01182016 Last Week with Elder Swanson--A beloved Companion

Hey!  We had transfer calls this week. My new companion will be 양하일 Yang Ha Eel. So that will start on Wednesday. So to answer a few of mom's questions, I haven't spoken a ton of Korean with either companion, both of them seem to prefer just speaking English with each other. I tried pushing a little the speaking Korean thing but it didn't work too well. I get a Korean companion now though so I will probably be speaking a lot more! haha. I am excited. And the eating dog was not a challenge, the guy just asked about it and my companion said let’s do it and so I did. Alcoholism is a huge problem in Korea. Everybody drinks. It is sad. Every restaurant sells alcohol as well. The investigator  was going to meet with us but he got sick and went to the hospital (a normal reaction for Koreans to almost any health problems.) So hopefully we will meet this week. We normally don't tract. Street contacting is a lot more common. I guess it is a bit rude to go to people’s homes. Other churches’ missionaries do it. Our average lessons is probably less than one a day. Our goal is 14 a week. One of the Apostles said we can get 2 every day. The idea is however many we are short that week will fill in with 20-minute practice lessons with ward members but not many members really do that. I have only ever done  one or two of those though. So anyway, not many lessons. But that is ok. We also do some member or less active visits fairly often. And that is what we normally fill our time with. I like the idea of a little devotional. Soccer always starts with a prayer. The bishop of the other ward is in charge. Basketball not many people show up at the beginning, and they stay till after we have to go home so devotionals would be a little hard there as well. But I will talk with my companion about it. Most sports people are Korean. We had a few come to basketball that were not, and they do not speak Korean. People are always really surprised when foreigners speak Korean, because not many foreigners do. A thorn and a rose from this week: A thorn is that we had several appointments cancel with us, so we had very few lessons this week, so a lot of walking. Which is fun but also tiring. A rose is just talking with my companion about some things. It was good, I feel close to him. 

Also Happy Birthday Dia!! Sorry I didn't wish you happy birthday last week. But late is better than never. Here are some memories of Dia: First, I remember how much she enjoys delicious food. Also eating the delicious food she makes. I remember seeing her with Zina and just feeling like she would be a wonderful mother.

My spiritual thoughts this week. It was kind of cool I finished general conference, the book of Mormon, and PMG within a day of each other. I guess just looking at those books/teachings as a whole, I truly feel they are inspired and true. I love the combination between the study books, scriptures, talks, etc. It allows for so many different and consistent insights for all types of different people. I started reading the Power of Everyday Missionaries as well. He talks about doing missionary work for members, but I also think it applies to full time missionaries. Since I was out on the streets a lot this last week my question for whoever wants to answer:  How do you get people on the street to accept our first invitations. Make them smaller? Ask for help? Ideas?

Elder Swanson is on Daniel's Right side

There wasn't too much progress with our investigators this week sadly, so not too much to report. I feel a little bad that this is Elder Swanson's last week. He is such a good person who works hard and loves the people, but has had no success. I just feel for him. But he doesn't let it get him down.

I love you all. Hurrah for Israel.

-- 

Elder Sabey

01112016 Our Perspective, Judgment and a Drunk Man in a Restaurant

Spiritual thoughts or insights this week:   I thought about how, from our perspective, it can be hard to work with people with pretty major problems or we can be judgmental of them.   Always their problems are harder on them than they are on us, so the best thing we can do is love them!  Also I love general conference.  The prophets and apostles are such good amazing people, who teach truth. Just studying last conference, I feel they are sent of God.

