[ WHATUPPPP ]

Whats up guys!! How was everyone's Easter??? I hope it was great! Easter here in Korea well, it wasn't too well known it seemed sadly. But we were able to do some missionary work and tell people of our Savior Jesus Christ.

This week was pretty fun! I got to watch General Conference this weekend!!! It was LEGIT! I loved it so much. I remember when when I used to think conference was just a break for us and an excuse to stay in pajamas all day, but now I love it! I feel like I can't write my notes down fast enough it's all just so good! Some of my favorite talks were Elder Bednar, Elder Holland, and Elder Ballard. They were very good and full of inspiration.

[ General Conference. Our room is tinyyyy haha ]

We had 3 investigators attend general conference! I was very happy with that. Sadly the korean translation isn't as powerful as hearing it from the mouths of the prophets themselves, but I am sure that they were able to feel a special spirit.

[ Our investigator Lee-Ju-Yun ]

I don't know if you already knew this but our new General Bishop was our former Area President. The one who came and spoke to us about a month or two ago. Kinda cool there is a little connection.

One thing I feel that was really stressed in conference was family and its importance. I feel like that is a perfect topic for what we are going though today throughout the world. The importance of family is dying. People are putting money before family and its just not the way to find happiness. I am so grateful for my family and our strong relationship. I am grateful that our foundation is in Jesus Christ and we understand that there is more to life than just here on this earth. There is all of Eternity to plan for and as we focus of the Gospel of Jesus Christ and enduring to the end we will reap the rewards of our actions here on Earth. I know that to be true.

A fun thing I got to do this week was inbetween sessions of conference on saturday we got some doubles ping pong going on and I got to play. It was super fun haha. I was playing with three koreans and me and our ward member, Sue, were doin work! haha. I love ping pong!

Mom, you asked about the weather and what springtime is like here. Well the weather is beginning to warm up! Our suit coats will be coming off on the 22nd. In korea, there is thing in the springtime where "yellow dust" comes through the winds and turns the sky all yellow. It's supposed to look super cool. It is starting a little bit and you could see it really well the other night with the full moon. The down side of it is that it makes it hard to breathe i guess. I donno I don't believe it hahah.

After our combined district meeting on wednesday we decided we were all going to go out to lunch for Elder Frei's birthday. We went to that amazing buffet called D'Maris. It was super delicious. I ate stake, fruit, ice cream, more beef, and I even tried chicken stomach haha.

[ Yoga on Elder Frei's b-day ]

Well family, I hope you are all doing well. I miss you guys, but honestly I would way rather be out here in the service of our Savior. I know this is where I need to be. I know that our Savior lives today. He leads this church. He has His hand in this work. He is here helping me every day.

Have a good week. I love you.

love,
Elder Messick

[ At the buffet ]

[ Overlooking my area :) ]

[ WOW! #7 ]

Hey guys!!!! Big news for me here in....same old SONG-PA! I am staying here for a guaranteed 2 more transfers because....I'm training!!! Can you believe it!? I sure can't. I was the youngest elder called to train by a long shot. So I got a ton on my shoulders. I am training an American too!! His name is Elder Clearwater. He is a superrr sick kid! In fact, get this. He knows McKenzie from college! How crazy is that! And he kinda like dated one of her best friends! I couldn't believe it. So ya we have connections. Elder Clearwater is going to be an awesome companion and we are going to work really hard here finding those ready to hear the Gospel of Jesus Christ.

My companion is from Provo Utah...of course hahah. We get along great! Obviously he doesn't know a whole lot of Korean which is kinda stressful for me, but this time in my mission I have really seen miracle after miracle of how true the Gift of Tongues is. I can testify to you that the scriptures where it says "just open your mouth and it will be filled" is true. There is no doubt about it. There has been times this week where I just didn't even know what I was saying. No like planned scripted anything. I just literally opened my mouth and it was just flowing out. The Spirit of God is just so strong right now and this week it has just been burning in my heart. I will share some experiences as some examples.

