Do you have a rock in here or something?

Hello Everyone!

This week was great! For our Zone Conference, we hiked around 남한산성 (which means South Korea Mountain Fortress), it was the place where the Korean nation was overrun almost 1500 years ago, and it was quite picturesque 

We were asked to bring a backpack with several items, including a large rock that we were not told the purpose of. I didn't have a backpack that I could use, so I put all my stuff, including my rock in a shopping bag and went on Preparation day to buy an inexpensive backpack that I could use. I picked out a bag, and the worker offered to put the shopping bag I was carrying into the backpack for me. When she lifted my bag to put in inside the backpack, she said, "Wow, this is heavy! Do you have like a rock in here or something??" Rather than spend time explaining why I actually had a large rock in my bag, I just laughed nervously, thanked her, and continued on my way...

The hike was great, we had periodic breaks where we received training from our mission President, his wife, and some of the other missionaries, and towards the end of the hike we finally got to remove the rocks from our backpack. Sister Turner, our mission president's wife, explained that she wanted each of us to think of one weakness that we have, then take the rock out of our backpack, leave it on the mountain, and never come looking for it again, and then asked us to do the same with our weaknesses, it was a really cool object lesson and a really great day overall~

Other things this week:

-Exchanges: I got to go back to one of my old areas this week, Incheon, for one day. We met with a Mongolian father and his daughter who have some interest in our church, and they took us to a meat buffet (one of the wonders of Korea). The husband spoke pretty good Korean, but for most of the conversation he would speak Mongolian and his daughter would translate it to Korean, they were a great family~

-We still spend most of our time trying to find people to teach, and this week we worked especially hard and were able to meet lots of people on the street, but still hadn't been able to find anyone to continue teaching. As we prepared for church on Sunday morning, we got a call from a woman who said that we had spoken to her husband on the bus. She was interested in learning English and also wanted to come and see what our church was like one time. I told her all the information, but it was an hour before church was going to start and we didn't expect her to show up this week. But just as the meeting started, she walked in with her son! Her son is 4, and he loved spending time with the kids his age, and said to his mom "Mom, I like God." The mother also enjoyed all the meetings, there are a lot of misconceptions about our church in Korea because other churches often put false information online and teach it in their churches, but she decided to try it once, and she found that the beliefs and values that she held close were in harmony with what we taught, and she found a satisfaction that she had not found from other churches before. She has been going to church her whole life, and she was tired of all the people in church asking for money to have her questions answered, so the fact that missionaries in our church are not paid initially drew her to this church. During the meeting, she turned to me and said "Is this church in New Zealand too?" (they are planning to emigrate there next year), and when I told her yes, she said "perfect" She wants us to meet with her family, so We will see how it goes!

Have a great week everyone!

Love,

Elder Bigelow

130 copies of the Book of Mormon

Hello everyone!

As promised, here is a picture of our district~

There are 4 missionaries in Cheongna and the 6 of us missionaries in Gimpo~ We have 5 Americans, one Filipino, one Filipino/Canadian, 2 Koreans, and 1 sister from Hong Kong, and they're all great~

Recently in our mission we have been focusing on the story of Enos from the Book of Mormon and how we can be closer to God and receive answers to our prayers, as well as caring for the welfare of our brethren. So we have studied and discussed it quite a bit in Companionship studies and in District meeting, and we will actually have a special Zone conference tomorrow to discuss it. Tonight we will sleep in our mission headquarters, then in the morning tomorrow we will hike a mountain with our mission President and conduct Zone conference there, we're super excited!

Other things this week:

-Our apartment is right next to a really big sports stadium(this is a picture from our apartment window)

In this sports complex, the Gimpo soccer team plays games most weekends, so every once in a while, we hear a roar of applause and we silently cheer for our Gimpo team that just scored a goal~

-Snickerdoodles: One thing that I've done for the larger part of my mission is make lots of cookies at once and give them to those we visit, teach, or have helped us in some way, just so that we can show our appreciation in some small way. Our ward mission leader bought us some eggs last week (which is really special because there is some chicken disease going around so they're killing all the chickens and eggs are really expensive now), so we gave him some cookies after church on Sunday, to which he said "thank you so much. You know, if the sister missionaries make some cookies it's pretty normal so you just say thank you and move on, but the fact that the elders made cookies.. this is no small occasion.. thank you so much"  One thing I was told to do when I came to this area was to try and improve the ward relationship, and so far things are going very well! In priesthood meeting during church this week, we spent a good amount of time discussing how we can focus ward missionary efforts on the youth, the ward here is starting to take a new interest in missionary work, it's exciting!

-BuPyeong: This week we had a combined missionary activity on top of the largest underground market in Korea where we shared over 130 copies of the Book of Mormon!

That's it for this week I think!  We are still working to find people to teach, we've been really good so far at finding people who cancel :) We'll keep looking~ Have a great week everyone!

Love,

Elder Bigelow

Kimbab and fried chicken

Hello everyone!

This week was great, it started off with Korean Memorial Day, everyone in our apartment put flags on their windows to show respect~

And since Tuesday was my last day in Anseong, the Branch President, his wife, and a member of the stake presidency came down and we had a meal consisting of kimbab and fried chicken, a lot of fried chicken(for anyone who has eaten 네네치킨, this was 6마리 for 8 people plus a large serving of 김밥)

Then on Wednesday Morning, I packed my bags and headed to my new area, Gimpo~ This place is pretty great. We live on the top (18th) floor of our apartment, and there's an airport nearby so we get a plane flying right above us every few minutes

My new companion is Elder Luce, he's from Ohio and he likes music and he's super cool. He has been in Korea for 3 months and works super hard, I think we're going to get along well~

There are now 4 missionaries in our house, and I was asked to serve as District Leader for the 6 missionaries in Gimpo and the 4 missionaries in Cheongna, the area right below us. All the district members are really amazing, so I think the next 6 weeks will be great~

The ward here is also really great, there's about 50 people that attend weekly, which isn't a ton but it's a whole lot more than Anseong so I really enjoyed meeting all of the church members here. And we have enough people to do all 3 hours of church :)

We don't currently have anyone to teach, so we're spending a lot of time getting to know the area, talking to lots of people, and getting to know the members.

I'm really excited to be serving here for most likely the remainder of my time in Korea (I only have 4 months left now ㅜㅜ), I'll let you know how things are going next week!

Love,

Elder Bigelow

Gimpo-the only area in our mission that touches North Korea

Hello everyone!

As it turns out, I will be transferring this week- I will be going to an area called 김포(Gimpo). My current area, Anseong, is the very southeast end of our mission boundary, and Gimpo is the very northeast edge of our mission boundary,so I'm going about as far as I can. Gimpo is also the only area in our mission that touches North Korea~

I'll leave this wednesday and let you know how the new area is next week!

Luckily My mission President gave me a few weeks advance notice of my upcoming transfer,so I had enough time to say goodbye to everyone~

This is the stake President and his wife, they are super busy and live really far away but they came to visit us every week to buy us lunch and help us with missionary work, they are the greatest~

These are some members of our Saturday English class group, I think our English class is the most multiracial in all of Korea~

And this is one of our most faithful English students, Brad. Every day after class he took us to the convenience store and bought us some drinks~

Sorry there's not a lot for this week, but I'll let you know how the new area is next week. Happy Korean memorial day!

-Elder Bigelow