30 Aug 11

So whats up!!  We had transfer calls last night and I'm still staying in my Greenie area with Elder Dooley. I thought for sure I was gone but I guess I lucked out!!! I'm glad i'm staying here. This week has been pretty good.  On monday we went to a place called 이태원 (Itaewon). It's an area in seoul where a ton of foreigners live. I saw more black and white people than I have my entire mission!!! Oh and I ate at Taco Bell!!! It was great. Actually, no. Tacobell was pretty gross and super greasy. So anyways, on tuesday we went and visited an "investigator" I'm not sure if i've talked about her before but her name is Jacy Boo... She lived in america for a long time and so she speaks english fluently. So anyways, this lady is pretty wack. when we visited her she showed us a book she had written, It's called "guess who i am" and it's basically a book to try and destroy christianity. She said that her book will "sell more than the Bible" She also told us that "sitting meditation and marijuana can solve the world's problems" hahaha Yah, she'strange, but it's always an adventure when we visit her so we still keep her on the radar. Oh man, it was soo hard not to bust out laughing when she spoke. So, wednesday we met a new investigator who wants us to teach him english so he can pass a test for his work. He wants to learn english in like 2 months, I'm not sure how he's going to do that... We also met another new investigator and we played ping pong with him. He is a super awesome guy but unfortunately I dont think he has much gospel interest. We met him again on saturday and we climbed a mountain and taught him the first lesson. It was soo much fun but like i said, I'm not sure how much interest he has in learning about hte gospel. He listens well but he's not really down for acting on our commitments. We'll keep teaching him for a while and see if his heart changes. So the other night we were walking back to our appartment when we saw a guy walking around with his shirt half-off... Well, he came up to us and started talking in english to us. He kept saying "I'm a cyborg!" or "My name is John Connor, I'm Super man" then he got up on a step and did this weird dance thing and pretended that he was a super hero. It was the funniest thing I have ever seen. Drunk people are great. I think this guy was probably from china.

So in our apartment we have some old pass-along cards that have our phone number on it and they have an old phone number on it from when there were two sets of missionaries in our area. Well my companion decided to call the old number and guess who answered!?!?! Sister Oaks!!!! It was the craziest thing ever!! 

Well, that's pretty much all that happened this week, It was a pretty good week. Well I gotta run, I love my savior and I am super happy to be a missionary. It's hard but it's worth it. Hope youall are doing well!

Elder Oaks

8 Aug 2011

Family what's up?!?!

 

So mom asked me how my korean is going... well, all i can say is that my new companion has been helping me a lot to get better at korean. I can understand quite a bit of what is going on (sometimes) but I have a hard time actually speaking and making sense... It's weird, in english if you say "dog ran my away" most people will be able to understand that you meant "my dog ran away" but in korean if you misplace one little thing, people freak out and have no idea what you are saying. It doesn't make any sense to me.

 

So this week, well it wansn't great Honestly, I dont think I worked as hard as I should have. At the time, it felt like we were working hard but as I look back I see goals that I didn't accomplish and time that I should have used more wisely. This next week we are going  to make sure we are teaching more lessons and visiting more members. It's hard to visit members because most people work until late at night. My companion and i have still been using basketball as a way  to find investigators and teach lessons. we have one investigator who we play with every saturday, his name is James and he's a really neat kid but unfortunately I don't see much potential in him however, he always brings new friends. On saturday he told us to skip going to church and come play basketball with him and his friends... (Don't worry, we didn't!)  This week we met with our investigator Jim and we tried to set a baptismal date with him but he needs more time to find out that this church is true. Next time we are going to follow up on his prayers and Book of Mormon reading. This week we had to refer one of our investigators to another area because the investigator was released out of the hospital and moved back to his home. It was kinda a bummer because I really liked meeting him and his son but at least they will still be hearing the gospel from the missionaries. So this week I bought peanut butter from costco and guess how much it was?!?!? 16 dollars!!! Peanut butter is soo expensive here but I really just love eating peanut butter sandwiches. Don't get me wrong, Korean food is good and all but I don't know how to cook it and I don't like eating out so Peanut Butter is the best choice. How much do the two jars of skippy peanut butter from costco cost in america?? Oh this week was my companion's birthday and his parents sent him a big box of straight american candy, I never realized how much I like salty/sour/sweet foods. Koreans hate all 3 of those. Oh on friday we had a mission conference at 서울 숲 (seoul forest) and it was a lot of fun, we did a lot of team building-like activities and had a testimony meeting at the end. The weather was really nice for us. Pretty much i just hung out with elder Dorrough (my mtc companion) the whole time. Um well yeshhh, I think that's all that really happened this week, it was kinda slow but this next week is going to be soooo much better!! Hope you all are doing well and Im soo happy being here doing missionary work!! Love you all!

