Week 4

Hey so guess what! This week we have like doubled our korean, we can now use past tense, say 'if you do this... then this will happen..." and "I can do something..." (I hope that made sense). I also have learned how to teach someone to pray, it's super hard to remember all of the vocab that we have memorized, but i'm working on it! I think the thing that I have the hardest time with is creating sentences, I cant ever seem to be able to create a simple sentence using the vocab that we have! I always want to try and use words that i haven't learned. Okay so guess what, this week my companion's tonsils have been hurting him super bad and so he went to the doctors about it. they told him that his tonsils were swollen and they gave him some medicine that was supposed to help the swelling go down and make it less painful. Well the medicine they gave him was Codine syrup and it made him go crazy! He started acting super weird while he was on the meds and he doesn't remember most of the things he did. For example, yesterday he bought a bright purple scripture case and then today he saw the case and didn't know where it had come from! It was really funny but I feel bad for the elder. We went back to the doctors today and they gave him another drug that shouldn't make him so lupey.

 Well we had our third TRC teaching appointment on Saturday and it went okay. The korean portion of it went terrible actually. Since elder dorrough was on drugs, it was just elder doman and I and the lady that we were talking to was using all sorts of vocabulary that we weren't familiar with. When we would ask her a question she acted like she didn't know what we were saying (I know that our korean isn't that bad!! she could have figured it out!) but at least our actual teaching appointment went well. We had a byu student who was really easy to get along with but he asked a lot of hard questions such as "why should I get baptized? I was already baptized in my own church" and "are you saying that my priest doesn't have the proper authority?" so he made it really hard (just like a real investigator) but we were able to answer his questions. So ever morning we have personal study time for about 45 minutes and usually I will read my scriptures during that time. Well I have seen a tremendous difference in my own life as I have been reading from the Book of Mormon each morning. I have been able to focus on missionary work, study harder, and obey all the rules. I've also been able to read and understand so much more in the Book of Mormon than I ever had! It truly is an inspired book and through my daily reading I have been able to strengthen my testimony of its truth. So this next week the 'older' members of the zone are heading out to Korea! (they're not actually older than us, but they have been here longer) This means that we will be getting more korean missionaries and we will have to be the more experienced elders! It's a scary thought!

Okay so one more thought. The other night one of the native korean elders told his conversion story and it was truly inspiring. Basically his story went like this: when he was in elementary school his family was really rich but then the economy dropped and all the sudden they were really poor. When they became poor all of the teachers and students at school hated the elder (elder Choi) and they beat him (it's okay to beat students in korea). Well when the economy went back up Elder Choi's family was rich again and people started to like him because he was rich. One day Elder Choi's father disappeared and he found out that his dad was taken to prison because he had been selling fake merchandise and had been scamming people. With his dad gone to prison, Elder Choi began to bully other kids at school and eventually got sent to another school that was for the "outcasts" At this school he became the leader of a gang and he drank and smoked all the time. Well when his dad finally came home from prison, he was mentally unstable. His dad became addicted to gambling and alcohol. Every night when his dad came home, he would beat Elder Choi. One night he kicked elder choi in the face and it messed up his jaw and all of his teeth. Well one day after coming home from work, elder choi heard english voices in the kitchen and it was the missionaries. they asked him if they could meet with him and he agreed even though he didn't think that he actually would because he had work all the time. Well one day his boss decided to give him a day off from work and elder choi decided to call up the missionaries because he remembered how happy they were and he wanted to feel that same joy. He started taking the discussions and he and his whole family was baptized. I'm sure that I don't do this story any justice but it was amazing to hear the story of how the missionary's example of happiness completely changed this family! Okay well I've got to go, but I will talk to you later. Know that I love you all and I love the work that I am doing here!

Love,

Elder Oaks