안녕하세요 여러분

Wow this week was a lot different from the past 4ish months!! Being with a korean companion is very fun!! Something awesome that I found out, is that I can now carry on a conversation in Korean with no English!! I am now officially speaking Korean :) Yay!!! So sorry for the lack of pictures and lack of email last week, but it was insanely. Elder Pak (new companion) is from Incheon and he is super awesome!!

This week (the beginning at least) wasn’t super exciting, I had to show elder Pak around the area and show him what’s what, which was kinda stressful trying to tell him all the info he needs in Korean, but it worked, so now things are smooth!! We got to go to Busan because Elder Pak is the District leader and he had to go to a training meeting, so I got to go on a 2 hour split with elder Haskell, (he was in my MTC district) and it was awesome to go out and proselyte with him and get work done!! We have both improved our Korean a lot and he is a super good missionary!! I won’t be surprised if he becomes AP at some point!! (AP's are some of the best missionaries!!)

Nothing really too crazy happened until Friday. We met with a mom and her two children who are doing something called the 30/30 program, which is 30 minutes english and 30 minutes gospel message, and it went awesome!!! Originally she was a referral from an awesome member and when me and elder Cronin taught them she wasn’t there because she was busy, and the children were kinda weirded out by our message. But then this week, it went very well, and she might be coming to church this next sunday!!! Later Friday night and part of Saturday we got to watch a devotional with Elder Holland, and it was possibly one of the funniest things I’ve ever seen in my whole life!!! Elder Holland is hilarious!!! But it was also super uplifting too!!! Everyone should watch it!! The link is here http://www.lds.or.kr/event/devotional-with-elder-holland! Other than that not much happened that day!

But Sunday..... Oh dear Sunday...... Church was awesome and I love our members!!! But later in the night, while we were proselyting we came across a man, I said hello and he jolted up with a crazy look in his eye. I was worried but we could tell he needed the gospel so we started talking to him, and he was pretty crazy, and he was insanely drunk! At one point we gave him a card and he said Elder Pak was Jesus, and we kept telling him we represent Jesus, and then he gave Elder Pak a hug and kissed his neck. Then he looked over to me, gave me a hug and kissed me too. After that he told us “let’s pray”, so in the middle of a busy sidewalk in Bangeojiin South Korea, we knelt down with a drunk man and said a prayer. It was possibly one of the most spiritual experiences I’ve had on my mission, the Spirit was strong and I could feel God’s love for this man. When we finished the prayer, he was very serious and was crying and said how thankful he was to us for speaking to him, he said that we better call him later and we promised we would! I never expected that something like that would happen to me, but I’m very grateful that it did. I’m very grateful for the opportunity to be serving the Lord and helping the people of Korea!!

I’m excited for this upcoming General Conference because Elder Choi (of the 70, and only Korean in the 70) will be speaking and I have had the privilege to talk to him before. I know he is called of God and I love him so much, I also know that President Monson is the true prophet, and I fully sustain him and the other general authorities! I hope you all watch the devotional because it was amazing, and super funny ^^ I love Korean people so much!! Love you all too!! Have a great week!! :)

Saying goodbye to Elder Cronin.

Elder Pak Heeyoung

Bangeojin missionaries eating lunch.

Wow today has been crazy! I do not have much time to email today because transfers are craaaazy, but I can share the news of transfer day!! I will stay in Bangeojin and I get a Korean companion this transfer so it will be super fun!!!! My companion Elder Pak Heeyoung is super nice and I already love the guy. He’s very quiet and a thoughtful guy and insanely nice and respectful! I really like him!

This week was super good and we met a lot of nice great and promising people!! We might be getting another baptism soon from one of our investigators!!  He came to church and our recent convert asked him about baptism and he didn't say no, he just said that he would think about it, so once we start really teaching the lessons (because we haven't gotten very far) it seems like he might get baptism!! It looks like I will be leaving soon though so that's all I have for this week!! Love ya bye bye!!

This week was super duper fun, last pday Elder Cronin and I had a star wars ping pong war, and later that night for FHE because nobody could come brother Koo and his wife decided to include us in their date night and took us to eat chicken they were super nice to include us in their date! The members are super nice!!

Tuesday we did a lot of finding and some street proselyting and didn't have tons of luck but it was still very fun!!!

Wednesday was district meeting that was super fun and we had a lot more proselyting on the street and other than that not much happened!!

Thursday was super fun, when we were teaching english to the granpdas and grandmas. One of the grandpas basically worships Elder Cronin. He thinks Elder Cronin is the smartest person in the world and wants him to become a professor in Korea. Later that night we taught english class that was super fun too!

Friday was very busy. We had planned to meet one of our investigators and while we were waiting for him, one of our other investigators happened to see us so we met with him since out other investigator couldn’t make it. So we had an appointment fall through but got to meet with another investigator and it was super awesome!!!! Later on we met with a woman and her children at their house to teach 30 mins english and 30 mins of the gospel and it went very well so now we have more new investigators!!! Yay!!

Saturday was very fun, one of our investigators who is super busy and is sort of good at english was finally able to come out to our english class. His english is good, he just switches everything around so he talks like this "I maybe can do to that" And other things like that. He super loves us and texts us everyday a good-morning text and have a good-day text. He always makes sure we are staying warm too, haha. He is one of a kind his name is Jason too. That night we had district conference and we had to go to it because we sang in the choir and it went very well.

