Monday, May 30, 2016

LA and Rice

Thank you for the letters this week!

I'll keep this one short.

This week, we saw some incredible miracles. We have been focusing most of our efforts on strengthening and reactivating members, and our prayers in this regard have been answered.

While walking to the bus terminal to head to Jinju we started talking to a man standing outside the terminal. He waved us away without saying a word. Moments later, he came wandering back and told us he had met with the missionaries before, but he doesn't want to meet again. We talked for a bit, and he started to open up to us. He invited us to come sit down with him and talk. We asked him if he had received a Book of Mormon from the last missionaries he met, and he said yes. "Well... have you opened it?" He told us no. "Would you allow us to meet with you later and explain what the Book of Mormon is and why we believe it is the Word of God?" Yes. Then the thought occurred to me, "If missionaries have met him before, we probably already have his number." We looked up his name in the phone ... and written next to it was a big 'LA' (less-active). Sure enough, this man was baptized many, many years ago. We will meet with him this week.

A few days later, we were knocking on doors in the hot, humid part of the day. We both felt like this wasn't accomplishing much, so we decided to go knock on the door of a referral we had received. While walking down the boardwalk toward the undersea tunnel connecting two of the islands, we walked past a man sitting with his head down. We walked past, said hello, he waved but didn't look up, then I turned as we passed him and caught a glimpse of his face... another less active that Elder Tuinei and I met on the but a few weeks ago. We were able to talk with him for quite a while as well, and actually ended up catching a follow-up appointment. A few days later, we met him again out on the same boardwalk, and were able to talk for a long time about the gospel. It felt a little surreal, sitting on the boardwalk in the late evening, with dozens of islands on the coast.10 months ago, I never would have imagined myself sitting there, testifying of Christ in Korean.

This man said he will take us to lunch next week and we can talk again. (Also, the referral we went to go find was home, and we were able to teach him the first discussion. We will visit him again this week too.)

Before my mission, I didn't realize what a literal thing the gift of tongues is. Korean has become a part of me, and many times I have had words given to me right as I needed them. There have even been a few times where after a conversation, I have to pull out our phone and look up the words I used, because I have no idea what they mean. And then, other times, I feel the gift of tongues lacking because I am not spiritually prepared for it, and I have no idea what is going on and basically just stand there blowing snot bubbles.

It will be a wonderful week. The bishop has asked me to baptize his son this weekend, and we have a small pool of investigators to teach. It has been difficult to contact Brother Ha because he started a new job, but hopefully we will see some progress in him too this week.

Your prayers are always appreciated.

Love you all!

Elder Sorensen