First Baptism!

This week was so great!! We had a baptism yesterday that went super great! Our investigator (Yeat Lai Hor, From Cambodia) was a super prepared guy. We had given him a word of wisdom pamphlet this week and he called us and told us he hated alcohol and cigarettes, and that he liked coffee and tea but he would stop drinking it if that was what God wanted. He also accepted Tithing without any problem, too. Just one example of God preparing the hearts of the people. We basically didn’t have to do anything. Elder Cronin performed the baptism, and I will do the confirmation on Sunday!

One sad part of the week was that Sister Yang is transferring out of Bangoejin. :( The beginning of this week was super great. Last p-day we went to a restaurant that was an all raw fish buffet for me and my companions birthday. I ate raw Octopus, crab, and all kinds of fish. It was super super good, who knew raw fish was so great? We also went to another fun little park place in our area and hiked around a bit, and then later that night some members came to the church after we held family home evening, and brought us some cake. They also fed us a ton of food on thanksgiving. Last Wednesday was super great, not only because it was my birthday, but because we got to go to Busan for a half training meeting and meet up with all my MTC buddies. It was awesome to see the progress that everyone has made, and hear some super funny stories about Elder Haskell lighting his hair on fire! As we were going home from Busan, I had gotten a package from home for my birthday, and when I opened it there were a bunch of cards from my family, and one of them was from one of my cousins. She said that she was wanting to become a missionary even more now, and that I was helping that decision. It was so awesome because one of the questions Sister Barrow (MTC teacher) had left us with was to look at how us being here was helping our family back home, and that letter was an immediate answer for me. Missions are the greatest!! I'm so glad that I am able to be a missionary, and one of the highlights of everyday is getting to put on the tag and go out and bring light to the people in Bangoejin!! If any of you are contemplating a mission, DO IT!!! You will be so much happier! I love life so much more right now because of this! Thanks everyone for the love and support that I receive from home, I feel it everyday!!!

Love ya!!

-데이비스 장로

Baptism of Yeat Lai Hor with sister missionaries, ward mission leader and ward missionary

Bangeojin missionaries

View of Bangeojin

With Korean friend Kong Min

Birthday meal, lots of raw seafood!

New Investigators!! And a public bath house

So to start this email I will just say that I had the weirdest morning of my entire life, probably the most uncomfortable one too! Everyone decided that for me and Elder Cronin’s birthdays, we would go to a public bath house in the morning. (President Barrow lets us go to these on p-days). So we went to a public bath house on the top of our grocery store. Soooooo weird, especially since the Koreans old guys who are always there never see white people come in. Soooo weird, I’m never going again.

This week was super fun though!! We met 2 new investigators in one night, and one of them we talked to for 5 minutes then he asked us when church started and came to church the next day! Then he said he was coming again next week!! Super weird but way awesome!! We will try and meet him again this week. We have now officially activated one less active member, and he will be receiving the priesthood in a couple of weeks. We also have met another person walking out of the gate at the church, which now makes three people we have met who have wanted to meet with us. (The gate is where we have our best proselyting time?) His English name is Jason, and he is one of the nicest people I have met. He is pretty good at English so I am able to have a conversation with him!! We will be meeting him again this Thursday. The baptism of At Lay Ho is still happening this Sunday after Church. It is a little sketchy though because we have more to teach him and he has no time, but luckily he gave up learning Korean this Saturday so we can meet with him. He is super excited to get baptized, and he loves all the members in our branch.

This week also had an absolutely massive protest in my area against Hyundai, thousands of people marched down the streets into Hyundai with tons of signs and stuff. Luckily, Koreans really aren’t that violent so all they did was walk down the street chanting stuff and singing songs and carrying poles so no one got hurt. This week I also played our branch president’s wife in ping pong, she killed me of course, she is wayyyy good at ping pong!! We also played against Kim Chang Ho, which was super hilarious. I have gotten a lot better at ping pong in my time here, and I have been getting trained by one of the young men name 강민 (Kong Min) He has been making sure that I get better!! I have a rematch set up with our branch president’s wife, and I have to play our branch president now sometime this week.

This past Saturday we had a young men and young women party at the church because they had just finished taking a massive test on Thursday. We had a big nerf war (which was super fun) and then we went and ate a ton of food downstairs!!!

The language is still challenging. Elder Romney, Our zone leader taught me some sweet ways to memorize stuff so I have started using that now, and I memorize 6 new words everyday!!

Love ya!!

-데이비스 장로

With Elder Romney (Zone Leader) at Daewangam Park

P-day hike to Daewangam Park

With Elder Cronin and the Sisters at Daewangam Park

P-day hike to Daewangam Park

So to start of this week I will say one thing, I actually need real glasses. I got fake glasses last p-day just for fun and one day we visited our recent convert, and since I got the glasses for real cheap he was mad at me because he thinks everything should be super expensive. So he took us to a real glasses store to get me real "fake" glasses (Like nice frames with just glass instead of the ones I had). We go into the store and he then has me just take an eye test, and we found out that my left eye is actually pretty bad so he ended up buying me glasses from the store.... super weird.

