from heaven was definitely a miracle. So when it's hard, when you don't want to work anymore, just take one more step. One more step. Take it one day at a time, and look for the Lord's hand in your lives. It's there, and when you express gratitude for what He's done, he'll open the gates of heaven and pour out blessings. It was a great conference, and it was really fun to see friends and old companions. 

On Chusuk, there's 'travel days' where, on Wednesday they travel to their family's house, then Chusuk is Thursday, then Friday is another travel day. It's eerie, because during Chusuk, there is NO ONE on the streets. You can't find anyone. And you can't knock doors, because partly of culture during Chusuk and stuff. So we had our mission conference on Thursday, then Friday was 'clean day', where we deep cleaned our whole house from top to bottom. It didn't take us too long, having 4 elders who are fairly clean anyway. So after we went to the market to see if they had any 'black Friday sales'. 

Saturday was our P day, so we got together with another zone, and all 50 of us played basketball, ping pong, Uno, all sorts of games, then we got permission to watch the movie "The best 2 years."  I've never seen it before! It was funny because we were all seeing this from a missionary's perspective. Quite enjoyable. 

Sunday was good, none of our investigators showed up to church, but it was still a very spiritual 3 hours where I enjoyed the company of our ward members. After church 2 girls called us. We met their dad on the street last week and he sent them to us to learn about our church and to practice English. They are really nice, and we'll probably refer them to the sisters this week.

Then, for dinner, we got meat from a member as a gift, so we had a really good dinner, then finished it off with SMORES! Thanks mom, Elder 장 loves them.

Today isn't P day, but we're still emailing to keep the regular schedule of Monday emails. After this we'll go visit members and share the news of our stake game night this Saturday. It'll be fun, and I PROMISE I'll take more pictures. We didn't take many pictures during Chusuk, we were kept pretty busy, but I have a few to send to you.^^

Love you all!

Elder Franchina

Another Busy Week!

Army Base Cafeteria

Hello all~

This week was crazy busy, stuffed full of miracles.

In the past 2 weeks we have found 7 new investigators.

One guy I really like, Mr 전 is 20, and really wants to learn about Christ. We gave him a card a few weeks ago, but since we talk to hundreds of people a week, when we met with him, I didn't recognize him. He called us back and said to meet on Saturday. He's so eager. He bought a Bible just to study it with us, and when we offered him our Book of Mormon for free, he was exceedingly grateful. He came to church and read the entire intro of the BOM, including the testimony of the 3, 8, and Joseph Smith. He loves our message!

Anyway, first, the adventures of the week.

Monday was good, we just went to the bathhouse to relax. At FHE XXXXX came, and he was trying to be witty with one of our members who's from America, and they just went back and forth for about 10 minutes, it was hilarious. The sisters lost it, they started laughing so hard, but FHE was great, we all learned about prophets.

Tuesday. We skipped lunch to meet with Pastor XXXXX and his wife. We taught them the Plan of Salvation, and they really liked it. They loved the scriptures in the Bible about baptisms for the dead, and the scriptures that talk about the pre earth life and postmortal existence. Some things were kind of new to them. They did have a question about eternal families, because in Matt 22:30, Christ says there's no marriage in heaven. So we kind of traded scriptures, and went home to study them later. I looked at it and realized that it's talking about being married of the world, as clarified in the same parable in Luke, and we need the saving ordinance of sealings in the temple, revealed to Joseph Smith towards the end of D&C.

Then we went a little out of our area to meet a guy we met on the street last week. Pretty sure he's a mob boss. He took us to the abandoned level of a warehouse and it was empty except for a few people drinking coffee on the cement floor, and then his all glass office with a giant Korean flag and a desk. But he was so nice and loved to talk, but just didn't have that much interest. But we can meet with him again if we want. We might drop by again sometime.  On the way home we met a really nice guy on the subway and gave out a few Book of Mormons. We met with XXXXX, and he's still smoking, but will really try. I don't know if he has a lot of faith in himself. But I know he can do it if he commits himself. If he stops smoking, he'll get his answer and will be baptized.

Wednesday I woke up after a dream where I became AP. Nightmare. So I solved my problems by making nachos for lunch (thank you Costco!). We visited some members, who turned out to be the first Korean Senior couple missionaries ever! They served in the Philippines Milan temple. They're so nice!

Thursday we had follow up training for the trainers and trainees, which was fun. We reviewed a lot about talking to people on the street.

Friday we met the guy that spoke to me on the bus. He's really nice, and brought two friends to meet us! They're really nice, and one friend lived in Provo for 2 years and went to high school, then went to Oregon for 2 years for college. He knows a little about our church and has quite a few Mormon friends, of course. They're really nice, and we all get along well.

Saturday we went to the temple right after lunch, and were able to do confirmations and baptisms for the dead. I was able to do it in Korean, which was a cool experience. It was a large stake activity, so there were a lot of people! After that we hurried back to church to meet Mr 전, who I already explained about. He's awesome.

Sunday was incredible. We sang a song in sacrament, but changed the song that morning, so only had about 20 minutes to practice, but it still turned out okay, and right after that, Mr 전 showed up! He wasn't feeling well due to a kidney problem, but he still came and stayed all 3 hours! Right after sacrament XXXXX and another new investigator showed up. This guy, Mr XXXXX, is about 60, and we met him on the street a few weeks ago. He thought he'd try going to our church a few times. It was so fun to see all of them at church! 

