Stickerboarding

Hello everyone! This week was pretty amazing, here's some highlights~

One activity we do as missionaries is called stickerboarding, where we go to a busy street corner with a board that has a question on it. We hand out stickers to everyone that walks by and it gives us a good chance to talk to lots of people at one time. So this last week, my companion and I created one (pictured below) that helped us tell others about our purpose of missionaries. So the question is: "What do You Think When You See Us?"

And the 4 options for them to stick stickers on were:

-"Why are they in Korea?"

-"Am I going to have to speak English?"

-"Why are they wearing nametags?"

-"They are handsome."

We created this board so that we could easily talk to people about our free English class, and also our greater purpose as missionaries which is to help others come unto Christ. The 4th option was just an option to add some fun to the board and keep things light.. So we tried using it this week, we went to a street corner and offered stickers to everyone that walked by for an hour. The problem was, it was harder than we thought to introduce our purpose  because the overwhelming majority of people stuck their sticker on option number 4, "they are handsome". Men, women, children, couples alike all just liked the fourth option... So, maybe this week we will reevaluate our strategy and try again~

Other highlights this week:

-When we said hello to an older lady as she walked by and she said "Hey, I am a Christian too! Here, have this" and proceeded to hand us full-size snickers bars.

-We had stake conference (all the church members in a large area meet for a single meeting) this week, and somehow I can't seem to escape performing in the choir at stake conference. Last time there was stake conference, I was serving in the ward that performed as a choir, and it happened this stake conference as well, because I happened to now be serving in the ward that performed this time. The last song was "Come Unto Jesus", and the choir director shared with us the special meaning that this song had to her because there were still people in her immediate family that she needed to help come unto Jesus. So when the time came to sing in the conference, she began to cry as she conducted and we could all feel her love for the Savior, it was a tender, spiritual experience~

-Yesterday after stake conference, we had a pretty cool experience. We were waiting at the bus stop for a freeway bus that would take us straight home, which is a lot more direct than the subway(you have to transfer subway lines 3 times and then take a bus to get home from the place we were at). But right then, one of our church members who was also leaving stake conference pulled up and offered us a ride home, but they didn't have enough seatbelts to accommodate us(they offered to have one of us ride in the trunk) and as missionaries we have to use seatbelts while we ride in a car, so we thanked them and told them we would have to pass. But during that interchange, the bus we needed drove past us. We weren't worried because we knew it came every 20 minutes or so, until we looked at the monitor and saw that there was almost 50 minutes left until the bus we needed would come again. So we tried to remember the council we got from President Whiting(A member of the quorum of the Seventy) that we got last year. He said something along the lines of "nothing is a coincidence, the Lord will lead you to those who are prepared. No matter where you are as a missionary, you are there for a reason." We tried to keep that perspective in mind as we submitted to taking the subway. After the subway we had another 45 minute bus ride, and during that bus ride a 60-year old couple got on and sat in the seat across from me. I said hello, they told me I was handsome, and we started talking. As it turns out, they were our neighbors! They live in the apartment across the street from ours and they gave us their number and want to have us visit their home. So even though we had to transfer to different kinds of public transportation several times rather than riding in one comfortable bus, I felt the guidance and love of the Lord through that experience.

-We had a baptism in our ward this week! 이세용 (Duncan), who had been meeting with the other missionaries in Suji after first meeting missionaries in Gangnam, was baptized this weekend! We had a wonderful turnout, and even someone we are teaching came to watch!

-We found lots of new people to teach this week! Usually women will meet with Sister Missionaries and men meet with the Elders, but because there is only Elders serving in our area, we have started teaching several women recently. Most of them have interest in learning English as well so we help them with that, but they also all have a open heart and are searching for a religion that truly helps them feel closer to God. I'll keep you updated on how everything goes next week.

Have a great week and happy Valentine's Day!

