[ BIRTHDAY WEEK! ]

What's up!!!! How is everyone!?

This week was pretty sweet! It was my birthday, duhhh. haha. I was able to do some pretty cool stuff for it. First, we went to this superrr nice buffet on Thursday afternoon. It's supposed to be the nicest buffet in all of Korea and wow, it was LEGIT! There was so much food I just couldn't pick! There was a lot of American food too with deserts and stuff. You guys would have loved it!

My actually birthday was pretty awesome. We had weekly planning! woo! hahah jk. I don't really like weekly planning, but after it was awesome. We had an appointment set up with a less active girl. She lives right next to one of our old churches that has been shut down due to the less-active rate. Since it was shut down she hasn't really come to church because she is so busy and doesn't have a way to get to church. Well when we visited her I just felt so bad because she has just lost total contact with the church. she didn't even have a copy of The Book of Mormon. She prays every day but is just so busy that is getting caught up in the things that don't matter most. That is one thing i have really noticed as a missionary. People always say they are too busy to meet. But think about what they are saying, they are too busy for eternal salvation!? What matters more? Being able to do a math problem or having a relationship with your Father (in Heaven). Anyways, the visit was nice and we will be going back to follow up in a couple weeks. After that visit, we had a lesson with a new investigator. It didn't go very well though. He really liked to ramble and we didn't get to teach much. We might be meeting him again this week but i am not sure. To end my birthday, we were invited to have dinner with one of my favorite ward members, Sue (양수경) or Yang-Sue-Gyoung. She told me on the phone that we would be eating "the best" and well she meant it! She went and bought us American Steak!!! Holy cow it was delicious!!!!!

This week I was able to finish the book Jesus the Christ. It was AWESOME! I never thought I would read that book coming into my mission. It just looked too big for me haha. But I am sooo grateful I read it. I was able to learn so many interesting little things about our Savior and was able to strengthen my testimony of His sacrifice for us. I am so grateful for Him.

On Sunday there was a special event. there was a baptism in our ward :) The Zone Leaders have been meeting with him for about a month and a half. He is 21 years old and superrr nice. He was quite nervous about getting baptized but it all went well. Part of the reason he was nervous is because on Friday he went to a baptism with the zone leaders for another ward. Anyways, that baptismal service was a disaster! I guess they had to baptize him 3 times and Elder Frei said "he looked like a flopping fish" haha. But the service was great and I am so happy for him :)

Some members in our ward are moving so we had a going away ward party for them. One of the people moving is actually moving to Gilbert, AZ so keep an eye out for them Jacki! His name is Matt Wagner and his wife is Korean :) The party was kinda weird to be honest but a less active we visited a few days ago was able to come! She brought her daughter and son too. While on the subject, when we visited her she had told us her son has yet to be baptized (he's 9) and she really wants him to be. Awesome right!? Well they came to church now 2 weeks in a row and I think that she has recommitted herself to living the Gospel of Jesus Christ.

That was my week. :) Hope yours was awesome! I love you guys sooo much and hope to hear from you again next week. Stay safe and be happy I love you!
--
love,
Elder Messick

P.S. Thao guess what!? I totally ate Vietnamese food this week :) It was delicious!

P.P.S. Happy B-day Paul!!! i forgot to put it in my email last week! and also Bryce happy bday birthday buddy :)

[ Golfing on p-day with Sue and her son ]

[ Birthday package from Kenzie! ]

[ Han River ]

[ TRANSFER #6 BEGINS! ]

Hey guys!

Well, it's a new transfer, #6! I am still here in Song-pa and so is my companion Elder Mersmann. In fact our whole house stayed the same. We are pretty excited about that. There is a lot of work ahead of us to do this transfer.

This week was definitely a bit rougher compared to others, but thats ok! We are still doing the work of the Lord and that's all that matters right :) We just give it our best. He has a plan for all things.

To fill you in a little bit, we lost a lot of our investigators this week. It just is so sad when things like this happen.

However, Lee-Say-Won is doing really well. Her progression slowed for a long time becuase we weren't able to meet with her. We had a super good lesson on saturday. We taught the Plan of Salvation. When we taught about life after death her eyes just lit up. She was soo interested. Her whole attitute about the lesson changed. Usually when we meet she is just so tired and has a hard time focusing, but during this lesson she was into it. She just kept saying like "really!?" and things like that. She also is super curious about the temple. she really wants to see the one in Seoul. She was asking questions about it and really thinks its awesome. When we talked a little bit about commandments she said "I think the commandments are easy for me. I already live them all" How cool is that!? The only one we really need to teach better i guess is coming to church and baptism ahha. She was unable to come to church yesterday, but i think that she is definitely on a better track now.

