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