23 people at church!!

Hello everyone!

This week was transfers, and I'm now in a trio with Elder Price and Elder 강한빛(Kang), he is Korean and is fluent since he learned English pretty much his whole life, I've only managed to use a few words he doesn't understand in English this week, but I keep trying :)

Now in our house we have 5 people, including Elder Fehoko who also moved in, he's a football player for Stanford University     in California so we go through food considerably faster now...

This week at church was pretty unique because we had 23 people at church! It was the most I've ever seen, most of it was due to a new Branch President being called, and the previous branch president being released. The stake presidency was all there, and it was great to spend time with so many church members. Somebody that we are teaching also came this week! Her name is 이연주s, and we weren't able to meet for a while but she has shown a lot of interest recently and came to church for the first time, she said that she really enjoyed the fact that learning was done in a discussion format where all present were welcome to share their thoughts and discuss, rather than one person delivering a message to everyone else. Also during the meeting, there was a time to sustain(or show approval) the new branch president. In our church, we believe that those who are called to lead are called by revelation, and every member present is invited to raise their hand to show whether or not they approve or oppose every new calling. So the woman turned to me and said, "oh, so is it like a majority rule here?" so I said "no, it's actually based on a unanimous vote, and if even one person opposes, then that person is invited to talk later and explain why they disapprove, and the decision is reconsidered." I think at that time I was again grateful to be part of a church that is full of faithful members and led by divine inspiration, especially in a time where the world can't seem to agree on anything. Anyways, we're excited to keep meeting with her and her daughter, and to bring lots of other people to the church!

The new branch president (leader of the congregation) has lots of great ideas to help the church grow, and one of his ideas was through lots of sports activities, so this week we had a 족구(a sport that is like volleyball except with your feet instead of hands) court set up in our parking lot and invited everyone to come and play, we had over 15 people there on our first week! Then he had ramen prepared, because there's nothing that brings people closer than sitting together and eating ramen and kimchi. It was a super successful activity, so we're looking forward to continuing that as well.

I think that's it for me, sorry for the lack of pictures but I'll send double next week. Have a great week everyone!

Elder Bigelow