[ HEY FAM :) ]

August is coming to a close and we are already getting ready to move into September. I just can't believe it. When you look back it just seems like it was only a dream.

 My week here was pretty standard haha, but at the same time totally different. Standard in terms of we did missionary work, but different in a sense of how we did it. So on tuesday I was on exchanges with our Zone Leader. We were out on the streets just talking to people when I went to say hello to a high school student. Well this turns into a crazy story. We asked if he was busy and he said nope he was an hour early to meet his friend. So we took him to go get something to eat and we just chatted. While talking we found out lots of stuff. Apparently the kid had ran away from home that morning and took a 4 hour bus ride to come up to our area. He is in a really bad situation with his parents. His dad is an alcoholic to say the least. Anyways, he came with no money and nowhere to sleep. We met back up with him again that night and bought him some dinner. We called the Mission President and asked how we could help him with his sleeping situation since it was raining. Well he ended up sleeping in our church parking lot under the cover. The next morning we met up with him and spent time with him telling him that he needed to go back home. After lots of talking we were able to help him decide to go back. I think that we made a really good impression with him with helping him so much and we are going to try to get him in contact with the missionaries down in that area. It's not really something I can help with since its another mission but our office elders should take care of it :)

So that was the big news of the week here. Some other less important, but still things that happened. Well on Thursday we had a Zone Conference with half of the mission. The training was about our new mission like "motto" I guess, which is to work hard, be obedient, and testify. We will be focusing on doing that this month through studying preach my gospel. It was pretty fun too to see all my mission buddies. They all seem to be doing good.

On Sunday was our Stake Conference. It was definitely the best turn out at a Stake Conference since I have been in Korea! It was reallyyy great. Still not the same as America. We got there 30 minutes early and could have sat anywhere we wanted. Mom, I still remember how you always made us go like an hour and a half early to those hahaha. Anyways, our Mission President and his wife both came! Sister Christensen spoke in English with a translator up there while our mission president just did it all in Korean. I am so impressed with how much he remembers even though he has been home for 35 years. I hope I can retain mine that well. It is interesting to see how much the language has developed and changed though over the 35 years. You know just like English. The pronunciation is a little different and ya just a little different. But he still sounds way good. :)

Our 2 most progressing investigators are a guy named kim-nam-me. He is about 35 or 40. He has been to church one time and is doing well. We found him through old record calls. His main struggle is just to overlook the little things. He is stuck on why we have to pay tithing for temples and why he can't drink green tea or drink at a work party. I really tried to drill it into him last time that that isn't the right question to be asking. The real question should be, is Joseph Smith the prophet of the restoration. And to know that you have to read, ponder, and pray about The Book of Mormon. He really gets it I think and committed to do his part to find out. Our other progressing investigator is a guy named David, a Filipino. To be honest I can't tell you much because I have no idea hahaha. My companion and him just talk in Tegalog for an hour and I just am totally lost haha.  I have learned a few words though, like oh-ho means yes haha. My companion is working hard with him to set a baptismal date for before he goes home. We are meeting him again tonight at 8.

Well family, no need to worry about me out here in the land of the morning calm. I am doing great. The weather is nothing to be worried about. I am fine and I will be fine :) I hope that things continue to be great for you guys. I love you all and miss you very much. You are in my prayers. Keep me and especially my investigators and Mr. Bong in yours. Thank you. :) Talk to you next week!!

Love,
--
Elder Messick

[ Last p-day at the outside street markets ]

[ HEY FAMILY!!! ]

Whats up!!! Well this has just been the greatest email session ever!!!! Hearing from SO many people. Gosh I am just so happy right now :) Thanks so much everyone.

Well can you believe that Ryan is home!? I know this email is supposed to be about my week, but I am just so pumped for him. I know he served a faithful mission and will reap the rewards of that for the rest of his life. I love you bud!

