Tongyoung: Photo shoot

All this is mine

Service day at the beach

Cleaning up society's flotsam and jetsam

A good day's haul

Now that's a clean beach

Riding on the jetty

Traditional Korean warship

boat

Korean Navy

Tongyoung

Elder Pac, Blond American, Sister Moren, Sister Jong

Sunrise over Tongyoung

There is beauty all around

When there's love at home

Elder Pac + Elder Stagg = BFF

Doing the Hokey Pokey

Guy in the middle is our ward mission leader

Looking for the Blair Witch

Traditional architecture

Traditional architecture with mormon missionaries

Watching from the woods

Soul mates

Korean version of me

This was the picture we put on the flier for our English class.  The sign says "foreigner".

Playing cards with the homies

Check this out, we were playing "Bang".

Tongyoung: Playing Bang

So this has been super fulfilling week! 

First we got 5 new investigators this week! And all of them were straight miracles! God is really blessing us right now with the amount of success that we are having! 

So the past 3 morning we have gone out and taped tons of English fliers allover the city, and on Thursday we got a call from someone who was interested, so we met with him and explained that we are missionaries and the reason why we are teaching English, and that we could do a half hour of english then half hour of gospel. He agreed and so our first lesson is this Friday with him. Then the other 4 came from this kid that we met on the streets.  We called him the other day and he said he could meet, but he showed up with 3 of his friends! So we played Bang ( a card game) with them then taught about God. They all came to church for the last 30 minutes, then we taught them about prayer. Super cool kids, one is 6th grade, one is 8th grade and the other two are 9th graders. 

Now on to our old investigators! So E Song Joon has been an investigator for probably about 6 months, but he has never gotten baptized because he always used the excuse his parents wouldn't let him! But after the baptism of So Jee Soo he told us he wanted to be baptized, so he got his father to sign the paper and he has a date for the 1st of February! super exciting!! then Kim Jong Won had a baptism date for last Sunday but pushed it back because it was so short of a time, so hopefully this week we can get another one with him. He has only been an investigator for 3 weeks so it was a really fast baptism date. He leaves to Austria this Friday for 2 weeks then the day he gets back he flies to Cambodia for a week, so i hope when he gets back he will still want to meet with us! 

This week has been soo cool! I love seeing the miracles in my life! The biggest miracle that i am most grateful for, is the constant happiness and optimism that I always feel! A mission would be really hard if you weren't happy! But this has been some of the best 6 months of my life! I love these people and I love this gospel! Through missionary work my testimony of the power and magnitude of the atonement has become so strong. Also my testimony on the Book of Mormon, and receiving answers to prays has also strengthened. I LOVE, LOVE missionary work, and I am eternally grateful for anyone who helped me choose to serve one! This has been the best decision of my life!

Love you all. Stay faithful!

This church is true, and blesses the lives of everyone~

Love

Elder Stagg

Tongyoung: Mission High

Hello! 

Things are awesome here in tongyeong! It is a super pretty town and lots of really awesome people. Street contacting is really fun with elder Park and we get pretty good success. This is the most i have enjoyed missionary work so far! Seogwipo was super fun and i loved it, but it was super hard because of how country it was. There were not a lot of people to talk to and lots of them had already seen or met us. So these areas are different, but they have both been awesome. We have one investigator with a baptism date for next Sunday, I would like for it to of been in 2-3 weeks but after next sunday he goes to school in austria for 2 weeks then to cambodia for a week. So as long as he is ready we are trying for this sunday. I really hope he stays commited! Super cool guy! Then we have a 19 year old kid who has met with the missionaries for a while. The other day he was asking about missions, and if he joined the church would he NEED to serve a mission, we told him no. But he said he has a desire to! Then during the baptism of SO JEE SOO (sisters investigator) he told us that he is interested in baptism! So really excited for this area!

 Ahh i love my mission so much! This was the best choice i have ever made in my life! Not only is it super fun but super spiritual, and i see life in a whole new way! It was really cute,so the sisters in my area had an investigator get baptized, and they had me baptize her, and when she came out of the water she took a big breath almost as if she just got brought back to life! It was so cool and i felt the spirit so strong there! It helped me remember my baptism day, and seeing the joy and happiness in her face helped me remember why I am out here! We have an investigator that has a baptism date for next week and i am hoping he stays committed! Super fun guy who is really good at english! SO i get to teach in english! 

My mission has given me a chance to remember why christ is important! Why have i lived my life the way i have? Through my mission i have released how this gospel blesses lives and why its important. I love it here so much!  Missions really are the best 2 years of your live! I am super glad that i chose to serve my savior and lord Jesus Christ for 2 years! I am super glad that my mission has helped me understand god and his love for others along with the power and significance of Christs atonement! I think people take that for granted to much! At least i did. In the bible it talks about jesus healing people of both there sins and there physical injuries. But through lots of study and thought i think the miracle of healing the sins is more important and drastic! We owe our savior everything, and we dont need to be on a mission to serve him, our whole lives we need to spend doing our best to be like him!

