[ MOVING INTO TRANSFER #15 ]

Hey everyone :) On Saturday was transfer calls! Yup transfer calls changed from Monday night to Saturday night. So much better that way. Well I will be serving a 3rd transfer with Elder Fonnesbeck, but there's a catch! We will be a threesome! Yup we have another missionary coming to serve with us, a Korean :) we are super stoked about it. I think teaching and what not might be a little bit more tough, but definitely will be fun having a native Korean around all the time :) another cool thing from transfers. We got a new AP, guess who. Elder Clearwater!!!! So cool. The first Elder that I got to train is my AP haha. He is a rock of a missionary and am excited to hear his trainings.

Other big news that I think most of you know by now, our mission is splitting in July! We had to wait for the official announcement before we could tell you. I am sooo stoked that they are sending more missionaries to Korea. More people now get the opportunity to serve their mission in the best country ever. The work really is beginning to hasten. I am so glad to be so involved in it.

The biggest news of the week as far as investigators goes is Sister Choi. I talked about her a lot in my last email, the referral from America. Anyways we met a lot this week! Thursday, Friday, Saturday, Sunday haha. When we first met on Thursday her kids just LOVED us and said they wanted to meet with us again tomorrow haha. They brought there wave boards with them too cuz they wanted to show us. We are like their best friends. Then on Saturday they came to English class and the whole class was blown away by the little boys' English. And Sunday, they show up to church, and the boys are in white shirts and ties!!! It was so awesome. I found out that she really liked the song 'I am a child of God' so I asked the primary pres if the kids would sing it in Sacrament and she loved that. Now to the not so good stuff. I'm not sure why, but some kids in our ward were teasing her children and made her cry after sacrament. I felt sooo bad for her. I don't know why. Next week i think my comps and i will go into primary and make sure they are treated well. We had a quick lesson after church with my "Korean grandpa" and it was really good. He is probably my favorite person my whole mission to teach lessons with because he is so spiritual every time. Sometimes we have people who are SO concerned with the investigator having fun. And to be honest sometimes I get a little to worried about that too. But really the focus HAS to be the Spirit. If they feel the Spirit, that's what will convert them. If they just have a fun time, they become converted to the missionaries or to a member, but if they have the Spirit touch their heart, then they will be converted to the Lord. Then they will never fall away.

All of our investigators right now are so close to the point of progression, but they aren't quite there. I don't know why but we just can't get them to the waters. We are constantly inviting them to be baptized, but they keep putting it off. Sooo, please if you would pray that our investigators might have a realization of the need of baptism and the immediate blessings they will see from it.

This is the work of the Lord. I have been called of God to be out here and I won't ever slow down in the work :) Have a great week fam. I love you guys.

--
Love,

메시크 장로
Elder Messick

P.S. Bryce, not sure if you read these, but I think your mom does so happy birthday man. Love you!! Thanks for the example you were to me as a little kid. I still remember when you took me skimming once. ;)

[ Dinner at Subway with some members and potential investigators they referred to us, Dabin and Eli. The two in the back. ] 

[ Returning missionaries ]

[ Sister Choi. The investigator who visited Gilbert, AZ ]

[ My birthday cake :) ]

[ EIPC WEEK!! ]

Hey everyone :) I am just so happy right now. Things are going so good, both for you guys back home and more importantly for the people of Nok-Beun here. We have been very busy and I wouldn't want it any other way.

Yesterday was our stake conference and man was it a BIG turnout. In preparation for the big crowd my companion and I spent about 2 and a half hours shoveling our entire parking lot becase it was FULL of snow. Man that took forever, and not to mention 3 broken shovels. haha Anyways, I think we had anywhere from 700 to 800 people there. Our church isn't all that big so it was a tight fit with 2 overflows. I don't know if they used them though since I was up on the stand singing in the choir. Don't worry though mom, I sang VERY quietly hahah. The conference all in all seemed really good. My favorite part hands down was the Branch president of the deaf branch! Thats right. They started a deaf branch here in Seoul. He was up at the podium signing all this stuff and his daughter translated the whole thing. It was so cool and a very spiritual motivating talk.

We had 2 investigators show up to sacrament along with our recent convert Brother Hong. He brought his friend Dong-Ho. He is doing well, but still not sure about the whole baptism thing. We are talking a lot about it and helping him see why it is important for us. He attended a baptism on Thursday (I'll expain in a sec) and the whole time he was like everyone looks so happy. I kept trying to tell him it's because they are following the gospel of Jesus Christ and have received the Holy Ghost. I'm not sure if he's fully getting it or not.