I got to treat myself to a birthday gift this week. COSTCO!!!! haha. I got lots of goodies: chicken, peanut butter, pinapple, trail mix... I'm pretty stoked about it! haha.

The work is going forward, maybe not like we planned, but it is still going well. We are seaching everyday to find the prepared ones. I know that they are there and I am here to find them.

I love the Gospel of Jesus Christ. I have a firm testimony of this Church. I am so grateful to have the priesthood keys restored to the earth again and that we can have a living prophet to help guide us.

I love you all. Have an awesome week! Be safe!

--
love,
Elder Messick

[ Superrr Sweet soccer field! ]

[ My companion likes his cheese balls haha ]

[ A cool thing. don't know what to call it ahha ]

[ TRANSFER #5 COMES TO A CLOSE! ]

Hi family!

안녕하세요! How was everyone's week? Sounds like things were pretty crazy with all the wards splitting and combining in the San Clemente Stake!

So I don't have as much email time today because I am going to play soccer for p-day and it's pretty far away so we have to leave a little early so sorry that it'll be a little shorter. I am pretty excited to go out and play because the weather is nice today and I haven't played any sports other than ping pong in a long time!

Anyways, tonight is transfer calls! Can you believe it! This transfer just flew by huh! I really feel like I just got here. Chances are there won't be any changes in either my area or the zone leaders who we live with. But you never know. I will be pretty nervous come 9:30 tonight!

On Wednesday we had a special mission conference. We the North Asia area president visited us and spoke to us all about missionary work. It was soo good. It just has made me even for fired up about missionary work. It really stressed a sense of urgency. Also spoke about the 4 legs of the table to missionary work. 1) Work, Work, Work!!!! 2) Obedience 3) Language skills 4) Having the Holy Ghost and testifying. It really was so good. I am doing my best to apply these principles to make me the most effective servant of the Lord that I can be.

Yesterday was Stake Conference and i was soo happy with it. All of the talks were so good and so spiritual. I felt like it was just what our ward needed to hear. One returned missionary spoke about how each person is important. Everyone is important to God and helping the work move forward. Another person who spoke was a re-activated less-active who spoke of how he really has seen the blessings that the Gospel of Jesus Christ has brought into his life. Also our mission president, President Lee, spoke. His talk was about things that members can do to help us missionaries out. He also bragged about us a little which was cool haha. I really love our mission president.

I have kind of a strange story about stake conference. So we were meeting a few of our ward members at our church and there was a random guy who showed up. Apparently he met with the missionaries about a year or two ago. He has a mental disability but he said he wanted to go to church with us. So he just got in the car with us and hung out with us at church all day. He really liked me for some reason haha. He followed me around everywhere. He was a great guy and one who has already received his ticket into God's kingdom.

As I have told you before, President Monson has really been wanting us to do work with the Less-Actives in Korea. So we have a huge binder full of names we have been visiting. Most of the people have moved, have wrong phone numbers, and just end up getting "lost." To be honest it just makes me so frustrated that the ward doesn't do their part with the less actives and leaves it to us. It was something i really didn't like doing. But I was doing it. Anyways, because I was "just doing it" we were able to have a really great experience. We went and knocked on the door of a less active. She answered her little door bell thing (people don't come to the door they talk to you through their video camera). Anyways, when she found out it was us she came and opened the door. she was so nice. They are a family of 4 who was baptized about 5 years ago. Her husband was called as elders quorum president about 2 years ago. He received a lot of criticism from the ward for the job he was doing and it led to him and his families inactivity. Now he is so busy with work it's just hard. So sad. Anyways, she let us share a message on prayer. We shared Alma 37:37 and a part from President Eyring's talk in this month's Liahona. We really were able to touch her. She was standing in front of her door crying. She said that she needs to come back to church. I hope that she and her family will have the strength to come back and enjoy the blessings of attending church and living the Gospel of Jesus Christ again.

Our investigators are doing well. They are progressing slower than we had hoped and they do not have baptismal dates right now but that is ok. I only want them to be baptized if they are committed to live the Gospel for the rest of their lives. I want they to truly be converted. Our investigator Ju has a great fellow shipper in the ward. She is a returned missionary from Toronto Canada. So she took her out to dinner and they are becoming friends. Like president Hinckley said, "Everyone needs a friend."

We got a ward mission leader finally!!!!! He seems to be a really nice guy. Busy but really nice. I guess I'll just say he is super rich too! We ate dinner at his house last night and he lives on the 38th floor of this super nice apartment complex! AWESOME VIEW!

Anyways, I gotta head out. I love you guys all soooo much. I hope you have a great week! Stay safe and happy and healthy. Til next week...


