Brother Yoo came to church

Hello everyone!

This week was really great! We are now into to the fall season, personally it's my favorite Korean season and I think that 97% of Koreans share the same opinion. We are taking the opportunity with the cool weather to get outside and talk to everyone!  This week we had a big activity, where 22 missionaries came to our area and worked together, we were able to talk to a ton of people and have a great time while we were at it~

-Other things for this week: 

-Twist potato!- I have seen the twist potato (a fried potato on a stick) in various places throughout my time here, but I figured since I only have a few weeks left, I had to try it before it was too late

It was glorious~

-This week we ate at a popular fast food restaurant here called "mom's touch," they specialize in "Cajun style" chicken burgers. I got my burger to find that the tape holding the packaging together was cut very unfortunately...

yoo 

-This week 유성진 (brother Yoo) came to church! We have met with him for a few months and the thing that kept him from coming to church every Sunday is now finished and he came to church yesterday. He really enjoys learning about this gospel and says that he wishes he could have found this earlier in his life. The members were very welcoming, and he is looking forward to coming again next week!

More to follow in week 110 (wow that's a lot of weeks...)!

Love,

Elder Bigelow

393 Verses

Hello everyone!

This week was good! It started off on a high note when we went bowling during preparation day and I bowled my all-time high score of 214. I was feeling pretty smug about my 5 strikes in a row until the middle school team started bowling next to us and the girl next to me bowled 9 strikes in a row...

The following day was Zone Conference, where we meet with the mission President and other missionaries to receive training and instruction. It was my last one as a missionary, and in our mission they have you share your testimony at your last Zone conference. I shared the story of going home to receive surgery, and some of the fun things I did while I was home. And I also told about how many people have asked "Wasn't it hard to come back on a mission after going back to normal life? Didn't you just want to stay home?" I have of course told all of those people "There's not one second while I was in America that I didn't want to be back in Korea as missionary." I encouraged all of the missionaries to remember how great the calling of a missionary is, because there is no other time in your life when you will go to bed every night so tired, yet so satisfied with the work you are doing.

After Zone Conference ended, we did a proselyting activity called "Are you better than a Foreigner?" We had several different events (arm wrestling, soccer juggling, drawing, using chopsticks, rubik's cube, etc.) and we invited people to have fun by challenging the foreigners to see who would win. During this, we also had a good opportunity to share our purpose as missionaries. I didn't really have any talents worth challenging Korean people, I mean I've learned a lot of Korean the past two years but I think Korean people would beat me at that pretty easily. So, I stood at the front and explained to people that approached us what we were doing and explained the events we were having. It turned out to be really successful!

Also we sang a song at Zone Conference with the Gimpo missionaries~

This week in church we had 3 sister missionaries that finished their mission last year come visit and sing a song, I served with each of them so it was a fun reunion! (they are the 3 in the middle)

Also this week I finished a project that I started in the first few months of my mission. I read the standard works of scripture (and the 4 books in the missionary library) and marked all the verses that I felt applied to missionary work. After finishing reading all of it, I wrote them all down with a brief description or my thoughts on it, I finished this week with a total of 393 verses~ It took almost my entire mission, but it has increased my faith and completely changed the way I see missionary work~ I love being a missionary, it's a shame that it has to come to a close so soon.

English mistake of the week: "Thanks you"

Have a great week everyone!

Returning home safely

Hello everyone! This is a photo of our entire mission, we had a hard time fitting into one frame but we managed~

This week:

등산: For our district Preparation Day last week, we went hiking! There are lots of mountains in Korea and many Koreans love hiking (especially retired people), so we picked a mountain nearby that was recommended by an elderly English class member who said that she hiked that mountain every morning. We decided that if that was the case, it would be pretty easy for a bunch of fit young adults. However, we ended up gaining a lot of respect for this elderly woman on our hike when we counted almost 4,000 stairs on the round trip. It wasn't easy, but we made it to the top and had a picnic~

​And here is my cool solo photo: If you look behind me you can see what  most of Korea looks like from the sky

