Hello, everybody!
So this week has been kind of slow. I'm not going to lie, it was actually really rough. I would have this be known to people who plan on going on missions:
It's hard sometimes. I don't mean to scare anybody, and this shouldn't because everybody would probably know this before they make the decision to go. But let me tell you all right now, that when people told me that it was the hardest thing they'd ever done, I had no idea what that really meant and I so got blindsided when I got out here. So here's my advice:
If you're going on a mission and you don't feel as though you have a growing relationship with Heavenly Father, then you need to start right now to get it growing. I don't care how good you think yours is, or how far away your mission is ahead in the future, and I'll put this out there for people who've returned if it applies to them; if it's not GROWING, you need to get it growing RIGHT NOW. If it's not growing, then it's withering because you're not putting in enough effort to keep it there. That's something that I've learned for myself out here. I thought I was fine, but I didn't, and I highly doubt that missionary fully realizes just how much you're going to be relying on Heavenly Father's help when you get out here. If I don't learn or gain anything else from my mission, this life lesson is enough to make coming out here worth it.
Again, I'm not trying to scare anyone. Missionary life is hard, but that's what makes it so great! You learn so much as a missionary. I've only been out for a few months and I could already say that a few months ago. I highly recommend serving a mission and would urge anybody who's making that decision to take the opportunity and go. It'll be the best thing you ever do if you give it your best effort.
But anyways... I'm done being all deep and stuff... It really wears me out.
The update on what's going on as far as missionary work, is that we've picked up two new investigators! Saint Kim didn't come to church (AGAIN >:( ) but we did have two other investigators come! That's the first time it's happened for me since I got out here!
The two new investigators are Mr. Song (it sounds different in Korean, but the romanization is perfect since he likes to sing :P ) and Teacher Kim ('teacher' because he's teaching me Korean).
Mr. Song and Mr. 이 are the ones that came to church. Mr. Song didn't stay for the whole thing, but I'd say that he enjoyed himself and liked it. Mr. 이, we found out in a conversation with him after sacrament, is a 3rd degree black belt it Tae Kwon Do, and that he used to be a Buddhist Priest. He's also ridiculously good at 장기 (Korean equivalent of chess). He's a pretty spectacular guy.
Anyways, so we went to visit our Egyptian Christian friend, William the other day. We went in the evening, which we've never done before, and there was a worker there. The workers have told us to please not go to the refugee house during the weekdays because we get in the way of their work, and we've respected their wish to only visit on the weekends. This worker, however, in true old-Korean-목사 (preacher)-man fashion, told us to get lost. Fun fact about Korea: since it's a Confucianist society, old people almost ALWAYS get their way, so he was rude. He told us that we're not Christian, because we believe in a being who's not Christ, but who we call Christ.... You could really tell that this guy was educated, because he's one of the only old Korean men that could speak fluent English (and he was so stuck up... a certain scripture in 2 Nephi about learned people who ' think they know of themselves comes to mind when I think about this guy). But anyways, this guy told us to get the heck away from the refugee house and stop feeding them non-Christian crap. He even went so far as to say that Muslims are more Christian than us (I've got nothing against Muslims, we've met a few really cool Muslims people out here, actually, but Islam is a totally different religion than Christianity)! Ugh.
So there's a persecution story for you. William is on our side, though, and he told us to come back whenever. That guy only goes to work after 6pm, so we'll just not visit anytime after that. We're pretty sure that he's not the boss of the place, even though he acts like it (because he's old... and Old Korean people do that).
The work goes on! The future only gets brighter!
My companion and me on the street.
Love you all!
Elder Shaver
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