Being led by the Spirit

“And I was led by the Spirit, not knowing beforehand the things which I should do.” (1 Nephi 4:6)

I think this scripture just about sums up our week. Here are but a few examples:

Marcus came to church with Bro. Zinn and left with a copy of the Book of Mormon. Adam appeared at church on the Post after more than a month and then he came to fellowshipping night as well. Brent was able to come to church from Red Cloud and offered to search for the other soldier we know is at that base.

Chris stopped to visit with the elders outside the post just before our fellowshipping activity. He accepted their invitation to join us, stayed for over two hours, asked lots of questions about the church and left with a Book of Mormon, the first discussion, and a promise to come to church on Sunday with Andrew.

We decided to make appointments to get our teeth cleaned. While we were filling out the paperwork a technician started visiting with us and had questions about our name tag that led to our sharing the story of the restoration with her.

My Korean student who comes to learn English brought her boyfriend and he decided to study math with Wayne. He had so much fun that they both promised to be back on Tuesday.

I was able to play with the toddlers from a daycare who were brought to the park to play. They called me, “Oma,” and kept telling me, “Please,” as they tugged at my finger to follow them.

            I stopped to greet four grandmothers on the park bench and one started chattering with me. We managed to communicate a few things and I showed her two of my flash cards. She laughed and said them in Korean and kept them. She thinks I gave her a gift. Another old man shook my hand (very unusual for a Korean) and wanted to know how old my husband is. It’s amazing how much is communicated.

One newly baptized couple we have only seen on the post stopped by our table during Fellowshipping and promised to be in church on Sunday. The husband works most Sundays so it’s hard for them to come.

We caught Russell and Char on Skype and were able to visit with them in Brazil. We were able to begin working with a Korean tutor at the Senior MTC in Provo again. He is enrolled in Chem 105 so he had some of the same questions Wayne had been answering for Bethany as they prepare for their first exam.

 I thought that was a week full of miracles and then we decided to give another try at hiking Soyosan Mountain. Wayne walked to the trailhead but I decided to take the train to save my leg for the climb. I missed the train and about half-way up the trail to the temple we discovered why.

We met this couple from Seoul who were here for the weekend. The man spoke quite good English and we found that we had lots of things in common. We ended up going to dinner with them and experienced some wonderful Korean food. The man assured us that it was, “Very famous.” They come to Soyosan every month for a weekend and promised to call us the next time they come so that we can get together again.

Again, our nametags prompted questions about the church and I shared with them what makes our church different from other Christian churches, the message of the restoration. They looked like they were very happy together so I started by telling them that the best thing about our church is that it promised that I could be with my husband forever and that is something I look forward to doing.

Wow! What an incredible adventure in the Lord’s service. We’ll try hiking the mountain again another day but today the Lord had an errand for us.

Chuseok, A week of celebrations

This week the Koreans celebrated Chuseok which is equivalent to our Thanksgiving celebration. As missionaries, our celebration started on Monday when the sister missionaries decorated the chapel annex to celebrate the birthday of one of the elders and one of the soldiers. It was also a farewell party for Kara, a soldier they taught and baptized. We had a non-member soldier join us for our evening together. Wayne and I used a youth video with a football theme (filmed at Logan High School) to guide our scripture study.

Tuesday we served at the USO in the morning and I met with my Korean student in the evening to help her prepare for the exams she will take to apply for nursing school. She is cute to help me with my Korean conversation after our English lesson. She always giggles at my Korean. 

On Wednesday we returned to the USO for their annual celebration of Chuseok for the soldiers. The women in the picture are the women we work with dressed in their traditional holiday attire. The food is authentic Korean fare including the rice cakes and kimchi you see at the left of the picture. The other dishes are ones generally enjoyed by Americans. Just the sheer number of different dishes reminds us of all the plates we put on our own Thanksgiving table. We enjoyed the meal although the kimchie took revenge on Elder Anderson later. He keeps eating the kimchi thinking it will be okay.

