Jeju: Persecution by Taxi

Hello everyone!! How is good ole Merica? One of our less actives told us that after trump got elected he became more normal? haha Love hearing about trump from koreans! The Presdent here was involved in a scandle so there are protests everywhere! haha

Ok so last monday we went to some waterfalls in our area becuase it was raining to hard to hike the giant volcano in the middle of our island... I will send pictures of those but it was super pretty and i love Jeju!! After 6 we went out and were proslyting when this person in a taxi pulled over slammed his door into me as he opened it and really bruised my collorbone! Not sure if it was on purpose but both him and the cab driver thought it was really funny becuase they were laughing well i couldnt carry anything in that hand for about 2 days cause it hurt so bad but its pretty much all good now!

So we Prosoltye ALL day EVERY day and it gets really boring! haha so we we tryed to think of other things we could do we decided to make a 잔도  board or a (jundo board) which basically is a large  carboard board that we put pictures and questions like "is there a god" or "how can i keep my family safe" or "why is Christ important" stuff like that and then people come up and put stickers on what question they want answered it works in other areas so lets see if it works here! haha

Friday morning we met with Regis a less active, we have been teaching him since i got here and before me the other missionaries also taught him for about 4 weeks, he wasnt showing any progress so we were going to drop him this lesson, we talked to him and told him that if he didnt come to church this sunday we wouldnt be able to keep meeting with him, but he could start coming to our english class (thats all we felt he was interested in) we taught him and he said he would go to church but we were skeptical becuase he had said that in the past.

On friday night we were out prosolyting like usual getting rejected and mocked and people yelling at us telling us we were blasphamers, fun stuff but we were coming back home for dinner when there was this guy sitting down on some steps and we went up and talked to him he had us sit down and we taught him the whole first lesson gave him a B.O.M and a pamphlet then we asked if we could visit again he said he has a break usually f rom 3-4 and meet him in the same place (outside of his work) so we now had an investigator!! (both my and elder snyders first!) We were super happy becuase our mission has a goal to get a baptism by christmas for every companionship! But our area is the "hardest area" in the mission so when we got this investigator we thought it was an answer to our prayers! The next day we went to where we met him but he wasnt there so we called him and he said he was delivering food so we went home and called him that night to set up a meeting and he didnt answer and since then we have called 2more times and nothing! So thats sad!

There are lots of drunk  old men in korea! haha we talk to lots of them and they are very friendly in my 1 transfer of being here i have had 3 drunk men try and buy me alcohol but we always talk them into buying us a soda or icecream! Love it! haha this paticular time we were talking to him and he kept slapping elder snyders but haha it was great!

Saturday we had zone confrence!! Presdient Barrow and his wife flew out to talk to us with the A.P's it was  areally great confrence lots of awesome testimonies and talks were given! Our president is such an awesome guy! He gave up a Multi-Million Dollar Raise and a leadership postition at a really large company in there efforts to keep him there at the buisness, however he chose to rather come here and be our mission  president! Awesome man! The whole time throughout zone confrence the spirit kept telling me I had to try harder on my mission! In learning the language in being exactly obedient to the missionary rules and times in  having faith we can turn this area around! So my new mottow for my mission is "WWJD" or What Would Jesus Do? In every thought and choice i have i want to think of that and act accordinly becuase we are his representives!

Sunday came and we had met this guy on saturday night who said he would come to church. so we called him sundaymorning and he said he would be there at 11 so he would miss sacrement but we just wanted him to come so we could meet with him and being at church was an extra perk! During Sacrement we kept waiting for regis but nothing... finally about 1 minute before it started we gave up and assumed he wasnt going to come again! So we started to spiritually prepare for the sacrement! As i looked up once the meeting started i looked around and there in the back i saw him!!!! HIs first time back to church in 6 years!!! I was so happY!!! He quickly left after sacrement becuase i think he feels awkward, he knew all the members from before and i think i feels guilty he stopped attending church! But i called him that night to remind him to read the Book of Mormon and pray (like we do everynight) and he told me that at church he felt gods love for him and he would go next week and he either said he would go to sacrment meeting or all the meetings i couldnt quite understand but he is planning on going back so thats good! Finally some progress!! The guy never showed up to church and he wouldnt answer our calls so another potential investigator gone!

I love this mission so much!! We have  been given the assignment to read the B.O.M as a mission in one transfer (13 pages a day) and wow it has been awesome!! I find my self looking forward to reading the B.O.M it is such a good book and i have made a goal that after this transfer i want to read it once every 2 transfers and read it with a specific question in mind! Love the B.O.M! I used to sleep during my extra time after meals but now i have been either reading the B.O.M or Our Heritage or My grandmothers booki about her mission (My mission of Miracles) such a good book! i have read 123 pages in a day and a half! haha This mission has increased my testimony 100 times! I love this work and I love the person it is transforming me into!

