March 27 When there's 7 minutes left and an FPS being played right next to you...

...Your emails get pretty short and to the point!

How is everyone this week? I hope you're sitting in a nice cool place with a cup or bowl of something delicious nearby, but hopefully you're not getting it all over your computer!

 

This week's been pretty good in the land of Korea. At English Class this past Wednesday, we recycled an old favourite for our spiritual message... We had a paper airplane contest! My companion went last, and he crumpled up his airplane into a ball and threw it across the room for the victory. It was a lesson learned that when people cheat, it's no fun!

A lot of this week was spent baking, preparing, decorating and giving cookies. We had a couple of activities with our zone where we set up a stand and let people decorate cookies for Easter. All went well, and it seems like people saw a lot of really cool miracles from it.

As for investigators... We met and ate with brother Oh (anyone remember brother Oh?) at a vegetarian place this week, and I have to admit that though it's not delicious, vegetarian food is not the worst stuff out there. Maybe I'm just an American and I'm proud of my meat but it's not bad by any means.

Other investigators are investigating, and people are still coming by, but those are the major events from this week. Have a wonderful day, and as always, be a Son of Helaman today!

~Elder Skinner

서울시 종로구 자하문로 152 1동

서울 선교부

Seoul-Si Jongno-Gu Jihamun-Ro 152 1-Dong

Seoul Mission

My 동반자 is the best March 20, 2016

Hello everyone! How are you all doing this wonderful Monday afternoon/Sunday night? I hope you all are in a comfortable chair as you are reading this email, else somewhere where you are happy and at peace with the universe.

I actually have a few things to talk about this week, so grab some chips or an ice cream and enjoy the email... Or just skip it, that's okay too.

To start off the news this week, I found an American football team here... dead serious. We were walking through the Weidae (University of Foreign Studies) campus and we saw a guy throwing a football around... So we talked to them for a minute. We decided that we could beat them, but it's nice to see someone appreciating the sport.

We had an appointment with a Less-active member to invite him to an upcoming music night, but he shows up and says that he has to leave like right then to another appointment and doesn't have time to talk, or sit down and watch a video. So we invite, give a flyer, and he leaves. It was interesting.

Met an old guy outside his house looking at his onions and mumbling something to us about them... We couldn't understand him... he did end up inviting us into his house, though, and we didn't have time to teach but we got his phone number and he said to come back whenever. So that's what we're gonna do. Maybe.

Service project time... We went to an old person home to help them colour pictures of trees. You would think it wouldn't be that hard, but I used all my powers of invitation and commitment to try and convince this harmony (Korean grandma) to colour the tree and it wasn't very effective. Even then, though, I coloured the best darn tree in the whole darn place.

We met with some people this week, a lot of them named Song... for one of them we had to leave our pizza in the hands of the other elders while we ran down to meet with him. He said he'd come to church, in the end, but couldn't come.

The second Song is a kid who has mostly English interest, but come right after church and wanted to hear about the Book of Mormon. We'll see him at English Class here soon!

Next is a Sung, who since last week has met with us 3 times, and wants to learn more about church. He's in Busan right now, but he'll be back later in the week for more lessons and hopefully he can get baptized in Australia!

We were called upon to go down to the Stake Center to attend a Relief Society event, where the Relief Society sisters in each ward in the Stake put on a performance. Of course, Imun was by far the best, but everyone else did good too. It was pretty fun.

And now for the top 5 reasons that my companion was the best this week:

1. He gave a talk in Sacrament meeting with almost flawless Korean ability.

2. Following that, he taught the Gospel Principles class about the signs of the Second coming- not an easy subject!

3. My companion also diligently called our investigators while I attacked the food trash in the freezer.

4. He made all of us Elders into superheroes!

5. Finally, he taught like a champ during our 6 sit-down lessons this week.

Not everyone gets to be with a companion for 4 transfers, so I thought I'd praise my companion a little bit this week.

That's all for now, but I'll have more news and probably also a photo or something to attach next week, so until then, Who is higher than a 추장?

Answer: 고추장!

~Elder Skinner [?]

서울시 종로구 자하문로 152 1동

서울 선교부

Seoul-Si Jongno-Gu Jihamun-Ro 152 1-Dong

Seoul Mission

Happy or Sad?

Hello all! I don't have much time, but there are a few things I'd like to share!

We met with a couple investigators, one of them (Lee) is going along well, but also slowly because he can only meet once a week. The other (Kim) brought his friend (Bei) to a lunch appointment, and now we're teaching both of them (teaching being we haven't met with them since, but we're still in contact and they want to meet again) so that's what's up on the investigator front. Sung is having some life trouble for now, but we're praying for him to be able to figure things out.

For Elder Judd's 6 month in the mission mark, we all went out to our favourite place... Chicken Toilet! We brought Brother Son, and he seemed to enjoy it a lot. Later on we taught him about the Bible and Book of Mormon, and he's still happy and still coming out to church. Next week he'll be receiving the Aaronic Priesthood (I think... Either that or an interview from Branch President), so we're all excited for that!

 

In English class, while we were sharing the spiritual message I had a prompting to ask a question to apply the story of Adam and Eve into our own lives... Even I didn't understand the concept fully, but as I thought about it, I realized that the Fall was a similitude of our own lives. Pretty awesome.

Also a couple of days ago, it suddenly got warm outside... Not hot, but nice, cool weather that doesn't require a coat or sweater. It came really suddenly, and it's been here ever since, so logically the only explanation is aliens.

