August 7, 2016

The Field is White and Ready to Harvest ...

Thanks for the emails! It's always a highlight of my week to hear how everyone is spending their time back home. It looks like you all are enjoying the summer! It won't be long now before school is back in session...

I am still absolutely amazed at the miracles we are seeing in the Busan mission. This week was no different. I wish I had 6 hours to write you a book about everything that happened this week.

We had some fun experiences. I doubt that you have heard of the religion "Shincheonji?" They are extremely infamous in Korea. As missionaries, we are warned to be very cautious around them. In a nut shell, they interpret that scripture that says "the field is white and ready to harvest" as instruction to "harvest" other churches. They do that by pretending to be golden investigators, joining, then after months and sometimes years, they start to destroy the church from the inside out. There are a few stories of Shincheonji people gaining clergical positions and destroying entire congregations. One of the LDS wards in southern Busan had some trouble with them a few years ago. We met one this week.

Interesting meeting. A woman on the street stopped us. Golden investigator. Already knew tons about Joseph Smith and the BoM. Wanted to talk immediately. Took us to a restaurant and bought us drinks. But there was obviously something off. Elder Roper and I both felt it from the moment we started talking to her. Literally second after sitting down at the table, I glimpsed a folder in the woman's hands, and through the slightly transparent materiel I saw written the word 신천지. Sincheonji. I wrote a message on the phone and handed it to Elder Roper under the table, and quietly heard him whisper, "crap."

Long story short, she talked for close to an hour. Didn't let us say anything. The whole time I was praying trying to know what to do. Finally, I had the thought, "she is taking up your time. She is distracting you from your purpose. Put an end to it." So I cut her off mid-sentence, told her we know she is not here to investigate our church, and that we were late for an appointment. She admitted she was shincheonji, and tried to justify her motives by saying that God never intended for there to be multiple churches and the goal of the shincheonji is to unite all churches as one. Definitely a meeting for the books.

Had some amazing miracles too. We visited a man named Lee Ugi in the hospital who asked us to come by (we met him in a park a few days ago). He's an older man, and old Korean people are nearly impossible to understand. With this guy, I probably catch about 15% of what he says. When we showed up at the hospital, the nurses didn't believe that this guy had actually invited us. One of them asked me "are you able to communicate with him?" I thought, "well, no, but that's not gonna stop me from trying!" After much persuasion, they reluctantly showed us to his room. We sat outside with him, taught the entire first discussion, and talked about God for over an hour. He accepted everything PERFECTLY, and had me write down the address of the church. He's already read most of 1st Nephi. Then he took us to a small convenience store inside the hospital to buy us drinks. I will admit, I couldn't help but feel a little smug as we walked past the nurses station and this guy told those same nurses that he was taking his friends to get drinks and would be back later. I have no idea how we had an hour long discussion with him, but I know that that never would have been possible without the gift of tongues.

We also had a 25 year old boy, Kim Kyeongdeok, come to church with us yesterday. He lives right next to the church and just decided to drop in on our English class one day. We became close really fast. Invited him to church. And he came! We have an appointment with him tomorrow.

And this morning during studies, a man texted us and asked if he could have a copy of a Book of Mormon. He found a waterlogged pamphlet on the ground while walking through the park yesterday, picked it up, read it, and then texted the number on the back. We have an appointment with him tomorrow as well.

Now my favorite highlight from the week. The other night, just a few minutes before heading home, we were walking through the dark looking for people to teach. We found a drunk man on his way home. Very drunk. So drunk he could hardly walk. I told him if he would grab my arm, I would walk him home. We walked arm-in-arm to this man's house, laughing and talking as we went. Drunk Koreans are hilarious. When we got to his home, he reached up (he was a little shorter than me), linked his arms around my neck, and pulled me down into a super tight bear-hug. He thanked me, told me he loved me like a son (the alcohol speaking), and wandered into his home, tipsy and happy. It was such a simple experience, and nothing significant, but I have found that moments like that have been some of the happiest of my mission. The simple joy of service.

All is well here in Jungni, and the work goes on. I know this is the work of the Lord. Thank you all for your prayers and support!

Love,

Elder Sorensen

I've been taking lessons from the ward mission leader.