-Elder Stagg

Righteousness

Below the waterfall

Above the waterfall

Raw Intellect

Korean water falling over a cliff

Iron Bridge

River canyon

Tropical canopy

Pure sophistication

Look mom, no snow.

Trail of tranquility

More Cascading Korean Water

Matchless Wisdom

Spanning the river gorge

Hey Mom, check out my new proselyting board.

Korean version of my favorite card game (Bang)

City park

Yes, those are giant citrus slices.

Jeju: Trump and a Fork

Hello from the other side!!! (of the world) I must have emailed you a thousand times! To tell you a story of everything that ive done!

That song was playing in Mcdonalds so it is stuck in my head now!  sorry about that! Anyways I am still alive!! And i am still loving the mission! It is crazy to see how much my testimony of this gospel is growing! A mission is such a blessing and if there is anyone that is considering going on one but isnt sure just do it! it will change your life and its just so darng fun and fulfilling!!!

Ok this week not much out of the ordinary happened! OHHH except for the fact that our country is no being run by a man with fake hair! haha it is so funny how big of a deal that is here! everysingle t.v in korea was watching the elections and the second trump got elected everyone on the streets was telling us.... and lets just say everyone here HATES TRUMP!! haha we actually use this to start conversations! We walk up and we will talk really loud about how we are dissapointed trump won then people will start talking to us about how much they hate trump then we slowly bring it back to the B.O.M hah actually kind of works!! But yeah if there is one thing i have noticed being in korea is how big of an influence america has on the world! Everywhere i walk i here american pop music and all the models are american! haha really funny how westernized it is over here!

Ok next we went on splits this week i got to go on splits with Elder Proffit! Such a cool guy! He is our zone/district leader! Becuase we only have 8 missionaries on jeju they are one and the same! haha Elder proffitt is such a good missionary and a really fun guy! I learned alot from him and i am try ing to incorporate that into my work!

The next day we went to the branch presidents house to eat and teach a lesson! His daughter and her husband live there with them and they have the 2 cutest l ittle kids! anyways they are the nicest people and i love them to death! they treat us like close family and are so fun and loving! They fed us an amazing meal! We had a bunch of really good meat (i think it was pork) some donkasu which is like a fried pork, we had some REALLY good kimchi! and i usually dont like kimchi! but this was good! then a fruit salad the only bad part was this tomato soup....; I hate tomotoes! I can deal with the onions and other wierd things that i used to not eat but the tomato soup was so hard i hate about 3/4 of it then i gagged a little bit, luckily no one saw, but i didnt dare finish it! I lucked out though becuase most people ate how much i ate and leaft the rest! as long as all your rice is gone you are good! we taught them about needing to pray and read the scriptures in faith and when we pray for missionary opportuonites we need to trust in god and have faith, by going out and trying to find them! (D&C 100 5-8 and 2 nephi4: 34)

Then the next day the district presdient took us out to eat pizza and wings! We had sprite and a FORK i fel like i was in america again! haha the pizza is different but super good! We got a steak  pizza with cheese filled crust! IT was heaven! Then we taught him the same lesson!

The members here are so nice i love them to death! it is going to be hard when i need to leave this area! WHenever we go to church we try and talk to every one and they are all so happy and ahh they are so fun! i love when we visit with them! We have a smal branch but what they lack in size they make up for in the spirit! After chruch we prosolyted for 5 hours straight... in the rain! it poured the whole time and i got pretty wet even with the umbrella!

So thats my week one thing i have noticed is when we stay inside a little bit extra during meals or whatever i always get unhappy and think about home and dont feel good but the second we walk outside and start doing the lords work he blesses us and we feel happy again! For we are on the lords time and we shouldnt waste it!

Love it here so much!

Elder stagg

Heaven on a tray

Good shot of the island's volcano

Vocabulary list for Korean missionaries created by Robert Holly

Look, it's night.

real sea life

Buildings at night

Light at night

Rainy street at night

Jeju: PSAB

Hello i survived one more week here in Korea! and wow this is not what i expected when i read i was going to serve in korea! This looks a lot more like hawaii then anything!!! It is sooo pretty here!! This week has been colder and super clear days! We walk along the ocean while we 전더 (Prosolyte) and it is sooo pretty!! There are palm trees and islands with thick green trees surronding them!! Im in love with this island!!!