Love,
--
Elder Messick

[ Stream in our area ]

[ Buddist temple ]

[ Overlooking my area ]

[ EMPTY SUBWAY!! ]

[ Soon to be the biggest, widest tower in all Korea ]

[ The Gold apartments. Superrrr Expensive! ]

[ Our local mart burned down!!!! ]

[ Cool shot of a big street in our area. Good ol' busy Korea ]

[ Our huge stake center! ]

[ IT'S ME AGAIN! ]

Hey everyone! Hope you guys all had a great week. Of course my week was great as always! Started out a little slow, but ended really great!

Mom, thank you so much for my little valentines day package. I didn't even know it was coming. Thank you for the nice surprise :) Speaking of valentines day presents, Kenzie i hope you were able to get yours ok!!

This last tuesday we had a pretty big snow storm. It snowed for a good 6 or 7 hours straight. It just kept coming and not just a little but a lot! I was on exchanges that day with our district leader in their area. I will be sending a picture of me and him in the snow. The weather has been pretty dang cold. I think one day this week it was 2 degress F. In fact it was so cold the pipes for our washer froze! haha (Washers are kind of in like an outside room in korea, similiar to our old sunroom type thing). Anyways, it was a pretty cold one! haha.

We were able to have to meals this week with some great members in our ward. I feel like it has a been a bit harder for me to bond with the ward this transfer than in my other areas so it was really good. Our first meal was with a nice family with 2 kids (18 and 15). The dad is from Busan area so he has an accent. Kind of like how people in texas and new york have accents. Anyways, he speaks superrr fast so its way hard to understand haha. That was some good listening practice! We ate some sweet and sour chicken, fried squid, and of course kim-chee and rice. Our other meal was with a guy in our ward who is very active. His wife was baptized but sort of hates the church. Not good. anyways he took us out to get a meal that is basically like a kim-chee soup. He is such a good member. In fact, he brought one of his friends to church. she loved it! she loved it so much she was crying during the sacrament hymn. Sadly i wasnt there to see it. I'll explain later in the email. The other missionaries in our area will be picking her up as an investigator this week.

This week I was able to see another HUGE miracle for me. Up until friday, i was feeling like our week of missionary work was sort of dry. Ya we were contacting but the lessons were limited and we hadn't found anyone with interest. Well on friday we went to the bus stop to head over to another part of our area. We were about to get on the bus when my companion realized he didn't have his wallet. He wanted to go back, but for some reason i just had a feeling that we HAD to be on that bus. I didn't know why so I told him i am paying for him. We got on the bus. We headed to sit down after passing two people, but i just had a feeling to go back and sit next to this kid on the bus. So i turned around and sat by him. We started talking. He has been going to church for 15 years. He is in college right now and just attends the christian church on campus. Well when i started to talk about the book of mormon he said he had never heard of it and got really interested. I was able to give him a copy of it and we should be meeting in two weeks. He went to his parents house for 2 weeks to visit, so when he comes back we will be meeting him. This was a direct blessing from the Lord to me. It was a testimony builder to me that His hand is in this work. I know that Christ is right here next to us in this work. He is leading us and guiding us so that we can help build up the kingdom of God.

Our baptismal dates. So Ju is doing well. She has been very busy with work. She works at an elementary school. As you know, koreans loveee to study haha. But ya she works 6 times a week so it's tough to meet. She is still progressing and working towards baptism, we jsut are not sure about the date right now. Lee-Say-Won has been hard to get going. She hasn't really been keeping her committments, but she will be meeting us again soon. Hopefully when we meet we can teach by the Spirit and be directed to how we can help her progress.

So Sunday. I did not end up going to my ward this week because my buddy Elder Frei wanted me to go with him to his last area to see his investigator get baptized. I couldn't let him miss that opportunity! The reason why I went instead of his companion was because both us and them had investigators coming to church so they needed to be there to fellowship them. Well his old area is the english branch. Let me tell you, i felt soo awkard there since it was all americans and in engllish! hahah! It was the first time hearing the sacrament prayer in english in 9 months! It really caused me to see the differences in culture too. P.S. dad i wore my suit and tie too don't worry :)

I have grown such a love for the people here. I am so grateful to be serving in Korea. There is no place I'd rather be. It is helping me grow and learn things that I never would have been able to do without this experience. I know that this is the work of the Lord. I have a testimony of this Gospel. I know that God has called a prophet again in these latter days. I am grateful for all of you guys and the support you always give to me. I love you guys. Have a greeat week!

Love,
Elder Messick

[ A huge street market in my area. Its about 10 rows of this! ]

[ Olympic Park ]

[ Funny statue in the middle of the street! ]