추워졌다

(Translation courtesy of Google Translate: "Was cold.")

Greetings from South Korea! The weather here got a lot colder this week, which is actually really good because we're required to wear suit coats from the October general conference to the April general conference... so, because it's cold, we're not sweating all over our nice jackets.

Biking along the Han River.

Last P-day was super fun. We went to an area in our zone (Hwayang), rented bikes, and rode on a sweet bike path along the Han river as a zone! The bikes were the ones with big baskets on the front and only one gear and kind of sketchy brakes, but nevertheless it was fun. We then played some ultimate and then said goodbye... probably a good third of our zone is transferring, so our zone will be pretty different this transfer. Tuesday was a pretty normal day except for sending all of Elder Lee's stuff to his new area. We met 3 of our investigators that day too. It's really easy to meet people at the end of the transfer because they always want to say goodbye to the missionary that's transferring. 

Elder Lee and I with an investigator.

Saying goodbye to Elder Lee.

On Wednesday we went to transfers. ㅠㅠ Said goodbye to Elder Lee and picked up Elder Weight! And then we traveled home and got in a couple hours of study. To be honest, I had a small feeling of dread the whole time I was studying that day. I didn't want to serve without Elder Lee, I didn't want to be "training" a new zone leader, I didn't want more responsibility, I didn't feel prepared at all... Mostly just mopey, self-centered feelings. And then we got out of the house and worked our butts off all day long and I felt really really good afterward. One of the most important things I've learned on my mission... WORK. Just forgetting about myself, my situation, my worries, and my problems, and going out and working super hard to invite people unto Christ. It's the best medicine.

Me and Elder Weight!!

Elder Weight is a super hard worker, he's funny, and he's awesome. He hails from Salem Utah and is the youngest of 10... 7 older sisters, 2 older brothers. He's got his head screwed on straight, he's obedient, and he knows why he's out here. We get along great and I'm really excited for a transfer together with him. I'm super grateful to have another great companion right in a row.

We worked really hard all week, got more contacts than I ever had in my mission, and found a few new investigators. We've had a conversation similar to this one every night right after planning:

"Good job."

        "You too. We worked super hard today."

"Yeah. Same thing tomorrow?"

        "Heck yes. I'm going to bed now."

"Night."

I'm tired, but it's a good tired. On Saturday night, we got to teach two new people who became investigators. The first, Brother Jo, is 60ish years old and met us that night mostly because he likes the missionaries. But he said he would come to church on Sunday, and if he likes it he'll keep coming and become a member! He came yesterday, and it went pretty well. We'll see him again next week. The second guy, Brother Kim, is 50ish years old and knows the bible like the back of his hand. He was 7th Day Adventist, but he doesn't attend there anymore and is looking for a new church. He met us on Saturday night and got right to the point... He already had a Book of Mormon, and he wanted to know how to gain eternal life, and he wanted to learn it from us teaching him from the Book of Mormon. We joyfully turned to 2 Nephi 31 and all read together and had a great discussion about the Gospel of Jesus Christ. (If you don't know what's in 2 Nephi 31, please stop reading this, read 2 Nephi 31, and then continue reading this. It's worth your time. A fantastic chapter of scripture.) He agreed with all of it and kept underlining his Book of Mormon and saying "This is awesome." We'll be meeting him again next Saturday.

Things are great here. Thank you all for your thoughts and prayers. Have a wonderful week!

Love, Elder Edwards

Pig intestines... yum :)    
(for real though, really delicious.)

이원형 장로님이 이동 가네요 ㅠ

Translation courtesy of Elder Edwards: 

"Elder Lee won hyeong is getting transferred ㅠㅠ" 

ㅠㅠ doesn't mean anything, it's just the emoticon for crying in Korean. Get it? Two eyes, each with two streams of tears coming out. ㅠㅠ

Me and Elder Lee writing emails. Right now.

Elder Lee is back, which I'm so happy about. Doing missionary work alone really just isn't very fun. He's still doing pretty good. The military training was lame, but he got to see his parents and talk to them. He says they're doing okay. Still keep them in your prayers.

