Almost One Year...

Hey everybody,

It's almost Halloween, which means I'm heading up on my 1 year mark. It's a strange sensation, time has a strange way of passing on a mission. The days feel like weeks, but the weeks feel like days. And yet, every second can be pure bliss - as long as you make it so.

This week was good, we kept busy with going to the temple on Tuesday and buying groceries, we met with investigators, talked to a lot of college kids, and had a musical fireside.

We had to drop a lot of investigators this week, some, like SSS, said he got a job and couldn't meet anymore, he'll be working 12 hours a day every day. Others said they'd be busy for the next...year. And the rest just stopped answering their phones. We still have plans for a baptism this coming week, but he hasn't answered his phone for a week. He would accept everything we taught him and we were able to see him really change, but it seemed like he just dropped off the face of the planet. It's hard, because regardless if he gets baptized or not, I still want to talk to him. Just like SSS. They're my friends, and I love them. It's hard when people can't see past the suit and name tag and see a person underneath. But I still think he'll be able to contact us soon and we'll figure out if he will still be baptized soon or not.

Still enjoying every moment and definitely loving the weather. We started to call all of the members and get their available time, so that when we schedule an appointment, we have to find a member available at that time. Now we can schedule our appointments according to the member's time. We didn't finish, calling took a long time, but at church they started passing around a calendar for members to fill out. Wonderful. We were so happy.

The work is tiring, humbling, frustrating, and hard. But it's one of the most fun things I've ever done.

I love it out here! Korea pride. 뿅!

Elder Franchina

Onions On My Sneakers

Onions on my sneakers yiroboon! That's how we say hello.

What a week. It seems like time is just flying by, approaching my year mark.

My emails seem to be getting a bit routine, so I'll attempt to spice them up.

The biggest focus we have right now is DY, our investigator that will be baptized next month. He said, after meeting this week, that he's starting to recognize that this is a 'true thing', not just something that's good. He is repenting and changing his life, and is enjoying the blessings that come with it. He wasn't comfortable getting baptized this week, so he wanted to move it to November 3rd, just so he can have more time to prepare and pray more. He is an incredible guy and I love him. He's kind of quiet and shy, but then you get him talking about his bboy competitions and he'll whip out youtube and show you his dances. He's passionate about that. I can also see him developing a passion for church. He doesn't view it as something he has to do, but something he gets to do, and it's a good opportunity for him to learn more and to meet with us. After a few more meetings I'm sure he'll be ready to be baptized. I'm so proud of him and how he's doing.

SSS is doing alright, we have already taught him all of the lessons, so now when we meet it's kind of to resolve concerns and to address questions. I feel like we don't really get anywhere, and so we feel like we need to drop him. It's not something I want to do, but we can't really teach him any more. We have taught him all we can and showed him how to know for himself, but now the ball is in his court and he needs to act. That's the beauty of this message, is that you don't have to take our word for it, you can come to know through your own experiences, directly from God. And what better witness than from God? (see D&C 6:24). I hope not meeting him for a few weeks will show him the drastic change of the absence of the spirit from his life. He is really sincere and is concerned about things like blind faith and praying sincerely, so I know he really wants to know, and he cares about these things, but now it's up to him.

We have another investigator, SSS2, who is doing pretty good. It's different, teaching someone who has absolutely no knowledge of Christianity, but we're doing well with him. He's nice, and is willing to learn.

We met a new investigator on Saturday morning. Last week he stopped us and asked us for a Book of Mormon and other pamphlets we had, and we met him at a coffee shop later, and he came to our church on Saturday morning. He's baptist, and has really strong faith, but he said he's willing to learn more about Christ, if more information exists. He's really nice and very knowledgeable. Teaching him is fun, and he reads the scriptures insatiably. He's also really good at table tennis. I told him I played around in High School, and he wanted to play. He brought his $220 racket and destroyed me. The matches were around 11-5 every time. But at the end, I told him about my $20 paddle, and he said, 'Real sportsmen don't blame the tool.' So we switched paddles and I beat him 11-6. ㅋㅋ

We have a few college students that are investigating our church, one even lived in Provo for a few years when he attended high school as an exchange student. They're coming to church next week, so we're really excited.

We still meet with Pastor JJJ, and we met his boy, Peace, this week. We talked to Pastor JJJ about authority a little, and will continue to talk more about that later. As far as I know, Protestants don't believe that the Catholic church has the proper authority, and so that's what he likes about our church, that we and him see eye to eye on a few things. He said now he recognizes us as Christians.

We visited a few members, and I just have to say, we have some of the best members ever. One of our members, after watching conference, where they said, 'Until you know a missionary's face and name, and their investigators, the Lord can't help you know their heart', she made a list of all of the missionaries and our investigators in our ward, which is over 40 names, and prays for us specifically. She teaches with the missionaries more than 3 times a week, and helps us out so much. I am so grateful for members that help out the missionaries.

We met a member that went to America last year for an 8 month exchange program, and his host family brought him to church. He liked it, and after meeting with the missionaries for 2 months he was baptized! That was this Feb., and he came back to Korea a few months ago, and his parents are very against it. It's hard for him to come out to church because they won't let him, but he does all he can. He's an amazing guy. I love the members in our ward.