This week my companion wanted to see what knocking doors was like so, we hit up some apartment buildings. We were just about out of time when we decided to do one more set. We knew we couldn't get all of them, so my companion said, k we at least have to go to the 3rd floor. Well on the 3rd floor we met this really nice lady but was busy eating dinner so we asked if we could come back. Well this is were the story gets really good. We went back yesterday (2 days later) and knock at the door. She is home but just said sorry I can't when we asked to share our message. I don't know why, but I just had a prompting that I needed to not give up on getting in. I think I asked her in 15 ways if we could just talk with her for 5 minutes. I just felt like we needed to talk with her. So my comp had the idea of singing a hymn at the door becuase he has a great voice. So I told him to sing Joseph Smith's First prayer to a closed door. It was quite awkard, but at the same time this was totally led by the Spirit so it wasn't. All the sudden she turns on her little camera and starts watching us. We see her come over, turn her porch light on, walk up to the door and open it. CRAZY!!!! My comp got a little nervous so wanted me to talk. I just testified to her of the restoration of the gospel and how her family can be eternal. She loved it and we told her we will come back next week to share more. Quite an incredible experience. The Spirit was SOO Strong!

We ran into one of our investigators on the street this week and he took us out to dinner. He is such a nice man with the most sincere heart. He is progressing really well and really seeking for the truth. We taught a lesson with him this week and I felt promped to give a baptismal date. He didn't accept it but said when he knows its true he will pick a date. I am so excited about him and I know he will get an answer to his prayer as he commited to ponder about The Book Of Mormon for 15 min then pray about it.

We picked up a new investigator this week also which was awesome! I will update more about her as she progresses.

We visited a less active this week who told us that she wants us to come visit her kids every week. :)))))) She is moving to Australia for school, but her mother will take care of the kids. She really wants her son to be baptized so we are going to help with that.

Oh random thought, Pres. Obama came to Korea! He was only like 20 min away from me. THe closest I have ever been to the President of The United States was half way around the world hahah.

Well I am just about out of time. I hope you all have an amazing week! Keep me in your prayers this week and all of our investigators :) I love you guys. Stay safe please.

--
love,
Elder Messick

[ Closest i've been to seeing surfing!!!! hahahah ]

[ TRANSFER CALLS TONIGHT! ON TO #7!!! ]

Wow! Can you believe another 6 weeks have passed that fast and we are already moving into another transfer! I sure can't! We really aren't sure what is going to happen, but most likely either I or Elder Mersmann will be transferred.

Well lots of awesome stuff happened this week but there just isn't enough time to write it all. I'll do my best!!!

We have some new investigators from a week or two ago that are beginning to progress really well. Two in specific are 안상수 (an-sang-su) and 김창남 (kim-chang-nam) or Charles is his "English name.". Both of them are about sixty years old. Charles originally started to meet with us to learn English. However we really had a special experience. We were teaching about prophets and how God has always called prophets. It's the pattern in which he works. So then he asked "oh then why hasn't God called a prophet since Jesus Christ?" BING!!!! Light bulb! We were able to finish that lesson really well by explaining the need for a restoration. I think the part that really helped with this is we taught in Korean. He originally would only let us speak English, but he was just too slow so we could never get anything across. When we taught in Korean the spirit was really strong and now he has verbally expressed that he is no longer interested in meeting just for English but is interested in our message.

AS for An-Sang-su. He is only gospel interest and is very humble. He is just searching for the truth, but has a little hard time understanding our message. He told us it was a bit strange,but is willing to read the book of mormon. I think once he understands better he really has some good potential.

We had quite the miracle this week. Probably the biggest I have seen this transfer. So Elder Mersmann needed to by a Korean book so we are in line at the book store and this lady starts to talk to us in English. She's about 30 or 35. Well she told us that she is wanting religion in her life. She feels like her family is not as strong as they could be and that she thinks something is missing. Her husband works A TON! and her kids are always missing their dad. She straight up told us that she is looking for something to strengthen her family. I couldn't help but have the biggest smile on my face when she was saying this. It was just like music to a missionaries ears. It was just unreal. We told her of the blessings that we have seen to our families in this church, gave her a proclamation to the family pamphlet, and we have an appointment set up to meet in April. I am just speechless when i think of this situation. This really showed me how God is preparing people for us out there. We aren't in this work alone. In fact it's not our work at all, but it's HIS. I can testify that His hand is in this work and that He leads us to the prepared.