Conference weekend was this week! All of the missionaries in the stake (two zones) came here to Dongdaemoon to watch. Our ward is also the stake center, so all big meetings are here. It's been a pretty hectic weekend, especially with getting all the missionaries here and comfortable and watching conference on time, but it's been really good. Conference was fantastic. I really loved Elder Uchtdorf's talk "Lord, is it I?" That's something that I thought about going into conference... Not judging others and thinking about how it's something that they need to do better, but really looking inside myself and figuring out what I personally need to do better. Super good conference.

Watching some general conference in a "PC room". There are TONS of PC rooms in Korea, where people, usually students, can go and play video games all day long. It's usually where we email.

It's weird to think that I got transferred to Taebeck almost exactly a year ago. I've been thinking about that a lot recently... thinking about the differences between then and now. It made me REALLY grateful to be where I am. My situation and companions are so good and I'm really very grateful to be here. It's cool to look back on that experience which wasn't super easy, and realize all the blessings I have now. That's one thing I love about "hard times"... they help us to be grateful, they humble us. I've never had a real hard time in my whole life, it's been a pretty easy life so far, but there are times that are better and times that are less good. And those times offer perspective. I learn to be more thankful, grateful, and generous.

Our district at a delicious 갈비탕 restaurant!

Transfer calls came. Elder Lee is leaving. ㅠㅠ He will be going to Changwee, my greeny area, where he will be opening up a new area and training a greeny for his last 2 transfers in his mission. I'm SUPER sad that he's leaving. I've learned an incredible amount from him, and I think I was relying on him a lot while he's been here. But I'll hopefully be able to see him a few more times before he goes home in January. My new companion will be an Elder Weight, who came into country 9 weeks after I did. He's in the same group of missionaries as Elder Murdock (my first companion in Wonju). When I first got the call from President I thought: "Darn it, this is going to be hard. Two young missionaries together trying to work..." But then I remembered that I'm not really a young missionary at all, and neither is Elder Weight. In fact, we're on the older side of the mission. Weird. Anyway, Elder Weight was a district leader in another area, and now he's coming over here to be zone leader with me. So now I have to train him to be a zone leader. Which is just fantastic, because I don't even know that well how to do it. But it'll be good, we'll both be really obedient, hard working, and awesome. Besides the fact that Elder Lee is leaving, I'm looking forward to this transfer.

I love you all!

Love, Elder Edwards

아침 식사... 간장.

(Translation courtesy of Google Translate: "Soy Breakfast...")

I've just been having soy sauce breakfasts recently... usually eggs, ham, rice, and soy sauce. And it just struck me this morning that I've been eating soy sauce for breakfast. Weird, huh? :)

The Taegoogkee! (Korean flag)

Hello! The weather was SUPER cool this week... It's been glorious. I wake up cold in the mornings, which Elder Lee complains about but I think it's awesome.

This week was surprisingly really good. Last Monday and Tuesday I was on exchanges with the Junglang zone leaders, and we went to the DMZ on Tuesday with the Junglang district!!! (Pday was half on Monday and half on Tuesday last week.) The DMZ was pretty sweet. (DMZ = the Korean Demilitarized Zone is a strip of land running across the Korean Peninsula that serves as a buffer zone between North and South Korea.) There are a few tunnels that were dug by the North Koreans a long time ago in preparation for invasions, one of which has been turned into a tourist spot. So we got to go down into a tunnel dug decades ago by the North Koreans in preparation for invasion! Super cool. But we weren't allowed to take pictures, which was lame. The DMZ is a huge tourist location... it's also kind of a wildlife preservation, and people can look at the infamous North Korea. Pretty cool.

Exchanges with the Joonglang zone leaders (elevator pic).

