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!!

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Elder Hunter

I spy with my little eye...9...9...

well, guess what everyone!!!  someone is getting baptized next week!!  we have been teaching her this transfer and she said she wants to get baptized this next week! she went to temple square and met a korean speaking missionary!  she didn't have interest but the korean missionary kept emailing her and she started coming to church and ya!! so so so cool!!  

on some rather sad news our friend texted us and said he cant meet anymore. he stopped texting or answering our calls maybe 3 weeks ago and now he said he cant meet.  its been hard for me to understand why he doesn't want to meet but its something i need to work better at.

yesterday we taught slava! it was weird we were suppose to meet him at 5 at his house but for some reason he changed and we met him at 3 at the church.  yesterday morning i woke up and had a feeling to make sure i put my english scriptures and the liahona from the general conference in my bag and i had no idea why!! well our investigator came in and we were talking about envy and jealousy.  i remembered elder hollands talk from conference and shared some pieces of it. it was such a great lesson and even bigger miracle!!  

also a less active that i have tried to find since i first came here showed up to english class on saturday!! it was amazing!! and i knew exactly who he was when he walked in!! i was so happy to see him and here his stories form his youth.  such a great miracle.

we also had a mission conference this week.  president christensen challenged us all to make a life mission statement. i am so excited to finish mine. it has been an awesome experience to see what i really want in life!!  so exciting! i challenge everyone if they have time to make one!!  

it has been a great week and i would love to hear from everyone!! love you!

Elder Hunter

Cookin' and Cleanin'

hey everybody!! how are things going?  here in korea things are great!!  It is hot as ever!! but, it’s so fun!!  this week was good we worked hard again. we had a good teaching thing with our old mission president and our new investigator.  she wants to be a member but doesn’t know when she wants to get baptized.  not really any big exciting news except that i did find out one of my biggest strengths out here in the mission..

this last week we only paid for one meal...the rest we got either paid for or people brought us food hahah elder gillis is so happy. i have a joke that i talk about like it's 'my missionary value'  obviously if you can speak korean and invite the spirit you are a good missionary. cooking and cleaning and a sense of humor come into play also. as of right now i can cook, clean, help people feel loved and get us free meals hahahaha it’s a good combo.

we have one investigator now that already wants us to get her a triple combination, but as of right now she doesn’t want to get baptized. she was so cute when she found out that God had a body hahahaha so so so funny. 

as far as something i learned this week.  we were teaching slava and i kind of wanted to just tell him all these things that he needs to gain a testimony of. but mid lesson, I realized that i was in the wrong. i am not the teacher, the spirit is. i learned, i needed to follow the spirit and say what he wanted me to say.  the lesson to him was not the best lesson in the world nor did he make any huge improvements but through asking questions and literally sitting in a room for a minute of silence we knew what to say.  i'm slowly finding out that maybe the best thing to testify of to anyone is, that God loves them. 

in light of everything that went on before my mission I would like to add my testimony to President Monsons. Job 14:14 If a man die, shall he live again?  yes he will. I read the talk Mrs. Patton, the story continues by President Monson this week.  What an amazing blessing of the promises God has given us. we will live again and i will be able to see my grandparents again.  what a super cool blessing!!  i love you guys be someone’s miracle today!!!

Elder Hunter

my first baptism

hello everyone! last week was fun!  i was able to stay in seocho for one last transfer. i think that is good. being here for 6 months has been good.  unfortunately, maybe it is time.  we set some pretty high goals this transfer so that we can continue to work hard.  our investigator came back from china last week.  before he left we heard that he didn’t know how his parents would take him wanting to join a religion.  also, that he didn’t think he had enough faith.  well, he came back on wednesday and we met friday. we were ready to answer some questions and address some problems etc. and were thinking that he would get baptized next week. but the second we sat down, he said “i could still get baptized tomorrow right?”  and of course we said yes and made sure everything was ok. his father said it was his decision.  he got baptized yesterday and elder gillis gave me the opportunity to do it.  the single adults did an amazing video about faith for him. i will send it home on a memory chip. his only 2 concerns were, how does he place his hands and he wanted me to make sure i knew that he didn’t swim.  what an amazing opportunity it was.  this week has been amazing!!!!

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Elder Hunter

Pictures

Please keep me in your prayers. 

The young single adults in our ward made a video for one of our investigators.  We were seeds.

This is my Korean Grandma.  I had to say goodbye to her this week.  It was a rough good bye.

Our ward gave us a goodie bag full of lots of yummy treats.

This is my new glove.

I am so grateful for the opportunity I have to serve the people in South Korea.

