Surely there could not be a happier people

Hello everyone!

I hope you all are having a happy Mother's Day! The month of May has lots of holidays in Korea, including Children's Day, Parent's Day, and Teacher's Day so it's a great month to look around and be grateful for the people that are in our lives~ I got to Skype my family for the 4th and final time during my mission yesterday, being able to talk with my family always reminds me again why I'm out here away from my family. My family is far from perfect and so am I, but the Gospel of Jesus Christ and God's perfect plan of happiness has been the glue that has held my family together, and so I'm grateful for the privilege of leaving my family for a little bit so that other families can find that same foundation :)

Some cool things from this week:

-Korean P-day: All the Koreans serving in our mission met in Seoul on our Preparation day, and since we have a Korean companion we got to attend too~ Korean people are the coolest

-Farming, episode 6: This week our farming adventure was clearing all the weeds on an elderly woman's farm, we got a giant pile about 5 feet high and I couldn't help but think "I remember when my mom used to pay me 1 cent for each weed I pulled in our yard, if that applied today I think I'd be rich." This is our farming attire featuring our pile of weeds in the background~

don't have any pictures in missionary attire recently but I promise I don't walk around in jeans every day...

-22 people!: We had 22 people at church this week which is super high in this area, some visitors and some people that we haven't seen in a long time. The Cambodian woman that I mentioned a few weeks ago came again this week, so we helped her after church with English and talked about how we could help her get to church in the future. She was baptized about 3 years ago in Cambodia and right now works on an egg farm in Korea, and she has really strong faith, so when her work ended early on Sunday instead of going home to sleep she got ready and got there just in time for church!

-We've been focusing a lot in our mission on utilizing the Book of Mormon to help other people have personal experiences with feeling the Spirit and finding a testimony, so I have been reading myself as well, because you can never go wrong reading the Book of Mormon. This week I read in 3 Nephi, which tells of the crowning event of the Book of Mormon, Jesus Christ's visit to the people in the ancient American continent after his Resurrection. After Jesus teaches them and leaves, this verse of scripture is recorded:

15 And it came to pass that there was no contention in the land, because of the love of God which did dwell in the hearts of the people.

16 And there were no envyings, nor strifes, nor tumults, nor whoredoms, nor lyings, nor murders, nor any manner of lasciviousness; and surely there could not be a happier people among all the people who had been created by the hand of God.

This verse has been a great reminder to me that the greatest happiness in life can be found when we decide to follow the example of Jesus Christ, it's really that simple :)

Have a great week everyone!

Love,

Elder Bigelow