We visited an old inactive man this last week and guess what he came back to church yesterday!!! I wasn't there to see him, but he asked about me :) I'll explain why I wasn't there.

So yesterday was awesome! I went with our zone leader Elder Frei to an area way far away in our area. It's super country, not city. It took us over 2 hours to get there, subway and bus. We went there because he had to do some baptismal interviews. But his comp was giving a talk in sacrament so I got to go. Anyways, our mission president, President Lee was there too! I got to have one of the coolest learning experiences I've ever had as a missionary.

I got to teach with the President himself. So there was a little boy,11, who was getting baptized. His family is not members, but his father wants his son to be baptized because he just thought it would be good for him. Anyways, president and I taught the boys father. It was one of the coolest things to watch him teach. You could tell that Pres. Lee was really listening to the Spirit as he taught and answered the mans questions. The spirit was so strong in the room. Then President looked to me and asked if I would share my testimony about Moroni's promise. It was just such a special experience for me and I was really able to learn so much from him.

[ Oh I forgot to mention. It's not a ward, it's a branch and they don't have a church building so they meet on the 5th floor of some random building. Kinda funny. Super humble. ]

The other day my companion and I were out contacting on the streets in this really nice area. All the sudden this guy walks up to the signal light with two camera men and a lot of girls following him. So I asked the guy next to me who he was. Apparently he is super famous in Korea. So I just walked right up to him and started to talk to him. Everyone was trippin out haha. the camera guys were lovin it because I was an American talking to him. So that will probably be on Korean TV. hahah.

Anyways, I am out of time. Sorry I couldn't tell you everything. Good thing I keep a journal :) I hope you have an amazing week everyone. Again mom, HAPPY BIRTHDAY! I love you all so much, especially your oh-ma! Talk to you next week (maybe in a new area????)

love,
Elder Messick

P.S. Happy birthday Aubs!!! Love Ya!!!
P.P.S. Happy b-day to my buddy Alex Ruby!

[ Han river ]

[ Little lake/theme park in Korea ]

[ I'M SO HUNGRY I COULD EAT A HORSE... ]

Hey family and friends!

This week was great!!! Lots of cool new things going on and lots of missionary work being done here in Seoul.

Last P-Day was temple day! I always love temple day. It is so beautiful there and really is a time for me to feel peace and get a little breather. I am so grateful for temples and specifically to have one in my mission. Such a blessing.

After the temple, we went over to Dong-Dae-Moon, which is a really cool place for shopping. That is where us missionaries go to get ties. I bought a couple cool ones. I'll send a pic. Also, I bought some other cool stuff for Kenzie and what not. Anyways, it was just fun to be with a bunch of missionaries just to hang out.

On Wednesday you wouldn't believe what we did. So we decided to finally put our plan into action. We decided to get horse meat! Elder Frei was on exchanges with Elder Noe (our DL) so the four of us went together. We get to the place and it is just superr fancy. We were the first people there since Koreans usually eat later and us missionaries eat earlier. Anyways, they LOVED us right from the start, white guys speaking Korean. They don't see that every day. They could tell we were all excited about it so they helped make our experience a little better. I'll explain. So we order the steak and they bring it out. It looked delicious and it was delicious. I can say for myself that horse meat is delicious!! But that's not all!!! The lady helping us went to the back and came out with a little plate full of "goodies". She decided to give us horse liver, kidney, intestine, and brain RAW!!!! That's right I ate raw horse brain!!!!! Pretty insane huh!? They definitely made our night. An experience of a lifetime.

[ RAW BRAIN!!! ]

[ KISSING THE LIVER ]

This week we went over to an older guy in our wards house to help him move some furniture around. He is such a nice guy and really appreciated our help. He had his daughter and her little kids over too. They were so much fun. They are basically fluent in English because they go to an international school. I'll send a picture of them too.