We didn't have much time for personal study or language study, so we planned to do that at night. So at around 7:30 we're doing language study, and I really felt like we should go out and talk to people on the street. Best language study, right? So we went out, and not 20 seconds after we walked out, we met this guy holding those long rubber chickens that squeak. He came up to us and said, 'HELLO! LEMME BUY YOU A DRINK!' He lives right by our house and sometimes sees us leave, but never met us. So he bought us some juice and we talked for over a half hour. He was so nice, and wants to buy us lunch on Tuesday. He loves fish, and showed us lots of pictures of his fish tank. I thought of you, dad, and told him that you have a pretty cool fish tank.

Now we have around 11 investigators, and it's stressful to try to juggle them all, but we get help from both sides of the veil! Things are really picking up. We have transfer calls at the end of the month (this transfer was a long 9 weeks for some reason), so I don't know what's going to happen! All I do know is that we're getting 2 new elders next transfer, so we'll have 4 elders in our ward. That'll be fun!

We've had some rainstorms and cool weather, and now some hot weather. Today, Monday, we went to the Army base with our ward mission leader. We ate, then played a few rounds of mini golf. That was fun. It really feels like America there. I didn't have my camera, but if the other missionaries that were there send me the pictures, I'll forward them your way.

I love the work, and even though it's extraordinarily stressful, it's extraordinarily blissful.

Love you all!

Elder Franchina

Humility & Miracles

Thanks for the pickle juice picture, that made my day. I love elder Holland, and love that quote.

I might by a hair trimmer soon, like what you used to cut my hair. I'm actually getting really good at cutting hair. I cut the elders' hair that live in our house. They love it. BE PROUD OF ME MOM!

I also have a problem with my shoes, they split at the seam of the shoe and sole up by the toe, by my pinky toe. I am trying to glue it shut, hopefully sealing it before it rains or snows, but it's not working. I might need to buy a new pair of shoes for the winter. These shoes are just fine for the summer, I don't mind the rip. But I can get some good shoes here in Korea. I'll just need to look around.

I'm thinking of buying a new camera, mine is still having the problem with the spots and stuff, and I don't think the pictures are good quality. I can go to Costco and get a new one for a good price, what do you think? I can send this camera home and have you two use it, but otherwise, I wouldn't use it. It's just a little bulky and not the best. But I don't NEED a new one, so I'm kind of stuck. I don't want to be wasteful. I'll think about it.

 

Speaking of which, thanks for your thoughts on pride. I'm trying to prepare well and watch and learn from other leaders.  Thank you for your advice on humility, I'll study those and think about it. I need to become more humble. Honestly, my Korean is good, but it could be a lot better. Also, the way I use my talents to help people is more of a 'hey, I'm doing good, let me show you what I can do and you can learn from me' instead of a 'hey, I learned this the hard way' or helping in a more 'humble manner'. So I'm working on that.

 

This week was good. We met a pastor, who goes by the name Pastor XXXXX. He and his wife are both bible scholar evangelists, but when they visited America, they toured through the states and stopped in Salt Lake. They visited our HQ and met a Korean Missionary at Temple Square. He's fascinated with the Book of Mormon and wants to learn so much about it. But they ask questions like, 'were the Nephites Palestinians?' and such. Not like questions we're used to getting. But they're really sincere and would never dare to bible bash. I'm so excited to teach them more.

 

We're revamping our English class and have so far, found 4 investigators through it. The sisters in our area have found 2, and we have 2.

We're continuing to see miracles on the street. I gave a book of Mormon to one guy, and he was so nice. He thought he should give me a book in return. He had just purchased a Hardy Brother's book, and gave that to me. He was Korean, but spoke mostly Russian. If he meets us again, I think he'll be interesting to teach:)

 

Elder Diede's Korean is getting really good, he's improved so much. We really get along well.

 

Not much else to report this week.

 

 

LOVE YOU!!

 

Elder Franchina

300 Days as a Missionary!

That's interesting, and I'm excited to help you and Gary with the temple work. That will be a really special, sacred time. I'm so grateful for temples. That brings us to this week's activities.

We went to the temple last Tuesday! That was great. It was my 300th day as a missionary, and we got together with Elder Smith, my MTC comp and his greenie, and went to a nice restaurant. That was fun.

On Monday we had a cool experience. We do family home evening on mondays, where some ward members just come over, we share a quick message, play some games, and maybe eat some food. One lady in our ward is Mongolian, and doesn't speak much Korean, but she's SUPER pregnant. She was expecting the baby this week, so some of her family from Mongolia came over. So her family doesn't speak any Korean, and only one of them speaks a little English, and we had other Koreans from our ward there. We're trying to teach a message, and I first say it in English, and the husband will translate it into Mongolian for his family, I translate it into Korean for the Koreans, and then if the Mongolian family says anything, he translates it into English and I translate it to Korean. Crazy. It was a night full of short, simple sentences. But it was cool having that experience, speaking three different languages and translating. The Mongolian wife bore her testimony to her husband, he translated it to English, and I translated it into Korean. It was a special experience, having two or three language barriers, but still feeling the Spirit strongly.

One of our friends that comes to English class had an eye procedure done, so his whole face was numb for English class. He was embarrassed, so he held a book in front of his face the whole time. It was kind of creepy but hilarious when you would hear laughter coming from behind the book, but his eyes would be completely serious. He's a funny guy. He actually came to church yesterday, too! The sisters began teaching him.

Today we're doing ALL OF THE THINGS! Shopping, fixing, relaxing, eating, having fun. Sorry I haven't taken many pictures, I'll get on that.

Maybe I'll try to take a video of us playing ping pong and mail the card home.

Thanks for your thoughts on trust. I think you're right, it boils down to action. 걍 한다. Just do it. If you do, you'll do everything you can until you can't do anymore, and will have to rely on the Lord.

Love you all!

Elder Franchina