Chusuk and New Elderly Investigator

Hey everybody!

 

This week is Thanksgiving, but because Korea has it's own thanksgiving (Chusuk), we usually wouldn't celebrate it. But, we got an email today and a member in each ward has been so kind as to offer the missionaries a nice dinner on thanksgiving. I'm really excited. We are still doing the 30/30 program, but we're trying to gear it more towards families, so we just call it the Family English Program now. It's good, but we don't have many people interested.

 

Responsibilities as a DL are that of service, offering help and training to other missionaries, and keeping up on everybody's investigators. I enjoy keeping in frequent contact with everybody. One of the opportunities I have is to help people with the Language Progress Program, which we used to call pass off. It's just a little book with vocabulary and help teaching the lessons, so they meet with me, I help them with vocabulary, and then they teach me a lesson as if I was an investigator, and they move through all four lessons, then teach one of the APs. It's just a good program to help learn Korean, and once you pass off, that's a good sign that you're capable of training.

 

Dad, don't worry. There is not a shortage of ping pong trash talk. Our investigator talks trash when we play. It's funny. Don't worry, I'll talk trash to you when I get back, you just might not understand it. I'll have to learn trash talk in Japanese too. 

 

Speaking of which, I've undertaken learning Japanese, as I might have mentioned before. I don't know if it'll help me on my mission, so I'm not spending too much time on it, but I'll learn to read and a few things about missionary work, so if I meet someone, I can use it.

 

This week has been good, but I think I'll just focus on one point. We met a really old guy a few weeks ago, a new guy at our English class. He said he came to this church once or twice maybe 40 years ago, but doesn't go to church anymore. He's terrible at English, but has a really big desire to learn. He's 74, and really likes church. He came two weeks ago, and showed up again yesterday. We taught the Plan of Salvation and followed up on the Restoration, and he said, 'You know what? I think I'll attend this church until the day I die.' Just that morning we were told by a member that it's hard to teach old people and they never get baptized. But it's not because of our teaching, this man just has a great desire. He loves coming to church. We talked a little about baptism and set a date for the 15 of December. Afterwards, he asked if we could start coming to his house to teach him. Our member drove us all over so we can see where he lives, and dropped him off. It was a great Sunday. Our other guy, SHN, is still out of town every weekend, visiting his uncle's grave every week for 7 weeks. But he said he'll definitely come back once this is done. It's an old Korean tradition in some families to pray at their grave for 49 days. That's a long time ㅠㅠ

 

I'm just so happy to be out here, even though it's cold, even though I may not understand when people yell at us. Even when we go days or weeks without meeting anyone with interest. I'm meeting lifelong friends and developing a deep love for this culture. It's worth every minute I'm out here.

 

I love you all and will talk to you next week!

 

Elder Franchina

Stake Conference Miracle

Well, I suspect this letter will be a short one. Not much happened this week, just small things here and there.
 

We visited the Mongolians in our ward, the wife had a baby a month or two ago. They're doing well. They both speak a little Korean, and they even taught us a little Mongolian! We now have our own Mongolian names. Mine, written in Korean, is 덜겅, but I don't know how it is in English, let alone Mongolian. Anyway, KBR, the husband, is awesome. He served a mission in Mongolia a few years ago and killed it. He loves to talk about his mission. One thing I really liked that he said, was, 'On my mission, I suffered so much and it was so hard. But looking back, I have nothing but fond memories. It wasn't that hard.' That showed me that even though I may be going through hard times, they're for my experience, and I know that if I do my best, I'll have a lot of good memories.

 

Later in the week we went back to Seoul University by Cheonynangni to talk to some people, and the sisters in our area came with us. Sister Goodwin will be going home in 2 transfers, and she's training a sister from Taiwan. She speaks a little English, but little Korean. But she's the best, super funny, and a really hard worker. She's improved her Korean so much in the past two weeks. It's amazing. Plus, she's using her Chinese and they were able to find so many Chinese exchange students that are really interested in our message!

 

We met a new investigator this week, he's in his late 50s, and doesn't do much else besides work a little, go to a community center and play ping pong for 2 hours a day, and sleep. We played a bit of ping pong, which was really fun.

