[ 6 MONTHS! ]

Dear Family,

It is hard to believe how fast this week has gone by, not to mention the last 6 months. I still feel like it was just yesterday when I was sitting in the MTC trying to learn the alphabet. haha!

We had a pretty good week here in 금천. In fact we now have an investigator! His name is 안기천. He is only 14 years old. His gospel interest is still low, but little by little right. We began teaching him because his father wanted him to do our "30/30" program with him, which is 30 minutes of English and 30 minutes of Gospel. We have only met one time but have set up a schedule to meet every Tuesday and Thursday. His family is super nice. I want to be able to meet with the mom and dad too, but right now it is just a little hard. We'll see how it goes.

Want to hear something kind of cool? So do you remember the Korean girl (Boo) that I used to home teach at BYU-Hawaii? Well, my companion knows her! And even weirder, my companion's brother was dating her about a month ago, but not anymore. I thought it was so cool that he knew her. I told him to ask his brother to tell her I say hi this week in his email home.

On Friday, all of us elders in our apartment decided to treat ourselves to an all you can eat meat buffet to "celebrate" my 6 month. It was soooo much meat, but dad you would have loved it haha!

Also this week I was able to pass off lesson 4, the commandments. I was really happy about that. Now I just need to do final pass off with the Zone Leaders and the APs. Once I do that, I can become a senior companion.

I was reading in the New Testament this week and came across some really good chapters. I really liked Ephesians, specifically ch 6:11-18. In these verses it talks about the importance of putting on the WHOLE armor of God. In the world that we live in today it is so important to put on EVERY piece EVERY day. If we leave part of our "body" exposed without being shielded it is so much easier for the adversary to get to us. In verse 18 it mentions one very important way to keep ourselves fully shielded, "praying always." As a missionary I have really learned the importance of praying to our Heavenly Father about everything. My companion this morning gave a really good analogy of this during companionship study. He said, "when you have a question about math, you ask you math teacher because they are the expert on the subject. This applies to missionary work. Any time I have a question, I need to ask my Heavenly Father, because this is HIS work." I can testify that prayer is real. He wants to hear from us about everything. When we come to Him asking for the answer to something, He will give it to us, if we are willing to listen.

Make sure that you put on the FULL armor of God EVERY day. I love you guys so much. Have a great week. I'll be thinking of you and praying for you. 사랑합니다!

Love,
Elder Messick