So as for the baptism. The other elders in our ward were able to get that husband and wife baptized (I sent their picture last week). They are sooo solid. I wrote about my first experience when I taught her and she was just so golden. I am so happy for her and the elders for all that happened.

Ok so hands down the highlight of my week is this lady named Sister Choi. I mentioned 2 investigators came to church, she is the other. Alright so Saturday night i got a phone call from our Church office with a referral for us, Sister Choi. I give her a call and she gasped for excitement when I was in the middle of saying our church name. COOL! Anyways, we chatted for a little and it got even cooler. She found out about the church as she was on a 6 week trip to America. Guess where she was staying. Gilbert, AZ! Sup Jacki! haha. Then she made a stop somewhere else. Guess. YUP San Diego!! So major connections haha. She and I hit it off really well and she just loves the church. She's about 40 and I don't know too much about her family yet since it was Stake conference so we didn't have time to do a lesson. But this morning I got a text from her saying she wanted to read from The Book of Mormon and wanted me to suggest some chapters. She is so golden. We will be meeting her on Thursday. :)

Last night we had a dinner appointment with the cutest family ever. they have 6 kids. That is absolutely unheard of here in Korea!! They were sooo much fun. Especially their littlest girl whose 5. Just the cutest thing ever. I have a superrrr funny story to tell. So she randomly popped behind my companion and gave him a kiss on the cheek hahahah. Her mom got mad at her and said she had to go tell Jesus what she did. About 45 sec later she comes running back. She said and i quote (well translated) "I prayed. Jesus said its ok!!" while running at my comp to kiss him on the cheek again. hahahahahah. I haven't ever laughed so hard. Don't wrry she didn't kiss him again. We shared a really good spiritual message with them. We gave one of their children a choco pie and said ok take a bite. "Does it taste good? Do you want to share it with your family" Of course he liked it so we gave him another to give to him mom. and another for his dad. Eventually to all the family. We read together 1Nephi 8:11-12 and talked about how we have tasted of the fruit of the gospel and because it makes us so happy we should desire to share it with others. Something for you guys to think about this week.

I love you guys. Have a great week. :)

--
Love,

메시크 장로
Elder Messick

P.S. Happy b-day paul. I love you bro

[ Teaching at the kids english library ]

[ Pics of the mission ]

[ Mexican food fajitas :) I FELT LIKE I WAS HOME haha. The son lived in Spain for a year. ]

[ HAPPY LUNAR NEW YEAR^^ 설날 ]

새해 복 많이 받으세요!! ^^

Happy New Year guys. :) It was the lunar new year here, basically the biggest holiday of the year, except for us missionaries haha. We just did our normal thing, Street contacting haha. I sure do love it though. As weird as that sounds, I really do. Sure some days are better than others, but I find real happiness just from opening my mouth to as many people as I can. When it's a tough rejection just shake it off or see if you can get them leaving with a smile. Its fun. :)

[ Overlooking my area ]

Church yesterday was great. It was just sacrament meeting and we had a much better turnout than expected. I'd say over 120 people were there. Lots of people in 한복s. We were still short though for the sacrament so I said one of the prayers. When Brother Lee (my Korean grandpa) walked in to church, he came up to me with big open arms and gave me a huge hug and kiss on the cheek. hahha. I sure do love that man. He sure does take care of us missionaries.

The day before we had a big conference as a whole mission which was SO good. We had a guest speaker, P.J. Rogers. This guy is in the presidency of the English district here in Korea. He's no ordinary guy to say the least. He is HUGE here. He's got tv shows and a radio show. Koreans love this guy and for good reasons. One, his Korean is OFF THE CHARTS. And two, he is hilarious. He is even funnier in Korean than he is in English. Great character. He was a missionary here some time ago and now lives here with his family making tons of money. He gave a great presentation on how to improve missionary work by adjusting to the Korean cultures to gain members love and trust and respect. It really was so good. I'll have to explain it better in person. :)

I think our most progressing investigator right now is Brother Beck (백). He has met us 4 times now and is soooo sincere. He really is searching for the truth and willing to put the effort in. He just is in a tough situation with his mother being so sick. We have tried to get him to commit to a date, but he just won't quite yet, however last time he did ask where we do the baptism at. He wanted to see the baptismal font. When he saw it he said, "it's kind of like a public bath house" hahhahahah. He has a funny sense of humor and has really opened up with us a lot. We have taught him some great lessons. I feel like every time we teach this man the Spirit guides it 100 percent of the time. We teach to his needs better than anyone I ever have and his understanding of the gospel and it's restoration is increasing. He is a great man.