 

Elder Oaks 

 

P.S. can you believe that tomorrow is my 6 month mark?? 1/4 done with my mission! Where has the time gone!?!?

15 May 2011

My dearest family

Well this week has been soo long, Im pretty sure every appointment we made cancelled on us!! It's really frustrating but life goes on. Wait, we did get to teach one lesson this week to one of our investigators. Every saturday we just show up at her house and teach her about the gospel. Each week we commit her to read from the book of mormon daily and pray about it but she never keeps the commitment, so this week we decided to read 1 Nephi with her, hoping that as we read and discussed together she would understand how important the scriptures are. We have been sending her a text each night reminding her to read and pray. Hopefully she has been doing it, I guess we'll find out this week!

 

So the other day I was walking on the street with my companion and a drunk man calls us over to him (this happens pretty regularly) and he started talking to us in english (the only words he really knew were "man" "every curse word in the english language" and ke kept calling me "handsome") Finally when we were about to walk away he gave me a hug and ke kissed me on the neck!!!! That was probably the grossest thing that has ever happened to me!! I don't ever want to experience that again!

 

Oh so good news! Our investigator 최승규 came to church this week and he stayed all 3 hours of church and then for lunch afterwards (the ward has a big lunch each week after church). It was the first time he's actually stayed for the whole thing! It's been funny, a couple of our ward members have talked with him about baptism and yesterday one of the ward members committed him to being baptized next month! We haven't even set a date or anything with him yet! Infact, we haven't really even talked too much about baptism with him, we just haven't had a chance to do that yet. The ward members are one step ahead of us!

 

Well that's pretty much all I have to say this week, It's been a long, slow, hard week but this next week hopefully we'll be able to meet with all the investigators who we wanted to last week! Well I love you all!

 

Elder Oaks

23 May 2011

사랑한 가족!!! 

Well this week was pretty fun! On  wednesday and Thursday I was on splits with an elder named Elder bacarro, he's from the philippines. I think he was in Sister Oaks' MTC class. So I was able to go around and contact people with him, it was a lot of fun because he's very energetic and he was always so  happy to talk to people. We've had a bunch of appointments cancelled this week but we were able to meet with one man and we talked to him about keeping the sabbath day Holy and coming to church. Unfortunately he wasn't able to come to church this week because he had a test to take but hopefully next week he'll be able to go! He's a really nice young man and he seems to understand everything we taught him. We brought a member along with us and the member pretty much talked the whole time but I feel like it went pretty well. Yesterday we were able to do a service project and so we went to a lady's new house to help her move in. At first the movers wouldn't let us come in because they were busy bringing stuff into the house but finally we were allowed to come in and start putting stuff away. It ended up taking about 8 hours all together but it was definitely worth it to get some physical labor in and she fed us Chinese food!! Chinese food in korea is much different than it is in the United states but it's very good!! So guess what we did today?!?! We went to the Temple!! It was soo good and I've forgotten how good it feels to walk into that building since we went every week in the MTC! I can't belive I've already been here for almost a whole month! Each day seems to last forever but the weeks seem to go by soo fast!! Well I think that's all that has really happened this week, nothing too exciting but it's been a good week. We spend most of our time trying to find new investigators because our old investigators don't  seem to want to meet with us anymore :( Oh well, I guess that's just a part of missionary work! Well I hope you all are doing well. I'm doing awesome out here serving in korea, It's soo hard work and I sometimes feel like quitting when I can't  understand what the people are saying to me, or when our investigators don't show up to our meeting, but it's the lord's work and he's definitely making it possible for me! I love you all and I am so grateful that you raised me in this wonderful church! Well yeh, that's about it for now bye!

