January 25, 2016
Schizophrenic?

What a shock it was to open my email inbox and find multiple emails with the subject "Read Ella's email first." Russia! I can hardly believe it. That was so unexpected. Congratulations Electra!

The Russian missionaries come to Korea to renew their visas a couple of times a year, so Ella will actually be in Seoul a few times. Haha.

Well, I'm still a little in shock, so I'll try to crank out a legible email.

To start, here's a Jewish proverb that has proven to be true over this last week. It reads:

"Men make plans and God laughs."

It made me smile a little to write that. It's too true! How insignificant our plans are compared to the eternal perspective of the All-Knowing God. I love waking up each morning and having no idea what kind of things I'm going to experience throughout the day. I've met some crazy people and been in some crazy circumstances... but I'd better keep some of those in the pages of my journal, for mom's sake :)

A few nights ago, Elder Ku and I spent the late evening wandering through the small countryside town of Naeri in search of a less-active member's home. After two hours of searching, we couldn't find it anywhere. I had the impression to get back on the bus and go to the first place we looked, so we did, and ended up right back where we started. We asked someone if he could point us in the direction of the apartment we were looking for, and he said "oh, that apartment's name was changed years ago. It's this great freaking big apartment that we're standing right in front of." (I'm paraphrasing from Korean... and maybe exaggerating a bit to emphasize that we had spent two hours looking for an apartment that didn't exist.) 

Anyway, as we approached the apartment building, I suddenly had this overwhelming feeling of disappointment and discouragement come over me, and the thought crossed my mind "it's late, it's cold, let's head home." It really surprised me. I thought "wait a second, we just spent two hours looking for this apartment and now we've found it!" (I realize that this makes me sound like a crazy person who has multiple voices in his head...) Immediately, the discouragement left, and I felt fine. Just like that. I realized pretty quickly that that first voice hadn't been my own.

We found the right apartment number and knocked on the door. We were let inside and got to share a quick message with a wonderful little old couple and their son and his small family. The older man (who is actually the stake patriarch) said he has trouble coming to church because it's so far and he's super old, but he wants the missionaries to visit often.

And to top it off... he came to church on Sunday, along with TWELVE other less active members that we visited throughout the week. Sometimes people just need a little lovin.

The best part of this week... we were playing basketball on Saturday with some ward members and a potential investigator of ours. I was shooting on a nearby hoop by myself (the team was odd numbered, so I was sitting out for a game) and a man approached me and asked where I am from. He got super excited when I told him Utah because he loves the Mormon church. I showed him my nametag and explained that I'm a missionary, and HE asked if he could set up an appointment to meet. He is newly married and has a one year old son. Perfect opportunity. I'm so excited to teach him this week.

There's more I wish I could write, but suddenly we have somewhere we need to be. Mom, sorry I haven't answered many of your questions. I will send you the apartment address next week.

I love you guys!

Elder Sorensen