Fifteen People In Thirty Minutes

hello!!!!!  how is everyone doing!!!!  sounds like my fams trip to middle bass was a blast!! we started talking about all our trips the other day and i told my 'roommates' all about middle bass did forget a single detail! it was super fun to relive everything.  saw all the pictures mom thanks so much.

well here goes some explaining about this last week.  we set a goal to make sure that each one of our investigators knows that our purpose is to teach our message and not just be friends or teach english.  so far the blessings have been huge.  we have 2 baptismal dates!! both will be on aug 4 and hopefully i can stay here in the area to see them get baptized. one of them i have found on the street while contacting.  we also have 2 new investigators ad one of them we met on the street on thursday and said he wanted to meet asap. we gave him a bom and taught him the restoration yesterday we are going back today to teach the plan of salvation.  so so so amazing.  also someone i found last transfer showed up and said he now has interest in our message not just in english and this was before we even said anything about our purpose.  the blessings have been enormous.  also an investigator we have been teaching since i came to korea said she believes the first vision.  the only thing holding her back is the fact that she just wants to go to church with her friends-typical teenager. also we met our uzbekistan investigator this week and first thing he said is i am not going to come to church any time soon.  he still has a lot of things we are trying to work out.

that was our week!!! so so so amazing.  we set a goal and because it was what was needed to happened we were blessed for listening to what needed to be done.  last night we totaled up our stats and took a look at if we had fulfilled our purpose.  I AM SO THANKFUL FOR THIS OPPORTUNITY. i felt my Heavenly Fathers love so much as i knew that i had been and was doing what was/is right.  i know that i wouldn’t have been able to do what we did last week without all the prayers in my behalf thank you all so much.  i love you all so much.

yesterday in one of our lessons we talked about levels of happiness. first level maybe being sports which only lasts a few hours.  second maybe idk a baby being born which is clearly longer then a few hours. and ultimately the most happiness you can receive is through service/sacrifice.  missionary work is so amazing i am so thankful for the opportunity that i have to be here and feel true happiness! thank you all for everything that you all are doing for me!! i love you!! be someone’s miracle!!

Elder Hunter

so a member saw elder gillis contacting and took this picture in his car. i am on the opposite corner. we had 30 minutes to reach our goal of 15 ppl.  it was 8:00  at night pouring rain here in the city of seoul.  one of the coolest memories of my life.  i am so blessed.  as far as how hard we worked last week let me tell you... 2 baptismal dates 3 investigators at church.  21 lessons.  141 contacts. and 10 new numbers.  thank you for this opportunity!

Hey guys hope all is well.

Well, having a new companion is great he is a 100 times better missionary then I am and I love it. We work so hard teach with unity and wow so amazing.  As far as some cool things that happened this week.

As you remember our referral, the Chinese guy with no religion background at all. Well we met him for the second time on Wednesday. We planned on talking about Jesus Christ but he had a lot of questions...black people because of the priesthood thing, polygamy, word of wisdom and law of chastity-all of which he found online.  Wanted to know about it all. Luckily we had a member.  Well we taught him about all of it.  He was shocked.  Not only because we have the commandments but because he felt so bad that he had done all those things and just kept saying.' now what like what do I do?

We assured him it would all be made right through repentance, especially because he didn’t know well because he took it so hard we didn’t commit him to keep the commandments he was really shocked and hurt from them and he doesn’t even understand that there is a God yet so we didn’t ask him to not drink etc.. Well he showed up yesterday to church looking so happy. I didn’t know why. When we went in to go teach him he was so excited to tell us that he has gone from drinking 7 cups of coffee a day to within the past 4 days only drinking one because he felt bad when his friend got a buy 1 get 1 deal.  The best part in my mind was he also going home and deleting every bad picture he had on his computer. 

This mans desire to do what is right is amazing.  It helps so much that he is so willing to ask questions and I am just so amazed by him. The fact that right now he is keeping those commandments even when we didn’t ask him too lets me know how much the Spirit really has touched his heart.

Hmm oh-yoon-gyoo we met with him, with a member that is having a kinda hard time right now. oh-yoon-gyoo started asking super hard questions. it was great to see the member share a simple testimony of what he did know and then to see the look in the members eyes when he realized hey I really do believe this and I know its true.  oh-yoon-gyoo now looks forward to every day that we will send him a scripture to read!

Last, on a sad note is ee-young-sook.  My Korean grandma. She hasn’t been progressing nor wants to progress.  We haven’t been able to meet for 2 weeks.  I fasted yesterday that I would be able to know how to say and what to say to tell her we can’t meet.  Well. she called yesterday and dropped us.  Am I glad I didn’t have to break the ladies heart, yes because I couldn’t have done that. But I am so sad that I may never see her again.  When I first came to Korea I guess you could say she was one of my rocks. 

The work in Seocho is progressing.  We did so much work this last week and I can’t tell you how good it really feels to be doing work again.  Reading that talk by elder Holland and also Enos is also helping me to realize how important this life and how important our sacrifice now will bless others and us.  Thank you for this opportunity I love you all so very much. Thank you for your encouragement to keep the mission rules, to keep working hard, to continue to do my best. You are all a miracle in my life.  Thank you so much. 

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Elder Hunter