Army Soup

Hello Everyone!

This week was pretty historic, yesterday the stakes(a geographical area of church members) of Suwon and Yeong Dong were combined to form the new Gyeong-gi Stake. So we met with about 700 people to make the official changes, with the meeting presided over by Elder Choi of the Quorum of the Seventy and Sister McConkie of the General Primary Presidency. Although we all wish that more stakes were being created instead of shrinking, the leaders emphasized the importance of unity, through a particularly unique example...

This is actually dog meat. 

-One very traditional and popular food in Korea is called kimchi soup, which is very delicious. After the end of the Korean war in the 20th century, Koreans didn't have a lot of food left, and many of them were starving. So, they borrowed some of the staple foods from the American soldiers, namely meats such as ground beef and hot dog meat. But now that combination, called army soup, is served nationwide today and is even more delicious in some people's opinion (including mine). So they talked about how although combining may not seem like a great idea at first, you'll find that things are even better together :)

I'm not sure if I mentioned this last week, but the choir in our ward congregation sang a song in church last Sunday, which of course the missionaries got to participate in. But somehow, they decided we were good enough to sing in front of all 700 people at the meeting yesterday... There were only about 25 of us, but it went well! Although I hope the people in the back could hear us...

Also this week, one of the ward members hosted a dinner and activity for the young single adults in our ward, and the missionaries got to plan the lesson and game. The exchange students from BYU even found their way over to the house, and it was a great time.

We've been working a lot on finding new people that we can teach, and we were blessed to find 3 new people. Two of them are friends with mental disorders that limit them a little bit, but they told us sincerely that they want to change and be better people, and that they trust that we will be able to help them. It was a great reminder to me that the primary role of a missionary is that of service, and doing so will lead us in the direction that the Savior would have us go.

As hard as missionary work can sometimes be, I'm so grateful for the opportunity that I have to be a missionary in Korea, it's the best!

Have a good week everyone!

-Elder Bigelow