November 25, 2012

Note from Matt's mom: Matt will fly home on Friday, December 7!! His homecoming will be in the Chapel Hills Ward on Sunday, Dec. 9 at 11:00. We will have an Open House at our home (1208 E. 2350 N.) after Sacrament Meeting that day.

Subject line: Wow, 2nd to last letter

Hey all,

Happy late Thanksgiving! Can't believe the time has gone so fast this last transfer, it's been unreal. There have been so many things that came up, so much busyness, that the 6 weeks have flown by. Now I'm on my last week of full proselyting and it's looking like a really good week. Last week we went to an American family's house on base, the Clarkes, and had an awesome dinner. They had 3 kids, Max (4), Riley (girl-9) and Cory (boy-12), and they were super fun to be around. We played games and talked for the afternoon and then had dinner in the evening. One of the games we played was called Stratego and it was actually super fun, I'd never heard of it before. Another one was this game where you write a funny sentence on the top of the paper and pass it to someone else, and then they draw a picture according to the sentence and fold the sentence down so you can only see the picture. Then they pass it to somebody else and they write a sentence and then fold the picture down, and so on. Every time I've ever played that game at a party it's been hilarious, and I wasn't disappointed this time. We had one go from "I like pie and ice cream" to "A guy shoots mashed potatoes with laser vision." :D and the pictures were awesome. The Clarkes were both returned missionaries from the same mission (they actually really didn't like each other on their mission), some mission in Texas. They said that from that mission, 9 couples got married, which is crazy! It'd be cool to speak the same language as each other, though, that would be way fun if I could find someone that spoke Korean. I don't have my hopes up though, not many people speak Korean in America yet. Anyway, Thanksgiving was awesome and I ate till I couldn't move.

I'm a little pressed for time today but I want to say thanks to all of you for your support and encouragement these last 2 years. I can't wait to see you all again soon. Love you!

Elder Matt Dean

November 19, 2012

Subject line: The time is at hand......

Hey everyone!

So, I heard that I have to come home soon. I refuse to do a countdown or anything like that, that would just make me trunky. But I'm busy enough here that I'm not finding it hard to focus. We have another baptism coming up this week! A member's friend's daughter has decided to join the church, so we're teaching her the lessons and hopefully she'll be baptized this Saturday. Amid all that, our ward is combining with another ward, which shouldn't be that big of a deal but some members made it that way. We're actually hoping that we can get two baptisms this weekend, one from each ward, which would be way cool. I'm really thankful to the Lord for these great blessings we're seeing.

We had the celebration for the 50th anniversary of the Korea mission on Sunday. It was super crazy, lots of last-minute things going on that we had to organize, like clearing parking for VIPs, getting ushers, practicing a song as a mission that we had never practiced all together before, and lots of other stuff. But it ended up going really well! The music was fantastic. There was a violinist who is blind who did things with a violin that I didn't know were possible, and a couple opera singers, and just some really great music all around. Then in the fireside portion of the whole thing, we had a Catholic priest whom our church leaders invited come and talk for a while, and it was really good. He was very friendly. Then we had three prior mission presidents come and speak about the beginning of the Korea mission, the  middle days, and the most recent times. We also had a slideshow with some really old pictures that we were lucky to find, which was way cool. Pictures of the first buildings our churh built in Korea and the first missionaries, prophets visiting the saints there, etc. After the fireside we had some refreshments, and then we went home. The speakers went a little over, so the fireside lasted for an hour longer than planned, but it all turned out ok, luckily. I'm glad it went well and I'm glad it's over. :D

Now I'm on splits in Gangneung, one of my previous areas! I'm working with Elder Coward from Australia for a couple days. He's really cool, really easy to get along with. It's weird being back here, among the people I once lived with and went to church with. But it's also really good.

I feel like I'm closer to God and more aware of Him than ever before in my life, as I finish out this time. That's the best thing I've found here, I think. I love this work, I love you all!

Elder Matt Dean

November 18, 2012

Hey all,

So here's the deal. I'm going on splits with the missionaries out in 강릉/Gangneung (two of my areas ago!) and they are taking their p-day tomorrow instead of today. So I'll email you tomorrow. I have good news, so you'll have to just bear with the suspense till then. :D

Love you all!

Elder Matt Dean

November 12, 2012

No letter today - Matt just wrote that today's P-day is crazy, and that he didn't have time to write anything more.   ~ Matt's mom

November 5, 2012

Subject line: Super cool week!!

Hey all!

