Sunday, July 29, 2012

Letter from Korea~July 30, 2012

It is sooooooooooo hot! I can't even describe how miserably hot and humid it is. Okay it's not that bad. But it kind of is. I haven't ever not been sweating in the past month. haha. Everyday it's 70-100% humidity. For those of you who don't really know what that feels like, just imagine being in a steam room. All day long. But besides the heat and humidity and constant sticky sweatiness everything is great! 


Since last week was the last week of the transfer we spent a lot of time working on the members, less-active, and investigator records. Since Elder Kim and I have been here we have learned a lot about the less-active members and  investigators so we are trying to update everything so that the future missionaries will already have the information. If we had already had the information when we got here then it would have saved us a lot of time and would have helped us to know what each less-active member or investigator needed.

Last Monday night we met with 한창훈 again. Lately he has been really upset about politics so he talks for a while about politics to Elder Kim and I just sit there and try to understand. Last time we got him to stop and  talked about our loving Heavenly Father. Then we told him that we really want to be able to share our message with him instead of just talk about politics. He agreed so we are going to start teaching more.

Tuesday we got to meet with 홍모영. She didn't have much interest before but she has been keeping her commitments and is starting to progress. The other lady that she brings with her really has no interest at all so it's hard when we meet. But it's going well lately. After that we met up with some of the youth kids from the branch and two of our investigators and did a "youth activity." We played basketball with them which ended up being a mistake since it was way too hot, but it was still really fun. After that we headed home and changed then went out to eat with some branch members. They bought us this stuff that is just vegetables and all kinds of seafood smothered in so much pepper paste that all of it is a dark red color. So we ate it and then Elder Kim and I were both immediately sick and had to hurry home. It was an emergency. haha. It wasn't funny then but it's funny now. So it made us sick for the next two days.

Wednesday we went to Taebaek for district meeting. That's 2 hour and 45 minute train ride each way. After district meeting I did exchanges with Elder Decker. He came to Wonju with me. He actually went to Timpanogos High too, so that's kind of cool. Neither of us knew each other for some reason, though; he was one year older than me. By the time we got back to Wonju it was night time and all we had time to do was hurry home and get something to eat before planning.

Thursday Elder Decker and I had a great day! We went to lunch with a less-active member and had a really good conversation with him about church and about praying to Heavenly Father. Then we went out to the countryside to meet with Kevin. He's the member who helps us teach Melanie. We shared some stuff out of Preach My Gospel with Kevin and talked about his mission. Then Melanie came to Kevin's house and we taught her about the Plan of Salvation. It was seriously like the best lesson since I've been a missionary. Melanie is doing really well and is progressing a lot. She has already halfway through 2 Nephi. We have been trying to help her find a new place to live lately so that she can prepare for baptism. She has been living with her boyfriend and wants to move. She should be out and into a new apartment this week. After that we took Kevin and got him ice cream for his birthday. Then went all the way to Yonsei University to meet with Dhruba but he punked us. So we had to make the journey back to our house from there.

Friday we re-exchanged and spent time on the records and weekly planning then we went to the bottom of Chiak Mountain and had a barbecue with our investigator's family. While there we met a Canadian man who lives in Korea and talked with him for a while and he wants to meet with us for lunch this week!

Saturday we taught English in the morning. Then went to a Vietnamese restaurant with the English members.. I accidentally ate a pepper from Vietnam that is soooo spicy. It destroyed my mouth for about an hour. After that we worked on records again and then taught English class at the church. Then we met with 정진택 and then we went to the funeral for the father of one of our investigators.

Sunday my companion and I spoke at church about missionary work. It went well! Melanie came to church and got closer with the members. They actually took her and had lunch with her and forgot about us. :(  After church we cleaned the church up and then went home for lunch. Then we met with 전현아. We taught English to her daughter and then we taught them about Heavenly Father and how to pray to Him. It went really well. At first she didn't have any interest but lately she is showing more and more interest! We stopped by to visit 임채린. We visit her dad at his store all the time and he wanted us to teach her so we have been teaching her lately. We also talked to her about prayer yesterday. Then at night we went over to some of our members' house for dinner which is always my favorite part because I love to spend time with the members and get to know them!

Last week was great! I'm exhausted though. We get transfer calls tonight so who knows what's going to happen. Thank you all for your support and prayers!


-Elder Rife

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