사랑해

옥스 장로

Elder Ryan Oaks

29 May 2011

Family!!!
So this week something really cool happened, we made plans to visit a less active member yesterday and guess what!?!?! She was actualy home and her husband was home with the door wide open so we were able to get inside and talk with her about church. She said that she has been busy with work and when she moved to this area a couple years ago she didn't know anyone in the ward and so she just never came to church. Well we talked with her a little bit about a bunch of stuff (most of it i couldnt' understand) and we shared a message about god's love for all of his children. I bore my testimony about how I know god loves us and  because he loves us he has given us so many things. I think that our short message really kinda sparked an interest in her and I could see in her eyes that she knew what we were saying was true. She told us that she wants us to send some sister missionaries to her because she feels more comfortable with them rather than the elders but I really hope we can bring her back to church. It's so sad to see people who  have stopped coming to church just because they didn't know anyone in the ward and so they didn't feel comfortable going. As we were leaving she gave us each two oranges!!! It was pretty much the best day of my life because oranges (and all fruits) are soo expensive here. Infact, A regular sized watermelon here will cost anywhere between 10-25 dollars!!!!! So fruit is a treat to us. The other day I was on splits with our zone leader and He was such an amazing missionary, he speaks korean very well and he made sure that I talked to just as many people as he did so we both did a lot of contacting. While I was with him we met a man who was really interested in the book and so we gave him a copy along with our phone number. He told us he would meet when he had time so hopefully we will be able to meet with him soon!! We also met a student who said he had no religion because he doesn't understand why all the religions oppose and fight against each other. We explained a little bit about what our church believes and he was interested so we set up an appointment to meet with him next week!!! Hopefully he is one of the people who the lord has prepared for us to find and teach!!
Well that's pretty much all that went on this week, I love this gospel, I love missionary work and I'm so glad that I can be a missionary right now! It's hard when people don't really want to talk to you but I know that my message is true and the lord wouldn't send me all the way to korea to fail. I cannot fail with the Lord on my side. I love you all and I hope you are all doing well!!
Love,
Elder Oaks

6 Jun 2011

Hello Family!!!!

 

Oh boy, so i feel like so many different things have happened in this past week! First off I went on splits on wednesday with a really awesome elder. When we got to his area we had an appointment with one of his investigators (who two weeks before was about to be dropped) and we decided to talk to him about families. We talked a bit about how much families make us happy and that through this gospel we can live with our families forever. When we were done with families, out of nowhere he asked "what is our purpose on earth" This was coming from a guy who two weeks ago had no gospel interest and now he was asking us what our purpose on life was!!! It was soo awesome!!! We answered his question by talking about how our Heavenly father wants us to be happy just like he is and he wants us to return to live with him. It was a really awesome!!! The next day I got back with my companion and we had a lesson with a lady who goes to another church but she's still searching for the truth. She brought along her friend who is a missionary from another church and he was actually really interested in our church also. Normally the 전도사's (missionaries) just try to argue with us and tell us why our church is wrong but this man didn't, he was really interested in the book of mormon and he asked us a bunch of questions why we need the book of mormon and things like that. It was a really neat experience. We brought a member with us who speaks english and korean with us, i was really glad we did becasue even my companion coudln't understand many things the lady said to us. She studied theology in college and so many of the words she used were far out of our vocabulary. One thing the lady really liked about our church was that we dont smoke, drink alcohol, or drink tea/coffee!! She said that our bodies are precious and we need to take care of them, it was soo awesome!!! We are going to meet them again this thursday and hopefully we can start the restoration!!! Later thursday night We had another appointment with a lady who had received one of our english fliers and she decided to look up mormons she also found about how we dont drink/smoke and she said that she hates smoking and drinking! She was really interested in both learning english and about our gospel. We are going to be meeting her again tonight! It's going to be soo good!!! On Saturday we finally got an english class started and it was a lot of fun, It was the first time I have really had any interaction with the youth and they are soo nice and way funny. One of the young men is very outspoken and even though his english isn't great, he tries so hard and he's very amusing. I hope we can help the youth prepare for their english tests in school. So on sunday night we got permission to go "camping" with our ward.(camping in korean means that we stayed in a building right outside of Seoul). At first I felt really ackward because i wasn't used to being able to sit around and do nothing for hours at a time but on monday I just kinda hung out with two of the young men and it was really fun. I just wish I could talk in korean with them because their english isn't grreat, but it's a lot better than my korean!!! It ended up being a really fun/relaxing campout.Well that's about all that has happened this week. We had transfers on monday night and our companionship is staying the same. My companion thought for sure that he was leaving but I guess the lord had other plans for him. Well I love you all and I'm so happy here in korea where I have the chance to serve a mission. I love you all and Hope you are doing well.