The other elders also made a new poster to use while proselyting... On one side it says 'happy' and on the other it says 'sad'. People put a sticker on the side they want to be on, and guess what? Most people selected 'happy'. So with that, if we want to be happy, all we have to do is choose to be happy. Being happy doesn't mean we're on cloud nine all the time, but having that lasting confidence and knowledge that someone loves you and that you can overcome hard things, I feel like that's what entails true, inner happiness.

I love you all, and hope you have the best week ever!

~Elder Skinner [?]

서울시 종로구 자하문로 152 1동

서울 선교부

Seoul-Si Jongno-Gu Jihamun-Ro 152 1-Dong

Seoul Mission

Interesting Donkasse!

Morning everyone! I don't have much time but here's some of this week's events!

As for me this week, I decided to try something new this week at a restaurant. It was Donkasse (Japanese-style pork chops), but with some stuffing-kind-of-stuff inside of it. It wasn't what I was expecting, and it wasn't bad, but I'll probably not order that again.

We discovered this week that part of the neighborhoods in our area have been completely condemned and shut down. There apparently was a member living in there, but it seems as if he's moved out.

 My companion got some of those trick jelly beans in a package, and being the good, intelligent missionaries we are, we decided to proselyte with them. People seemed to enjoy a good stinky socks flavored jelly bean. 

Throughout this entire week we successfully found... *A drum roll is heard in the background* one less-active person!... It was still good though!

We ate burritos with Brother Son and his new church friend Joseph (That is actually his name), which was pretty delicious, but it also helped Brother Son to make a new friend.

 

Interesting person was interesting as well, when we went to go teach a guy who believes everything about our church, including Joseph Smith and the first vision, but doesn't like the fact that we share testimonies in our church meetings sometimes... Sometimes I don't understand people, but you still love them, right?

We also had a lesson that went a little long... We only got back home around 10 O'clock >_> Branch President was there though so President Sonksen didn't get mad at us. 😌 The lesson was with a new investigator named Sung, and he's gonna get baptized soon!

We had a random baptism this week... The other team's investigator called this week and wanted to be baptized, but it was Stake Conference so we had to do it on Friday night. He's super awesome, but he may also be the busiest college student on the face of this planet.  

Transfer calls came as well... In an interesting turn of events, everyone in our district is staying here for another transfer! Later we found out that it was all because the branch president asked our mission president to let us all stay, so he did. You know what that means? The work is moving forward! So... One more time?

And then we met with another guy named Sung, but this one is younger and also very Buddhist... His grandmother is in a high position in Buddhism so they all listen to her or something... I still don't understand Buddhism so well haha  

So this email was a little bit longer than I thought it would be, but I still have a minute so I want to share a bit on faith... There are three ways to think of faith. (1) As a belief, (2) as an Action, and (3) as a Power. The way we can unlock the Power of faith is by setting a goal for ourselves, and then doing EVERYTHING we can do to make it happen, and then asking for God to make up the difference. For example, me and my District Leader went on exchanges this week and we decided that we wanted a lesson that day even though we didn't have one planned. So we called as many people as we could, but alas no one could meet. Just as we were about to go out to proselyte, we get a call from a referral who wanted to meet with us that day!

I know that the Saviour lives! Have a great week and smile often! (The Book of Elder Skinner, 2:14)

~Elder Skinner

Presidents, normal old people, and lots of Chicken- Elder Skinner's adventures continue!

Well, everyone, another week has come and gone, and Elder Skinner's still in Korea. How's everyone doing this week? Hopefully you're in a nice, comfortable position as you're reading this email.

This week out here in Korea went pretty well overall. We got paid one day late because of some presidents, and that day happened to be our P-day... So we had to improvise in order to purchase our food, but in the end it all worked out. I think. 🙄

On Tuesday we met with three friends and investigators. The first fed us Kimchi Stew (it was good), but since he's technically the other Elders' investigator (whoops) we didn't teach him anything. The food was good though. Second was Mobby, from Zimbabwe. He's our new investigator, and he's willing to accept the Joseph Smith story which leads to only one outcome, and that is his baptism. Third was Brother O, who took us to a vegetarian place and then dropped us. He was nice, but it's something to remember that we got dropped at a vegetarian restaurant.

Then for my birthday, we went to lunch at Subway with a branch member who's getting married and moving away forever. Subway in Korea is about the same quality as the US (half-rate at best) but twice the price. I guess it wasn't the worst thing I've ever eaten, though. For dinner we got burritos, and even after all that the other Elders we live with tried to buy me surprise Chicken, but guess who knew their scheme from the beginning? (This guy)

But then we had our Chinese people class, which admittedly went a lot better than the first one. The participants even got together afterwards to eat Korean-style Chinese food. I consider that a success, and more potential baptisms, which is obviously the only reason we're even out here (No it's not).

Afterwards we met the most normal old person either of us have ever met in all of Korea. It's tough to describe, but old people in Korea generally fit into three categories: 1. Old and grumpy, doesn't listen to anyone else. 2. Old and happy, talks a lot and doesn't listen to anyone else, and 3. Old and just doesn't listen to anyone else. So when this one not only listened, bu reacted and talked in a normal way, we were a bit thrown off.

Then I got a cold. *cough cough*

On Saturday, our English friend David bought me and my companion almost $50 worth of Chinese food and then just left us to eat it on our own. It was honestly very awkward and we tried to convince him otherwise, but in the end me and my compan

ion ate as much as we could and still had about half a plate of chicken left to go.

Overall, things are good out here in Korea! I know that as we have faith, the Lord will bless us with our righteous desires if we show faith in Him. I'm working on a Korean sacrament talk on repentance, so I know that the Atonement is real, and that as we rely on Him, we can press forward with the assurance that He is pleased with our efforts (D+C 123: 17). I love you all and hope you have a great week!

~Elder Skinner