May 3, 2015

This past week has been crazy and full of awesomeness!!! Our area is doing really well, which is really cool! 

On Tuesday, we met with an investigator, and she took us to the beach, which was fun :) Though we got oogled at by elementary school kids who played rock paper scissors to determine who should ask us our names, and they told Sis Hurley that one of them wanted to be her boyfriend. Bahaha. Her hair gets us so much attention :P We saw how they dry fish and seaweed, which is really nasty, because it has bugs all over it... So. Well.. I hope the seaweed soup I've eaten before came from a more sanitary source :P We also got a LOT of free snacks because a member closed their shop, and so they just gave us a lot of snacks :P Yay free food! 

More food. Be jealous!

On Wednesday we had district meeting, and then met a lady who is really really nice. The problem we have been having with her though is we have been meeting her with a member who likes to TALK a LOT and so we have been having a hard time having enough time to teach her English and a message. But Wednesday was the first time that we managed it well (aka reined in the member) and we really liked it.

On Thursday, we met with that man from last week who was interested in our church with the Elders. It was interesting because the guy found out that Elder 김동희 has some sort of neck problem, and so he started massaging him and stuff. It was really funny. Koreans aren't weird, I promise, it's just the culture. "Skinship" is a thing. They are really touchy, and it's a way to be friendly and form a relationship. So, it was good, just really funny to watch. 

After that appointment, we met a new investigator! Yay! We got a call on Wednesday from a less active man who said he wanted to refer a friend to us for English, so we met her on Thursday and she was soooo kind! Even though she is mostly English interested, she was very open and accepting to the religious part of our lesson. Thursday evening we had planned to go with the other elder team to a member's mom's house for a visit (the mom is not a member). They had set it up, but it turned out that the woman they had contacted was not her, but the member's friend's mom... :P haha. So we visited with her anyways... and it was awkward because she is super active in her own church, she's a 전도사, a missionary of sorts. Those are pretty common in Korea (I don't know about in America), and they just go out on the streets and preach or pass out fliers and stuff, as a part time thing. But we were able to have a nice discussion about beliefs and such and she was very kind, which was nice in comparison to that investigator a few weeks ago who was not very nice :P But still, slightly awkward :P haha

On Friday, we met with that investigator again who we meet with the member, but it didn't go as well this time..... grrrrrr. Later that day we met with that investigator again, because she and her husband run a Taekwondo school (Taekwondo is Korean, by the way), and they offered us a free lesson 'cuz we teach her free English :P So we went with some of the Elders and it was really fun. I'm really bad at it, but still, we enjoyed ourselves and they were very kind.

On Saturday we met with another new investigator! She was a referal from missionaries in another area who had met her and found out she lives in our area. And she was SO COOL! I love her so much. She is about 36 and isn't married, but she has travelled a lot, used to work as a flight attendant and lived in China for a long time. But because of that she is soooo open minded, which is honestly not something we see much. She also is so kind, she dreams of forming some sort of charity organization to help people. It's difficult to explain, but she is so amazing. We teach her English because she is preparing for a job interview in English, but she is really engaged when we teach her and wants to know more about our church. So we were really excited about that.On Sunday we met her again, and it was just great. 

We also met another new investigator, but she seems to just want English. She is actually Chinese, and her English and Korean is limited :P So communicating was fun, but she was kind and she had a cute daughter. She tried to teach us how to say "My name is.." but it was too hard :P I'm so glad I'm not learning Chinese :P

So that was it for the week, we just have a lot going on which is really exciting! We feel really blessed, and are excited for the new people we are meeting. There's kind of a paradox in missionary work that we were thinking about this week... Sometimes there are times when missionaries are doing ALL that they can to be obedient and find new people, etc, but have NOTHING. And then sometimes there are disobedient missionaries who have investigators getting baptized. And it's like, "what?! why? that should be a thing". But the thing is, this isn't our work. This is definitely God's work... Basically everyone we are meeting were just sent to us, we didn't find like any of them. God knows where those who are ready to listen are, and He can help us find them or send them to us. So our job is to just be His "instruments", we have to be sure that we are being obedient and worthy and are ready to help those who want to listen (aka. being a "sharp" instrument. Sometimes a "dull" instrument can get the work done, but "sharp" is a lot better). 

Anyways. Those are my ramblings about missionary work. :P I'm just so grateful for this time to share and help others. I know God helps me personally so much. Just one example: You know me, I'm an introvert. I get tired of talking to people and just want to go home and read a nice book, but as a missionary we don't have the time or luxury for that, because we are so busy and we have to talk to a lot of people. Members, investigators, people on the street, our companion, other missionaries, blah blah blah. ALL DAY. And so many times, during the day, I'm fine, I have the social skills (haha) that I need to deal with people, and then when we come home at the end of the day, I'm exhausted and never want to talk to another person ever again. But we go to bed, wake up in the morning, and I feel ready to go again. :P It's really a blessing :P haha. That's just a simple way that God has helped me.