Hey all,
December is going by way fast! It's almost halfway over already. It's interesting how the time is picking up for me the older I get. I'm starting to get old in the mission now--I've trained two missionaries and one of them trained again, so now I am a grandfather. Hopefully they will train too and my family will get even bigger.
We're all preparing things for Christmas already--they had us send in pictures for a slideshow, and we'll be doing a white elephant gift exchange on the Christmas Conference on the 22nd. That day will be a party, because we have the conference from 9 to 3 and then P-day from 3 to 9. So awesome. :D I'm excited for Christmas with our ward, we have a musical concert thing on Christmas day and a party a couple days before that. It's going to be great!
The missionary work is going ok. I'm learning every day, that's for sure. Lately I've been learning patience and living by the Lord's time instead of my own. And it takes a lot of love to go out and proselyte sometimes, but we do it anyway because of the good we can do in others' lives, even if they don't accept us right away. I was at a way good meeting this week, and one of our Assistants to the President told a story I thought was way cool. He said one time when he was doing missionary work more for the numbers than for the sake of the people, he talked to a guy on the street for 2 hours, but the guy said that he didn't want to meet. The missionary was really dissapointed and irritated, because he couldn't even put down that that two hours had counted for a lesson because he didn't get a return appointment. About 6 months later he was at a big church meeting, and he saw the same guy out of the corner of his eye and went over to talk to him. "Hey," the guy said, "You're the Australian. I got baptized last Sunday!" He said that was one of the most powerful moments of his mission. The man had met missionaries before, but it wasn't until the missionary I'm talking about had talked to him for forever that he decided to really investigate the church and find out if it was true. Elder Mejia (the missionary) didn't get to put it on his stats, but largely because of him that man decided to get baptized. It was a really cool illustration of how we have to do missionary work for the right reasons, not for the numbers or because we know we should be doing it. We have to do it because we love the people and we want to help them be happy. If we can do that, we can be successful. It's hard to do missionary work that way, but it's the best way, and the only way to do it by the Spirit of the Lord.
I learned a lot of other things from that meeting too, that will help me be a better missionary. Now I just have to apply them somehow... :D That's always the test, when all is said and done. You can learn a lot from the Bible or meetings or whatever, but how well you apply and live it is the real test of who you are.
I'm thankful that we have Christ to cover our mistakes when we don't do as well as we should, as long as we follow His teachings the best that we can.
So...I maybe might have forgotten to do a lot of "You Know You're In Korea When..." moments. :D It's not like I don't have any more important work to be doing, right? :D Here's a couple I can think of now:
When the soap in public restrooms is sometimes attached to a metal stick that comes out of the wall near the sink. Don't ask me why.
When everyone waits for the oldest person to eat first to show respect.
I'll do better next week. :D Love you all!
Elder Matt Dean
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