Anyways, I am still serving in my same area! I didn't go anywhere. After living out of suitcases and have no books to study, I ended up staying right where I am. It's a bitter sweet ending I guess. I am sooo happy to stay here, but its a little sad the other elder decided to go home.

As for the week, we had A TON of rain come the other day. I have never gotten so soaked in my life. My shoes were drying for 2 days. My umbrella had holes in it so ya basically i got worked, but it was great! :) We all had our district meeting barefoot. I have a picture. :)

A little update with Mr. Bong is that he actually found his wife!! its a cool/crazy/sad story. So he was just walking the streets looking for her and said a prayer. 10 minutes later he walked by a little chinese resturant and she was working there! They talked it out and well they will be divorced, but she agreed to see the kids once a month which is great! He is now back here and we should be meeting with him soon :) please keep him in your prayers though.

We had 4 investigators to church yesterday!! Really unbelievable. Things are just looking so great.

I'm sorry my email was so short and not very inspiring, but know that I love you and that I am doing great out here. Have a great week!!

--
Elder Messick

[ CRAZY WEEK!! ]

Hey guys!!!! What's up!!! well I gotta admit it's kind of a bummer that this is a week that nobody can chat because I have BIG news for me this week!! JK you just got on :) Anyways...

 Ok so I'll tell the whole story, well until what I know now. So on Friday night I received a phone call from President Christensen telling me that I am being emergency transferred on Saturday by 12 to a new area to white wash that area, called Kang-Dong, which is right next to Song-Pa. Anyways, the next morning, I woke up and tried to get all my stuff together very quickly, going on the streets looking for a box for my stuff. Anyways, once everything gets all packed up and ready to go, I get another call from the APs saying that I need to hold on and the transfer won't take place until Monday. Well it's Monday now and I am still here!! We aren't sure what exactly will happen. The situation has nothing to do with me so don't worry about that. I guess another Elder might be going home so we are waiting on that decision. So I should get another phone call from the APs soon letting me know if I am staying or going.

Well, as for my week here in Bu-Cheon before all that happened, it was pretty good! On Tuesday we helped out a less active lady in our ward. She has started up an English academy from her house and she asked for our help (academies are HUGE in Korea!) Anyways, we played some games with the kids and they all loved us. I think the less-active was really appreciative of it. Just little by little we can help her to come back. It just starts with love and service.

On Wednesday or Thursday we met a really nice lady. As we were walking we hear her just say Latter-day saints. So I talked to her and I was like oh how do you know us? She said I read a book. Of course I say oh this book, pointing to The Book of Mormon. She replies no a different one so I went on to tell her if she wants to really know then she needs to read this book. She gladly accepted it and then went and bought us some ice cream. It was really cool because at first we thought she was a really mean lady but she turned out to be really nice. We weren't able to get her number, but she has ours. Maybe sometime down the road.

We picked up a new investigator this week and guess what!? He is from the Philippines!! So for the whole hour lesson him and my companion just talk back and forth in Tagalog. It is neither of their native tongues since they both have a different dialect but it was so cool. Something funny is sometimes my companion would forget the word and say it in Korean and just start laughing. Aside from that, David is a reallyyyy good investigator and has accepted a soft baptism. He couldn't make it to church because of work, but I think next week he can. He has a testimony of Joseph Smith and believes The Book of Mormon, well at least that's what my companion told me haha.

Something I learned while being in this area is how important attitude is. If you go into something with a positive attitude amazing things can happen and it can change others. For example, I remember my first day coming here my companion told me that our ward mission leader was really tough and super strict and he didn't like him too much. I just said great let's do work!! I had a really positive attitude about it and now my companion and I both LOVE our ward mission leader and he even fed us dinner last night. He is like our best friend. All because of attitude.

This week I ate some weird soup stuff. It doesn't sound that gross, but man was it nasty. We were walking to the church when some ward members drove by and asked us if we had time to eat with them. We ended up getting this like pig head and pig skin soup. I don't recommend it.

