May 28, 2012

Dear Everyone,

This week has been pretty fun. We had a sports conference with threee other branches yesterday because everyone had a day off for Buddha's Birthday, and it was so fun! There was soccer, a korean sport called chokku that is like tennis with a soccer ball and no hands or racquets, running, and basketball, and it was awesome. I played as goalie for our soccer team, and I actually did pretty good! It's a good thing the ball was not a real soccer ball, because real ones are heavier and harder to catch/deflect. But I still felt like a boss because I saved 4 goals or so. Our recent convert, Hwang Gi Seok, got a ride with us and the branch president, and they talked a lot more than we expected and even hoped, so that was pretty good too.

I forgot to tell you about this, but a couple weeks ago I was riding behind Elder Larson on our bikes, and instantly he just flew over the handlebars. He literally ended up under his bike on the ground in a split second. I went over there and made sure he was ok, but it was really hard not to laugh. I figured it wasn't the best time. It just happened so fast. We realized it was because he had had an umbrella hanging on his handle bars, and when he turned or something it swung into the spokes of his front wheel and caught on the fork of the bike. He said that the only thing that was going through his mind was,"whoa, this is a weird feeling...WHAM!" If anyone has seen Napoleon Dynamite, it felt to me exactly as that scene where Pedro jumps his bike off the wood ramp, and then Napoleon goes and destroys himself because the bike wheel goes through the ramp. Elder Larson had some nasty bruises, but because he was wearing a helmet and because God was watching out for him he turned out to be ok.

We had a hard day last week when one investigator dropped us and another appointment canceled, and then we went out to street contact that night and we just got nothing. Then at 8 45, on the way home, we talked to two students in a row that were really cool and got both their numbers. On the bus home from somewhere earlier that day I had thought, "Man, I just want to see a miracle today," and we ended up seeing one. It built my testimony that if we just work through the hard times, at the end the Lord will always be with us.

We are getting  a new mission president soon. President Lee Yong Hwan will go home at the end of next month, and President Christiansen will come. There may be a lot of changes going on, which will be really interesting (at least for me :D ) so I'll let you know things as I find them out.

Well, that's about all for now. :D Love you all, have a good week!

Elder Matt Dean