On Saturday a member in our ward had a wedding! The groom was baptized this February, so since his family aren't members of the church, they just had a normal wedding. I'm was excited to go to experience a Korean wedding. It was pretty modern, and there wasn't really a reception (as far as we know), so it was over pretty quick, but it was nice, our Stake President married them. It was neat to see it, and they looked so happy.

Nothing much else happened this week, the work is moving on, and we're staying busy!

Love you guys!

Elder Franchina

General Conference

Hello everyone!

This weekend was great. We all got together and watched General Conference. I really enjoyed the talks, and the topics that seemed to stand out were the stresses on member missionary work, looking forward with hope and courage, and love. One person we're teaching is struggling to find an answer to his prayers, and often asks, 'What if I get an answer, but decide to join a different Christian church?' We express our happiness that he would find Christ. That he will have his conviction and testimony of Christ and God, and that he's willing to go to church to learn more about them. But we expressed our sorrow that he would be knowingly rejecting more truth, or will be closing the door and not be willing to learn more. But I appreciated Elder Uchtdorf's talk, about how we respect agency. We don't force people to come in and stay. We are sad when people decide to leave, but respect the right to worship, and rejoice when Christians can find common ground and respect others. 

It seems that religion, as Elder Holland described once, is not a common ground, it's a battleground. People often try to prove one thing right or one thing wrong, or when they see you walking toward them, expect you to do the same. But they're often surprised when you ask, 'What's the favorite part about Buddhism? Why do you like your religion?', and show genuine interest in them, and don't force them to do anything. They're much more willing to meet when you say, 'I have a knowledge of this, and I want to offer you the opportunity to have it too.' It sounds much better and less awkward in Korean. Anyway, what I'm trying to say, is something I've learned over the weeks, is that agency plays a huge role in our lives, and a lot of the time, it's so frustrating. Some people are so close, and they choose not to. Others choose to ignore you even when you're just saying hello. But I can choose every day to be happy and Christlike, and 'choose...this day to serve the lord'.

Our investigator that's close to baptism might have to wait a week or two, his uncle died, so he was super busy with family stuff, and this week is testing week in school, so no one has any time. But he says he's praying about the book of Mormon and is feeling good about it.

As I approach my year mark I've been reflecting on what I've become so far, and what I'm trying to become, and looking at goals I've set. Some goals need to be adjusted, but I really appreciate my mission for giving me the perspective of how important time and goals are. Everything I've achieved so far has been from setting goals, and then working to achieve that.

Thank you for all you do and for the support you give! Like they said in conference, pray for missionaries and their investigators daily, and God will touch and guide them.

Elder Franchina

New Companion, New Suit

Hello!

So right off the bat, I know you want to know who my new companion is.....

It's.....

Elder SMITH! Not the one from the MTC, but we high fived and acted like it was us. Then we realized a brand new greenie was walking towards me. Darn. Wrong Smith. But seriously, he's awesome. Tall, funny, and smart. Studied at MIT, his mom's an opera singer, so for the first half of his life they spent the years moving around the world. He spent about a year in each country, including Germany, England, France, Spain, Italy, South America, and after learning tons of languages, settled in Oceanside California, by San Diego. He's a genius, his Korean is really good. He works hard, and keeps us having fun.

There's now 7 elders in our house, a former AP is training and has another companion who has been here for 9 weeks. There's 5 elders in our ward! Insane! It's a lot of fun. I think we'll do well together. He's logical, like don't leave the front door open. Mosquitoes will come in. Seems like other people in our house don't get that logic. Yet.

We have picked up quite a few new investigators up, and are still teaching our old ones, so we're doing really well! We met an old policeman and his friend, so they took us out to dinner the next day. When we met the first time, we gave him a book of Mormon, and he actually read the introduction! He loves it, and said it seems like it's the fastest way to God. All churches are trying to get people to God, and our church seems to know the fastest way. He explained this all as we sat in a circle in a park using a coffee cup to represent God. We'll teach about the Word of Wisdom later. ;) He listens well and seems to take us very seriously. Our b boy dancer friend is doing well, he really wants to get baptized! We set a date for the 20th of this month, and hopefully we can get everything taught by then!

This week was really crazy with transfers so we said goodbye to members, and then when Elder Smith came we introduced him to everyone, and then getting settled in and introducing him to the area, all of that was really fun and kept us busy. There's no Korean in our house anymore, just 7 Americans, but it's fun. Last P day we went on a hike and took really nice pictures, and today we'll go to the flea market to look for winter clothes and fun Korean things, then off to Costco!

I'm really excited for conference. We wait a week for it to be translated to Korean, but there's no way I could understand it all, so we'll watch it at the same time, just in another room in English. I'm really excited!

Well, I'm super happy but nothing else is really coming to mind! The weather is wonderful! We go on jogs in the morning for about 15 minutes down the riverside by our house, it's nice to see some nature in Seoul. I think I developed allergies, with all of the pollution here, but my handy dandy zone leader hooked me up with some Claritin. At least that's what I think it is. But it's helping I think! I have a theory: Every time I get a new missionary straight from the MTC, I get sick. Maybe I'm allergic to America. Sorry guys.

Anyway, gotta go eat some more Kim chi.

Byeong!

Elder Franchina