Mom, a story for you. Just a short one. So on Sunday morning we were doing our studies and could hear a car really struggling to get out of their parking spot from all the ice and the car just wouldn't move. So my comp and I threw our jackets on and went out to "give them a hand." Do you know where I'm goin with this mom?? Anyways, we gave the car a big push and got it out and they were on their way. But before they were off I was sure to hand them the pass along card I just got from you in my last letter about giving a hand. I just translated it into Korean and wrote our number on it and handed it to them. Maybe they'll need help again some day. :)

Last but not least, all you friends and family who have wanted to write me but it just slips your mind. If you are planning on sending me a letter you should probably do it in the next week or two!! Otherwise you won't be getting a response from me. Thanks. :)

I love you guys have a great week!!!

--
Love,

메시크 장로
Elder Messick

[ The boys after b-ball ] 

[ My area after the snow ]

[ A Korean delicacy? Haha. It's cow sinews with some knee meat. Yum. ]

[ Me and Sister lee. She's dope. She'll be going to BYU-H after the mish. :) ]

[ Me and brother Song. He is a wonderful member. ]

[ This lady and her husband are people I wrote about a few weeks ago. They have a baptismal date for Thursday. They are the other missionaries' investigators but we have helped out a bit. ]

[ THE SNOW IS BACK ]

Well we have had just killer weather here for winter for a few weeks but I think Saturday was the end of that. Yesterday around 4 it started to snow and a LOT of it. So it looks like the temperature will begin to drop again this week and get to around -10 C. Still WAYY better than my sis Aubs had it. ;)

Things are going great here. They are getting a bit stagnate, but not on anything by our faults. I think we tried to set 4 baptismal dates this week and well they all were rejected and said they want more time but that's alright. We are putting ourselves out there, goin' for it, and doing our best.

We had a baptismal date for yesterday with the kid Nam-Hoon but he got sick Friday so he couldn't do his interview and didn't come to church. Next week is New Years and the next is Stake Conference so it looks like we'll have to put it back a few weeks.

So something really cool happened yesterday. Since I am training we always have to do 2 hrs of companionship study but on Sundays we have to go to church so we do it after church. Anyways, I felt like we should just stay at the church to do it so we did. About 15 min into it I got a random phone call from some guy saying he was at our church and wanted to meet us. So we went and opened the door for him. He was a former investigator to missionaries prior to us and was interested in meeting again so we were able to meet for about 30 min and figure everything out. We'll meet again next week. Then right after that we got a phone call from Major Oh saying that he and his girlfriend were coming to meet us and wanted to know how to find the church. This was quite the surprise as he showed up with his girlfriend...from South Africa!! It was unexpected and well I still don't know how they really met haha. But he brought his girlfriend to meet us. She is a very religious girl and he is not at all. She really wants him to be though so was excited to meet with us. She was helping us explain everything about prophets and was loving it except she was unaware that we were "Mormons" and when we brought up the BofM she was a bit confused to say the least. I think she really like it but she defined it as going to McDonalds and be given food from KFC. I feel bad that she didn't know what exactly what we were and i tried to clear up lots of our lies that were spread about our religion. I think it was good and next time we meet will be smoother.

Lastly I'll just talk a little about Sister Kim. So she couldn't come to church for 2 weeks in a row but we met on Saturday with one of her friends from our church and I think it went reallyyyy good except for the whole baptismal date part. We tried to set one again for the 3rd time but she just wants to keep putting it off. I don't know why. The next day though she came to church (not her kids) and seemed to be good. We met for a little after church and that's when we found out lots of stuff. Apparently her and her kids are having a hard time and they just are arguing a lot and its really putting her down. So now we are going to try to focus on the kids and if we make the kids happy that will make her happy. So we have a new game plan for them now. :)

That's all the time I got for this week. I love you all have a great week :) Enjoy the Superbowl!!!!!!!!!!!

--
Love,
메시크 장로
Elder Messick

[ Bro. Hong and us snacking haha ]

[ The biggest 돈까스 I've ever seen!!! ]

[ Dinner with Denny. He's been coming to English class for 15 years!!!!! He and I were good buds when I was a greenie too. He says he'll get baptized at 60 yrs old hahha ]

[ NOK BEUN IS SICK! ]

So this place is just so full of miracles. I can't think of any other way to start this email other than just the word miracles. We are seeing so many. The other Elders in our ward are now starting to see lots of miracles too. I have been really trying to help them out lately and now they are really pickin it up. I'll explain more later.