A CRAZY guy came to church last week. "Henry" has been coming to English class for the past 4 weeks, and he's just gotten stranger and stranger. Apparently he's been kicked out of over 10 wards in Korea. We couldn't understand why because he seems pretty nice, so when he said he wanted to come to church we said sure. And then we found out why he got kicked out a ton of different wards. He came in 20 minutes before church started and sat in the back and was talking with me pleasantly (in English... he's really good at English and really interested in it, so I've never heard him speak Korean), when the second counselor in the bishopric came up and introduced himself and was super nice and tried to make him feel welcome. Well, Henry responded REALLY rudely and in a very low and rude form of Korean when just meeting someone (there are different "forms" in Korean... the higher the form, the more respect is being shown to the listener). And then Henry just exploded and yelled and yelled and swore and swore and cursed the church for a ton of different stuff. I will say this, I've never tried to learn swear words on purpose in Korean, but the ones I have learned, he used A LOT. So then the 2nd Counselor kicked him out. And then Henry came back with the police. And then the 2nd Counselor talked it through with the police and they all realized that Henry is literally crazy and now Henry isn't allowed on Dongdaemoon church property ever again. There are crazy people out there.

Elder Choi and I on exchanges.

We had a baptism in Dongdaemoon ward yesterday! One of the 11 year old recent converts referred her friend a few months ago, and she got baptized! That's the 3rd baptism in Dongdaemoon ward this year.

Elder Lee is down in his hometown right now. He came back up to Dongdaemoon on Tuesday night after all the funeral arrangements and funeral, gave zone training with me on Wednesday, and worked with me up until yesterday, and then headed back down for a mandatory military training for those that have already served their mandatory 2 year service. So he'll be gone until this coming Wednesday, so I'm once again a solo missionary jumping around between companionships. Elder Lee is doing really well. In fact, he's very similar to how he was before his brother died. This was (and is) really shocking to me... so I asked him about it on Friday. I said, "How do you do it? Your brother died 5 days ago. How are you able to focus and work so hard and smile and laugh with your brother dying so recently?" He responded that this is all he has. He said there's not really any use moping and not doing anything, so he's doing what he can right now, and that's throwing himself into the work. He really believes in the Plan of Salvation, and that gives him comfort and strength and a huge desire to share it with the people of Korea. And it's cool to hear him testify of it on the street. There's a power and a knowledge to his words that definitely wasn't there before his brother died. I just have a huge amount of respect for him. I don't know how he's doing it... he's amazing.

Service project with the zone!

I really liked Alma 37:34 this morning. "Teach them to never be weary of good works..." That's something that I can definitely say that I've felt before. Missionary work is awesome and great and rewarding and can definitely be qualified as a "good work", but it definitely wears on you sometimes. It applies to people other than missionaries as well... People can feel weary from their callings, be weary of scripture study/prayer, be weary of going to church, etc. But Alma teaches us to NEVER be weary of good works. And I think one very important way to not get weary is to remember that it is a good work. To remember that this is something that God wants me to do. To remember that by doing this good work I am working a little harder to endure to the end, and that I will be better prepared to meet Him at the last day.

I love you all!

Love, Elder Edwards

이메일 늦게 보낸다

(Translation courtesy of Google Translate: "Send e-mail later")

Hello! This week was an interesting one. Not a ton of time for email either, so I'll get right into it. We had Missionary Leadership Council today with all the Zone Leaders and Sister Training Leaders and President and his wife, so that's why this email is so late. It's like 7o'clock pm over here.

Me, Elder Goo (my trainer), and Sister Goo
(not related to Elder Goo, just a sister in my district.)

On Wednesday, we went on exchanges with the Assistants to the President! Super fun. I went to their area, Sheendang, with Elder Fonnesbeck, and Elder Lee stayed here with Elder Jung. It was a good exchange. We talked to a lot of people and taught a lesson or two and it was all in all a lot of hard work and good memories. Elder Fonnesbeck goes home in 2 weeks!! It's really crazy. And really cool to work with missionaries who've been out for a really long time and learn from them.

Elder Fonnesbeck!! Our foreign assistant to the president. 