I probably had one of the most intense conversations on the street about religion that I have ever had. I was talking to a guy about the after life. He was speaking of heaven and hell. And so I was trying to show him how God loves us so much and is merciful so He doesn't just have heaven and hell, but three kingdoms of glory. He wouldn't take it. So I brought up the question"what happens to people who live reallyyyy good lives, but don't believe in Jesus." He said hell. Huh??? That makes no sense. Then I asked"What happens to people who sin a lot but believe in Jesus." He said heaven. Huh?!??! Just didn't make sense. So I described the plan God made for us and even had him take his Bible out to show him some scriptures. He wouldn't really listen so I turned to testimony. While I shared my testimony I felt the Spirit so strong. And I know he did too. I asked him what he felt and he said a good feeling, but I guess he just isn't prepared right now. He did walk away with a Book of Mormon and a Plan of Salvation pamphlet. Maybe in a few years. You never know.

So I had a re-realization last night that I am so happy. I realized that the blessings that we promise people about how the Holy Ghost is such a good feeling and that this Gospel makes us happy. Really as we follow the commandments and have the Holy Ghost in our lives we are just happy. It's so easy to be happy, if we just look up and follow Him. I am so grateful for this Gospel and the happiness that it brings to my life. I love our Savior and am grateful for His sacrifice for us.

Have a great week everyone. I love you all!!!

love,
Elder Messick

P.S. HAPPY BIRTHDAY MAMMA!!!!! I love you <33

Also, Happy 1 year Matt and Aubrey! woo!!!

[ Young single adult family night :) Big success i think! ]

[ My buddy elder Jones ]

[ Our house members ]

[ My buds ]

[ Drilling a new subway ]

[ HEY ^^ ]

Hey guys :) How was your week?? Sorry the email is coming a little bit later than usual. Since tomorrow is our Temple Day, today is not our p-day, but we still get to email. We had a lesson set up for earlier so we had to teach her before we could come email. It went well by the way.

So my week has been pretty good. We were able to see lots of success this week. We have found two new investigators this week. One of them is about a 65 year old man. He is meeting right now with English interest, BUT he has expressed to us a few times about all these questions that he is wondering about God. We have the answer to EVERY one, but the only problem is he doesn't really give us a chance to talk. He likes to practice his English with us and he is really slow, so we always run out of time. I think that once we begin to answer his questions about God he can really progress. The other person we met was this 20 yr. old girl, also with English interest. She found out about us because I gave her an English flier at one of our subway stations. Anyways, it has been a little tough with her because she has 0 religious background. She really doesn't know who or what God is, what the Bible is, or really anything about religion. She is willing to listen to us and to keep her commitments. I hope things go well there.

As for Lee Say Won. She finally came to church on Sunday!!! 2nd time. We have been able to find out a lot of her concerns and are helping her settle them. She is progressing well and accepted another "soft" baptismal date, but no official date. She doesn't want to fully commit until she really gets an answer, which is great! We have stressed to her soo much the importance of enduring to the end. My companion and I are just so saddened with the less active percentage in Korea and we have agreed that nobody is getting baptized unless they are committed to the end. She seems to be working for her answer and I know that God will answer her, it's just a matter of when He will.

Lee-Ju-Yun also came to church again. She began reading The Book of Mormon from the beginning. :) We were able to explain 1 Nephi 1-3 to her and she gets it really well. She is just so perfect if it wasn't for this new job of hers. The Gospel just seems to click in her brain. She just wants to go slow and that's ok.

All the transportation fees went up here a week or two ago! Lame. It used to be a starting fee of 90 cents for buses and subways but now its $1.05. I'm guessing oil fees are super high right now or something?!? Lameeee. I guess God wants us to walk more so we can contact more haha.

I don't know if you remember but in my last email I mentioned Sue and her son coming to church for the first time in a long time. Well, he came again yesterday :) I hope this means it will be a regular thing and that his testimony of the Gospel has been re-kindled.

