Crazy Week!!

March 30, 2015

          Do you want to hear something crazy?  We got 600 minutes of teaching time this week!!!  That’s suuuper high!  No one else in the district got over 350. But sadly, almost all of it was in English.  So that stinks.  Our Chinese friends Mark, Bryce, Jason, and Fred are doing well.  Three came to church, but this is all just so new to them that it’s pretty hard to accept.  Last district mtg. we kind of got attacked for why we haven’t given them a baptismal invitation.  The zone leader even forced a split and when we asked why, he said, “To get a baptismal date.”  Things went well that appointment, but no date.

          Anyways, a new guy called off an English ad and we’ve met with him 2x now.  I don’t know really how seriously he is taking what we teach, but he’s willing to listen!  His name is Lee Kangshin (Adam).

          Another crazy story!  We were walking one night and saw this super drunk guy walking down the street.  He decided to try to take the escalator, and well….took a dive.  We ran over just in time to see him bouncing and rolling down the steps.  It was a pretty nasty fall.  We ran down and E. Warren checked for some broken bones, some other guy called 119 (yes, it’s 119) and we stayed with him until they came.  So yeah, don’t drink alcohol.  We’re pretty sure he broke a rib and messed up his back by the way the emergency people treated him.

          My suggestion this week is for all of you to boost your testimony of the restoration.  A recent convert here is getting held up by some church history stuff that I honestly had never even heard.  But it’s ok because I know that God knows best, and I definitely can’t deny the Book of Mormon.  That is definitely enough proof for me.  So stay strong everyone!

          Elder Jace Anderson

Movie and chicken pday!

We also knocked that entire complex and left ads on all of them, talked to like 4 people...we need member missionary work, that's for sure!

So these were supposed to last 2 years...Well I found the cause of my huge calluses!

 

8 Months

March 23, 2015

Today is my 6 months in Korea and 8 months since leaving home.  Wow!  That’s pretty crazy!  This week….hmm…it was pretty good to be honest.  Let’s see…we did a lot of door knocking and English advertising, but nothing too exciting there.  Our Chinese friends are doing very well!  But only 1 came to church because the others were in Seoul.  We’ve gone through the restoration with them and are trying to get them interested in the Book of Mormon.  So they’re going through the kid picture book one, which is actually going well. 

We visited a Filipino sister in the ward twice this week who has a SUPER hard life.  She was basically snatched up in a marriage scheme and now has a very abusive husband.  So we’ve been trying to help her to find strength by having good habits of study and what not.  Super sad though.

We also had a zone conference this week that was pretty good.  We learned about culture with members.  Man, you have to be so careful here!  Haha but I definitely need to be better with the members.  I’ve been here for over 4 ½ months, and I had a sister ask me if I was new to the ward…and she had done the same thing when we had visited a month ago too.  Ugh…But we did visit a super cool member who is moving to America in a bit and she gave us refried beans, green chiles, rootbeer, and other priceless rare items.  So that was good!

After 2 or 3 weeks, we were finally able to meet Jo Ooyong again, our divorced guy.  We watched a movie about a pastor that found a Book of Mormon with no title or anything and his awesome story.  I think it’s called The Book of Mormon.  How Rare a Possession.  I really recommend it.  Yep, so that was a little taste of my week, minus loads of doors shut in my face.  Actually, most of the time they don’t open it.  They either look through the cameras or yell through the door.  Anyways it has been a good time!  I’m learning a lot and can really tell a big difference in my faith.  Thanks for all the support!

Love,

Elder Anderson

We have 4 investigaors!

March 16, 2015

          I guess the biggest thing that is going on right now is we have 4 investigators from mainland China.  Pretty cool!  Bryce and Jason who I met again last week, referred one of their other friends named Fred.  Yay!  Also, we are now taking over teaching Mark from the office elders.  The hardest thing is just helping them to believe anything because they have been taught their whole lives to not believe these things.  We are trying to help them come to know for themselves by making and keeping commitments, but it’s dang hard!  Also, all our leaders keep pushing us telling us to baptize them in 2 weeks, but we really don’t want to rush them into anything.  I have seen several cases of that and it does not turn out well at all. 

          Our 80 year old guy came to English class, and it was kind of ok I guess.  He is starting at the basics (alphabet) so when we started out with our opening comment, it was a bit frustrating for him.  I asked him if he would like to meet outside of English class, but he said no.  And he already attends a church so wouldn’t come to ours.  I feel like if he would just let us give our message he could take to it but it will be hard to find that chance. 

          Yep, I’m staying here is Samsung for another transfer and then I’ll likely head out.  Things are hard, I won’t lie, but I’m doing what I need to do.  And I just hope that I can help someone by doing it. 

          -Elder Jace Anderson

Some awesome kids we hung out with.  Just like India!

My district!

 

We Now Have 3 New Investigators

March 9, 2015

          The beginning of the week was kind of mehh, but the back half went very well.  We now have 3 new investigators!  2 of them are former investigators, these Chinese guys who I met when I first came here about 4 months ago.  But they went back to China and I forgot all about them.  Well, they just came to church yesterday!!  So that was great!  Their names are Bryce and Jason, so hopefully we can keep things going with them.  The other new guys is this sweet 80 year old man who wants to learn English to travel.  He saw our ad, but said that he was also interested because we are missionaries.  We met him once, introduced our program and talked a bit about prayer.  He basically bore his testimony about prayer and started crying!  I have never seen a Korean man cry before!  His wife passed away several years ago and he has 7 kids.  I think he (Gwangho Yu) could really take to our message.

          We also met this guy on the street who was sitting outside a coffee shop.  He called us over, we sat down and had a good chat.  He offered to buy us some coffee, was a little bit drunk, and pulled out a cigarette, but hey, and the end of it all he said that he wants to meet again!  That was the first time anyone has said that to me on the street!  Yay!

          It wasn’t all great this week.  There were definitely some really hard times.  But looking on it, it was all worth it for what has come out of it so far.  I guess that’s just how missions go!  Some super hard, trying times, but also some amazing rewards.  And I am excited for all of it!

          Elder Anderson

Bowling.  I scored a 173

Me and Chanjo Park.  We study the Old Testament together because his wife would divorce him if he converted...

A Korean high school schedule goes way up until the night!!

We haven't given up on her just yet!

3-2-15

This week was pretty good, but sadly no one is really progressing.  We met with Jungju Lee (the other lady that knows the Bible super well), but beforehand she sent a text saying that it would probably be the last time because our ideas are too different.  She is waiting for the prophesies in the Book of Revelation, and showed us a video of this guy who is uniting all these different religions.  But this guy was just yelling and screaming and it was a bit creepy!  We did our best to pull things back on track, but it just kept going further and further away.  We go with Elder Bringhurst, one of the senior missionaries, and he could tell that it was kind of going off.  So he stepped in to wrap it up.  He bore his testimony and told her how much we care.  He also said that because of her text, it seems like this might be our last meeting.  I was translating for him, and when I was talking about it probably being our last time, I actually started to cry!  I have really grown to care about these people, so it is really sad when they are misled by the world.  But I think she softened up by seeing our sincerity.  She said, out of nowhere, that one day she would like to see what it’s like at our church!  So we haven’t given up on her just yet!

In other news, we lost our phone.  But since Korea is the best, it showed up the next morning!

Also, we are working with a family to get a referral for General Conference, and it’s going well!

That’s about all the exciting stuff I have for now.  Thank you all for your support and prayers.  It means a lot to me.

          Elder Anderson

Becca sent me a cookie mix, but I had to make it in the rice cooker.

Chicken!  It looks awful in pictures, but it's good.