Anyway, this week has been super fun!! On tuesday we had zone meeting so I got to see Elder Ockey from my MTC district and we went out and ate a few pounds of meat like normal. As a mission we have all set the goal that for Christmas this year we are giving God a gift, and the gift is one baptism for each team in the mission!! Awesome! And ,we have a baptismal date coming up for one of our investigators on the 27th of this month!! He has been working super hard and spends a ton of his free time reading the Book of Mormon and studying English pamphlets (Because he speaks Cambodian he studies Korean and English a ton). Also this week we got a new investigator, his name is 이동석. Our first meeting with him was a little interesting because he originally told us he hated books like the Book of Mormon because they are just trying to copy the bible. But we asked him to give it a try and read the intro. When we met him the next time he had read way past the intro and really liked the book!! We will meet him again soon!! We also met a guy whose name is Mr  태, he was a little promising, because he believes that an apostasy did happen and that there is a true church somewhere!! He was super duper drunk when we talked to him though. Also, one of the less active men that we met outside the gate has been to church twice now, and yesterday he was paying his tithing! 2nd week back!!!!! He is awesome and super good guy.

This week we started running on the beach with the sisters at 6 AM at it is super fun, Even though it is super cold and the waves have soaked my shoes more than a couple times!! On Wednesday we scared the sisters super bad by banging on the church doors when no one was here but them, and then we jiggled a door knob of the room they were in!! It was especially scary because sometimes random sketchy people walk into the church when we are here. The crazy food I had was pretty bad, Pig liver, that was soooooooooooo gross, and blood sausage stuff that was kinda okay.

Anyways hope things are well at home, Korea is pretty fun!! I love the people here!! And today we are doing a district p-day in my area and going on a sweet Hike!!

Dressing up for the Sister's Birthdays!!!

Representing the Seahawks on p-day!

Eating after zone conference.

The results of leaving a camera within reach of the sister missionaries.

It hurts me to write this email because of how much food I had last night! A member in the ward invited us and one of our investigators over yesterday and we legitimately ate about 5 Kilos of meat, soooooo much food, and it was sooo good!!! People told me I would lose weight coming to Korea, however all I am doing is gaining a ton of weight every week. It is a good thing though, even though I sleep most of it off in a night. We eat extremely well here in Bangoejin!!! So far I have been fed by members 7 times and each meal is soooo much food, somehow i eat past the point where I feel like my stomach is going to explode each time. The food is soooooooo good here!

This week was crazy fun! We had a stake music festival and it was one of the greatest things I have ever done in my life. Koreans are sooooo funny! One of the areas have an elder from New Zealand, so their branch did the Haka (I hope that’s how you spell it) and it was so awesome! Also Kim Chang Ho (recent convert) took us to a store and wanted me to buy a 500 dollar suit, then he decided he would buy me one, and then he decided he could find a better one online! I don’t exactly know what is going on with him but we have told him multiple times not to do it, but with him you never know what he is going to do. Anyway, one day while we were doing Jundo (proselyting) nobody wanted to talk to us, so after about an hour and a half we came back to the church, and as we were stepping through the gate we heard a guy just yell "Hello!" So we came back and talked to a nice Korean guy who used to come to this church 30 years ago, he asked if he could come in so we let him come in and he told us about how much the church building had changed since he was here. Later in the week he randomly called us and told us he wanted to give us some fruit called kom, and that he was going to come to church the next day. So, he came to church yesterday and had a great time and told us he would come to our english class and to church again next week and then proceeded to pull out a massive backpack full of the fruit, and gave it to us.

We met this guy on the street one night, and he seemed super nice and interested in our message, he really liked Christ but then he started talking how God came to Korea 100 years ago (And by the way there are some craaaaazy churches here, some that imprison people and drug them to believe their church), and we thought he was just drunk (Because Koreans get drunk quite often) and he told us he wanted to meet us on Sunday. So we met yesterday and got our branch mission leader to help us understand him better, but before we got him the guy didn't want us to go inside the Church and he was being super sketchy and wouldn't go inside the church, and when we told him we needed to get the member he told us he couldn't talk and that he just wanted to take us to someplace not even in our area. It was super sketchy, so we got the member and they talked for a little bit, but none of us know what the guy wanted and where he would have taken us. It was pretty weird.

I did get a new suit and you will see it in some of the pictures, I really like it! It is way nice and fits perfectly and was already hemmed when I bought it. Anyway, that's all from this week as far as my life. Loving life here in Korea! Love ya!!

Teaching English class with game made by Sister Stewart (MTC Instructor)

Meeting up with MTC buddies at district meeting

Idaho fries in Korea!