 

Love you bye,

Elder Oaks

14 Jun 2011

Hmmm, It's kinda hard to remember what went down this week.

 

Well yesterday we had a lesson with one of our investigators (sister lee). She has been to a lot of different churches and she's still searching for truth, hopefully she will realize that it's sitting right in front of her face, in the book of mormon!! But anyways we brought a member with us (brother Park) and he pretty much taught the first lesson, the restoration to her. Brother Park is really loud and powerful when he speaks, unfortunately sister lee didnt' realy like him, but then randomly another ward member showed up (Brother kim) and switched places with brother park. Brother kim is much friendlier and related with sister lee much better than brother park did. Sister lee had brought a friend with her and her friend kept asking for proof of the book of mormon and she just wanted to argue the whole time so finally brother kim stood up and walked out. (this all happened in korean and I had no idea what was going on) So pretty much it was a  horrible lesson. Fortunately we were able to talk with sister lee and she still wants to meet with us next week. I hope that all made sense to you, because at the time it happened, it didn't make any sense to me!!! My korean is getting better though, I can sometimes understand what people are saying to me for example, when they tell me they are too busy to talk to me (when they are clearly standing there smoking a cigarette) Or when they tell me they're going home, Other than those couple phrases, I usually have no idea what they are talking about and so I just tell them about the gospel, whether or not they want to hear it, it's great!!!  Well that's all that really happened, Im not really sure where the time went this week, it flew by so fast!! I hope all is going well with you!!! Well I gotta go, Love you all and I love being in korea talking to the people here!! I just wish I could slap them awake so they would realize the truth in the book i'm trying to tell them about!!! Well okay, Loveyoubye!!

 

Elder Oaks

19 Jun 2011

Whats up my family!!

So this week we were able to meet with two new investigators!!! One man is probably in his 50's and he is really awesome! He randomly called us the other day and wanted to meet with us, apparently he lives behind our church and walks by it often so one day he just decided to call us and meet!! He was super nice and is really good at english because he lived in the U.S. for a couple years. He seemed really interested in both learning english and learning about the gospel so it's really exciting for us! I think we are going to try and meet with him again this week. Yesterday at church we also met another investigator who is 19 and he speaks fluent english because he goes to school in Wisconsin! Before he went to school he had no religious background. During spring break he went to visit a friend in california and he went to church with that family and found peace going to church. When he went back to school, he was having a hard time trying to get good grades and so he started praying, he said that he really felt like God was carrying him through such a hard time. When he came back to Korea, he didn't know what church to go to but the missionaries found him on the subway and referred him to us!! On sunday when he came to church, we just talked with him during sunday school and he asked us how to pay tithing!! He said he just wants to show his devotion to God!! How awesome is that!!! Oh man, he's just great.  Well that's pretty much our week, Ithink I told you last week that we went to the temple on tuesday and it was sooo awesome!! I always love going to the temple. Oh so mom, that aloe drink that you bought and said that you didn't really like that much, well I'm pretty sure that's my favorite drink in korea!! It is soo good and refreshing!!! I dont know how you didn't like it!! It's pretty popular here, at least, all the stores carry it. There's another drink that you should buy if they have it at the korean market, it's called Milkis, its good. Well I think that's about all for this week. It's been a long week but it was really rewarding when we picked up two new investigators!! Well I have a testimony of my savior and I know he loves all of us soo much, I hope you are all doing well and i'll talk to you later!!

Loveyouall!

Elder Oaks

26 Jul 2011

Family!!!

