I'm Staying!

August 24, 2015

          This week was super great!  We were blessed with 3 new investigators.  Wow!  The one who seems to have the most potential is Jim.  We met him on the street a few weeks back and met him for the first time last week.  He speaks English super well and is just a really, really great guy.  He’s interested in our church and how we’re different.  Hopefully he likes it!  There’s another guy who is mainly English interest, and then an older taxi driver who kind of just wants someone to talk to it seems like.  But we have things to do!  Yay!

          I went on a split this week with Elder Russell our zone leader and it was super great.  We had a ton of appointments planned but they almost all cancelled, but we were able to meet a guy on the street and meet with him right then and there!  So that was a cool unexpected miracle.  I learned a lot on the split and think we’ll be able to progress Iksan a lot now.  Ooh!  Funny story.  After the split we were at the bus terminal and these American guys were there and were super frustrated and went to the ticket counter and just kept saying “refund” but of course the guy couldn’t understand.  So I stepped in front and started talking with the guy at the ticket counter.  I could hear the guys behind me saying, “Woah!  Who is that guy?  Is he helping us?”  It was pretty funny.  We talked for a little bit and they were super impressed with us and now they have good feelings about missionaries!

          We are trying to work with this family who met us for English a bit ago.  They had us over for dinner last night and had a good time and when we shared a spiritual message at the end, the mom said she is starting to like our message.  It might take some time and strategy, but they have some potential too!

          Things are looking very bright and I don’t want to leave.  Today we get transfer calls and I really hope I stay.  I’m really enjoying my time here and learning a lot.

          Elder Anderson

P.S. I’m staying!  Yay!

me and elder russell eating good japanese food

the cool miracle guy we found on the split

 

I'm growing a lot

August 17, 2015

          This week was not too exciting.  We were only able to meet with 1 investigator, Bro. Beak, but he seems to be doing well.  He was one of my old investigators and he is doing whole lot better now.  In the past he was all English interest, but now he is taking interest in the gospel portion and keeping commitments. 

          We were able to meet with one other guy, but he has a mental issue that keeps him from progressing, and I don’t think we will even be able to meet him again.

          The most exciting thing this week was we got a referral from a Korean member from Bountiful!  His niece had been living there and since she came back to Korea he wanted her to continue to meet with the missionaries.  But sadly when we spoke with her dad, he said that it’s not something that they or his daughter want.  So that was pretty sad and disappointing.

          We’ve met some crazy people this week and made lots of good memories.  We are still trying to find those who will accept the gospel, but it’s hard enough to find any that are willing to talk with us.  We had a few people throw up their arms, yell out, and then run across a big street because we just said hi and asked something like where they are going.  But there are some great people!  We have an appointment with a really cool guy we met on the street for tonight.  So hopefully that will go well!  I’m growing a lot and become a better person, but just wish I could have a bigger effect on others.

          Elder Anderson

 

The kinda handicap guy we met and our chicken party!! Please notice the extremely rare dr pepper i found.

Yup, it was a good week!

August 10, 2015

          So I don’t have too much time to write, but I’ll let you in on my week.  We moved today and it super sucked, but I’m really glad it’s over.  We now live in a city outside our area, but the house is a whole lot nicer!  So, Bro Ha is just, I don’t even know.  He is just extremely flaky and won’t come to appointments.  We’re pretty sure he has a mental problem, and when we explained our situation to bishop, he told us to just drop him.  So we’ll see what happens.  We’ll keep trying though.  But we were able to meet Bro Kang again which went well.  We picked up one of our old investigators again and were able to meet 2x.  He’s mostly English interest, but he’s someone to meet with at least!  Last week we had no lessons, but this week we had 4!  And we were able to visit a few less actives as well.  So it was over all a good week, minus the news about Bro Ha.  We met him on the street and he was just contradicting all his past words.  Not good. 

          This guy from a newspaper saw our English ad, called, we met and he took our pic and said he’d put it in the newspaper!  So that could be fun.  Yeah, so it was a solid week.  We actually had things to do and felt like we used our time well.  Oh!  We found that old investigator because we were waiting at the church for a guy who never showed up, and the guy rode by on his bike so we met with him right then and there!  That was a nice little miracle.  Yup, it was a good week.

          Elder Anderson

Pass Off

August 3, 2015

          So, I’m sorry to say that there is not a whole lot of good or exciting news this week.  We didn’t have a single lesson the entire week, so….it was just a little bit hard.  We set appointments, but people just never showed up.  We weren’t able to meet Bro Ha and he didn’t come to church either, so it’s not looking like he’ll be baptized on the 16^th.  I still think that he’ll be baptized though, as long as we are able to meet him.  Sadly, we still haven’t been able to meet Bro Kong this transfer, and he just straight up lies about coming to appointments, so he’s basically dropped.  We need to find new investigators!  We talk to sooo many people each day, but no one is willing to give our message a chance. 

          We were not able to teach very much this week, but we feel good about the work we put in.  We are able to come home without any regrets each day.  I really just wish that we could find people who are willing to simply give it a try.  We’ll keep trying!!

          I also had my first district meeting as district leader.  It went ok I guess.  It was just kind of awkward, but it was just my first one.

          It was fast Sunday, so I want to share a little bit about what I bore my testimony on.  In our mission we have this thing called Pass Off which has several tasks to do and ways to advance.  One of the tasks is to learn 10 things about Buddhism from people.  So whenever we meet Buddhists, we try to ask about their beliefs.  Oddly enough, we have found that they don’t share!  It made me think that if we have lives and something we cherish, we will want to share it.  This applies to all of us too.  If people ask about our beliefs will we shy away or boldly share these truths?  Are we seeking out opportunities to share or are we afraid of what other people might think of us?  Through meeting with people of many different religions and by sharing the restored gospel, I have really come to see how great of a blessing it is and how grateful I am to it.  I’m learning a lot here and hoping and working to find those who are willing to accept the blessings of the restored truth.

          Elder Jace Anderson

                            thanks for the awesome chocolate!! super good!!!