Thursday is our fellowshipping night where we generally meet at the food court on the base, purchase something to eat, and visit together until it is time for the missionaries to be back in their apartments. The wife of our branch president wanted to share Chuseok with the missionaries so we shifted the venue to our apartment. She drove for 30 minutes to bring traditional Korean food for us to enjoy. She brought her sister to help her prepare the soup and rice cakes but didn’t eat with us because they had already eaten with their family. They did eat the cinnamon crumb cake I had baked for dessert. Korean desserts are not made with white sugar and are not sweet. We are told it is because they don’t like sweet foods, but I noticed her sister ate a second piece of cake before they washed their dishes and left.

           On Friday we were on a train before 6:30 a.m. to attend a mission conference in Seoul. . No one was using suit coats so Wayne hung his on a coat rack and asked me to help him remember to put it back on before we left for home.

            The conference began in a clearing in the woods above the mission home. There were birds in the trees and a very small squirrel scurrying about high above us. Two elders played hymns as a duet on a keyboard and violin as prelude. Elder Sonksen likened the place to the sacred grove where Joseph Smith received his first vision and talked a bit about the history of the church in Korea. 

Next, we hiked to the top of the mountain immediately behind the mission home and were rewarded with wonderful views of the city. It wasn’t really a hike, more like a walk up a steep road and a walk along a path with stairs and walkways. My leg did well. The, Sister Sonksen shared her perspective on the importance of the Book of Mormon in another short meeting. She asked the missionaries what their favorite word was in the Book of Mormon and the answers were quite profound. Everyone ate lunch. There were games for the missionaries. They did some arm wrestling competition with lots of cheering, a traditional Korean game with sticks, and a contest to see which four people could jump the rope together the longest. The missionaries really had fun with the jumping. Even I tried and lasted two jumps and my leg said that wasn’t something it did anymore.

            They ended the conference with a movie on Joseph. It was very powerful and left me crying at the martyrdom. President Sonksen had the missionaries reflect on their feelings and left them with a challenge to go forth and be obedient missionaries.

That was the end of the planned activities. Wayne and I grabbed our two backpacks and headed for home but the bus we caught didn’t go to our train station. We got off at a place we thought we could walk back to that station and fortuitously happened upon a small gathering of Koreans dancing in traditional costumes. It was a fun cultural experience we would have missed if we had caught the train as planned. On the way to the station I remembered Wayne’s suit coat. We made our way back to the mission home for the coat.

We were able to retrace our route to Line #1 and boarded the first train heading north. It wasn’t a train that went very far north but the man sitting next to us told us he would help us transfer trains. He was good for his word and we got on another train that came closer, but still not all the way home. The man who came to our rescue the second time waited with us for about ten minutes on the train platform and visited with us about the mountains behind us at that station. He spoke quite good English. A woman about Mary’s age came to wait for the train and I motioned for her to sit next to me. She immediately began chattering with me. I understood much of what she was saying. We talked about how many children we had and where we lived. She had a bright smile and chattered a stream. Both of these Koreans noted that we were missionaries for our church. I don’t think it was coincidence that we forgot the jacket and had to change trains so many times. We seem to have our longest exchanges with Koreans when we have need of their help.

Today was a beautiful fall day so we decided to venture up Soyosan Mountain. There is a lovely walking path with lots of old people who walk to this temple. This woman noticed my name tag and knew that I was a Mormon. We visited a bit, all in Korean, before she stopped to fill her water bottles at the spring. It is a temple that dates back to the late 400s but was destroyed with the Korean War and recently rebuilt.

 The temple consists of this gate and then the statues set up inside a shallow cave. A waterfall comes off the mountain beside it. From the temple there is a labyrinth of trails that all end on top of the mountain. We didn’t do the final assent today.

 We did see this huge toad and women scouring under the leaves for these mushrooms they sold along the walkway. We came home and warmed Korean food from the USO.