Anyways this has been a fun week! Some days were really long others flew by, I have noticed that the more busy i am in serving the lord the faster and more enjoyable the days are!! Ok well I just want to testify about the power of prayer and being diligently obedient to everything we are commanded in! If we do that god will bless us and provide for us! On Monday we had p-day and since we had lots going on we didn't have time to go out and do anything besides shopping so we came back and had an hour to rest before dinner and then back to work at 6. So we took a nap however we forgot to set an alarm and we woke up at 5:55.... We discussed maybe being late that way we can eat, but we decided we can make a pb&j sandwich in 1 minute get dressed and leave. So we went as fast as we could and we ended up only being 12 minutes late, but we prayed before we left our house and said sorry that we had slept in and were late, we asked god to bless us as we go out and prosolyte and that we wouldn't notice to much how hungry we were! So we left and we were walking down the road to go to down town sogweepo (서귀포) where all the people are! After about 15 minutes we started talking to this guy, Who was completely drunk! However that wasn't suprising to us becuase about 1/2 the people who will talk with us or listen to us are drunk! anyways we were talking with him for a while when he sayed he was hungry so he offered to buy us food! So we sayed sure and started walking to go get food, however we just kept walking and he couldn't choose where to eat so we decided we were wasting time, so we left. But after we were talking about it and realized that we were trying to be obedient and skip dinner so we could not be to late, and since we did that god helped place someone in our path who was willing to feed us! There have been so many expierences like that this week!

Tuesday was really wierd but again it involves a drunk guy! (Alcohol and smoking is a HUGE problem in korea) He walked past us and we sayed hi and once he noticed we had a B.O.M he started walking away so we followed him becuase most people just walk away, but once we started talking to him he sayed he had read the B.O.M and sayed it was all lies, and that all man kind are doomed and sayed that god is a hateful god who is going to curse us for the rest of our lives stuff like that, we didn't get all of it due to the language barrior, but then he started talking about the bible and how it says god hates all of us. we kept trying to talk but he wouldn't listen so after about 15 minutes we decided to leave but then he told us he would buy us drinks, so we said ok. We walked into a store and he kept trying to buy us alcohol but we kept saying we don't drink then he finally angrily bought us some juice and then to the store person said some insulting thing about us to him. haha the Store manager or owner starts going off at this guy and they are yelling at eachother! I have no idea what is going on so i just start drinking my mango juice, finally we leave and let them argue. afterwards my companion told me the guy in the store has a daughter in texas who is mormon. So we went back there a couple days later becuase i felt like we should, we went in right as him and his wife were eating but we gave him card and he told us that his daughter was a missionary and he was going to show us pictures then told us to come back when he wasn't eating. So we will probably do that tomorow! hopefully it leads to something!

PS: I have been writing my own scriptures and  i call it the Book of Stagg every transfer is a new book and every week is a new chapter and i write about 3 verses a day!

1 Stagg ch. 2 v5-v8

5)and it came to pass that we went forward to preach things concerning christ, to all the people in the land.

6)Yay and the drunks and nay-sayers did confound with our words

7)and they did try and persuade us with costly drinks, but nevertheless we being servants of our lord, yay even our god, did deny the drink and did swifftly leave!

8) For behold we did wpend our day proclaiming the gospel of christ to everyone, nevertheless we did find no success, for there hearts were hardened!

Wednesday and thursday not much happened on wednesday we went to a sea town in our area, which was sooo pretty!!! But there were not very many people so we ended up coming back and taught english that night, and thursday we had District meeting this time at our church so all jeju missionaries had to come to our half of the island! The could not stop saying that our area was so much prettier than theres! and the loved the ocean view from our church! Then we handed out to B.O.M that day one to a guy who was going to the army that weekend but he said he would read the book while he was at the army and we told him if he did that it would hel p him through the hard times that will come. We also told him once he is done with his service to call the missionaries

Friday

 our church bathrooms were disgusting and we didn't want to bring investigators to our church because it kind of stank so we bought bleach and we deep cleaned the bathrooms!

Saturday!

Wow this was a busy day! We started out the day teaching Regis (his english name) We meet with him every saturday and call him every night to read the b.O.M we were talking to him (mostly in english because he like to practice it and is pretty good) and he told us that he wanted us to pray for him becuase he always feels revenge and anger, turns out a little bit a go him and his friend got into a argument about there buisness, and his friend is a lot bigger than him but he ended up beating him up. Regis was telling us that he wanted that feeling to go away becuase he didnt want to kill his friend. So we told him if he remembered the feeling he had when he was baptized (he is not active) and he said yeah then i had him read Alma 22: 15-16 which talks about aaron preaching to the king and the king tells him he wants "this wicked spirit uprooted from his chest" and aaron teaches him about repentence. so we told him to repent and come to church to take the sacrement! (which he didn't do) Then the sister missionaries came down to teach some old sister investigators that had been dropped becasue the last time sogweepo had sisters was a year ago. Well sister hwang hey gyong has been coming to our englsh twice a week and comes to church a lot and they said they have hope for her becuase she belives in christ so she is now our investigator, however she hates the priesthood holder in our ward and we can't meet with her unless we meet with her and one of them so we are trying to figure it out! She is such a nice lady and she is really worried about her family's happiniess!

