Wednesday, February 22, 2012

Letter from Elder Rife~February 20, 2012

Another great week here, of course! We're getting busier and busier. We have almost 20 investigators right now but we only have enough time to meet like 10 or 12 of them; the ones who were mostly English interest are probably going to be dropped. I hate to say that because all of our investigators have so much potential but we only have enough time for the ones who are progressing the most right now. We might have 30 investigators after this next week or two and then il-san could split into a four man area. It used to be a 6 man area but the work started going slow so now it's only 2, but now it's exploding so we need some help! Oh, and by the way, I am staying in Il-san! With Elder Dorrough. They switched up our districts and made me the district leader. So now it is us and 6 other Elders. Except they are all super far away from us haha. I am the youngest missionary
in the district so it's kinda funny that I am the district leader but it's gonna be fun for sure! I was pretty nervous before we got the call cause I realllllllly didn't want to leave! I'm so glad we're staying in Il-san together though. What's scary is that I hit my year mark this transfer. So crazy.


Last week on Tuesday we met with Brother SeokJin Kim and we talked more about the Book of Mormon and why it's needed. We also talked with him about the BIble and other stuff and decided that next time we will meet him at our church (even though it's super far away).

On Wednesday we cleaned our house a little bit and got organized for the new transfer then we went and met with Sister Cho and Sister So. They are the grandmas that we are teaching. They really have such strong testimonies of the Book of Mormon and they both said they know it's true but now we just need to tie it all together so that they realize that they need to be baptized by someone who holds the priesthood. Sister Cho attends the Bethel Church, which might be the biggest church in Il-san. I call it the Bedo Church, which in Korean means the apostate church. :) So we are trying to get her to come to our church.

On Thursday we met a lady named Sister Suyeon Kim. She was so nice! She's 34 and married and has 2 little girls. We met her at Dunkin Donuts and introduced the Book of Mormon and practiced English with her. She's such a cool lady. She told us that her husband was interested in the Book of Mormon and so we set up an appointment with her for Sunday (yesterday) and she wanted to bring her husband and two little girls to meet with us at the church. 


Then on Thursday we also streetboarded with the X district. The districts got rearranged which put us with the missionaries who are not close to Il-san at all. But the other missionaries from our old district always want to streetboard with us on Thursdays. I'm planning to ask the Zone Leaders if we can still keep that going every Thursday even though we aren't in the same district. I don't see the problem if missionaries want to get together to talk to lots of people.. Especially since we don't mess around at all. After we streetboarded we went and got Cold Stone. (Because Elder Dorrough and I found a Cold Stone the other day while we were proselyting.)

On Friday we met with Brother KangWon Lee at his house. He's really trying to meet with lots of girls lately cause he's 39 and not married so he's always on dating websites talking with girls and stuff. He's kinda got a problem with that. He said that he wants to be baptized on March 3 but he really has a long ways to go before he can be baptized. He also needs to come to church 2 more times before he can be baptized. Most importantly, he needs to gain a testimony of the restoration of the gospel before he can be baptized. We also met with Brother Jaeyoon Lee at the church on Friday. He was trying to read the Book of Mormon in English but he's really not that good at English so I told him to read the Korean one. We watched the Restoration dvd together and then he asked if he could borrow it and bring it back on Saturday at English class so we let him.

Saturday was sports day!! We played soccer early in the morning with a couple of the wards. Then we went home and ate and went to the church to play basketball. We had met up with a bunch of kids on a bus and
they said they wanted to play basketball so we made an appointment. Then we invited the youth from our ward to come play basketball too. The kids we made the appointment with weren't answering their phones so we decided that we would just play with the youth. Then we got a call from the Elders serving in 이천 and they referred someone to us who wanted to meet right away. We called him and asked if he wanted to play basketball and so he came right away to the church and we played basketball with him and all of the youth. He got really
close with the kids in the ward too so we think it will be really good for him! They can be his fellowshippers.
Then we changed clothes and taught English class. We had Eddie and Brother Jaeyoon Lee and his little son. Brother Lee is the same age as our English class coordinator and her husband so they became good
friends. Now he is going to come every week and wants to come to church too. Oh and he's already watched the Restoration dvd 4 times and asked if he could borrow it longer to keep watching it.

Sunday was stake conference! Elder Stevenson was presiding and spoke to us at the conference. Sister Eunhee Chae wanted to go and actually gave us a ride all the way to where the stake conference was. Her husband, Chris, had to work so he couldn't come with us. It was so amazing though! The conference was great. Then afterwards we took Sister Chae up to President Stevenson to meet him and she was so nervous. Then President Stevenson shook her had but kind of held on to it and talked to her for a minute. He asked if she was reading the Book of Mormon and if she was praying about it. Then he told her to listen to Elder Dorrough and I and that the gospel would bless her more than anything. He bore his testimony to her and it was so awesome! She loved the meeting so much and couldn't stop talking about it. After that she drove us home.


Then we went up to the church to meet with Sister Suyeon Kim again but with her husband and two little kids. We gave them more copies of the Book of Mormon and then talked more about it and explained the story to them and prepared to teach them the Restoration next time. We showed them the whole church and explained
what happens each hour and their two little girls are so excited for Primary. They really want to come to church and they want to come to English class each week too. They are so awesome and it's so fun to meet with them. After that we went back to Sister Eunhee Chae's house to teach them but we ended up eating dinner with them and playing with their son, Aiden. We're gonna start meeting with them more often. They are the nicest family ever. They always feed us and want to give us rides and stuff. They are so prepared.

So that was our week! Super busy but it was such an amazing week! Love you all thanks for everything you do for me!


-Elder Rife

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