Sundays are always busy with two hours of church at the chapel above the tire store in Jihang and then sacrament meeting at the base chapel followed by a fellowshipping lesson and institute at our home. We are enjoying our institute class even though we have only one student. The Lord cares about “the one.” What a blessing to be a missionary here in the north of South Korea.

Two faces

                We had some electrical problems in our apartment this week which sent us into the neighborhood to purchase parts. In the picture you can see the display of merchandise in a typical Korean store. They have limited space and almost no shelving. The shops are chucked full of goods with an organization only the owners can decipher. The good news is that he found a part that would replace our broken one and our electrical problems are solved for now.

                As we walked, it was difficult not to note the stark difference between the more common Korean store front or doorway and the streets billed as “tourist avenues.” It reminded me of Draggon Alley in Harry Potter. The tourist section was really a series of shops hidden inside the city.

The colorful store fronts with the nice automobile in the forefront are part of what the soldiers call “The Ville.” It was built to lure the soldiers off the base and entice them to spend their money here in Korea on short-term pleasures. The officers patrol this area every weekend hoping to keep their soldiers out of trouble.

What’s behind the barred windows in the buildings that more commonly line the streets is a mystery. Who are the people who live inside? What is their story?

The reality that many of the missionary tasks we might do are dependent on the choices of others was very real this week. We had no students at our classes although several promised to attend. We did have our first institute class. We were able to bear our testimonies in two Fast and Testimony meetings. I gave a Relief Society lesson but my attempt to make a visiting teaching visit was cancelled. We were able to assist missionaries soon to return home to formulate their next-step plan. We used our limited Korean to visit with Koreans in the park, at the train station, and on the trains. Our neighbors recognize that we wear “Jesus Christ” on our shirts and they are beginning to return our greeting as we bow to them.

We took a little walk along the river tonight. About two miles north is this bridge that signals the entry to the trails up Soyosan Mountain, a popular hiking destination for local Koreans. We enjoyed the egrets and herons, cormorants and ducks in the water.

We’re still not sure why the Lord sent us to this corner of his vineyard, but we do our best every day to do what we can do. We are on the Lord’s errand and we do see His hand in so many small ways. We feel your prayers and are thankful for them.​

Missionary Miracles

This was a week of many miracles. Wayne continues to exchange greetings and Korean phrases with the men in the park. This man talks a steady stream of Korean the full loop of the park assuming he is understood. One day he will be.

 Our African members are bringing their family history data to church eager to follow the process to take their deceased family members to the temple by proxy. In the meantime, I have encouraged them to begin writing their own stories. One family is from Liberia; the other man is from Nigeria. It is just the beginning of the process and I have no clue how to research family information in Africa, so we are learning together.

One of the soldiers who was attending our meetings sporadically when we arrived recently began to attend the two-hour block of meetings and expressed on Sunday that he wanted to begin studying the Book of Mormon. He came to our Family Home Evening on Monday and our fellowshipping activity on Thursday. We’re excited at the prospect that he may soon begin taking the missionary discussions. On that same note, our new convert has been taking the new member lessons and asked if he could also be involved in an institute class on church history. Wayne and I held our first Institute Class on Friday. Our soldier hopes to complete 15-weeks of institute before he leaves the country so he has scheduled two classes for next week.

                The other big news was the acquisition of a second computer to aid in the work here. With all our lesson preps we’ve been on a tight schedule in sharing the one computer. Wayne found a computer that is literally a stick, 6”x2”x0.5” that plugs into a USB port on the television screen. I didn’t catch him with the big smile he has had on his face since we came home with the package and accessories from the BX on Friday.

Last weekend, I did well to hobble around with one crutch—no stairs. The young elders helped Elder Anderson give me a priesthood blessing on Thursday of last week and today I made the trip to the Seoul Temple, 7000 steps and 15 flights of stairs, with minimal discomfort. The Lord really does answer our prayers and open a way for us to do His work. What a blessing to be able to be in the Lord’s House to thank Him for his tender mercies.