Elder Scott Messick: [ WOW WHAT A TRANSFER! ]

Hey everyone. Wow! This last transfer call blew my mind! I have been transferred, as I expected, but the location, definitely caught me off guard. I am back in my greenie area!!! Nok-Beun 녹번! It gets even crazier. I am whitewashing the area, and training there! This is now my 3rd round of training. Can you believe it!! President even made 2 or 3 funny comments about me training so much in the last meeting haha. I am so excited to be back in my greenie area, most likely to "die" where I was "born."

So I am training another new missionary. His name is Elder Fonnesbeck from a small town in Idaho. He is a really cool guy and it seems like we're gonna have a great 2 transfers together. He is ready to get down and work, which is good because that's what we do out here. :)

Our house that we came to was a bit of a mess I guess you could say, so we have been doing lots of cleaning to try to get it better. All we have finished though is the kitchen. We still have to do the bathroom and the floors. Our house is a pretty nice house though and a lot bigger than my last house so it will be really nice. :)

We have a few really good investigators here in this area. First is Brother Kim. He is 29 yrs old and is just so cool. He has a baptismal date set up right now, but we are going to push it back a little bit because we still need to get his confidence in the commandments up a little bit, specifically tithing. He quit smoking and drinking 3 weeks ago and hasn't relapsed once yet. :) He was at church yesterday and things just look good for him.

The next set of investigators is the Kim family. She is a single mother, her husband passed away a while back, and has twin kids, a boy and a girl. The other missionaries had met the kids 2 times but never got to meet the mom. When I came to the area I gave the mom a call asking to meet. We set an appointment for Saturday. They really liked us and she has lots of interest in Jesus Christ. I invited her out to church and she came for all 3 hours yesterday with her daughter. She seemed to really like it and the ward did a great job with fellowshipping. That was a miracle to me to help her come out to church. She won't be coming next Sunday because of a prior appointment, but wants to come on the 23rd!

Lastly, we are meeting with the Park family. Ya, another family!!! This situation was very similar to the one above. They missionaries have met with just the kids 2 or 3 times to help with English, but haven't been able to teach much about the gospel. When we went over to their house on Saturday, I felt like I should ask the kids if it was alright to invite their parents in for gospel time. When I asked the mother if that would be ok, she seemed happy with the invite and went and got her husband. We had a very natural and normal conversation about their beliefs in God and religion. The mother looks especially interested. Again, there is a lot of potential here.

On sunday at church when I gave my introduction talk, everyone was shocked to see me again and couldn't believe I was back in the ward. It was cool being able to talk with lots of members and being able to understand them and have conversations. I am just so happy to be back. Of course I wondered a little bit why I was back, but the Lord answered this question for me very quickly through the scriptures this week as I read D&C 112:19. I just need to go where I am called and the Lord will have people prepared there for me.

I am sooo excited to be in the same ward again as Dong-Sun, the second person I help to be baptized. When I sent him a text on Tuesday night that I was moving back to Nok-Beun he sent this reply. "Today is not April Fool's Day." Hahahah! He is pretty happy that I am back. He has been strong in the gospel, has received the Aaronic Priesthood, visited the temple, and read The Book of Mormon multiple times. His life and how it has changed is a miracle.

The last thing of the week. I was able to see my trainer again. His mission just came to an end and his family came to pick him up. He has spent the last few days going to all the places he's served and on Sunday he came to Nok-Beun. That night I got to eat dinner with him and his parents along with his youngest sister at our bishop's house. It was a very fun night. :)