Love,

Elder Bigelow

In my big email I talked about stickerboarding, we also did it one other time this week and it was the most awkward experience of my life. So this like 16 year old girl came up, and the question on the board was "which of these questions can you answer?" and there was 4 different questions in English. So she picked the Where do you Want to Travel? question, so I asked it to her and she said America. So I was like "hey I'm from America!" then she just nodded and kept standing there (most people walk away at this point). So I was like "do you like English?"~ another nod and she still kept standing there, so I said "Do you want to learn English?"~ another nod, but still no movement away from the board. So I said "here, take this." and gave here the English pamphlet that explains our program. SHe said "thank you", but she just kept standing there! So she just stood there for a few seconds, then looked down at the container of cookies she was holding, then back at me, then back at the cookies, then looks at me and then puts the container forward and offers me a cookie. So I was like "thanks!" but then she still just kept standing there! So after another few seconds I said "bye!" and then, finally, she walked away from the board. The other missionaries were laughing at me so hard...

Sidewalks are straight ice

Hello everyone! 

The weather is still cold here, no snow this week but now all of the sidewalks are straight ice, I haven't slipped yet (I can't say the same for my companion), but there have been plenty of close calls~

Lots of really cool things this week, we've been able to find several more people to teach, and we had a really special experience on Saturday. There is a sister in our ward that does member missionary work better than any of us missionaries can do full-time missionary work, she's a huge help to us. And she helped to organize a "youth English class"( we have a basic, intermediate, and advanced english class but they are mostly adults and sometimes it's hard for teenagers to have fun in those kinds of classes). We have been doing that for a while, and the sister in our ward invited her niece to come to the English class. Their family is not members of our church, but they had a really fun time during English class. The mom (the sister in our ward's sister-in-law) didn't really have any interest in learning English so she would wait outside for the hour during English class. So the sister in our ward thought it would be a great idea if my companion and I practiced teaching with her during that hour. We teach about our church and we want to properly convey just how important this message of hope through Jesus Christ is, but sometimes the the fact that we are doing it in a very difficult language makes it a little more, well, difficult. So, whether members of our church or not, we like to practice teaching a lot with native Koreans so that when it does come time to teach somebody with real interest, that we will be prepared. So we taught about the Plan of Salvation, God's plan for us that tells us where we came from, what our purpose in this life is, and where we will go after this life. And especially since my companion has only been learning Korean for 5 months, this was a great opportunity for him to practice teaching. So we taught this woman, and when the discussion was over, I asked "Well, how did it go?" And she said "I don't know if this teaching helped you to learn Korean at all, but I'm certain that this helped me more than it helped you. Thank you." She then set up another time to meet, and asked if she could have some material to read in advance. I don't know whether or not she will be interested in learning further, but the fact that we could say "Yes, God has answered our prayers, and he will answer yours if you seek him in honest prayer" is more of a blessing than I can explain.

I hope you all have a great week! 

Love,

Elder Bigelow

Happy lunar new year and staying in Suji

Hello everyone! Happy 설날! (lunar new year). Here's a picture of some missionaries rocking the 한복, traditional  Korean dress:

There's so much news for this week, I don't really know where to start but here I go:

Transfers: We got transfer calls this weekend, and I will be staying in suji for the next 6 weeks! And the weird part of it is that my companion Elder Curtis will be staying in Suji for the next 6 weeks too. In fact, all 4 of the missionaries in Suji right now will stay the same for the next 6 weeks. It came as a pretty big  surprise, but  I'm excited to get working right away, because we have plenty of changes coming next week anyway, namely a major change  to the missionary schedule:

You can probably research this more in-depth online, but basically missionaries have followed a rigid schedule every day for decades. But  this week, the church announced that in order for missionaries to exercise agency, be healthier, and be more prepared when they finish their mission, they now  allow lots of personal flexibility in the missionary schedule. So up until now, every morning  would follow the same schedule of waking up, exercise, breakfast and showering, personal study, companionship study, language study, Lunch, and then going out and meeting others, proselyting, etc. But now, the day is divided into 3 different blocks: 6:30-10am, 10am-9pm, and 9-9:30 pm. And within each block there are certain things  that still need to be done, but it is up to the missionary and companionship to determine  how and what order  these activities will be done in. I'm really excited for the change, it goes into effect on February 1st so I guess I'll let you know how it goes next  week. Also our Preparation/Email Day may change to Tuesday starting next week~