(There's almost always one Korean assistant and one foreign assistant)

We lost 2 investigators this week... and they were probably the 2 with most potential. One is moving back to China and the other one said he wants to find a church that has a rock band where people stand up and clap and sing together. Pretty lame. So we won't meet him again for the next while because he wants to find a good "atmosphere". It's just sad to see peoples priorities get mixed up... they decide on the church they will attend based on how fun it is and how interesting it is, rather than basing it on things that are a little more important... covenant renewal, nourishment through the good word of God, etc. Anyway, so we lost a few investigators and our closest baptismal dates. But we have a few other people that we're working with that should progress and come closer unto Christ.

Elder Lee and I and one of our ward members. He's not crazy, I promise.

I have some not great news. We got a text from Elder Lee's parents on Thursday, telling us that his little brother had had a heart attack and was in surgery. We then called President and let him know and then Elder Lee called his family and got a scope on things. His brother, maybe 22 years old was just jogging and had a heart attack. On Friday, we just worked like normal missionaries while Elder Lee exchanged texts with his family about his brother's condition. And then President Christensen called Saturday morning, telling us that Elder Lee's father had called him and requested Elder Lee to go down to the south end of the peninsula so he could see his brother possibly for the last time. He left right away, and got to see his brother before he passed away Saturday night/Sunday morning. So I've been alone for the past 3 days, going on exchanges with members and other missionaries. I'll probably be alone until around Thursday, because Elder Lee said he would come back after all the funeral stuff is taken care of. Please keep Elder Lee and his family in your prayers. This was his only brother, and now it's just him, his parents, and his little sister. It reminded me of how fragile life is. Just one little thing goes wrong in an organ in someone's body, and that person moves on to the next life while the family and friends he leaves behind are devastated. But it's also a time to be grateful to God for the great plan of salvation and happiness. Elder Lee and his family will see his brother again. And they will all be resurrected and have perfect bodies which never feel pain or taste of death again. "For since by man came death, by man came also the resurrection of the dead. For as in Adam all die, even so in Christ shall all be made alive." 1 Corinthians 15:21-22.

Love, Elder Edwards

에어콘은 완전 좋다

(Translation courtesy of Google Translate: "Air conditioning is completely good.")

Picture taken at the most recent mission conference.

A good week this week that involved A LOT of proselyting. None of our investigators but one could meet because they're all busy, so we spent a lot of the time out on the street talking to people. Proselyting is good, but it's just kind of frustrating because we need to meet with these people to get them ready for baptism!! Hopefully this week they won't be busy. We did have one investigator come to church yesterday. He's 26 years old and nice and a little shy and has a baptismal date for next weekend... but he's not ready yet. He slept through most of church and our lesson after church because he was really tired, and he doesn't usually meet during the week, so he hasn't had all the lessons and hasn't been keeping his commitments too well. He'll come around. It's interesting as a missionary trying to guide people to join this church, because they are already happy and comfortable. Them keeping our commitments puts them out of their comfort zone for a little bit. Which they usually see as not good, but they aren't seeing quite the big picture. So we have to help them see the big picture!

Elder Lee and I with 3 vietnamese kids. They're awesome.

We're teaching a Muslim man whose lived in Korea for a year now. He can speak a little English and is okay at Korean, but communication is still difficult. It's hard to teach an investigator about baptism when they don't know the word "baptism". And the church apparently doesn't have a Book of Mormon in his native language... lame. I think we'll try through the church website next time we meet him. We also met some kids from Vietnam, and they spoke zero English and knew maybe 200 words in Korean. That was really hard. At that point it's almost impossible to teach anything... lame. We were going to meet them again with pamphlets and a Book of Mormon in Vietnamese, but it turns out they don't actually live in our area. Something I've learned a lot while on the mission is language is IMPORTANT. Well, communication is important. And a lot of communication comes from words. It makes me grateful to have a family and friends who are all fluent in one language and can communicate easily and freely. That's a weird thing to be grateful for, I never thought about that before coming here.

The Eemoon elders!!