So just yesterday was church and it was great. We had lots of investigators not show who like basically pinky promised me so that was a bummer, buttt one of Brother Hong's friends came so that was really good. And even better, Brother Hong was given the Aaronic Priesthood after church yesterday. He even has an assignment of bringing the sacrament bread for this month. He is such a stud. My companion had a lesson with him after church along with his friend (I was in another lesson with a member, I'll explain) and well my comp asked if he understood what power he had and was telling him how he CAN'T mess up now that he has such a big responsibility. My comp said it all went well. Oh something I forgot to mention! We now have a baptismal date with his friend Dong-Ho :) It is for Feb 17. He is not sure he wants to yet and there are some things he's gotta change first to make that happen, but he agreed that if he knows by that point that he will be baptized, so keep that in your prayers. :)

So I mentioned I wasn't there for that lesson and that's because I was in a lesson with a husband and wife who just randomly showed up at our church. Apparently he went to our church a couple of times 17 years ago and just came back. He was never baptized though. He explained to me how he has already been baptized twice and didn't know why he needed to be baptized again. I went on to explain how wonderful that was that he was trying to follow the example of Jesus Christ by being baptized but that it was lackin that necessary power from God. He responds with that makes perfect sense I totally understand. Which led to the commitment to be baptized when he knows its true and they both accepted. The only thing is they aren't my investigators hahah. I handed them over the the other Elders I was just in the lesson to help with the Korean and I guess i'm not scared to be bold haha.

Another investigator that they will now be teaching I HAVE to tell you about. So this saturday we had a 떡국 (rice cake soup) party and lots of people showed up, including a lady I didn't know. Sure enough I had a member pull me aside and explain to me about this lady. Apparently she went to the temple the other day with a member and must have LOVED it. He gave her a gospel principles book and she read 15 chapters that night. About twenty minutes later I was having a lesson with me and a member and this lady and she was telling me how badly she wanted to just see a Book of Mormon. You should have seen the smile she gave me when I told her I had a brand new one for her in my backpack she could have. Our member told her how he wants her to be baptized before I go home and she totally agreed. We asked her to say the closing prayer and she was crying, definitely feeling the spirit because I know I was feeling it. The next day she showed up at church and her husband was with her. stayed for all of church and sang with the choir after for 2 hours for the stake conference in 3 weeks. Basically she is GOLDEN. She mentioned how she has a skin problem (probably cancer) and wants to learn about the gospel fast. So she is pretty awesome iguess you could say. I also told the other elders to start meeting with them so if (when) she and her husband are baptized I will be sure to update you. :)

We have a baptismal date scheduled for this Saturday with a kid named Nam Hoon. He is a punk 12 year old but I love the kid. His friend brought him to church about a month or two ago and has come 4 times or so since then but he jsut never like wants to meet. we get like 10 min with him. anyways, we taught all the baptismal interview questions on sat then he didn't come to chuch yesterday!!! So we decided to move his date to sunday, but he doesnt know yet hahah. So I hope we can get that to all work out. Also on saturday we had a zone conference WAYYY far away about an hour and a half, but it was SO good and gave me just the fuel that i needed. This meeting ended at 3:45 and we had english class starting at 5 so if you get the idea we didn't have time. Basically when we got of the subway we had a 15 min walk turned into a 5 min run haha. Only 4 min late! haha.

Ok the last AWESOME thing of the week was a new service project that we got (of course approved by the mission pres!). So we have a member who works at a children's English library and she asked us to do a service project. What we do is we read a book to the children and then have a simple conversation with them. To be honest the first 20 min or so were a bit rough and not very fun but all the sudden I said something and the kids BUSTED up laughing and then they all just loved me and couldn't stop laughing for like 10 min. They stole my family pictures and loved looking at them and then when they saw Kenzie's picture they were all just like OOOOO and ya these kids just loveddd us. I look forward to doing it again this week and the next month. :)

That's it for me this week. I tried to make this email better than the last few and update you more on what things I've been doing. I love Korea. I love the people. I love the language. I love the culture. I love everything about it here. I hope you have a great week. Stay safe happy and warm. :)

--
Love,

메시크 장로
Elder Messick

[ Dinner with Jeen han and two of his friends, Dong Oo and Dong Ho ]

[ We are now a three some companionship :p ]