-모험: On Friday, we did a sticker boarding activity with all 6 missionaries in Gimpo. It went well, and after an hour or so we finished. We usually ride separate buses from other missionaries but we wanted to prevent being late, so we all took the same bus. It turned out to be the right bus but the wrong direction, so we hurried and changed buses. It was then that the sister missionaries realized that they left their phone on the first bus we took... So after calling the phone a few times, I gave up and texted the mission office, telling them to call me when they had a second. I was waiting for them to call, but then I had the thought to try calling the phone one more time. I decided to do it, and this time someone picked up the phone!(We do not have expensive phones, but we meet many people and store their contact information in our phones, so they are important to the work we do as missionaries) They said the phone was now at the bus terminal and they told us we could come pick it up. Instead of sending the sister missionaries to a place they had never been before with no phone late at night, we just decided that we would go try to find it. So we rode another bus, one that I was pretty sure would go to the same bus terminal as the one that the phone was lost on. But as we rode it, I had another random thought to switch buses to the same one that the phone was lost on, just to be safe. So we decided to do that, we came to find out that the bus terminals were actually different, and we would have ended up in the wrong place late at night if we had not changed buses. Thanks to our kind bus driver, we arrived at the terminal safely and got the cell phone. We were told by our bus driver to wait in a spot for a departing bus, but after a while, none came. The bus driver then said to us, "I'm getting off work now anyways, I'll just drive you to E-mart." So we got in his car and began driving. We talked for a little bit before he turned to us and said "Do you know North Korea?" After we told him yes, he said "I'm from there". As we talked more, we learned of how he escaped from North Korea 5 years ago to get away from the trouble there. Those who escape from North Korea can't come directly into Korea, they instead have to go first to Thailand, then to China, then through a southern country like Laos or Vietnam before actually arriving in Korea. I said to him "Wow, that must have been so hard." to which he curtly replied "It's a lot easier than dying." I wanted to find out so much more, but we arrived at our destination, so we gave him our contact info and said goodbye. We then rode another bus, and arrived home safely. It was pretty late, past the time that missionaries normally go to bed, but as I reflected on the experience, I realized that we were able to obtain the phone quickly and return home safely because of the guidance of the Spirit. I thought again of a General Conference talk I read this week from Elder Rasband (https://www.lds.org/general-conference/2017/04/let-the-holy-spirit-guide?lang=eng). He said 

"Remember the words of Nephi. “I was led by the Spirit, not knowing beforehand the things which I should do. Nevertheless,” he said, “I went forth.”16

And so must we. We must be confident in our first promptings. Sometimes we rationalize; we wonder if we are feeling a spiritual impression or if it is just our own thoughts. When we begin to second-guess, even third-guess, our feelings—and we all have—we are dismissing the Spirit; we are questioning divine counsel. The Prophet Joseph Smith taught that if you will listen to the first promptings, you will get it right nine times out of ten.17

Think of it as being what is called a first responder. In most communities the first responders to a tragedy, disaster, or calamity are firefighters, police officers, paramedics. They arrive with lights flashing, and may I add, we are so incredibly grateful for them. The Lord’s way is less obvious but requires just as immediate a response. The Lord knows the needs of all His children—and He knows who is prepared to help. If we let the Lord know in our morning prayers that we are ready, He will call on us to respond. If we respond, He will call on us time and time again and we will find ourselves on what President Monson calls “the Lord’s errand.”19 We will become spiritual first responders bringing help from on high.

If we pay attention to the promptings that come to us, we will grow in the spirit of revelation and receive more and more Spirit-driven insight and direction. The Lord has said, “Put your trust in that Spirit which leadeth to do good.”20

May we take seriously the Lord’s call to “be of good cheer, for I will lead you along.”21 He leads us by the Holy Ghost. "

This experience led me to increased faith that the Spirit will lead and guide us~

-침례날짜: We have been meeting with 유성진Brother Yoo for some time now, and he has expressed for a long time a desire to be baptized. He isn't able to come out to church until the end of this month, but he decided to prepare to be baptized on October 8th(my last Sunday as a missionary). We are praying that all will work out to allow him to do so.

That's it for me, have a great week everyone!

Love,

Elder Bigelow

Looking for crabs to throw in our ramen

Hello everyone! The change of seasons has come here faster than normal, so we have had some cooler weather here, though it does worry me a bit because I may have already sent my winter clothes back to America...

This is a little delayed but last week we took a trip to the beach with the coolest family in the Eastern Hemisphere~ Missionaries aren't allowed to swim so wading was the best we could do :) 

This is us looking for crabs to throw in our ramen..

Other things for this week:

-이동: With transfers, both of the sisters in our district are training, so we got two brand new missionaries! Stay tuned for photos next week~

-영어: We got a call from a woman this week, she is Vietnamese but is pretty fluent at Korean, she wants us to come and teach her 3 kids and 3 other neighborhood kids English and the gospel, some of them are only 3 or 4 years old so wish us luck~

-Things are going well here in Gimpo, we have a few people that we are continuing to teach and we are spending lots of time trying to find more that are ready to hear the good news of the gospel. Life is good!

That's it for me, have a great week!

Love,

-Elder Bigelow