Elder Scott Messick: [ 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.