Tongyoung: Bishopless

안녕하세요!! Lately I have been struggling with having good studies. I found my self focusing more on not falling asleep then I was focusing on studying. Well I was reading the Joseph Smith History, which is SUPER good, and when i got to verses 10-13 I realized what I was doing wrong. When we study we need to have questions in our heart, a desire to find those answers, and an environment where the holy ghost can speak to us but more importantly we need to be LISTING for the spirit's voice testifying us to us! I was then prompted to look in chapter 2 of Preach My Gospel (How to have effective study) and it talked about a lot of the same things. But mostly when I study what are they reasons why I am studying? Is it for me or is it for my investigators? Anyways that has changed my outlook on study and how important it is for the day. Just like Joseph Smith when he read James 1:5 he didn't just read that feel the spirit and think WOW that was really cool and then never think about it again. He said he "Reflected upon it again and again" after we finish studying, listening to conference, going to church, etc. we need to continuously ponder what we learned and more importantly what we felt the spirit teach us! And then a really important part is to record what you learned somewhere so you have that again in the future! 

Now a brief side-story about what has been going on in the life of Elder Stagg for the past week!

 So, this week we have accumulated 2 more investigators, but we havent been able to meet with the 4 kids from last time yet...

The 2 new investigators we got this week are

Alec: He is 24, from Washington, and is an English teacher here in korea. He is a genius! He graduated highschool with his associates degree and had is bachelors by age 21! He has been in korea for the past 2 years, and unlike most english teachers here can actually speak decent korean, or so he says. His grandma is LDS and his mom has been less active most his life. He says that he doesnt have a "religion" but he says he has the same morals as religious people. I met him on a bus, I walked on when all the sudden I heard "I like your shoes". It took me a second to realize that was english, so i turned around and there is this white dude sitting down in one of the chairs. So I sat next to him and started talking with him. I got his number, but turns out we already had it, after thinking for a bit he realized he met missionaries a year ago and played basketball with them. Super cool guy excited to continue meeting with him, and hopefully switch our interactions from mostly being friends to mostly Gospel discussion

Next is 탁영새 (tacg young seh) 

He is probably 50-60, he has a wife and kids but lives by him self in the smallest apartment i have ever seen. We showed up to his door and knocked and let us in. We sat down and he was cooking some soup on a camping stove and drinking some sort of korean alcohol. He tried getting us to drink and when we said we dont drink he got really red in the face and started yelling at us and saying the jesus drank, and lots of swear words. Then we finally appeased him enough to accept that we dont drink so he said fine here is some coffee.... well then we had to explain that we couldnt drink coffee. Then he got REALLY mad and he was probably yelling for at least 4 minutes straight! haha If you think understanding regular Korean is hard wait until you here an old drunk man yelling, i am pretty sure i understood at most 5 words! haha super funny! Well we taught a little bit about the  restoration, and he said he is Buddhist but he had some interest. we are planning on going back this week and hopefully there is less yelling! haha

Update on old investigators!

So E Sung Joon is getting baptized this sunday! He got his father to sign the baptism paper but his mom didnt know he had been investigating our church. He had been hiding and reading the book of mormon. He has read a lot! He would call us every once and a while and say elders! I just finished 2nd nephi! then 2 hours later he would call us with a question about jacob or enos! he is flying through the book! But yesterday was lunar new years which is a huge holiday in korea (it is 3 days long) so his grandmother was home. Well he was reading the book of mormon because his mom was gone but his grandma must of saw him because he got a text during church from his mom, who was very angry. Apparently his grandma had told his mom that she saw him reading a book like the bible, and then his mom realized that when he had been leaving every sunday for the past 6 months he had been going to church. Well now he is scared that he wont be able to get baptized so keep him in your prayers please! 

Next is Kim jong Won

He is super awesome! We just finished teaching him law of chastity and he looked at me and said so at first I couldnt drink alcohol, smoke, do drugs, or drink tea or coffee, and now i cant have these relationships with girls.... is there anything else i need to know about! haha we told him that those were kind of the big harder ones to follow. But he has told us he has a desire to stop! He hasnt been 100% sober from alcohol but he said he is trying! He leaves this friday to austria and wont be back for 3 weeks so hopefully everything works out with him! 

The others not much is happening with so i wont mention them

So a brief history on our "ward". It used to be a pretty big ward with about 250 people. but lately korea has been really struggling with people going less active. We have a list of over 200 less actives, most of those have either blocked our number or have no interest. So we have probably about 26 members and no bishop. Well we have a bishop, but 2 months ago he moved to daejon and they havent replaced him yet. So its still a ward because you can never downgrade but it is smaller then my branch in seogwipo! 

well i think that is all for this week!

Love you all!

Remember god knows each and everyone of you! If you ever have a question or concern let god know! He already knows it but he cant do anything unless you ask him or talk with him! The more sincere your prayer is the more sincere your answer will be! I KNOW this church is true and I KNOW Jesus Christ is our older brother who died for each and everyone of us so not only we can live with god again but we can have all of our burdens and trials taken from us! How cool is that!

Elder Stagg