Hey all,
So this week was one of the saddest weeks of my mission so far. Yun Hi Guk, the college kid we've been meeting with, decided to stop investigating the church. He said he didn't feel like he was ready for religious life yet, and that the members of our ward didn't accept him because he doesn't believe in God all the way yet. That was because of a discussion that surfaced in Priesthood meeting two sundays ago about investigators in general, not just him, but he kind of took things the wrong way, maybe. I might not have fully understood everything he said for why he didn't want to come anymore, but he did say he thinks Joseph Smith could be a prophet. There's a sentence in Preach My Gospel, the missionary handbook, that reads, "Some may not accept what you teach even after they have recieved a spiritual witness of its truth." Or something like that. That was fulfilled in my life this week. It's just not his time right now, I suppose. We went to dinner with him one last time, and he bought us stir-fry chicken because he is awesome like that. He is still coming to English class, and one of our church members he was particularly close to is still going to try to talk to him and be friends. We are going to keep in touch too; he wants to come to Utah to do school in five years or so, so maybe I'll see him then.
It's during these times that I ask myself, "What went wrong? What more could we be doing?" And there are things we could do better. But I think we are doing pretty close to our best, and trying really hard.
As long as I get to the point where I can say I'm doing my best, everything else that happens is the will of the Lord. He knows what I can do,and He sent me here for a reason. I don't know what His reasons are, but I trust that they are there. All I can do is look at what I can improve, work on it, do my best, and be patient. President Uchtdorf, a leader in our church, gave an address on patience in May 2010, and there was a quote in there that I thought was really applicable to my circumstances: "Sometimes it is in the waiting rather than the recieving that we grow the most." From my missionary work these past weeks, I definitely believe that that's true. I have much more of a fire to do the work now that we have no more "golden"
investigators, because I know that if I do my best, the Lord will take care of the rest. And now that I'm trying to really do my best, I feel so much better than I did when I was just doing kind of my best. That confidence lasts as long as I work to my limits, and it's not dependant on whether or not somebody chooses to be baptized or not. So though I'm really sad that Yun Hi Guk didn't end up getting baptized, I feel like I've gained a true appreciation for doing my best. I feel like I can do my best for the rest of my mission, because I feel really good with it. So my emotions are mixed right now. But I try to focus on the positives like usual, and to just do my best!
So, now we only have about 6 investigators or so, which is not actually that bad. Some are better to meet than others, but in general life is ok. It's certainly not bad right now. I have 4 more weeks of freedom before I'm in danger of being Zone Leader; we'll see how that goes when the time comes. Until then I'm working on following my dad's counsel for this part of my mission: "Focus on doing your best today and let tomorrow take care of itself."
The food of the week is....Kimbap! How it works is, you take a sheet of seaweed, put rice on it, then put long slices...no, slices isn't a good word. Like segments of carrot, radish, and other vegetables that are about 6 inches long and a third of an inch wide, along with tuna or beef or whatever. Then you roll it up. It looks like sushi, but it has no fish. It's basically the classic Korean fast food, that you get when you don't have time to sit down and eat, because it's really portable. Mmmmm!
The end. :D You are all amazing, have a good week!
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