I went on exchanges to Eemoon with Elder Redd, the district leader there. He came to Korea with me, and he's awesome. He's an awesome missionary because he's FEARLESS. He talks to every single person on the street, even when it's awkward or the person is kind of far away, or for any other excuse, he always just talks to the guy. I learned a lot through that exchange about being more fearless... mostly because we did something on that exchange that was absolutely terrifying. Elder Redd is always looking for new ways to proselyte, and his favorite one right now is getting on the subway and standing at the far end of the car and then preaching to a crowded subway car. We wouldn't preach for long, we would just introduce ourselves and the Book of Mormon and then testify about it and offer free copies. Most of the time people ignored us, but we were able to give out a few copies of the Book of Mormon and get some phone numbers during the hour that we did it. It was honestly the most terrifying thing I've ever done. Getting on a subway full of tired and kind of cranky commuters and yelling to them that we're missionaries for The Church Of Jesus Christ of Latter Day Saints and have a happy message to share in the form of a book, the Book of Mormon. So scary. But it was honestly really cool to conquer that fear and get more comfortable talking to all the people on the subway. I won't lie, I was shaking so bad when I did it with him for the first time, but it was cool to feel the fear go away by facing and confronting the very thing that gave me fear. I fear no man!

The sky is blue, the weather is cool, Dongdaemoon is awesome, the tank is clean... the tank is clean!!

Love, Elder Edwards

Laurel here: "The tank is clean..." is from "Finding Nemo." Yes, perhaps a bit on the random side. :) 

Crabs in the market. Mostly dead.

동대문구 용두동

Dongdaemun district!!

A good week. Last Monday was spent cleaning ALL day. We emptied fridges (we have 2!), freezers, garbage cans, cupboards, and then cleaned them REALLY good with some powerful cleaning supplies. Houses get kind of gross after years of irresponsible teenagers live in them. And it doesn't help that this house is infested with cockroaches!!!! Everytime we moved something that hadn't been moved in a while, a new little gang of cockroaches would scurry in every direction while we squealed and banged them with sledghammers and sprayed them with some powerful bug killer. It was actually a pretty good day. We (the 6 elders in this house) all bonded together after that experience, similar to a group of survivors who endured and suffered through a great trauma or natural disaster together. The day after that we got to go to the temple in the morning and then have P-day! We didn't do anything super cool that day, but the temple was great and it was good to see a bunch of other missionaries that I know at the temple.

Elder Choi and I (he's a zone leader in another area).

There's not a ton of privacy in this house... we actually have two showers, but they're both in one room not separated by anything. And we have 3 toilets!! That's a pretty good number for us. And those are a little better because they're separated by stalls. Except the stalls don't have doors. And the bathroom is also the laundry room... someone just threw a washing machine in there and called it a laundry room as well. So basically, you learn to not be too shy here.

Mom, I'll just put the answers to your questions on here. That's cool, right?

1.   Tell us about your companion. His name is Elder Leewonhyung. He's 24 years old, has been in the army for 2 years (that's a requirement for every Korean male), finishes his mission this January, and super buff. He's really good at English due to living with Americans for the past year and a half, but we usually speak in Korean together.

2.   What are your responsibilities as ZL? Give zone trainings once a month. Take care of the zone. Go on companion exchanges with each of the district leaders (3) once a transfer. Attend the monthly stake presidents meeting and discuss missionary work. Be the model companionship in the zone. Strive to make this zone the model zone in the mission.

3.   Where do you live now? How many missionaries are there in your apartment? Right next to the church in a place called 동대문구 용두동 (you can google it, find the church, and then see our house.) There are 6 missionaries in this apartment.

4.   How many missionaries in the zone? 24.

5.   How is the city vs the country? BIG. One of the biggest differences is having so many people to talk to!!

6.   What is the ward/branch like where you are serving? It's good. I don't know a whole lot about it yet, but the members are really nice and work hard. Our ward mission leader is awesome and really works hard to fulfill his calling. This ward actually isn't that much bigger than Wonju branch... I think about 50 members come out every week.

Elder Lee and I at the temple.