 

Saturday was awesome, we had a combined Mission conference with Seoul South! I saw my trainer and other people from the MTC! It was great. Elder Evans spoke and gave a really powerful talk on our roles as missionaries. Going to and from the meeting, I was able to give away 3 book of Mormons on the subway. That usually never happens. I was so happy. Plus, seeing all of my friends after so long was fun. That night we had stake conference and our mission president spoke. His Korean is really good, and he gives really good talks.

 

Sunday we saw a miracle. It was stake conference, and they said it was a special meeting. We called our investigator, but he didn't answer. We asked him for his address a few weeks ago, so we just decided to go to his house to see if he was there. He lives about 10 minutes away, and we knocked, turns out he was just sleeping! He said, hold on! Showered really quickly, got on a fancy suit, and came to church for the first time! It was great. SO many people showed up. Elder Robert D Hales and Quintin L Cook both talked, along with a few other people, via broadcast and translation. It was a great meeting. Didn't understand a whole lot, but I knew they were focusing on the importance of families, and I, along with our investigator, felt the spirit. It was SUPER cold, because of the wind, so we bundled up and went outside to proselyte. That's basically all we do here, besides teaching, is just walk around and talk to people. But it was cool to see that people were still willing to talk to us. Sometimes. Haha it's a hard method to contact people, but we meet some pretty cool people.

 

Well, talk to you next week!

Love,

Jordan

7th day Adventists Lessons

Hello everyone!

This week went by just as fast as the past 52!

SN hasn't been able to meet much, we met once to talk about the Word of Wisdom, and some commandments. He wants to get baptized, but I don't think he understands why. We talked a lot about prayer and finding what God's will is through prayer and scripture study. We'll follow up as soon as we can with him on that.

JDG hasn't answered the phone, we'll drop him. It's too bad, he was so close to baptism.
Pastor JJJ met with us and we talked a lot about prayer. He hasn't been praying about the book of Mormon, so we committed him to find out for himself, through prayer. He was a little hesitant, I think because of the responsibility of his job, but he said he'd do it.

J and S met with us and referred their friend to us, but he only has English interest for now. And they didn't come to church, so we'll meet with them this week and see what's going on.

We met HYN, ADY, with a member, but it was a little awkward, she was much older than him. I didn't realize it would make that big of a difference. He liked the plan of salvation, but not as much as I thought he would. He has a small 18 month old daughter. But I guess he has other needs we need to find. He's still really nice, he texts us every once in a while and says how nice we are and if we ever need dental surgery, he'll help us out. ㅋㅋ

We got a referral from other missionaries, a guy named JSN. He is good at English, and wants to attend church, but it turns out it's because his girlfriend's dad is a pastor, and he doesn't like that his daughter's boyfriend doesn't go to church. But he found our missionaries and started learning. So this is a good opportunity to introduce him to the message.

HBL is a baptist guy we met, and he is a hardcore baptist, but he hesitantly accepted a book of Mormon. We taught a good first lesson, and he really likes us, so I think he trusts us well. He's busy with college, but he'll make time this weekend to meet with us. He's my age, which immediately makes us friends.

DOC didn't meet with us, he canceled his appointment and didn't come to church. He really likes us and church, but being 65 years old, he just kinda does what he wants. But he was reading the book of Mormon, so hopefully he keeps reading.

There is a group of 7th day Adventists that the 이문 elders met, and they invited us to come too. The other elders couldn't come, but Elder Smith and I prepared a really good lesson. The 7th day Adventist people sent us a list of questions and discussion topics, so they gave us 15 minutes to present, then they talked about their beliefs for 15 minutes, then the next 30 ish minutes was Q and A for us. They asked a lot of good questions. Some were prepared, laminated with a number on the back, like, 'who has question number 6'? But then after that they started asking more heartfelt questions. They really drilled into the BOM, but naturally, they base everything off the bible. It's hard for someone, who has believed in one book for so long, to have someone come along with not a lot of credentials and say, 'well, God told me that there's more.' How can you trust him? We finished it with the topic of prayer. You don't have to take our word or even Joseph Smith's words. Read the Book of Mormon. If it fills you with love, helps you come closer to Christ, and improves your life, you can know it's good, not to mention receiving direct revelation from the Creator. Our Father. It is easier for them to trust God then us. At the end they thanked us and said that if there are more of God's words, they need to accept it. So they'll find out of the BOM is God's word.  That was fun, because it was all in English! They're all from the Philippines or American. It was nice to be able to speak English, but I like Korean more.

