Merry Christmas!

Merry Christmas!


Hope you all had a great Christmas.

Mine was good. Proselyted the whole day. Our mission came together at the mission home and watched a movie called Winter Thaw. Its a BYU production movie I think. Anyway it was super good. You should watch it! I love seeing people give and show love and care for others just like the Savior would.

김정우! He is super awesome!
He returned from his mission in Cali a month ago
and now he is going to BYU  tomorrow.
If you ever see this guy in Provo tell him I say 안양!  

We had a ward Christmas party. The missionaries did a dance so that was super embarrassing haha. Our Bishop did a crazy performance. I don't know what the point of it was but it was pretty funny. He punched a rock and broke it. He also broke a knuckle. That explains our bishop haha. I also was Santa at this party. I feel bad for people who have to dress up as Santa. Because I kept getting attacked by these little Asian kids.

Christmas Sweat!

It hasn't felt like Christmas at all here haha. Not very many celebrate Christmas in Korea. Which is sad. Such a great and important day. A day that changed everything. I am so grateful for Jesus Christ. I am so grateful I have the opportunity to pay just a little bit back for what he did for me. I have thought about that a lot this transfer, finding ways to pay our Lord back. I hope all of you have thought about that too.

Chicken!

Christmas Skype<3

복음

Hello! :)

This week was a good week. This week I got to go on an exchange with an Elder Named Elder Sandstrum. He is super awesome! He is really good at Korean and loves the culture more than any other American I have ever met!

The district. Elder Sandstrum is the blonde on the left.

We did a board 전도 (that means proselyte kinda sounds weird in English) with the sisters and it was awesome. We gave a away every Book of Mormon away that we came with (I don't know how many it was a few huge stacks). I think that exchange was one of the best I have had so far.

So recently I finished the whole Book of Mormon. I love it so much and feel so blessed to have it in my life. I also feel so blessed to be sharing it with everyone I see. It is such a great gift! Because it is such a great gift we are doing a challenge with our members where we give them a Book of Mormon and they write their testimony in it and wrap it with a ribbon and give it to a friend or a neighbor. Can't wait to hear about the results after Christmas.

Dough-un-casuh! 

Home made fried chicken.

안양하새요!

Good morning from Korea!

Not much happened this week. But it was still good. Meet a 25 year old kid who wants to be a missionary for his church and go to North Korea to preach. That was interesting. He mostly just wanted to tell us about what he believed in. He believed that Jesus Christ, Heavenly Father, and the Holy Ghost were one person. It was super hard teaching this guy because we were going into deep doctrine and there was so much new church vocab I learned. Then our 83 year old investigator who drives stick shift hit the fence at our church haha. His car and the fence are ok. Got to go on a split with Elder Redford during a training meeting for district leaders. It was super awesome!

​Elder Redford and I.

안영하새요!

This week has been good. Elder Finch and I just did a lot of street proselyting. We broke our goal for street lessons by 20! One interesting I have noticed is when we ask, "What do you believe in?" they say, "I believe in me." Haha I have struggled with a response to this. I usually say, "It's a good thing to believe in ourselves. Right?"

Picture texted to Mom & Dad by Sister Johns' Parents
Elder Schimbeck and Finch

Then I usually switch subjects because I don't know how to tell them what I really think without offending them. I think that is a reason why I came to a foreign speaking mission because if I could speak what I wanted to I would be way too intense haha.

This week we had a Mission Tour and Elder Whiting (a member of the 70) came to speak to us. We just basically had a big gospel discussion. The thing that stuck out to me the most was when he talked about prayer. When we pray and ask god for an answer we need to act and try to look for the answer.

Chicken! :)

A perfect example is Joseph Smith when he prayed to God he asked which church he should go to. Not which church is true. Him asking which one he should go to shows that he was going to act on his prayer and it was a more specific prayer. So I've thinking about that a lot and it has helped me a lot. So I want you to remember that more specific prayers bring more specific answers.

Transfer Day! 당반자

Transfer Day!

I am no longer a trainy! I get a new companion today! His name is Elder Finch. I haven't picked him up yet. I pick him up at 12. This will be my third transfer in Jin hae. I love it here it is the best!