Things are pretty good right now. Elder Lee and I are both healthy and happy and working really hard. I struggled a little bit with confidence this week... which is interesting because I never struggle with confidence. But I struggled this week with knowing what to say when we proselyte, specifically. I'm doing fine now, but it's really interesting to see the HUGE difference that I felt in my ability as a missionary when I had less confidence. I didn't feel as ready, prepared, qualified, or happy. And speaking Korean became SUPER hard. But I'm fine now, I have confidence, and the work is going well. 

Elder Lee and I picking small appleish things.

Elder Lee and I found 3 new investigators this week, and all three of them agreed to be baptized in October! We have changed our approach when we invite people to be baptized a little bit... First, we invite almost everyone to be baptized at the first sit down lesson with them. So we'll meet them on the street once for the first time, and then when we meet them in the church we'll invite them to be baptized. Second, we set a date with them, whether they feel ready or not, and then tell them that we will help them to be ready by that date, and if they feel ready, they can be baptized then. We express to them that it's okay if they don't feel ready then, that we can do it later if they don't feel ready, but that it would be good to work toward a goal (the date). And it works like a charm. Almost everyone agrees, and then they have a lot better idea of what our expectations are and what we are here to do as missionaries.

So now we have a lot of investigators, with 5 of them with baptismal dates starting at the end of this month and spreading through until the end of next month. It's pretty cool. I don't know how we're going to get them ready by then, but we're working hard to know the doctrine ourselves and to help them understand it. The work is really rewarding right now. It's really cool to do the Lord's work, to invite people unto Christ and help them enter into the gate of baptism.

I love you all!

Love, Spencer

동대문에 왔다

Translation courtesy of Google Translate: "Came to Dongdaemun"

Hello! There's not a ton of time today, so this might be shorter and I won't be able to respond to any other emails... sorry.

I'm in Dongdaemun! Literally translated, it means East gate. And there are TONS of people here. Tons of people to talk too. Elder Lee and I had about an hour and a half of contacting time on the second day I got here (Wednesday), and we got triple the number of contacts I could have gotten in Wonju. It's so awesome. Proselyting is a lot more fun when there's enough people to talk too. We've already taught a few lessons, and have 3 baptisms lined up for the end of this month! Not all of them are for sure, and I don't know a lot about all of them, but it should be really good. 

Elder Leewonhyung = Elder Lee

Elder Lee is awesome. He's a really hard worker, he's not complacent, he's a great teacher, he dies (goes home) in January, and he's super funny. I'm having a blast with him and learning a ton. I thought that becoming a zone leader would be a huge teaching opportunity, not a learning one. But it has definitely been both. Being a zone leader is pretty cool. We had our first zone training meeting 2 days ago on Saturday, and it went well. Our zone covers 3 areas, and each area has 6-10 missionaries in it.

Our house is literally 20 feet away from the church... there's a big gate surrounding the church and the parking lot, and our house is INSIDE the gate. It's a big house, tons of room, but we have just one problem... cockroaches. Our house is crawling with them. Elder Lee and I moved a big board off the wall to rearrange the board, and 6 of the nasty little cockroaches had been chilling back there. We had a small fright which may or may have not included girlish screaming, and then got to work with some bug spray and a large rubber mallet kept in the house for the specific purpose of killing cockroaches. Today is going to be the big clean day that happens twice a year... So it should be really interesting waging war with nasty bugs. At least they're not spiders.

Me, Elder Leewonhyung, and President and Sister Christensen,
with me and Elder Lee wearing traditional wedding clothes
(it's Korean thanksgiving here, so tons of people wear them)

This weekend through until tomorrow is Choosuk, which is the Korean thanksgiving, and the second biggest holiday in Korea. Everyone goes to their hometown and chills there for a few days with family and eat tons of food and think about/make food for their ancestors. I don't know a whole lot about that part, but I heard they make food for their dead ancestors. So we had a mission conference on Saturday as well as a zone training meeting. Elder Lee and I wore sweet traditional wedding clothes, so we looked pretty awesome.

I love you all! I'll try to write more next week. There's so much to write about!

Love, Elder Edwards

Goodbye Wonju district :(

Elder Taylor and I and our pastor investigator. His hair is awesome.