Well i am loving it here! The church is true and god really does care and watch out for us! I have seen it in my life!

-Elder Stagg

I've found my purpose

Mountains make me feel more at home

The road less traveled

The road more traveled

Citrus Farm

Only a Mountain Dew could improve this moment

Constant reminders that I'm living on an island

Oh yeah... the food.

Sweet Korean Goodness

Traces of Halloween

Such a PSAB  (Pale Squinty American Boy)

Spectacular day

Stadium

Lush foliage

Another PSAB shot

Hearts of stone

City Park

Who can tell me what that sculpture says?

The Island of Jeju

Soo i have survived my second week in Korea!!!! Yay!!! Wow this is a lot harder than i thought!!! Both spiritually and physically!! My feet always hurt cause we walk everywhere, I am always sweating because of the heat and humidity! And People here don't like us!! We have no success and it gets hard to not expect people to not want to hear your message because once you do that you start losing faith! So Highlights of the week!! Tuesday was a rough day for me! In the morning I had a small panic attack! I felt like i was not going to be able to continue my mission! My companion is a real downer and is always complaining!! We have no success i was missing my family and home plus a bunch of other things! I was not happy and my heart was pounding a ton but once we got outside and i prayed the feeling went away pretty quick thankfully! then we proselyted got one persons phone number in 5 hours and ended the day by teaching english!

Wednesday we proselyted for 6 hours no success at all besides giving pass along cards out and then we taught english

Thursday we went to district meeting which is an hour and half bus drive for us and we had fun there then came back and... yup proselyted! During district meeting while i was pretending to be an investigator one of the sisters asked me how the B.O.M has changed my life and i had to think about it for a while and its something i will keep thinking about and urge you all to think about it also!

So Friday was fun!! We went and helped in a tangerine/orange farm for 4 hours and while i was walking i walked into this huge web and looked up to see this huge giant black and yellow spider about the size of a grapefruit running at me!! SOOOOOOOOO terrifying!!! then we taught the members about missionary work and praying for opportunities to share the gospel!

Saturday we met with a less active member, we call him every night at ten to remind him to read the B.O.M and lately he has been having questions about 3rd Nephi so we answered him then told him if he prayed he would have better understanding he would have it! So excited to see how its has helped him!

Sunday's are awesome! We leave our house by 8:30 to get to church by 9ish then we open the church and set up chairs, then i play piano until 9:45 then we walk outside and great the members! Sacrament is hard to not sleep cause everything is in Korean and i have no idea what anyone says! but then we have a class after that then church lunch!!! Every week!! Its soo awesome!! The members here are so nice and loving I love them so much!! we then met with the ward mission leader and talked about how we need to get the members to pray more for missionary work and opportunities! We have half an island and 2 missionaries and we need help! Apparently there are 226 members in our ward but only 26 come... We have no idea where the other 200 are! all we have is names, no numbers no addresses just names. Most of them have probably moved, because that happens a lot here in Jeju! But we don't know where they are! Sunday night we went to dinner with a member and they own a bed and breakfast type thing so she is really good at cooking cause she does it for a living! She made this soup that looks like really runny mud!! It tastes like a spicy minty dirt almost!! Apparently it is one of the healthiest things on this planet and it was actually pretty good!! i was really nervous taking my first bite though! haha

Well the mission is hard and I need to work on my faith that i can find people! I am always tired it is insane!! If i lie down within 2 minutes i am a sleep! haha We have no investigators although i have hope for one of our english students! She has had all the lessons and doesn't seemed interested is what i have been told but she come to church most weeks even though she doesn't want to be a part of it! Although i was talking with her(half english half what i hope was Korean) about families and through translation from my companion he told me that she notices that families in America are happy but Korean families are not. I then told here that all the families she has seen and heard about from America are missionaries and told her the emphasis the church puts on happy families! This seemed to connect with her! It was really cool and we are praying for her and we sent the sister missionaries from Jeju City to go visit with her!

Well best of luck to everyone!! Please pray that we will find ways to have success here!! Thanks love you all!

---Elder Stagg

Helping out at the tangerine farm

Check out this spider that is bigger than my head.

Downtown Busan

View from my apartment window

Another view from my apartment window

Downtown Sogweepo where I live

Living on an island

My bed

My study area

Busan Street

Busan Street