So this week we had a Thanksgiving dinner! There is a US Navy Seal that threw a Thanksgiving dinner party and we had a bunch of our investigators come. It turned out really well.  We had some of our investigators get friendshipped by ward members.

So this last week we had some good things. We got to meet with all of our investigators at their houses'. (Meeting in a Korean's house is hard! They don't like having people in their houses because they are really small).

I have to go so sorry for the short letter gotta go get my new companion.

This is my new companion! He is super awesome! He is from Provo.

Me and Elder Finch

A hike we went on

안영하새요!

This week was good. This coming week is the last week of this transfer so that means I'm almost done with training! That means no more 12 week program so thats great! Haha anyway. These past 2 transfers have gone by so quick.

This week we ate with our bishop! That was super hard because our bishop used to be really hard to work with. He would never talk to us and never answer our phone calls. When I was very first here like my first week he has this letter thing he wrights every month to the stake president and he wrote, "please send new missionaries." But we have really gained his trust since then. We ate a bunch of meat together. Since then he has found us people to teach with and members for our investigators. Yesterday he got a kid to sit with and go to all the classes in church yesterday and now they are really hitting it off. Things are so much better when members friendship investigators because if we do baptize an investigator but the investigator doesn't have any friends and the missionaries leave they are going to go less active so that why its so nice and

important to have them.

This morning I went to a 목요탕 (a bath house) that was fun! Also last week we went on a hike and saw this budist temple on the way up to the top of the mountain. The hike was super foggy so it looked supper cool.

Heres some pics.

This is behind the Budist temple thousands of statues.
This was just on this mountain it was super awesome to see.

on the top of the mountain.

예수 그리스도 후기성도교회 The Church of Jesus Christ of Latter Day Saints

Hi

This week has been good. We taught a lot this week and got some referrals. I also went on my second exchange so that was awesome. I went with Elder Sandstrum he is the most American Korean I have ever met haha. We gave a way so many BOMs! Masan is where I went for the exchange and its a lot bigger than Jin hae so there were a lot more people it was supper awesome.

Yesterday we had an investigator at church. This kid has a lot of potential. His parents died and we have been teaching him the Plan of Salvation and he said he got the best feeling when we taught him it. Super awesome. Also we found an old investigator that owns a jersey shop and he gave me a free football jersey so that was awesome.

The jersey the investigator gave me.

We have some awesome investigators that we are trying so hard to baptize before Christmas day.

I have been thinking of how awesome our church is. There are so many churches that have preachers. For other people church and religion is just something they do on Sunday. Our church is awesome we are so much more involve we teach each other and learn so much more and have our own testimonies. In other churches peoples faith is just built on their preachers. We act on our faith. Our church is more than something we just do on Sunday it a culture, its our life. Religion should be something that is changing you. You're faith should always being growing because if its not then it doing the opposite. Faith is never something that we just obtain and have it forever. We have to act on it.

This were we leave our shoes.
In Korea don't ever have you shoes on in the house they will go crazy.

Our beds. (a yo)

A solar tower

사랑

Hello!

This week was pretty good. Went by super quick. The weather here is cooling down a lot. Now the leaves are starting to change color which is super beautiful.

A huge flower festival we went to as a district.

This week we did the 30/30 program and again with this 18 yr old kid the week before he was really not interested in the The BOM  but we got him to take it and invited  him to read the introduction. And talk to us about it the next time we meet. So Saturday we met with him again and this time he was eager to talk about the book. We taught him more about the story. He got more interested and invited him to read just the 1st chapter of 1st Nephi. We have just been giving him small reading invitations because he hates reading. I put my self in his shoes and man if I was him I would feel the same way.

The Book of Mormon is super awesome I love it sooo much today I was reading about Ammon (one of King Mosiah's sons) and how he told the king Lamoni he would be his servant if he could stay in the land. And serves him. Anyways you know the story. If you don't read it Alma 17-18 i think. But through service we can soften hearts and show people the true love of Christ.

So a little bit more about Korea and the mission. So I'm not sure if I have ever said this but we can't proselyte to girls because they looooove foreigners. The high school girls get a little crazy haha. So if you ever wonder why I don't have girl investigators that's why.