Elder Nathan Stagg: Yongdo: Pretty Bomb Testimony

Hello Family and Friends Happy New Year!! It is always weird having to write a different year for the date.. I will still be writing 2017 for the next couple of months because that is just the person that I am! haha Well this week was super awesome! Lets dig into it shall we?

So recently we have lots of investigators probably around 15. But the thing is most of them don't really have much gospel interest. A big problem here in Korea, is that lots of people will want to meet with us for English or just straight 외국인 (foreigner) Interest, and so sometimes we have lots of investigators but none of them are really progressing. But you can't drop them because in the case of my Korean Father (Yoo Jay Young) and my recent convert in Toung Young they both met with the missionaries for 8 or so months and had no interest for most of it. But as people are with the missionaries for that long of a time they start to change, so we have lots of investigators like that. They are seeds that will sprout later on for some-other missionary. So we have been praying a lot recently to find investigators who have more gospel interest and investigators that we can actually have like real lessons with!

And this week we found 3 new investigators the first one is such a miracle and I am convinced he will probably get baptized next transfer! So this man about a month ago was walking down the street by our church the same time we were walking home, and he said hello to us( He was very drunk). So we stopped and talked to him and he straight up asked us for the book of Mormon. He said he has lived by the church for years and wants one of the Mormon Bibles. So we gave him one and he started going off about how he knows this book will bless his life and that in this book he can find truth and peace. He was straight up bearing a better testimony then I probably could of done, I felt the spirit so strong. This man has some serious faith. But then he showed us where he lived and said come visit later on. Well we forgot about him kind of until last week I just randomly remembered him and felt like we had to visit him. So we have tried about 8 times there was one time that he was home but was in the middle of a dinner with is sister so he said come back later but then he wasn't there. But finally yesterday, we visited him before church and he didn't answer, visited him after church and he answered! So we went in taught him about the restoration, and he said that he was into Alma already and that he loves the book! He has never before believed in god and he has been Buddhist his whole life, but recently he has been wanting to start to believe in god. So when I asked him if he believed in god he said a truth that I think is very important thing to understand. He said that he has a desire to believe in god but he can't just make a jump from no believe to instant, he said it takes small steps of blindness and trust until you can 100% believe. I was dumbfounded I told him he was exactly right and that he just described faith perfectly! I said it takes you take small steps of faith but soon I promised him that he would have that believe! He committed to read 3 Nephi 11 and pray about the book of Mormon tonight! He is a super awesome guy and just so humble! He has such a pure heart! He is about 50 years old and has a wife and 2 daughters but they live about an hour away from him because he needs to work in youngdo. So he doesn't see them very often. He works for a boating company and he said that he is gone for 1-2 months at a time and back for a month or so then back out on another voyage so it is hard for him to go to church. I told him that god understands and that when he is not on a boat he can go to church but when he is on a boat he can have a personal church, just keep reading the Book of Mormon and praying everyday and god will understand! I am excited for this man! His name is (Ma Gee Johng)

Next is a man who has some interest, we met him and talked about the book of mormon also committed him to read and pray about it, he said he is going to go fishing and come back and make us some raw fish so I am hyped! He seems pretty cool but his interest levels are in the middle.

Last is a guy who met the missionaries like 20-30 years before. We met with him and he just star ted going off with questions about the Book of Mormon. He has read the whole thing and was really curious with the actual geography of it and was asking where the first landed and then where was the land Southward and the Land Northward and where were they fighting at, and then he was trying to figure out which of the Indian tribes they were, after we answered his questions he just left.. haha so we are going to try and meet him this week and teach him lesson 3! haha funny guy.

This week has been awesome!! I am really excited for this next week though, I get to baptize my Korean Father and I honestly never thought I would be able to see him get baptized but I know god has a plan for everything and I now know why I stayed in this same district for so long! It is really cool to see him talk about baptism so causal now and he is becoming really good friends with the investigators in Goejong and the members. Also since he is getting baptized in Goejoeng that means that I get to go back to my old area and baptize someone! haha Really weird!

This week I interviewed one of the sister investigators and she is super awesome! She is only in 9th grade but she decided to leave her families religion (catholic) and join ours even though there is no one her age at there church! She had a pretty bomb testimony! This transfer our district will have 7 baptisms (if everything goes according to plans) and thats crazy because usually its around 0, but everyone of our teams has or will get at least 1 baptism! God is blessing this area so much! I love it so much!

I have been studying a lot about revelation recently and I have been getting better at following the spirit! There is 2 things I want to share, First is that we doubt our selves to much, we think receiving revelation is harder then it is. It comes all the time but we doubt it or deny it, we just need to follow it. It is honestly like a language when we dont practice and try we wont get better. In order to learn Korean I need to make lots of mistakes so I can progress if I don't just try then I will never progress, well it is the same with the spirit we just need to act on our feeling and follow them and as we recognize which ones tend to be of god and which ones are our own thoughts we will get more fluent in the language of the spirit. I want to bear testimony that as we trust god and just act on our feeling we will be lead in his path for us. And this applies to all aspects of live. God says seek ye first the kingdom of god and everything else will be added upon that. As we always seek gods will everything else will fall into place perfectly and better then before. So always be aware and listen to the spirit and practice following it! I love you all so very much!

This gospel is the true Gospel

The book of Mormon is super sick and full of crazy truths

I love being a missionary

I Love korea

And I love God!

-Elder Stagg