An old guy, JGJ, 74, came to English class, and we invited him to sacrament meeting the next day. He came and we taught him with a member. He went to church a long time ago, but not anymore, he was busy. But he wants to go again, and likes church. We taught him about the book of Mormon and he liked it, but he was naturally a little shy to pray at the end. It's been a while since he's prayed.
We went to the bishop's house and on the way home on the subway, we said hello to a kid about 17 years old. He really liked us and said he had time to meet right now. He has English interest but when we told him our main purpose is teaching about our church, he said it was okay. He asked a lot of good questions. We'll meet with him again this week. It was so cool to see a miracle like that, where he wanted to meet right away. Just at those times where you think nothing is going to happen and you're a little down on yourself, you can see these miracles, directly from heaven.

I love you all! Until next week,

안영하십시오!

Elder Franchina

Thanks for the Korean, by the way;)

Unshaved Meat

Hey everyone,

 

One year older and wiser, too?

Maybe.

 

This week was busy, but pretty uneventful. We met a few new people that could become new investigators. We picked up two people that are amazing, and we'll meet with them today and tomorrow. Other than them, not much interest. We've changed our tactics a little, just to make us seem more approachable. We just ask if we can meet later if they have interest, and instead of having them meet two random foreign guys in a strange church alone, we just ask if they want to have lunch at a restaurant, grab some kimbap. We've met a lot more people, some become more comfortable saying no, some realize that, surprisingly, we're normal people, and others, whatever way we would have done it, say yes to meet.

Our investigator that was going to get baptized this Sunday hasn't answered his calls for a week and a half, but at the end of this week, he answered, and it turns out his phone was lost. He said he would come to church, but didn't, due to schoolwork. We don't know what's going to happen with him. Hoping for the best.

We have another guy preparing to be baptized at the end of the month. Boy, he's going through a rough time. He's the one that at first, he said, 'I don't want to die' because he was about to go bankrupt. He was able to get a loan and a job, but the last time we met him he lost his wallet on the way to meet us, and the next day he had an accident at work that may cause him to lose his job. But he wants to meet us because he definitely believes that meeting with us will help him. He's a nice guy.

We were also invited to participate in a group discussion with some 7th day Adventists. They brought in some of the other missionaries, and there were about 15 of them, all foreign and speaking English, started asking sincere questions about our religion. They are super curious and really want to learn more about us and the Book of Mormon, and told them to invite us, their friends. They sent us a list of questions they have and told us to teach them. We're pretty excited.

 We have what we call the 12 week program, a 2 transfer program that trainers use with their trainees to help learn how to be a missionary. We had the midway followup conference this week, so I got to see a few friends, including Elder Smith, my MTC companion, on our 1 year mark! A bunch of our sentences started with 'crazy, that a year ago you....'

 

Someone took us out to dinner one night, and it was really good, until you look and notice the meat you're cooking at your table wasn't shaved, so you can see little black hairs poking out of the fat. Mmmm.

 

The Mongolians in our ward who speak a little Korean just had a baby at the beginning of October, and they invited us over for dinner. The food was super good, they gave us so much. They're wonderful, and will teach me Mongolian, and I'll teach them English. 

 

I think I say this every time, but fast Sundays are always my favorite. We're really blessed when the missionaries and ward members get together and fast for a specific cause. We had an investigator, 65 years old, randomly show up at the start of Sacrament meeting, and he loved it. Absolutely loves our church. Says it's super unique. We taught him and set another appointment. Then our district of missionaries went out and proselyted together, and we met so many people. In under 2 hours we were able to have good conversations with tons of people, and received 19 phone numbers for return appointments. Usually we get about 10 numbers a week. I'm grateful to have a companion that's so driven and to have the Lord helping us at every turn. This is His work, and it's moving forward!

Until next week,

 

SUFFER A LOT!

 

That's how they say goodbye in Korean. Legit.

Love you all!

Jordan