This week went super fast, and I almost died from the heat! It was crazy, on Friday we went to help one of our older members in this place called German Village because his yard had been attacked by massive like 7 foot weeds and he had a stroke so he can’t do anything about it. So he asked us to come help and we came on one of the hottest days ever and pulled weeds for like 2 hours in the sun, with humidity and no wind at all. We finished and I was so super dizzy. He is a hilarious guy though, he used to live in California but came back to Korea because his health is bad, so he’s pretty good at english and he loves to randomly yell super funny things. Love the guy so much!!! Koreans are the best everrr!!!

This week we had interviews with our new mission president, President Jeong, and he is so hilarious and awesome!!!  He told me I have to gain 5 Kilos, so I’m working out super hard with my companion now, and eating lots and lots of food. Here in Sacheon there aren’t lots of members but they feed us so much. Two of the sisters feed us once every week and we eat super well with them, super awesome!!

This week was full of a lot of dreams, and all of them were in Korean. Studying hard pays off I guess. This week was also pretty crazy because we were sworn at a lot by a lot of people, it’s pretty fun!!!

This week we met a super awesome guy named Lee DongHo. We met him because we set up an appointment to play some basketball with some high schoolers and while we were playing he showed up and played with us and afterwards we were talking with him and he saw our name talk and said "I love Jesus" and we started talking about religion. He is a 20 year old kid who is going to 2 churches on his own, his parents are Buddhist and he is a super awesome kid who loves religion, so we plan to meet him soon and start the lessons. We play ball with him and then we speak on religion with him afterwards!! Its super great!

God knows how hard we are working and He always leads the people to us, very rarely are we actually led to the prepared people! It seems like they always find us in some way, it's really great. As long as we work hard, God will bless us with what we need. Something I've learned is that God knows where the people who are prepared in our area are. He could lead us to those prepared people and we could baptize everyone who is prepared but He is just testing to see if we will always work hard, always do what He wants, and when you've used up all that you can, that's when He will send us the prepared guy!! I’m grateful for how hard missionary work is!! Its really fun!! Love you all!! Have a great day!!

--Elder Davis

Sisters from the branch

This week was pretty crazy!! I will start from yesterday. So yesterday I had to preside and conduct in one of our sacrament meetings. It was pretty crazy seeing as how I have never done that before, especially since it was all in Korean, but it went well and I think I did everything I was supposed to do. Anyway, because of the lack of people out here the work is going along quite slowly at times, it gets really frustrating but I know it is just a test that God wants me to go through!! We still work hard day in and day out, the lack of people won't ever change that!!

The super funny/crazy thing that happened this week starts like this: We went out to the island in our area (takes a 25minute bus ride and then another 20 minutes of hitchhiking to get there). So our branch president lives out there and he wanted us to eat with him and some of the other members, so we came and ate some really good seafood, but the one problem was that the clams we ate, were clams that he had gone to the ocean and caught by himself. It was good when I ate it, but I knew it might be a mistake after eating the second huge clam, anyway the rest of the day consisted of proselyting out there on the island of Namhae but at one point I felt so sick that we had to go back to our Branch president’s art Academy that he teaches and take a little break. It got really bad after a little bit though and we still had another hour till our bus would leave, so our branch president left his class right then to take us to the area where we hitchhike from with the intent to drop us of there so we could hitchhike. I was like passed out the whole time, and he ended up trying to take us all the way home (about 30-40 minutes and he was in the middle of teaching a class) about one minute before we got home, I threw up all over the outside of the door, and just kept going. I felt really bad, and my companion said that that was the most throw up he has ever seen come out of a person before in his life. He was lucky cause he didn’t eat the clam. It was a great fun memory to share with our wonderful branch president, haha. I don’t think he will ever forget it, I will be sure to take a picture with him next week and send it back.

Another cool thing that happened this week is in one of the pictures. I went on exchanges with the Elders In Jinju, and when I was in the MTC I met a korean missionary who was from there and we have been emailing each other for awhile now! So when I went to Jinju I got to meet her mom and it was super fun! The world is super small!!! I am excited for this next week and what it will bring!! love you all have a great week!!!!