Oh my goodness, so this week it has been nonstop rain for like 5 days!!!!!!!!! ahhhgggghhhhh It get so frustrating because NOBODY wants to talk to you in the rain. Pretty much we either try going from door to door or we hop on a subway and ride the subway back and forth, trying to talk to as many people as we can. The only problem with riding the subway is hat it can get pretty expensive so we can't do it all the time. I think we are going to try and figure out new ways to contact people this week because it hasn't been very effective so far. Hopefully we will be able to figure out better ways!! Oh well we did have one really awesome contact in the rain this week, we started talking to a man at a crosswalk and he spoke to us for a while and my companion started telling him about modern day prophets and the man was really interested and wanted to learn more about Thomas S. Monson, how cool is that??!?! Unfortunately he doesn't live in our area so we had to refer him to some other missionaries :( But as long as he gets to hear the gospel, I guess it doesn't really matter who teaches him right? Oh so this week we had our english class, (it's just for high school students) and it's always a ton of fun, mainly because there is this one boy to tries so hard to talk to us but ends us just acting out what he is trying to say because he cant figure out the words to say, it's always super funny!! On monday i got to go and hang out with my Aunti Heather and she took us to this awesome restraunt and spent WAYYYY too much but it was soo good. It was awesome to see her!! No, mom I haven't bought a watermelon yet, I am still deciding what to do witht he money she gave me, I think i might buy a fan but If the weather keeps staying cold like it is, then i wont... (i'm pretty  sure it wont stay cold). Yep well that's pretty much all that has happened... It's been a pretty rough week, but we're trying to keep our spirits strong!! I love you all, and hope you are having a good time!! 

Elder Oaks!

4 Jul 2011

So it's kinda been raining on/off all week. One day it's nice sunny and humid, the next it's POURING rain. The weather gets pretty intense. I'm going to for sure have to get a new umbrella, I want to get a GIGANTIC one, so maybe i will be able to stay somewhat dry... On Sunday we had made plans to go and visit some less active members and while we were out walking the rain started coming down soo hard that it was coming right through my umbrella!!! It was pretty crazy. Luckily I was able to find a lady who gave me a plastic bag so i could put my camera and Book of Mormon in because they would for sure have been ruined. I was the wettest i have Ever been in my whole life!!! And unfortunately... none of the members were even home. We took a subway back. I'm just glad I have two pairs of shoes because my companion's shoes are still wet from that experience. Okay so guess what! On Tuesday we took a trip to visit a member who owns a sandwich shop and we went there to visit with her and buy some cookies and as we were there, a lady from Utah stopped by and she brought cheese and tortillas (I have no idea where she found tortillas. They do not exist in Korea. Believe me, I've looked) and she made us Quesadillas!!!!!!!!!!!!! Oh my goodness, they were SOOOO good!!! I think that was the first time I've had cheese since I've been here. it was delicious!!! We were able to meet with two of our investigators this week, one of them had actually done his Book of Mormon reading!!!!!!!!!!!!!FINALLY!!!!!!!!!!!!!!! Now, we need to get him to start praying... Our other investigator, Mae... well, to put it plainly. She has no desire. Her husband is a member but she doesn't want to leave her own faith because she's afraid what her parents will think of her. She fears man more than God. We talked about eternal families with her and then i tried to commit her to baptism but she said she doesn't want to get baptized. She's been meeting with missionaries for over 8 months now and she had a baptism date a while back  but she bailed. We decided that it was best to take a break from teaching her so unfortunately, we had to drop her :( Hopefully her husband will just continue being a good example for her and later in the future she will have a desire to follow Christ. So yesterday it was the fourth of July (as I'm sure you know) and the Korean people were going CRAZY light off fireworks and having fun.NOT.It's an American holiday. So, a bunch of missionaries in our zone got together and had our own BBQ (at a meat buffet) and pretended to light off fireworks because we're not really allowed to :( Well yep, that's about all that went down this week. Love you all. It's tough, but I do love being a missionary in Korea. I love this gospel and i know it's true. Peace.

