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
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