Loving it our here! I am working hard, seeing miracles and having fuN!

Love 

Elder stagg

Jeju: Final Days

Hello everyone! This email is going to be pretty short for 2 reasons, 1 because i have no time to write because i have been traveling all day and 2 because i got to my area an hour ago and don't know much about it! I woke up at 6 got on a bus at 8, then another bus at 9:30 then a plane, then a subway then a taxi then a big bus which took 3 hours to get to my new area. So my whole day has been taken...

But i got transferred from the island... to another island!! well kind of its like a peninsula but we have like 5 islands in our boundaries that we go to! And just from the bus ride, i think this area is more pretty if that's possible! Just image beautiful ocean surrounded by lush mountains! Well i will tell more next week when i have more time and info i just got here like an hour ago so dont know much... oh my companion is a Korean! His name is elder Pac Hwi Son! He is 28 in Korean age so probably around 26 or 27 in american age! other than that i cant think of much else to say.. Sorry i am very tired from traveling and walking so i will send more info next week!

Love 

Elder Stagg

Saying good-bye to Elder Youngblood

A day of service on the citrus farm

Sunshine and Plastic

All this can be yours

Oceanside Picnic

Final view of Seogwipo

Saying good-bye to investigators

Saying good-bye to James Bond

Final meal in Seogwipo with family of district president

Chillin with the D.P.

Jeju: Burning in the New Year

HAPPY NEW YEARS!

2017 is the year of my mission! This is  the first year in my life where I have the chance to give 100% of everything that I have to the lord!! And i am so excited for it! This has been a very fun and fulling week.

Ok so update on my  investigators.

So we met with one who is our only progressing investigator, his name us 변준의 (byon Joon oui) he is in his 60's and loves the book or mormon. He talks a lot so we cant teach him a lot when we meet, but we keep meeting with him and he keeps doing the things we ask, When we asked him how he deals with stress he says he drinks then reads the book of mormon! at least he got one thing right! He is an awesome man, but its so sad seeing how often he drinks and smokes. We told him that he knows its not healthy and he said he knows and will try and stop. We haven't taught about the Word of Wisdom yet but that should come soon.

Next is 김은파 (kim un pa), He is an orange farmer and a super nice guy. He is very christian but wont budge from his beliefs, he doesn't think he needs to do anything besides belief and be a good person in order to be saved. Super nice guy but we might drop him this week if he keeps on not progressing.

Then we got a new one who is about Brendon's age, we taught him the whole 1st lesson (restoration) and he was really curious why we serve missions. When he found out the prophets and apostles do everything for free he was very surprised and astonished! Super cool guy, we are meeting again tomorrow. His name is 노현우 (no hyon ooo).

Then there is 신경식 (sheen kyong sheek) he hasn't showed up twice now to our scheduled meetings so if he doesn't show up this time we are going to drop him also.

My week

On Monday I went to Jeju City and got sticker pictures with the rest of my zone. That is basically like the most girly thing you can do! You basically put on weird hates and accessories and get pictures in a photo booth then you can add effects to them then it prints them out as pictures. Super fun haha!

Tuesday we spent they day on a orange farm with our investigator (김은파) burning things! We made a huge fire with a bunch of dead branches, then we burnt all his trash! Super fun! We taught him some more about the restoration but he doesn't think we need to do actions, but we only need a belief...

Wednesday was district meeting and exchanges. And I went on exchanges with Elder winter, who is also a trainee! We were came into the MTC the same day.  I was kind of nervous going into them because we are both trainees, but they turned out really good. It was a huge confidence and testimony builder to me! I actually got the most contacts and lessons that night then i have the rest of my mission. But the even cooler part was feeling the spirit work through me! I could literally feel the gift of tongues working in me. When people talked to us, I couldn't really understand the words they were speaking but, through the holy ghost i was able to understand the message they were trying to convey. It is hard to explain but it was really cool to experience! 

Last Monday we were planning when i got the feeling to look at the beginning of my planner and i saw a name with some notes by it and i felt prompted to call it, so we called it and he wanted to meet with us. We met him on Thursday and taught him about the restoration. His name is 노현우 and he is about 24! really cool guy

Loving my mission! Cant wait for this next year!

Elder Stagg

Hooray for investigators!  We are currently teaching this orange farmer.

Wearing our grandma pants

Nothing as satisfying as a good fire.

Anybody interested in baptism by fire?

View from my bedroom window

Enjoying brain-freeze Korean-style

Mmmmmmmm, corn dogs with embedded french fries.

Urban sunset

One ring to rule them all.