Elder Oaks

11 Jul 2011

So guess what happened this week?!?! We actually had an investigator come to church!!! His name is Jay and he's come once before. He was a referral from another companionship who found him on a subway. He really wants to learn more about God but he's not sure what church he should go to. I think he's gotten a little bit of disapproval from some of his friends because our church is a little "different" but he thinks it might have been a sign from God that the missionaries started talking to him on the subway. I really hope that we can meet with him soon and share our message with him. He is really busy with an internship during the week and then he always schedules something with his friends right after sacrament meeting so we never have much time with him. I'll try next week to get him to church a little earlier so we can talk with him more. But yeah, he's awesome. So we've been trying really hard to do a bunch of streetboarding this week (where you have a big board that talks about the gospel and you use it to draw people in to you) and we've had quite a bit of success with it. Our mission president told us to start streetboarding more. He said that if we streetboard we will be able to find more investigators. So anyways the other day as we were streetboarding, a lady came up to us and wanted us to follow her to try a drink. She said that a lot of foreigners like the drink and it was created by some people out in Utah. We told her no, that we were missionaries and we were busy but she was really persistent and she wouldn't leave us alone so finally we went with her. Well we get to her office and we drank this superfood drink stuff, it had acai berries, pomegranite, blueberries and all sorts of other things in it. While we were drinking the stuff, another lady came over and started talking to us and apparently she wanted us to give her all of our contact information and our BANK NUMBER!! so that while we were talking to people about the gospel we could also tell the people about this juice stuff and we could make money by selling the product (dont worry, i didnt give it to them). Basically it's a pyramid scam... Well yeah, so we left and hopefully we will never see thos people again because they still think we are interested. I guess i learned my lesson about giving in to peer pressure. I also learned that i need to be more persistent as i am sharing the gospel because the Mona Vie (the juice company) lady was a lot more persistent than I usually am!! Oh! so yesterday we were visiting some less actives and while we were out walking, we met one man on the street who was drunk and really dirty but he wasnted to meet and he gave us his home address!! we have an appointment with him today!!! Hopefully we can pick him up as a new investigator because our message will really help him turn his life around and give him a new start! Well that's about all that has happened this week. Loveyall and hope you are doing!!

 

Love

Elder Oaks

17 Jul 2011

Soo this week the monsoon season pretty much ended which means it's going to get really hot. Im not gonna lie, I'm not super excited for the heat!! Either i get soaking wet from the rain or i get soaking wet from my own sweat, i'm not really sure which one i like better... We are supposed to get another typhoon in the next week though. So this week I was able to go on splits with my district leader and he is just super awesome! His name is elder ishino and he's a super hard working missionary!! the day i was on splits with him we didn't have any teaching appointments so we contacted all day and we were able to talk to 65 people! That's a lot of people. We even got a couple phone numbers with some people who were legitimately interested in learning about Jesus Christ!!! Hopefully we can meet with them sometime soon. The most important thing that i learned while i was on splits was that even though we were working hard we were able to talk and have fun. As we were having a good time, i think it really showed on our faces that we were happy because more people started talking to us. It was probably the most fun i've had during my mission experience so far. Oh so the other day i was at E-Mart (comparable to walmart) and i saw something really interesting....you know how they have free samples right? well they were giving out free samples of BEER!! It was really strange. They were handing out like full glasses of beer for ANYONE to try. Just a small difference i saw between the US and Korea... So yesterday we went to church and while we were at church we got two dinner appointments for this week!!! It is going to be AWESOME! Dinner appointments are very rare for the missionaries here and so having two in one week is pretty sweet. Also we went streetboarding yesterday and guess what?! we set up two appointments!!! One is with another missionary from another church who probably just wants to "tell us the truth" but the other one is with a lady who 1. speaks fluent english 2. wants us to save her. I taught her about Joseph Smith on the street and she really wanted to meet again and learn more about how she can be saved so i think i'll teach her about how through Jesus Christ's Atonement we can be forgiven of our sins and return to live with our Heavenly Father again. She's awesome and this gospel will for sure bless her life. Well that's all that happened this week, Love this gospel, love being a missionary and i'm lovin life. "I'm lovin' it".

 

Loveyoubye!

Elder Oaks

24 July 2011

FAMILY!!

