February 19, 2012

Subject line: Still in Bong Cheon! Woo!

Yep, so as you can tell from the subject line, I'll be in Bong Cheon for another six weeks. :D I'm really happy about that, because we've been teaching some people that are really going somewhere in the gospel. The ward is happy that I'm staying there too, that's always a good sign. I feel like I want to work really hard and make the ward as good as I can in these last few weeks I have here...wow, there's only five left already. Weird.

This week was kind of a rough week in general, at least till the weekend. Not many people listened to us on the street, and some of our investigators are just plain frustrating. But we pushed through it, and now we are seeing the fruits of that effort. It just goes to show that if you trust in the Lord and work through the hard times, He will give you miracles. I can testify of that now. I think the biggest miracle this week was teaching a man named Kim Ji Yuk, whom we have been teaching for about five weeks now. We teach his son English and then talk about the Church with him. Anyway, these past five or six weeks, he hadn't really gotten anywhere in the gospel. We invited him to pray several times, but he just didn't do it because he had a lot of doubts about whether God was there or not. We were afraid that he was just meeting us because we teach his kid English. But then we met him yesterday, and we got on the subject of baptism. He wondered why we baptize at age eight in our church, and the Baptist church baptizes in infancy; I explained that Joseph Smith had gotten that revelation from God, and since we believe that Joseph Smith was a true prophet, that's what we do. He started getting teary-eyed, to my surprise, and said, in effect, "I think I believe that God is there now. But there are so many forms of belief in Him. How can I choose?" So we explained about Joseph Smith, and how he too figured that there is one way to get to God because of Ephesians 5:4 in the Bible, but he didn't know either. So he prayed, and Heavenly Father and Jesus Christ appeared to him and called him as a prophet to restore their church on the Earth.

We told Kim Ji Yuk that he could get an answer about what church was right too, just like Joseph Smith did, and that he could know that answer for sure if he prayed about it, and he agreed wholeheartedly. A man who, a couple weeks before, had had serious doubts and very little desire to meet, changed in the matter of one week to someone who believed in God and wanted to find the truth. That is a miracle. We read in the Bible of prophets parting the sea or healing the sick, but how much more of a miracle are those events than a person changing, a person responding to the influence of the Spirit and deciding that they want to find the truth? I feel priveleged to have seen that in somebody, and to have helped in some small way for it to come about.

So that was an awesome thing that happened this week for me. :D I also have tried and failed to make my dad's lemon chicken the way he did; it was edible, but not very delicious. Next time. :D I survived another transfer, making 5 in Bong Cheon now. I have an awesome companion who works hard and has fun. I am among probably the nicest people on earth, who will help you out with anything you ask for. I ride the bus and the subway with my T-money card all the time. I spend a significant portion of my life calling people or talking to them on the street, asking them if they want to learn about the Church. I teach with the Spirit, sometimes more so than other times. I learn deeply about the gospel of Christ and joy in the peace and happiness that comes from it. I am learning so much here in the service of God.

I wear suits basically 24/7. I am a missionary in Seoul, Korea. And it's awesome!

That's about all for this week. The food of the week is jaeyukdeopbap, which is pork and vegetables in a really spicy red sauce over rice.

It's so, so good, probably one of my favorite Korean foods. It's a little painful to eat and digest, though, not gonna lie. :D I hope you all have a good week, bye!

Elder Matt Dean