Monday, July 18, 2011

Letter from Elder Rife~July 18, 2011

1st Transfer is done! Crazy! I've been a missionary for like 4 months already.
So the excitement of transfer calls was slightly ruined last weekend. The mission president called my companion and told him that he would be transferred to 태백, which is along the east coast of Korea; he will be the Branch President there because the branch is so small. There are two branches in our mission where missionaries are the Branch Presidents. Intense. But don't tell anyone about our transfers cause it's a secret...ha. So I will be staying in Anyang! I get to find out who my new companion is tonight.

I really hope that after this next transfer I can go senior. I shouldn't be worried about it that much but I like to be in charge and I feel like I can work harder if I'm pushing myself. Plus I feel like my language abilities will take off once I become a senior since I'll have to speak all the time. Especially if my companion struggles with the language.

Oh and I passed off the fourth lesson this morning; it's a really long lesson. I taught it really simply though, which is about all I can do. Now I have Zone Leader pass off and AP pass off. I need to study a lot. Last week I had a consistent headache all week cause I was always studying. My companion told me that I need to relax and take a break from studying sometimes. But the more I study the better I will be at speaking Korean.

Last week was not a good week for investigators. Our one new investigator last Monday after P-hours was pretty interesting. I won't go into too much detail but he said that he could see spirits. Then when he came into our church he said that he couldn't see anything in our church.. Interesting. While we were talking to him both my companion and I felt really uneasy. My companion bore testimony about the Book of Mormon and I bore testimony about Joseph Smith and the investigator told us to stop cause he had a weird feeling. Anyway, after we met with him we decided we shouldn't meet with him anymore.

The rest of the week all of our potential investigators punked us. I was on splits for two of the days with Elder Westarp and Elder Dooley. We knocked doors both days and it was so much fun. We still haven't gotten into someone's house but we have talked to lots of people at their door. I really wanna get into someone's house and teach the first lesson to them. I have a video of me getting told to leave while I'm talking to someone at their door. I don't know if it will send through an email though. I'll try.

Since we didn't get to do much with our investigators this week we visited a lot of members and contacted a lot. My companion felt like he would be leaving (before he got the transfer call) so he wanted to visit a lot of the members. One of them is 이강펴. He is a divorced man. When we got to his house I was so humbled. He lives in one room that is a kitchen, bedroom, and bathroom. It really helped me to realize that my life is not hard and I don't have anything to complain about. My bedroom back home was probably twice as big as his whole apartment. Seriously I feel so grateful for everything I have. It was so good to talk to him. His life is so much harder than mine but he is so happy and so strong in the church. Amazing.

Last week I was thinking about how time has gone by so fast. 1/6 of my mission is already over. I remember thinking several times in this transfer "I want time to slow down so I can have more time to study for pass off." Ha, wow. I never thought I would be wanting more time to study. Interesting how things change.

I heard about a book or article called "The Book of Mormon On Trial." It's a guy who was in law school and had a mock trial where his teacher was the judge and the other students were the opposing attorneys. The guy proved the Book of Mormon to be a true book on all accounts. So if you (mom and dad) could find this book and send it to me sometime that would be great. There are so many evidences that the Book of Mormon are true. There's only one thing that really matters. Personal testimony. But I think everyone should know the historical facts and things that also prove the Book of Mormon to be a true book.

We have a lot of potential investigators this week. I hope it goes well! It will be interesting to get a new companion. I'll definitely miss my current companion. We've gotten along so well over the last six weeks. Thanks for all your prayers and support! Love you all!!

-Elder Rife

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