So this week there was probably the funniest/ weirdest moment of my mission so far. We went to dinner with a new investigator and he took us to this little restaurant his sister owns inside this market. We were eating where you sit on the floor. You have to take off your shoes and then step up on the dining area. Anyway there was this drunk guy sitting at the American style tables and was just yelling, cussing, singing, etc. Our investigator was trying to  explain something in English but forgot a word and said something like "what is that?" Anyway the drunk guy said something right then so our investigator thought he was answering his question. So they started talking. The drunk guy called our investigator "dang sheen" which means “you” but is really offensive because he was a lot younger than our investigator and stuff. Anyway they got in a little argument but then our investigator just started ignoring him and talked with us. The people at the restaurant tried to get him to leave but he wouldn't. Eventually our investigator called the police. Anyway the drunk guy stood up and walked right to where you take off your shoes and just stared at us and sang songs. We just didn't look at him. Finally he took off his shoes and came up to our area of the restaurant. Our investigator immediately stood up and left. So we were stuck with a drunk  guy just walking towards us. I was the one closest to him so he came right up to me and sat down and grabbed my hand and sang to me. He said he loved me and I was like, yup love you too. He then went to kiss me and got my check. He was like "kiss" "kiss". And went for another kiss. I just gave him my forehead. He then wanted to kiss my companion and my companion would only give him his hand. He talked to my companion and said "younger brother" (which is normal to call younger people). My companion said yeah? "Younger  Brother" "Yeah?" "Younger Brother" "Yeah?" "Your stylish" "You are  too!" "Me stylish?  hahaha" and then fell over laughing. Finally the police came. It took them a while to finally get him to leave. It was super awkward and weird. But funny at the same thing. But perhaps mainly sad.

Also last week I ate dog soup. So that was exciting. It wasn't great meat so I didn't love it but the taste was pretty good! And actually quite a bit of meat.  More importantly than all of this, this week was a little slow. We had Zone training. It was good. They introduced some new rules. The idea is to get us out on the streets in our area more. Or at least just doing something worthwhile in our area more. So they took out spiritual prep before district meetings which was normal before and stuff like that. We weren't able to meet with many people. We will see if the investigator with the drunk guy will want to meet with us again after that. Jeoung Soon Eh came to church again and we will meet with her again. Andrew seems to really connect with us. He now has a little more free time so likes to hang out with us.  But I am not sure how much sincere interest he has. He definitely is Christian but I don't think he wants to participate in a church or change some things in his life. We will see. We are also meeting with him tonight.

The language  is slow but  is  progressing. Anyway life is good. I love you all.

Hurrah for Israel!

Elder Sabey

01042016--New Years in Korea

I'm 22 in Korea.  How cool is that? Yeah everybody's age changes at the new year, well at least when you eat this rice cake stuff, and then your age changes. So I did and am now 22 in Korea.

 Anyway we didn't do any major celebrations for New Years as a ward. But New Years is a pretty big holiday. Most all stores were closed on New Years as opposed to Christmas during which most stores were open. 

This week there wasn't any huge news. Our bishop gave us a list of names of less actives from like 10 years ago with their addresses and stuff and we were supposed to check if any of the information was correct. So we spent one day, well 4.5 hours walking around finding these houses. Basically they all have moved or were not home, or the address or apartment didn't exist. One had a correct phone number. We talked to a lot of cool people that day too. It was fun. Just a lot of walking around. We also had basketball that night, so we were both pretty sore the next day.

I got a lot of Christmas emails, so thank you! The vacation seems to have been super fun, both in Kamas and Nashville.

Brian in one of his letters wrote that he and Dia had an all to infrequent scripture study that felt very guided my the spirit or something like that. I guess I felt that same yesterday. I was fasting to be guided in setting year/ mission goals. So I set them. I didn't find any scripture or something that answered my question,  but I just felt they came easily to me. Things that are simple and easy enough to do that can add together to make the bigger changes I want. Anyway that felt very good. We had President and Sister Morrise attend our district meeting. It was good. I like them a lot. He got a little mad, or gave us some correction, because as a district we mainly talk in English during meeting like that. Perhaps for good reason, and perhaps not, I don't know. He then felt horrible so sent everybody an apology text and stuff. It was nice of him though. He is very real and I appreciate that a lot more than looking like the perfect example. 

We met with Andrew on New Years. He teaches English, I think I have told you about him. I really like him. I think he is looking for something more in his life, whether or not he realizes. He likes us missionaries, but doesn't want to really learn from us much, just be friends. Thus far we have still had good church discussions the past two times, that are just not in a traditional lesson format. So some prayers for him would be great. No Da Bean got work off on Sundays so he can go to church every week which is great. He loves Sherlock, and I guess a movie just came out, so he called me and talked with me for a little about it and about his life. That was fun, it feels good to have somebody call you just to talk, and maybe practice English a little bit... haha.

Anyway I am sorry there wasn't too much I feel like I can report on today. My main thoughts have been on goals this week. I loved Elder Uchtdorf's talk on faith. How skepticism isn't impressive, that is easy. But faith, takes effort, and truly is impressive. So that is my goal.

I love you all,

Hurrah for Israel,

-- 

Elder Sabey