Tongyoung: The ward mission leader strikes back

Hello!  So this week has been a lot of jundo (proselyting). We got a new investigator! and we met with our other 2 this week! 

So alec doesnt have much interest but we try and get lunch with him once a week so hopefully when he goes back to america and sees the missionaries he will have a good background of them! He is really cool and super fun guy! 

Next we met with kwahk sohng Jay who is 19 american age and we talked about faith and happiness! and it went well! I invited him to read moroni 10: 3-5 and pray about it and i promised him if he did that and listened for an answer he would get one! The spirit was pretty strong there. I hope he does it because he has so much potential! So pray for him!

Next is our new investigator pac chon chor, he is older probably in his 50's. And he lost his job so he is living at is parents house. We have taught him one lesson about christ and following him. It was a good lesson and we are going to keep meeting him!

sorry this week not a lot has happened except for yesterday... our ward mission leader/ 2nd councilor in the bishopric got really mad at church (during the second hour) and said that after he finishes teaching the class he was never coming back to church again... haha so me and elder pac and our 1st councilor (who is basically the bishop because we haven't had a bishop for the past 6 months) called him and tried meeting with him but he wont let us. So we will see what happens! But i dont think its going to last for a long time. 

I am currently reading about in alma about the 2000 stripling warriors. And its crazy how much faith can give you! They go through numerous of battles with people who are older stronger and more experienced then them but through all the battles not one of them dies when thousands of others die. It talks about how all the nephites are amazed and acknowledge it is because of faith. But its interesting to notice that its says everyone of them is wounded. God wont make it so we dont receive wounds are temptations or trial but if we keep our faith he will save our lives.

Love this gospel and everything thats a part of it! If any of you are thinking about a mission do itI!I it might take a leap of faith but its soo worth it! What i have gained in this past 6 months is invaluable and there is no better or faster way to gain it then through serving our savior jesus christ and our heavenly father!

Love you all -elder stagg

Shaking my leg

Korea:  where city meets ocean

Heading for the open seas

Korean lighthouse

Korea!

Please help us.  Our culture never discovered the fork.

Sushi at sea

Tongyoung: Photo Album

I am not a crook

Just another asian invasion

Look what just crawled into my rice bowl

To help wash the kimchi down

Two thumbs up for Christianity

Baywatch

It's a rainbow of fruity flavors

Very important to remember this word

Lover's Arch

Oh no, I forgot how to say that word.

A coastal photo of the coast

My brothers

Going to an island for P-Day activities

Just another planking tourist

Why is everybody pretending not to see me?

My Korean homies

Dont mind me, I'm just supervising the invasion.

Long live free trade

Tongyoung: Sick Park

Hello how is good ole Meegook? There are 2 things about america that I want to change. the first one rhymes with dump, slump, rump, etc...

the second is the lack of kimchi in the great land of america! What the heck america! Eat kimchi! (I have a feeling that kimchi might be mentioned this general confrence) (Probably sunday morning after president monson and right before  president Uctchdorf) 

    So I am not sure what I said last week but we sat down 2 Thursdays ago we sat down and made a plan on how many baptisms we can get this transfer and what we need to do in order to get those baptisms! Well after that we worked really hard but only seemed to get farther behind in our goal. (we have dropped all but one of our investigators) But this thursday we talked about our goals saw where we can improve and consecrated ourselves. My zone leader in Jeju told me something I have never forgot. "everyday requires a reconsecration of yourself, it never gets easy, it never becomes habit you always need to focus on it and try your hardest." Since I have been really trying and doing that I have come to appreciate the song "I need thee every hour". Its so true. I really do need Christ every second of every minute of every hour of everyday.... etc.... 

   One cool thing that has come from my mission is that Jesus Christ is no more just a name. Now he is a person! Reading Jesus the Christ was the best thing I ever could of done! I now understand what he went through I know how he would react and I try and live my life like him. And from reading the Book of Mormon this transfer its coming alive also. I am always comparing what we are going through to what alma and amulek went through. It just not as extreme... haha but the other day we were talking to this shin chon jee preacher (the creepy church the destorys other churches) and he was talking with us and asking us questions and as we were able to answer questions, that he didnt think could be answered I saw him start to get scared/angry. So we ended up leaving because he started to get really angry. But it reminded me of when alma and amulek are preaching to the amalekites and zeezorum (dont know how to spell his name) is trying to argue with them but as they answer all his questions he starts to shake and quiver as he realizes he is wrong. I love reading the Book of Mormon and reading about my saviors life!

   Ok so this week elder park got sick so we spent 2 days inside, which sucked! on tuesday we went to zone conference and we were both feeling sick like we were going to puke so we directly went home afterwards and elder park started puking. I would of except the fact that I didnt eat anything that whole day so i had nothing to  puke. But then the next day I was feeling fine but Elder park was still sick so I did studies, and then started to call old investigators. But after an hour or 2 I had called all the old investigators! so I read Jesus the Christ and the Book of Mormon. Super hard to not be outside! But after that day he felt better. So this week we have spent 3 days in masan, (which is a hour and half bus ride from our house) we had zone conference, stake priesthood meeting and stake conference. And tomorrow back down to masan for zone meeting! So not much has happened this week!

