Meat Buffet! Elder Skinner's Weekly Email

Hello everyone! How are things going in all of the places?

Transfer calls came on Friday, and all in my apartment are staying! Two elders in the other apartment are leaving, though. We'll get to meet our new friends maybe later today!

Interesting story from this week... So we were calling some people last week after P-day had finished, and we came across a record of a family who moved out of our area. So my companion decides to call them and see if they're still meeting with missionaries, and it turned out they were moving again on Thursday, back into our area!.. Given, it's about an hour bus ride away but still! We asked if we could help them move in (which, by the way, no one in Korea ever says yes to), and they said sure! We helped them clean up and move in a couple days this past week, and they're gonna start coming to English class. So that was a little miracle there that we decided to call them when we did.

Updates on the other investigators... We haven't met with any of them outside English class this week, cause school's starting and New Years is coming up soon. This week's gonna be busy as well, but we're gonna spend some time meeting with all of them.

Recent Convert Kim went on a campout with the rest of the youth this past weekend, and it looks like he's made a lot of new friends there. I think he'll do just fine in the church.

As for the title of this email, we're going to a Gogi (meat) buffet for lunch once we're done emailing! I'm sure they'll see the Americans walk in and they'll all cry just a bit inside. Reports of that next week!

Good luck everyone, and remember that the Lord is always on your side! Even if you're discouraged, Satan will try and convince you that you're not worthy of Heavenly Father's guidance. That's not true! It's always important to try and improve, but God will always be with you if you let him! So don't be discouraged! Pick yourself up and get working!

사랑합니다!

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Elder Skinner

Feb. 9 - "Chilsung Cider is Only OK"

Hello everyone, from all four corners of the earth except Europe! That doesn't count, right?

Korea, in particular Guri City, has been doing excellently since we left it last. In fact, it just got one new member! Brother Kim was baptized and confirmed yesterday! It was lots of fun, albeit pretty stressful for the people setting it up (namely, my companion). He's looking to be a strong member yet.

We also went to the temple on Saturday! We went through a session in Korean with the ward (I get a translator), which was lots of fun. We also went to the bookstore just next to the temple, and I got a Bible Videos DVD, and a MoTab CD, which has some of Mack Whilberg's original compositions.It's all good.

As for our other investigators, Bei comes to English most of the time, but we haven't talked to him much about the gospel in a while. I really like him though, so we're gonna try and talk to him some more.

We didn't meet Jung this week, but we've really been craving his chicken so we'll probably run by his place this week.

And as for Kang... It looks like we've gotta drop him. He texted us the other night wanting us to stop meeting at the church, and he was pretty adamant about it. We'll see if he continues with that.

We did talk to a new potential this week, named Park. He and his wife were both interested, but his wife was a lot less so. We're worried about that, cause his wife seems to be the more decisive one, but he's not a bad prospect.

Speaking of, we got to ride a bus for about an hour and a half to get to Park's apartment. It reminded me just how much buses are not my favorite. They're cheap, though, and they get you where you're going, so there's that.

I leave you all with one scripture to read... No worries, it's short. It's Jacob 6:12, and it reads, "Oh be wise; what can I say more?" I encourage you all to seek wisdom and never be complacent in knowledge. There's always something more to learn, and opinions can always be changed.

Good luck everyone! 화이팅!

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Elder Skinner

P.S. Elders still at the MTC... 재 단어 MTC 있습니다. 이것은 아마 없어요, 하지만 여라분은 이것을 봤어면, E-mail을 저에게 보내고, 한국에서 오세요? Thank you Thank you, 감사 배리 므치!

Feb. 2 - Chicken!

Hello everyone! Hope all is going well in Utah, North Carolina, Ghana, Benin, Vancouver, Korea, South Africa, the MTC, and all throughout the various places!

Korea has been going pretty much normally since we left it last. Lots of good good chicken, a lot of it coming from our favourite local neighbourhood chicken guy, where we get some good chicken for $7 a box quite frequently. We like him a lot.

As for our investigators, Kim is still progressing towards his baptism next week. He seems really excited about it, so I'm not too worried about having him drop. He's super fun to teach.

Bei hasn't agreed to meet with us in a while, which means he's about to be dropped. We're gonna try and buy him dinner one of these days, and hopefully he'll regain that interest.

We haven't taught a lesson yet to Jung, but he's still willing to talk to us and we still get chicken from him sometimes. Not sure how he'll work out, but hoping for the best!

And we have a new potential investigator, from a place we didn't expect... His name's Kang, and he's a Jehovah's Witness... When we first met him he was kind of a jerk, honestly. It was very much a bible bash, and he continuously insulted (not outright, but same concept) our Korean. We met him again this week, and he was much more polite and even interested. We share a lot of the same beliefs, but he seems very strong in his religion.

Well, have fun everyone in the aforementioned places! Go forth and be awesome!

~Elder Skinner

Kimchi is good.....Jan. 25th

안녕하세요, 여라분! Hello everyone! Greetings from Korea!

Doing lots of work and having lots of fun, all at the same time. There's some not fun stuff too, but we don't like to talk about that.

In any case, the language and culture are coming along, but a lot of it is still completely foreign to me. Sometimes I have to stop and look at a car parked in the middle of a sidewalk or a motorcycle going pretty much wherever it wants and realize that in America, that was weird.

Sadly this week we had to drop a lot of our investigators. One has been sick for a long time and another has just flat-out lost interest. We still have three left, though, and I think we can pull out a couple of progressing investigators from them yet!

We also had to move the baptism back a week... He had to miss church yesterday for family things, and he needed one more week. I guess that gives us more time to teach him, and for him to gain a stronger testimony.

Another of our investigators is a tough one... He likes us, he's my same age (which, in Korea, is important), but he has some strong ADHD (we think it's ADHD, at least) so it's tough for him to focus on the lessons. We think we can make it work though, and I really want him to progress.

Our last one is the owner of a chicken store in 마석 (Maseok), and it's about 45 minutes away by train so we can only teach him once a week. Still, he seems interested, at least a little bit.

Hopefully we can work well with them, and bring them onto the path towards eternal life!

To close, I'm gonna share a scripture. Take this as if I'm saying this to everyone individually. It's the first sentence of 2 Samuel 12:7. It reads, "And [Elder Skinner] said unto [you], thou art the man". You all are the man! Stay strong and DFTBA!

~Elder Skinner,

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Korea Seoul Mission