Sunday was the rest of district conference and it was super awesome because some of the women in the branch were able to get their non-member husbands to come out to the meeting and we were able to meet and talk with them!!! We also met with our branch president who shared an awesome story about his conversion story!! He said it was raining really hard outside and two missionaries knocked on his father’s door (And knocking on doors is super weird in Korea, they never like to answer) and his father let them in because it was raining, and he didn’t really want to listen to them, but he let them in because he was nice and didn’t want them to get soaked in the rain. So he let them in and they shared their message and the whole family was converted!! President Seo said that had they done what would normally be done and gone home to contact people because of the rain he probably wouldn’t be a member anymore!!! Super awesome!!! Later that night we went with Yeat Liahor to a members house and made some dumplings and ate a ton of food!! It was a super awesome week!!! Thanks for all the love and support!! I could use some help with english though... my english is insanely terrible......... hahah Love ya

--데이비스 장로

English class with youth from the Bangeojin Branch

Really fast bike

Yay Jun and Elder Davis

Hello everyone!!! It was another great week here in the wonderful land of Korea!!! :) So I’m having a really hard time of remembering what happened this week because it was so fast.

Monday we went to a cool bamboo forest that was super awesome!! Then we had a fun FHE where Brother Koo trained me in ping pong.

Tuesday was the day I had to buy the branch president’s wife ice cream (for losing to her in ping pong), it actually just turned into her buying us food and tons of ice cream. She is super nice!!! :)

Wednesday was a day of running around visiting members and trying to find less actives!! We had the opportunity to talk to a guy on the beach who has been trying to find direction in his life. We shared a message about the Book of Mormon and he said he would go and read it!! We will try to meet him again this week!!

Wednesday we went to the city of Daegu for a mission tour with Elder Choi Yoon Hwan of the 70, it was super fun and we learned a lot about trying to get the members involved in our missionary work!! After that we met a super sweet kid whose name means "Worship Jesus" He was very nice and wants to meet us again!!

Friday we got to play basketball again with one of our investigators who is a really fun 13 year old kid, he really likes meeting with us, so hopefully we can help him receive baptism in the future!! That night the Fowlers, (they are some american members who are living here working for Hyundai for a couple months, they came from Texas and are super nice) invited us and Yeat Laihor over for dinner. They fed us really good food!!! They are extremely kind to Yeat Laihor, and he shared his testimony about the church. He talked about how he used to be Buddhist and that when he heard our message he liked it so much, mainly because of the plan of salvation. He loves being able to know that he can live in heaven after he dies!! He is such a sweet hearted guy and loves to help out the branch whenever he can!!! He is practicing to bless the sacrament within one of the next few weeks!!!  

Saturday was pretty uneventful, but we had a ping pong activity with our investigator and some members that went very well!!

Sunday was an awesome day, we had a great sacrament service, and the branch president’s oldest son who used to be super less active came to church for the first time in years!!!! It was awesome!!! I’m glad that I was able to take part in reactivating him!! He is a very nice guy! Later on we did choir practice becaase next week we have district conference and it was super funny! And that’s about it for this week! Love you all!! Keep going strong, and always read your scriptures everyday it really does help with anything!

--데이비스 장로

Bangeojin missionaries at a Buddhist shrine

Elder Davis and Elder Cronin at the Buddhist shrine

Elder Cronin and Elder Davis visiting a bamboo forest

Bamboo forest

Time literally doesnt stop when you are on a mission. I have no idea how it’s already P-day again. If it doesn't start slowing down i’ll be home before i know it, and I hear that it will only get faster. Here we go!!

This week was really fun!! We met with our best and most promising progressing investigator 김푸른솔 (Kim PooReunSor, he has a very rare name!!) this week and it was super awkward and funny because the day we were going to meet he texted us and said "Is it alright if I bring some friends today", of course we were super happy, and said to bring as many as he can! Then as we are waiting for him to show up, we see him walking down the road with no one, but there was a girl a little bit behind him, and then we found out that he brought his girlfriend because he wanted to help her learn english. During the lesson we actually ended up not teaching what we planned (Happens all the time) And somehow we ended up teaching him the law of chastity?? It was super random, and super weird, but it happened and he was fine with it!! He still doesn’t really believe in any religion, but he knows that there is something out there like a God or something, and he really likes us, and always calls us the best people he has ever met, and really wants to learn about Jesus Christ and our religion!!! So things should go good with him!! This week we played basketball again, but this time we met a different kid, and he was very promising and very good at basketball. The next day we went back to meet him, and we also met his older brother who went to Seoul University which means he is insanely smart because that school is super super hard to get into. Something crazy is that he studied about the LDS church while at school! And he has no bad things to say about it and he wants to meet with us again sometime!!! He was super nice and pretty good at english too!!

On Saturday we got to watched the missionary broadcast, which was super insane.... our schedule is crazzzzzzzzyyyyyyyyyy now!!!!! We go out at 7:30 in the morning and proselyte every morning now.... and we can go to bed at 9:30 if we want too!?!?! Super insane, there are lots of other changes, but those are the craziest ones, also they gave us two extra hours on Pdays now!? Super awesome and crazy!!!

We ate a ton of food this week because it was the Korean new year holiday, and we got invited to a lot of members houses this week!! The branch president was insanely nice and he and his wife had us come on the day itself (Which is normally just spend time with family) And fed us lunch!! They are super nice!!! We also got to wear our Korean traditional dress and the members loved it. The branch president’s wife gave us all occupations based on our Hanbok (Korean traditional dress) I was a farmer, Elder Cronin owned my farm, Sis Brady was a Princess and Sis Kim was her servant.... hahahaha

Korea is so fun :)

Teaching Korean wearing Hanbok (traditional Korean clothes)