Other news this week:

-A family that I'm really close to in Suwon gave me a Korean name this week!  It is 장연우 (pronounced Jang-yeon-oo), and they let me know that they  considered  me a member of their family, they're the best~

-Also this week, we used our long preparation day to go hiking as a district, Korea is really cool because they  put bench presses and a bunch of other exercise equipment on the tops of mountains so that you  can get your exercise done in the fresh air. Plus, we met a Korean hiker that became our guide and showed us where the best view on the mountain was

Then the following day, our friend 권오석 (gwon-oh-seok) that we met on the subway  a few weeks ago took us out hiking on the day of the Lunar New Year, so we hiked in the snow  and then ate some ramen in a tent in the true Korean  fashion~

This week  was amazing, and I'm looking forward to even greater things  in the next few   weeks. We weren't able to meet  a lot of people last week due to thee holiday, but we think 이현숙s is ready for  a baptismal date so I'll update you all next week!

Love,

Elder Bigelow

Don't forget that the protecting angels are watching over you. Go go go!

Hello everyone!

This week we got~ more snow!  This is me hard at work

And this is a picture of me not hard at work.

This week while we were hard at work, we wandered into a part of our area that we had never been before, and we came to a mountain. There was a tunnel for the cars to go through and a small walkway, but we saw a set of stairs leading up a small hill that we thought would probably lead us more in the direction we wanted to go. But this small hill turned into a sizable mountain and the only way out was through stairs that just kept leading up. We soon found ourselves lost in the forest with a fence blocking the way we wanted to go and a very steep path to the summit. This was us at that point~

So we weighed our options and decided to summit the mountain, and so we emerged several minutes later, not actually too far from our house. Not exactly the kind of adventure we were looking for that day, but it made for some memories at least.

It's pretty cold here, and there's an older man in our ward that lets us know when the weather will be cold and gives us some encouragement. This is the text he sent us last night:

"장로님들, 오늘 날씨가 찹니다. 또 미끄럽고요. 모두 조심하세요. 장로님들 가는 길에 보호의 천사들이 장로님들을 지켜주고 있다는 것을 잊지 마세요. Go go go!???"

Rough Translation: 

"Elders, today the weather will be very cold. And also a little bit slippery, so be very careful. On your way, don't forget that the protecting angels are watching over you. Go go go!"

 I love the members of this ward, they care a lot about missionary work and they show a ton of support for us. Transfers will be next week so I'll let you know what the outcome is next email, but I'm really hoping I can be here for a long time.^^

This week we met with 이현숙s (Lee Hyeon sook), and we have been talking in our mission a lot about being bold in inviting others to be baptized recently. She has come to church a few times now and has a lot of interest in this church, so we invited her to be baptized when she received an answer from God that this church is true. She said "Of course I'll get baptized if I get an answer!" Missionary work has brought me so much joy, and I know there's so much more to come.

Have a great week everyone!

Love,

Elder Bigelow

A Californian shoveling snow

We got snow this week! This week was super cold and we even had a small snowstorm one of the days (I'm not sure how to measure how many inches it was, I'm from California). But, one of our church members expressed concern that the snow would turn into ice like last year and it would be difficult to enter the parking lot, so the other 3 elders and I went into the freezing night and shoveled our big parking lot. Fancy that, a Californian shoveling snow with 3 Utah natives~

Elder Curtis is doing well, training is almost over and I've enjoyed being able to serve with him. It's truly magical to watch a new missionary because while they feel like they haven't learned any Korean in the 3 months they've been here, you also get to watch their fluency in English slowly but steadily decrease. Elder Curtis laughs at me often for my English mistakes, but I was the one laughing when he tried to say "They will chew me up and spit me out" but instead said "they will eat me up and chew me out."