So this week was really, really cool. On about Tuesday of this week, 6 days ago, we started coordinating with some people in China who wanted to come to Korea to get baptized. After a lot of calls and emails, we were able to settle on a date, and two Chinese guys named Richie and Kick (in English^^) came to Korea on Saturday! They ended up coming out of the wrong gate, so it was hard to find them, but we finally got them and came back with them on the subway. They were both like late 20s and one was married. Their story is super cool. Richie decided that he wanted to have religion, so he started searching on the internet. Then he found our church, and tried to contact a member in China. But in China religion is so restricted that it was super hard, and he'd get in contact but then it would end up not working, off and on. Then, after a really long time of no contact, someone called him, and he and his friend were able to finally come to Korea. They got all the missionary lessons on Saturday and were both baptized, and it went really well. I baptized Richie in Chinese!!! I recorded them saying the prayer in Chinese and then practiced for forever. :D It was a really cool experience. I've been praying most days this transfer for a baptism, and even though they didn't come the normal way of us finding them on a street or anything, it still happened! I'm so happy for Richie and Kick, they've spent so much time and money to get here and get baptized. That was the only reason they came, which I think is really cool. They leave tomorrow morning, but me and Elder Yoon have to give training at Zone Leader Council, so the office elders are taking them back to the airport. I was really sad to say goodbye tonight; I've only known them for three days but we're already way good friends. Richie said that after he was baptized and confirmed, he felt like a new person. Clean. And Kick said something that I thought was cool: "Even in your darkest hour, don't give up hope." He was talking about how they had to wait so long with no contact with church members before they finally got here. It was such a cool experience and such a great miracle to see. God really answers our prayers. I hope that all your prayers are answered as well; I know this church is true, more than ever before. Love you all!

Elder Matt Dean

October 29, 2012

Subject line: So busy!

Annyeonghaseyo!

Wow, this week was crazy. Transfers happened, I got a new companion (Elder Yoon), and we finally got all the new missionaries trained and off to their areas. Transfer week is always an adventure and an ordeal. :D Things are finally settling down though, and I'm having a good time with Elder Yoon. He has a great desire to go work on the street and with the members, which is what I want to do, so we get along great! 

Life is good here. I decided before this transfer started that I would just have a positive attitude and have Christlike love for my companion, unconditional love, and it's amazing how much of a difference it's making. I'm also trying to enjoy every moment here in Korea and just have a great time, and it's going well. I LOVE KOREA! It will be a part of me forever in a lot of ways. I'm excited to speak it with my dad, we're going to be saying tons of funny stuff and no one will have any idea what we're saying. :D 

Elder Yoon is from Daegu, which is kind of in the mid/lower right part of Korea. He's also ridiculously good at English, seriously. He uses words that a lot of Americans don't know! Part of it was because he grew up on an American Army base for part of his childhood, so he learned some English there. He had actually been an Office Elder for 9 months in this area,  gone to another area for 9 months, and will be finishing his mission here. :D That's a total of almost a year in the office when he's done. But he's so good at office work that I think the mission will really improve while he's here. I on the other hand tend to drop the ball with a lot of things, but I'm aware of it and trying to change. I just hope my mission president has enough aspirin to deal with me. :D

I'll end with one miracle: on the subway we met a highschooler from Japan that spoke fluent Korean and also some English, and he wanted to learn about the church, so we referred him to the elders that live near him. I've decided that the Lord preparing a person that has agency and then guiding us to them, three independently thinking and choosing people, is as much or more of a miracle than Him making the stones light up for the Jaredites so they could cross the ocean in the Book of Mormon, or Him parting the Red Sea through Moses. This is a work of miracles, and you can see them every day if you look for them. I know it's true, and I hope you have a good week!

Love, Elder Matt Dean

October 22, 2012

Subject line: Crazy week!

Hey all,

So this past week was crazy! We had the blood drive activity on Wednesday, which went ok. We had each zone of the mission come in shifts so they didn't overload the people, so there were tons of missionaries there like the whole day. Me and Elder Lee were busy doing pass-off with like 4 people too. Pass-off is a program that the mission does to help you focus your Korean studies into the church/ lesson vocabulary, which is what you actually use, and the final level is done with the APs. It's basically there to make sure you can speak Korean well enough to be a senior. And on the same day, there was a test administered by the church Institute people called the Michigan test, which is an English test that BYU Hawaii uses to screen foreign students. AND on the same day, President was doing interviews with the 강릉 zone, which is the one out east in the boonies. So it was really crazy. :D The activity went ok, but the red cross people only prepared for 30 people even though we repeatedly told them we would have from 60 to 100 coming, so only 39 people ended up being able to donate. The y had us going into a bus to do it, and they shut the door in my face right before i went in, so I was kind of bummed. But it was still fun to see everybody. 

Then the next day we had a training for the missionaries that are trainers/greenies, about finding investigators, which we didn't prepare very well for, unfortunately. But somehow it ended up being really good. I think with us training the mission, the Lord makes sure that they get something good out of it, because all this is really His work, not ours. We'll prepare better for next time, however. :D 

On Saturday we had a musical/testimony fireside which also went really well. The missionaries from two stakes that were combined gave some talks along with recent converts from each stake. Also the missionaries sang "How Firm a Foundation" and "Come, Thou Fount of Every Blessing" as choir numbers, which ended up being really cool. It was nice to sing in a choir again, i miss that a lot. 

So we were pretty busy last week to say the least. :D But it was good to have something to do. That's one good thing about the office, always having something to do. And I learned a good lesson about the gospel this week--because we were so busy, I kind of neglected my scripture study, and soon I felt really stressed and alone and just not good. But once i really started reading the scriptures in depth again, I felt better. I had the Spirit with me more. It's so easy to skip the small and simple things, but they're so important to maintaining our relationship with God. 

I know this gospel is true, and I love being a missionary! I love you all!

Elder Matt Dean