I randomly met someone on the street on Saturday that came up to me and said I want to go to church. COOL! Well he ended up coming to 2 and a half hours yesterday! We will meet again tomorrow.

That's all for now! Still no call from the APs sorry!!! Have a great week guys. I love you!!

--
Elder Messick

[ HEY FAM!! ]

Well it's a new transfer! Transfer #10 can you believe that!? Already in double digits. As you would have guessed things stayed the same and I will "kill" Elder Bacarro, or stay with him until he goes home. I received specific instruction from President to make sure he doesn't "get trunky" hahah. He is a great missionary and we are working hard :)

The weather here has been unreal! Totally different than last summer. Last summer was a record setting summer for amount of rain that came. This year is a record for heat. It's the hottest it's been since 1994. All week it has been 37 degrees C, not sure about F, and just ridiculously humid!! Oh man I start sweating like 2 minutes after I am out of taking a cold shower. But I love it wayyy more than the winter haha. When I sweat I smile I don't know why hah.

Our week was a bit less hectic than usual, but we were still quite busy. Since I'm sure you are curious, Mr. Bong is still doing very well, however he is still way down in Bu-san. He told me he will probably come back in a few days, but isn't sure when. Some good news is I asked him about the smoking. I asked if he had given in to his past addiction. This is what he said. "No I can't do that. God would be mad. I need His blessings." How cool is that!?!?

On Tuesday morning, we woke up early and heading out to the far end of our area to help a less active lady move. Moving in Korea is quite different from America. They put a like elevator type thing out of one of the windows then put it all out the window into the truck. It was great to do some real service for some people. It's really hard to come by for us here.

We had a really cool experience with helping out one of our members this week. So we were out at one of our less actives house trying to strengthen a relationship with them. It went really well and they asked us to come back in an hour after they ate dinner to play soccer with her kids. Well during that hour, I had the thought of going to visit an active member family's home near the area. I thought it was just because I reallyyy like the family and wanted to say hi and share a scripture, but God had more in store. When we get there, the father invites us in and we just chat for a little. Just small talk you know. Then I asked if I could share a scripture and it was just like a normal visit. When we were about to leave he really opened up with us. He told us he is really going through a struggle right now at work. His boss is always disagreeing with everything, especially on religion and he doesn't know what to do. He asked us for a blessing. After, he told us he feels like God led us to his house because he was in need of uplifting. He was very grateful. I think he said 감사함니다 (kahm-saw-hahm-ne-da) like 10 times haha. I have a testimony that if we just do whatever we feel is right, even if we aren't sure if it's the spirit or not then things will work out. Recognizing the Spirit is really hard, but if we just do it we can look back, see what the feeling was like and apply that to future situations. I know I expressed that poorly, but hopefully you get what I mean :)

Lastly, I just want to share about something cool that I saw in an investigators home a few weeks about and just have kept thinking about it. Mom and dad, I was going to use this as your word of the week, but I like it too much so I'll share it with everyone. So this lady is catholic so she is religious. Anyways, on her wall she had some thing that said something along these lines. When you have a 기로(key-row), then 기도 (key-dough), which means when you have a crossroad then pray. I really like it. Anytime we have a question or need to make a decision, we need to turn to God. Since He is all-knowing, He has the best answer for us. We just need to ask :)

I love you guys so much and hope you all take care. I'll talk to you next week!!!

--
Elder Messick

P.S. Happy Birthday to my buds McKay and Noah!! I love you guys :)
P.P.S. Happy Anniversary to Jacki and Mark and also to you Kenz :)

So do you remember Kim Pyoung Moo?  He is the less active that I randomly met on the street about 3 months ago. He wants help with English. He got in a fight with the ward like 4 years ago. Anyways, he and I meet up still all the time and he really likes us a lot. Things are going well and the missionaries in his area are starting to meet him now. Maybe church is just around the corner. :)