Smile!

hello everyone!

this week has been good and i have a lot to write so here we go.

we went to the temple on tuesday it was awesome.  i felt i should talk with my mission president and i was looking for some comforting words or some encouragement and i didn’t get it. haha but i did get the few words of 'you will be blessed.' and that’s enough for me. it has helped remind me of doctrine and covenants 78:17-18 and how it is hard but i will be blessed. so far the counsel i have gotten from my 2 mission presidents is smile, and you will be blessed. i guess that’s what i gotta do smile and trust it will be worth it.

my comp has been a little sick which has left me with a lot of personal study. so far i think the best conference ever given was november of 2008 or march 2012 i could read those talks over and over again. in 2008 elder bednar talked about prayer and about giving thanks.  i have tried doing that this week and it has made all the difference. as i hope some people may know i love prayer! i love the fact that i can pray! 

however i have gotten in the habit of giving thanks, then asking for help for myself.  i realized in his talk that i will only gain more knowledge and help if i continue to try to be the answers to others prayers, even if that means just me praying for them.  it has made a big difference in my life this last week.

learned something cool this week in korean. in jacob 7:27  enos states he will obey.  in korean there are 2 different types of obedience. 1 is full complete obedience with all your heart and the other is only partial obedience on a outward obedience/doing it because he has too. enos in jacob accepts it because he has too but after he prays he wants to follow and obey with all his heart. i thought that was kinda cool. 

i have been able to read a lot in the book of mormon this week. what an amazing guy shelaman and moroni are! first i think it’s neat to see that all 2,000 warriors were a complete group and never once is one name brought out alone. they accomplished great things together as a group and not only because they were a group but...their mothers knew it too and taught them!!!! 

obey your mom.  she is your mission president right now hahaha at least that’s what we here when we go back(mom don’t hold this against me when i get home) i also think its interesting how in alma 62:4-5 because of moroni's standards many people wanted to follow because he was so public about his standards and didn’t hide them!

lastly as many people know this week last year i got my mission call and also grandpa hunter died followed with the funeral and macays around the world trip.  the part i wish to focus on is grandpa. 

we had the opportunity to go give a blessing to a grandma yesterday. boy did that scare and remind me of grandpa.  a year has gone by and wow. i sure do miss him and grandma.  but yesterday i decided to do some more studying and found the same scriptures that gave me comfort last year.  alma 40;12 and 23 

not only will i see grandpa again but he will be able to remember who i am!  how thankful i am for this!! and how thankful i am that he won’t put me in an arm bar either. last night was a little emotional thinking about how it is time to get his work done for him.  thinking about if he will accept it etc.  started to think about what type of missionary i would want to teach my grandpa 1 peter 4:6.  

obviously one who is a good missionary right? then i got to think if i was that missionary and if not, how i could get there? 

this week has gone by fast.  i am thankful for the blessings i have to be here in korea. 

i love you guys.

transfers?

hello family!! 

this week has been good!! kinda hard for me emotionally to keep working knowing that i will probably be leaving to another area but it has been good!! so i have a lot to talk about so i hope i wont leave out any good things so here we go!  last monday we taught a lesson to an investigator who just isn't progressing he has been taught for almost a year now and ya. anyway we taught with our old mission president and it was amazing.  our investigator values korean history and pride over the things of Jesus Christ. well our investigator was on the top of his arguing game.  he had a raised voice and was very disrespectful to our old mission president. who by the way is much older than our investigator so it was completely out of culture norm for him to behave the way he was. well he cut our mission pres off from talking and our old mission president didn't even get mad!! he listened to him and then in the most calm and tender voice expressed how he felt followed by how he loved our investigator!!! i was shocked! we then all shared a testimony but just to see his love for this man that he didn't know and be calm was an amazing experience.

next another investigator has hated reading the book of mormon and we couldn't get him to read it. so we gave him the book of mormon story children's book in english along with his reading assignment in the chapters in the book of mormon in korean. well guess what. now that he realizes the bom is a big story he refuses to take the children's story version and is even reading through what we assign him to read! we read first nephi 4 together and he loves that nephi follows Gods commandments and loves zoram just cuz he likes his name hahah.  so great.

heard a quote last week that i wanted to share. it is 'those who understand commandments desire to find more to keep because they know the blessings they will receive.' that is so true!!  next we had an investigator a few weeks ago go m.i.a.  we taught him the first three lessons in a week and then suddenly stopped answering. well we texted him last week saying i was probably going to be leaving and that i wanted to say goodbye.  we found out why he stopped answering calls!  we invited him to church twice and because he didn't come he felt very ashamed.  well as we met we said we forgave him and we continued to share the talk by president holland and he loved it he had such a big smile on his face. if you haven't read that talk read it if you haven't read it in the past day read it again.  well elder gillis will meet him again this next week! 

last my personal studies. recently i have been trying to change some attributes that i felt and feel need to change.  i have been having a hard time until i realized i had been doing it all the wrong way. i was trying to do it alone when all i needed to do was ask for help. the phrase 'in the strength of the Lord' has been a huge part of this process. and now i think my improvement will go better.

next, may i recommend 'for times of trouble' by holland its a great talk. go read it haha.

i love you all! transfers are tonight but its ok its probably time to leave since i have been here for 7 months!  all is well!

--
Elder Hunter

another baptism in seocho

hey everyone.  so this week has been pretty good. crazy cuz there has been a lot of rain and a small typhoon, so there was a lot time spent inside making phone calls. which is hard because being here for 7 months i have called every contact or past investigator etc since 2000.

our investigator was baptized this week it was a little crazy because of some things that we had to work out the day before, but we got it figured out.  the baptism went great and although she might still have doubts or doesn’t completely understand everything, she has so much faith and a desire to do what’s right.  i think with the help of the ward that that will be enough.  if anyone one goes to temple square let sister kim know she got baptized.

she said that if the bishop of our ward hadn’t gone to her father’s funeral she wouldn’t have had much interest. it's amazing to see how much the spirit really works on ppl.

since i most likely only have 2 weeks left here in seocho, I shared a message with the ward in testimony meeting.  boy, is that scary getting up trying to share a testimony in another language.  especially when everyone goes dead silent.  anyway the feeling after i shared was so rewarding.  the bishop shared a testimony after me saying that he didn’t want to me to leave hahaha, which is funny cuz he didn’t remember, my name till...i had been here for 4 months but it was good.  interesting blessing i discovered last week was that 2 weeks ago there were 111 people at church. that’s about 15 more than when i got here. the Lord has blessed me to see that great growth here in Seocho. all thanks to the wonderful ward missionaries.

last thing i wanted to share, was a talk we had a training on, by elder warren.  Jesus the perfect leader, by i think president Kimball.  what a great talk.  i haven’t been able to put it down.  the other day i went through and listed every attribute that it states. ha in short i have

a lot to improve on.

im thankful for this opportunity as a missionary.  being here in Seocho for 7 months has been a blessing for me.  this area and the people here are so amazing. this work is amazing!!

--

Elder Hunter