And teaching Korean is really fun, and so is watching new missionaries give it all they've got, with some fun mistakes in the process. For example: We wanted to visit one of the families

in our ward, and so when we call them I always have Elder Curtis do it so he can get lots of practice making phone calls. So he was introducing himself, but due to a small slip in grammar, instead of saying "Hi, this is Elder Curtis", he said "Woah! This is Elder Curtis!"... Laughing at your mistakes is an important aspect of learning a language too, so I'm glad he is able to do that well. 

PS this is us with our Santa lollipops(thanks mom)

One other interesting thing that is going on right now is that there is a problem with the water in the apartment of the missionaries in the area next to ours, so they are staying with us for a few days, making our apartment a 6-man house. Luckily our house is big and we don't need any bed space because we all sleep on the floor, but we're hoping food won't end up being a problem...

This week we were able to meet with somebody new, her name is 이현숙( Lee Hyeon Sook). She is about 50 years old, and called me a few weeks ago. She had seen our Free English banner on our church for a long time and wondered about our church for a long time, but it took her a whole year to build up the courage to call us. So she came to English class, and also to our post-English class Ping pong activity(I'm getting trained by an elderly ping pong master and it's great), and began to talk with some of the church members. They invited her to church, and she came to church the following day, and expressed interest in reading the book of mormon along with talking about it. So we met her this week with a few of our church members, and the discussion went really well. She has lots of questions, and is really sincere about her search to find a church that is right in a world where there are thousands of churches and even more things vying for our attention. What a great blessing it was for us as missionaries to be able to say, "Your search is finished, you've found it"

Love you all, have a great week!

-Elder Bigelow

PS this is a picture with me and Elder Forthman(the other greenie that lives with us) on exchanges

PPS there's an American family in our ward and their adorable son really likes spiderman so this Sunday I showed him my Spiderman themed Book of Mormon case and he now believes I'm the real Spiderman and now he looks at me with awe but also a hint of fear.

Favorite Sunday of my mission

Hello everyone! I hope you all had a great week! We are doing well over here, the weather was very favorable this week, but we are promised some pretty cold temperatures over the next few days.

This week has been very good, and yesterday (Sunday) was one of my favorite Sundays of my mission. 

We started of by giving a priesthood blessing of comfort and counsel to one of the sisters in our ward. She is American and wanted a blessing in English, so  my companion Elder Curtis did it and did a wonderful job.

After that, we had Fast and Testimony meeting, which is the church meeting we have once a month where members of the congregation can come up and share their testimony, or what they know to be true.

(Side story: We did a play about finding Jesus for our ward Christmas party and for the New Friends Party the next week, the people who saw it all liked it and we have continued to see the effects of it recently. The day after we did the play the second time, one of the members of our ward invited us over for dinner. When we got there, she said "I've been meaning to invite you missionaries over for a long time, but I've been so busy with the move. But I saw your play last night and thought "Wow, those missionaries worked so hard and did a good job on that play, I better feed them some dinner" Pretty cool huh?)

Anyways, the stake president is a member of our ward and he happened to be there today, so he got up and bore his testimony, and he talked about our play in his testimony! There is a part in the play where the mission president calls and tells the missionary that he will be transferred (assigned to serve in a different area), and the missionary asks, "okay, when are transfers?" to which the Mission president responds "now", and the new missionary is thrust on to the stage. So as the stake president spoke, he said that when he saw that part of the play, it really made him think- He thought "if the Lord calls me to move or act now, will I be ready to heed his call?" and proceeded to share a great testimony about that subject. And all of the missionaries were beaming because our play even made it into testimony meeting :)