I love the savior! I know as we look to him for help and let his stories come to life in our lives we will see miracles! He sacrificed everything for us, the least we can do is thank him and use what he has already purchased and suffered for! Read the book of Mormon everyday, along with praying before and after reading! If you do this and recognize your need for Christ you will not move when trials and temptations come your way because you will have a sure and steady foundation in christ! (Helamen 5:12)

Love you all talk to you next week! 

-Elder Stagg

Ketchup crosses all cultures

Just a little something I threw together for a street display

Yummy

All good things come in pairs

There is no such thing as too much sushi

All the tourists clamor for this

Tongyoung: You're Welcome, Seoul Missionaries

Hello!

To start off I am not going to lie, this past week has been hard! God has been testing me and Elder Pak. We set a baptism goal for this transfer and we want to get three baptisms. We figured that 1 out of every 10 contacts becomes an investigator and then 5 investigators out of every 10 investigators will accept a baptismal date, and about 1 out of every 5 investigators with a baptismal date will actually get baptized, so we need to get 300 contacts, 30 investigaors and 15 with a baptismal date! we then divided that up per day. And the the past three days we have worked so hard a lot harder than usual but it seems
to be slower and less success. I feel like god is testing us to see how we react when we dont have instant success. But as long as i can say i have given my all, i know god will be happy with my service no matter the outcome! But needless to say its been very hard!  This week we have lost 2 investigators and gained 0.... One of them (our english investigator) had no interest so we dropped him, and the other was  our only progressing investigator! He is super awesome but he moved to Seoul!!! However we called him last night to see how he was and he told us that he went online and found a church that was 10 minutes
from his house. He then said it is too big and really different from our Tongyoung church! haha "I miss my hometown, i am a Tongyoung person!" haha super funny guy! he said he is super lonely so we told him he could call the Seoul missionaries and play pingpong with them!   :) You're welcome Seoul missionaries!

Here is a funny story! Me and Elder Pak were walking back from street contacting (8:40 PM) and had just ordered chicken to our house they usually take about 30 minutes to get the
food cooked and delivered, so we call before we get home. Well, we were walking when all the sudden these three God's Church Preachers about our age walked up to us and started talking with us. They had their bible and were trying to convince us that we were wrong. after a while I was getting antsy because i wanted chicken, so i smiled at them and said we got to go but here is a pamphlet about the restoration and if you have any questions feel free to call! Then i said thanks for talking to people about Christ and that they are awesome people! hehe they were so angry, they kept following us as we walked home! Super funny!

Yesterday E Sung Joon Passed the sacrament! Super cool to see how far he has come!

Love you all! Sorry super short this week I have to go to an island! Peace


-Elder Stagg

Tongyoung: Another Priesthood Holder

OK so this week i don't have a ton of time but I will try and say as much as I can!

So this week has been kind of hard, well harder than most of my weeks. Whenever we proselyte we seem to get no success, and it has been really slow.  Plus we had a couple of people that we met on the street that seemed really good and had tons of potential, but none of them ended up working out! Ahh So frustrating! However this is the lords work and he is in the timing of everything! Everyone is on there own clocks and we just need to do our best to always be giving them that opportunity so when it is there time we are there waiting for them! 

First, yesterday we gave E Sung Joon the aaronic priesthood! Super cool, he is now the first priest in our ward! Next week he can bless the sacrament! Its super fulfilling seeing someone you helped come into this gospel continue to progress in it! The ward members are fellow -shipping him really well and i feel like he feels welcome here!

Next, Kim Jong-Won came back from his 3 week long vacation and came to church yesterday! We had him go to priesthood this time because there were not a lot of people at church and they needed the elders to be in there, and I feel like they did a really good job at including him and making him feel apart of the ward! Hopefully that trip helped him realize that he needs to get baptized! He believes in it all, just wants to decide for himself on when he gets baptized and doesn't want us pressuring it. So keep praying for him and we will keep on doing our best to help push him towards it and see why it is important!

The Shin-Chon-Jee person that I talked about last time, didnt end up meeting us. He called us and said he wanted to meet on wednesday. So we called him again 2 hours before the meeting to decide where to meet, then we found out he was bringing his preacher, and turns out that she (the preacher) thought she was teaching us, and the kid told her that we are super interested. So when she found our we were missionaries she canceled the meeting! Thankfully! 

Oh Elder Holland came to korea this last weekend and gave a devotional in Seoul, and it was broadcasted all across korea! There was one Friday night and one saturday night, they were both super good. But the Friday night one I felt the spirit on MTC levels! Super, super good! The spirit bore witness to me that he truly is an apostle of our lord Jesus Christ, and he has the same responsibilities, power, authority, weight and everything else that comes with being an apostle as, the apostles back in Christs time did. Especially with me reading Jesus the Christ, and understanding the apostles a lot more, I really felt the spirit strong and I know that Elder Holland and the rest of the 12 are truly Christs disciples! 

On Friday it was Elder Pak's birthday! I bought him Mcdonalds because he thats what he said he wanted, and then the sisters and me ordered chicken for him and ate it while watching Elder Hollands devotional!

Love you all so much! Thanks for all the love and support you give me!

Love 

-Elder Stagg

You'll never find thicker cut bacon

That one kid

Just another perfect night on the waterfront

Spending P-day on the Luge