 

So this week has pretty much been super awesome!!!!! I got a new companion and his name is elder dooley he's a super sweet guy and we've been working super hard. Elder dooley likes to do missionary work a lot different than my old companion. Rather than just going around and telling people about the gospel and giving them a card, telling them to call if they have interest; elder Dooley likes to go around and find young people to talk to and actually have conversations with people about their life and then get into the gospel, It has been working really well because we have been getting a lot of lessons on the street!!! On wednesday we had a lesson with a new investigator! Her name is Jacy Boo and she lived in America for a while so she speaks english. I'm going to be honest, this lady is crazy. At first she seemed like a golden investigator because she asked me to "save" her but after we met her again on friday, we realized how weird she actually is. Dont' get me wrong, she's great and all but she's writing a book to "destroy christianity" and she thinks that her book is going to sell more than the bible. She also seems to think that my comp and I are "brainwashed" haha yeah she's hilarious. She took us out to eat the other day and she brought along her pet rabbit and her dog which she let sit on her lap as she fed them. the restraunt owner didn't really seem to like that very much... So we did a new type of finding people activity that was soo much fun!!! We went to a basketball court and asked two young men if we could play with them, they said that we could and then we told them if we beat them they had to let us teach them a lesson (the restoration but if we lost we had to buy them ice cream. Well...we won! Luckily my companion is really good at basketball. So yesterday after church we were trying another new type of contacting this included going into the huge park in our area and sitting on benches with people (in the shade) and talking to them, it was really relaxing and honestly we were feeling a little bit lazy but it seems that the Lord had a different plan for us because we had a young man come up to us and ask us (in english) if he could learn more about our church. Of course we said yes and we took him to the church where we taught him the first lesson and gave him a soft baptismal commitment!!!!!!!! He agreed and we're meeting again next week when we are going to set a baptismal date with him!!!! Ohh it was soo cool!! This week has been super awesome, we've been teaching so many people on the street and making a ton of appointments to play soccer/basketball with people so that we can make friends with them and then invite them to church. It's so much fun. I can honestly say this week has been one of the best weeks of my life. Oh another awesome thing  has happened, we got fed 3 different times during the week by members and 2times by investigators, This has never happened before!!! We're usually lucky if we get fed once every 3 weeks. Ohkay so callie and morgan should probably not read this... So we went to a meeting on saturday with our bishop and ward mission leader so they could meet the new missionary and after the meeting they wanted to feed us. They wanted to go to 보신탕 which is dog soup... we went and it was not good. It made me feel soo sick while i was eating it and i felt really sick the rest of the day. It was gross, dont eat it. Yeah it tasted like REALLY fatty bad, disgusting meat. Yeah, that about describes it. Well that's all that happened it was a very eventful week. I am loving it here, I'm so glad i have this opportunity to find the prepared (and some not so prepared) and teach them about this gospel, it's an amazing thing. Love you all!!!

 

Elder Oaks! 

<3

July 31, 2011

Okay so guess what?! this week we have found 5 new investigators!!! It's been so much fun!!! I think last week I told you about Jim who came up and talked to us, well we met him again and finished teaching him about the restoration. He is really excited to meet with us but this past week he has been super busy because he's been studying for the TOEIC? It's a hard english test that koreans have to take if they want to get a good job working for companies such as samsung or korean air.  Jim told us that he doesn't sleep most days because he spends all day/night studying. I'm really impressed that he still wanted to meet with us even though he's so busy!! Since he's done with that test, we should be able to meet him a couple times a week!!! Next time we meet we're going to give him a solid baptismal date!! I'm super excited!! We met an old man randomly called us and wanted to meet, unfortunately our meeting didn't last very long because he couldn't understand our korean... He still wants to meet again though and next time we're going to bring a member along with us to help clarify. We also met with a family that has english/gospel interest. For the first 30 minutes we taught english to the daughter and son who are both really good at english. I'd say the son is pretty much fluent at english for his age, he's 5. When we asked him how he learned english he said "by myself". His dad told us that he learned english by watching power rangers in english. It's amazing that he could learn english just by watching a show. The thing that i dont understand is how he learned to read.... How do you learn to read without ever being taught how??? He's a super funny kid and his name is Myan. He and his dad actually showed up to church unexpectedly on sunday and they stayed for the whole 4 hours (including the meal at the end)!!!! It was super awesome. So besides meeting with these investigators we have played a lot of basketball this week and through the basketball we have been able to teach a lot of lessons. We were invited by a kid and his friend (new investigator) to go play som basketball and so we did and while we were playing we got a lot of contacts and so hopefully we will be able to meet with some of those people soon. It's been soo much fun!!!  So yeah, it's been raining a ton here and there have been a bunch of deaths because of landslides and stuff. Unfortunately we didn't have any bad flooding in our area :( I really wanted to walk through water that went over my head!!! Ha But there was a lot of flooding in the area next to ours. It's been pretty crazy. In some places there was water up to the stop signs, that's' a lot of water. We did get a bunch of water in the basement of our church but i think that they took care of that. Even with the rain, we were able to have a pretty successful week. This week i learned something that i hadn't ever thought about before. Even thought we don't talk to as many people as some missionaries do, we are still having success because contacts dont get baptisms, lessons get baptisms. When we have fun with these people, they see that we're normal and they see how happy we are. They want to have some of that happiness for themselves so they actually listen to us when we share our message with them. This work has been so much fun, I'm so happy to be here serving my savior!! I love this Gospel and I have found out for myself that it is true. I'm here to invite others to find out for themselves, so they can gain their own testimony of their Lord and Savior. I hope you all are doing well!!!