After church ended, we met with 임정희 (Im Jeong Hee), a woman who was baptized right before I moved to Suji. So we have been teaching her the recent convert lessons since then, (she got a pretty bad burn on her leg so hasn't been able to come to church for the past few weeks, but ) we taught the last of the lessons yesterday. She really has a powerful testimony of the truth of this church and has been able to see a lot of blessings that have come from being a member of this church. Towards the end of the lesson, one member of the stake presidency came in and helped teach the remainder of the lesson, and I asked him at the end if he would pray to end the lesson. He asked 임정희s if there was anything specific that she wanted him to pray for. She began to cry and asked if he would pray that she would be able to go through this difficult world together instead of alone. Her husband still has not decided to join the church, and although she has found lots of joy through the gospel, it is still hard when a family member or spouse  does not choose to join. There are lots of situations like this in Korea especially, so I really want to be able to help the best I can.

After that we met 이정수 (Lee Jeong Su), we haven't been able to meet him in a month or so because he has been on a trip, but we met him yesterday with another one of the Young Men in the ward(who is waiting for a mission call). 이정수b shared with us that he had come to know in the past month that God existed. He was trying to get into a very prestigious high school, and he passed the written test but then had to do an interview. They called his name and he walked up to the door of the interview room. He took a deep breath, and then hesitated  for a second. At that moment, the first snow of the year began to fall outside of the window. And at that moment, he said he could feel that God was watching over him and helping him through it all. So we were able to have a good discussion about the role and the promptings of the Holy Ghost.

Anyways, missionary work is the best and I hope you all have a great week!

New Friends Party

Happy 2017 everyone!  새해 복 많이 받으세요!^^ I'm now 21 by the Korean age system, which is pretty cool I guess~
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To bring in the new year, we had something called the "New Friends Party" on the night of the 31st. This party was for people that had been baptized within the last year, to help them get to know the church members and missionaries better. So missionaries and church members from several cities gathered and had a great meeting with songs, speakers, performances (we did our Christmas play again...) and a dinner of burritos and sushi to finish off the night. I don't know how the quality will be, but here's a picture^^

Other fun things this week:

-For our children's English class this week, we decided to do a life-size game of chutes and ladders to help learn adjectives. So there was a giant gameboard that we made with your chutes and ladders, and then each square had an adjective that the child had to use in a sentence. We seemed to overlook the fact that kids are little balls of energy when we came up with this idea so there was adjectives and ladders and kids flying all over the place, but they had fun and we can only hope that they remember their adjectives~

-I have something that I have named the "ramen curse" that has plagued me my entire mission. So in Korea, there are dozens, maybe hundreds of types of ramen that are very delicious and very cheap. But despite that, we are always told by our mission president's wife to limit your consumption of ramen, mainly due to the fact that there is very little nutritional value. So I don't eat it often, but there are days when we don't have much other food or we don't have much time, so we will have a quick lunch of ramen and maybe some rice. But my "ramen curse" is that every single time I choose to eat ramen, somebody decides to take me and my companion out for lunch immediately after.. Every time.

-We had an appointment to go visit one of our church members and eat lunch with him this week. So we met him outside his apartment and headed inside, and both me and my companion were quite perplexed when we walked inside and there was a woman that was not his wife making food in the kitchen. This woman is also a member of our ward, which confused us even more. So both my companion and I sat there wondering if we were just not remembering correctly, but I was 99% sure that they were both married to different people(and they had different last names so I knew they couldn't be siblings). So my companion and I were both very confused and a little worried, but we just acted normal and figured that we would figure out what was going on eventually. So our church member (I don't know if he could sense the confusion in our eyes or has had to explain the situation several times before) turns to us and says "go ahead and take a seat, I want to show you a picture." He then brought out his family picture and proceeded to explain that that the other woman from our ward had married the brother of his wife, so they were sibling-in-laws and both families lived together. So, we breathed a sigh of relief and had a great lunch together~

I hope you all enjoyed your 2016 and are looking forward to a bright 2017. This is my last year as a full-time missionary, and I am so grateful for the opportunity to represent Jesus Christ in Korea, even if it doesn't last forever. 

Happy New Year everyone!

-Elder Bigelow