--데이비스 수헌 장로​

This week was awesome!! We got to meet our awesome new mission president President Jeong Dong Hwan and his wife Kim Jung Suk. They are awesome and so  fun. He is so awesome, I formed a really strong relationship right off the bat with him and his wife, he is a exactly the man we need to lead this mission. He is a super great guy and has very high expectations for our mission, so we will have to stretch hard to reach them, but I know we will reach them. He fired me up a ton at our meeting, so I have been working even harder than I thought I could.

It wasn’t as productive a week as I have had before (stats wise) but I can tell we are on the verge of hitting something big out here. One of the reasons I know is because we are getting hit with lots of roadblocks from satan trying to discourage us, but luckily me and Elder Schimbeck are good at pumping each other up!!

During missionary work a lot of the times when you get a lot of temptations and hitting roadblocks and discouragements it means you are about to hit something big that will change who you are for the better, it’s happened to me multiple times. God blesses us for overcoming the temptations! I’m excited to see what he has in store for us in the coming weeks.

This week was pretty crazy, one night at 3 AM we woke up to a HUGE thunder storm, it was was flashing and big big big booms for like an hour, it was super super cool though. We want to see another one!! 2 days later, we went out to proselyte and it absolutely dumped rain on us. The biggest problem was that right now it’s rainy season, but it’s still like 100 degrees with thousand percent humidity. I shower and I am wet for the rest of the day. We literally take a step outside the apartment and get whacked in the face with a wall of moist water stuff. So gross and so hot. I walk for 30 seconds and am drenched in sweat.

The testing for school is finally over, so we can now start meeting with our student investigators! The school system in Korea is insane, all they do is stay in school till 10 at night, then they go study in academies until 1 AM then wake up again at 6. It’s so hard to meet them and most of them want to meet with us!!!

This week Brother Kim Chang Ho (From Bangeojin, he calls me everyday) went to a philosopher and got me a Korean name for 50 dollars, so I am now known as 김수헌 (Kim SuHeon). He also ate dinner with our mission president because when I was talking with our president he decided he wanted to meet this crazy, guy so he invited him to dinner. Super awesome president!!! We also went on a picnic this week with a potential investigator and her son, it was super fun. I ended up just taking her son around to all the playground stuff and playing with him, it was super fun!! The president also told me that I look like his son... I have never been called Korean until I came to Sacheon.... really weird!!

Love you all!!!!!!!!!! have a good week!!

--데이비스 장로 AKA 김수헌

Elder Davis, cool as ever!

Elders Davis and Schimbeck trying to wink at the camera?

I don't think they're doing it right!

Hey everybody!! Korea is going great!! I got transferred to a place called Sacheon, and it’s a super big area but not a lot of people. There are lots of rice fields, it’s pretty crazy. The cities in the countryside are still pretty big, but compared to my last area this is like no people at all. One crazy thing about the Sacheon area is that we don’t have a church meeting house, we rent out the second floor of a building and use it as our church.

The branch is about 20ish people and they are so cool, our branch president, President Lee JinMan is s nice and hilarious, he is a pro painter down here in Sacheon. Another crazy thing about our area is that it is the only area in our mission that is allowed to hitch hike, possibly in the whole world too. We hitchhike to get to the far reaches of our area because it is so far, we meet some awesome people through it though!!! The Koreans love giving free rides and stuff to us foreigners.

President Barrow is now gone :( We have a new Mission President (President Jeong) and so far he is super nice. He called me up once and was super nice!!! We will meet him this coming week at zone conference.

This week has been really interesting, lately a lot of the korean people have been asking me where I’m from and when I say america they think I’m lying, people don’t think I’m american. Apparently I don’t look like I’m an american, a lot of them actually think I’m Korean and make me speak in english to prove that I’m from america, it makes for some fun encounters. Studying the language hard is starting to pay off!! But I know that I couldn't do it without divine help!! Really grateful to be blessed to be able to learn this wonderful language and meet these beautiful people!!! We are working super hard, and are hoping to get enough members here to get us a building!! It is going to be a fun transfer!!

View outside the new apartment.

Some of the scenery around Sacheon