 

Loveyoubye!!

 

Elder Oaks

August 15, 2011

FAMILY!!!!!!!

 

Hey so this week has been pretty exciting, well... the last half of the week was exciting! So the other night we met with one of our investigators who I thought we had referred to another area but it turns out that he still wants to meet with us, i'm not sure the whole story. But we met with him and while my companion was keeping his kid busy I taught him about having faith in Jesus Christ and that through a sincere desire we can gain faith. He told me that he wants to have faith and I committed him to pray every day with his son and to read alma 32 about how to gain faith. He is really good at keeping our commitments and so I hope that he has been praying. It was really hard to teach the lesson all by myself  and my investigator slapped me when I accidentally used the lowest form of speech to him but he's really patient with me and knows that I am trying really hard to speak korean. Then on saturday we met two new investigators, they're two girls and we taught them the first lesson. On sunday we were walking to church when a man asked us where we were going, we told him that we were going to church and he just started walking with us. When we asked him where he was going he said that he was going to church with us. We later found out that he was actually a member and had been baptized when he was in middle school but I dont think he had been since then. I'm not sure why all the sudden he decided to come to church with us or how he knew we would be walking by that spot but i'm really glad that he did. I sat by him during sacrament meeting and he kept showing me things out of his wallet. He even gave me a pair of headphones and a picture of himself haha!!  I got his address and phone number so Elder Dooley and I can go and visit him later in the week!!! It's so awesome when you see people coming back to church, since I've been in this ward i've seen a couple people begin to come back to chruch and it's always soo awesome!! So remember those two girls that I told you that we had taught the first lesson to?? Well they showed up to church and they stayed the whole time!! We didn't think that they would actually show up but I think they actually really liked it, I just wish we had some ward members their age who could fellowship them and so that way we dont have to meet them with old people like the bishop. We are going to meet them again next week. Okay so yesterday we were behind on the number of people we had talked to during the week and we really wanted to hit the "standard of excellence" and so we went to knock doors at a big appartment. We had been knocking for quite a while and we hadn't had much success except for one kid answered the door who was from america and that was super weird talking to someone who says "dawg", "trippin", or "sick" every other word. But anyways, so we were about done and we came to a door that was open and we knocked on the door and a lady answered, she told us that she already had a church but then she ran inside to her husband and he came out and they let us in. We sat down on the floor and she came out with some watermelon for us and we started talking with them. The husband could sorta speak english and he wanted some english practice but we were able to share the restoration lesson with them and they really liked what they heard. The lady told us that she really liked how sure we were about what we were telling them, she said that at  her church the pastor just yells at them and tells them to believe. She really liked how we were inviting them to read the book of mormon and pray about it, we're not trying to force people to believe what we're teaching them. So anyways, we visited with this family for a while and when we were about to leave they told us that we were welcome back anytime and that they really wanted us to come back next week, I'm super excited to come and visit them again!!! This week was filled with miracles that I can't explain, I dont know why that man decided to follow us to church, or why two girls decided to take 4 hours out of their weekend to come to church or why a lady who was about to shut the door on us suddenly decided to let us in but I am positive that it had nothing to do with me or my abilities as a missionary. I know that it was the Lord's hand and he has blessed us more than we deserve. I definitely have gained a stronger testimony of God's power and blessings this week. I love this work and I am having so much fun spreading this gospel. I know this work is the Lord's work and he is behind it all.

 

I love you all,

사랑해

 

Elder Oaks

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