We found a Mexican food restaurant in our area!!! It wasn't as good as the hole in the wall places in San Clemente, but it was pretty dang good after eating kim-chee the last 10 months. It was a nice little taste of home :)

The weather here keeps faking us out. I thought winter was pretty much over, but now we have this brutal wind that is super cold. The skies are clear and its beautiful outside, but it's pretty cold.

Hmm. I can't think of what else to update on. Always ask questions so I know what you want to hear. :) I love you guys so much. I hope you are able to have a good week. Stay safe and healthy. I love you guys <3

love,
--
Elder Messick

Our usual friday lunches. Elder Pulsen always makes lunch while we play a game of Catan. Haha. Nice way to relax for our hour break.

[ Our Zone - Yung-Dong Zone ]

Hey mom just wanted to show you the delicious sunday dinner meal I made. :) Not quite your cream chicken but not bad for me :)

[ 10 MONTHS... ]

Hey guys!!!

How was everyone's Fast Sunday? Ours was great! Our week here was pretty good. Lots going on, like always :)

Well yesterday at church was a great one! The Zone Leader's investigator was able to receive the Holy Ghost. He seemed really happy about it. I hope that he is able to endure to the end now and continue on the path to receive the priesthood and eventually get married in the temple.

At church yesterday guess who finally came back!? 이주연 (Lee-Ju-Yun) or Ju. :) She hadn't come in 3 or 4 weeks. We were able to talk with her and find out her situation and what happened. So she got a new job teaching English at a high school. Her dream. Anyways there is a little problem with it. The school is kind of like a Buddhist school. She compared it to how BYU is for our church. Anyways, when she got the job they straight up told her she can't be christian and work here! How messed up is that!??!? I couldn't believe it. So that really threw her off. She was scared to come to church after that, but she decided to come this week and we talked a lot about it. She told us that if her faith grows and she really gains a testimony then she will find another job. That was pretty profound I thought. That takes some courage. Anyways, the commitment that we gave to her was to just start The Book of Mormon from the beginning and to read it every day. To pray about what she reads. I know that if she does that, along with coming to church every week, then there is no doubt that she will know it's true. She just needs some time now.

Another miracle happened yesterday :) So on Saturday I was talking with one of my favorite members Sue after English class and her son was with her. I felt impressed to ask what he was doing tomorrow and to see if he could come to church. He thought about it for a second and told me he would be there. Well, he came! After sacrament meeting ended, Sue came up to me and thanked me for inviting him. She told me she has invited him a countless number of times but just would never come. It just warmed my heart to know that I was able to be a tool in the Lord's hand for her.

On Saturday we went to one of the members of the bishopric's houses for a dinner with them. They had us invite our investigators and Lee-Say-Won came with us. I think it was a great time for them. They talked a little bit about the blessings of the temple which was cool and even did a little question/answer time for them. Such a great family :)

As for an update on Lee-Say-Won. She is still doing good, but really resistant on coming to church. I don't know why. I think she is just a little nervous and feels pressure when she comes. She never has really been a "church goer" so it's totally new to her. She is reading The Book of Mormon a little bit and prays. She tells us she is waiting for an answer from God. But, we told her she HAS to do her part too! She has to want it and be prepared to act on that answer.

I went on exchanges twice this week. Once with Elder Frei, one of our our zone leaders, and once with the district leader. Nothing too special though haha.

Oh, this week the weather was warm enough for us to start basketball contacting!!! I love that! It is a great way to meet people, build trust, then introduce the church. Plus it's super fun :)

Well I love you all so much. I am grateful for you and all you do for me. I hope you have an awesome week. Be safe!! Talk to you net week :)

Love,
Elder Messick

P.S. Happy Birthday Grandpa!!!!!Love you :) Also, happy bday to Emma and Randi :) Love you guys

[ Dinner with Gang-Gyung-Gon's family ]

[ Ward picture ]

[ Matt Wagner in our ward. He moves to Gilbert, Az tomorrow ]