Fearless leader

Hello Everyone! 

This week has unfortunately been filled with many goodbyes. This coming week is 추석 (ChuSeok), the biggest holiday of the year here in Korea. Because of that, I have already had to say many goodbyes, including to the Gimpo church members.

This is our ward mission leader and his wife,they have helped us so much during our time here~

In addition, we have brother Jang~ He was baptized several years ago and can't walk without the aid of crutches or a wheelchair, but he

In addition, I had my last district meeting of my mission this week and apparently this is the kind of picture you have to take when it is your last district meeting. The district has taken to calling me their "fearless leader", I shared my testimony with them before finishing and encouraged them to look to their real fearless leader, our Savior Jesus Christ :) 

Another highlight of this week was Brother Yoo coming to church again! An unexpected setback occurred when he contracted bronchitis this week, but he passed his baptismal interview and even though he is a little sick, he told me "I can't miss English class and I can't miss church." He came to English class on Saturday, then told us that he would go home and rest so that he could make it to church on Sunday morning, and he did! If all goes well this week, he will be baptized next Sunday~

That's it for me, it looks like I will only have one more email to follow this one. Have a great week, we will be enjoying the holidays here :)

Have a great week everyone!

Love,

Elder Bigelow

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

Last 6 weeks in Gimpo

Hello everyone!

As of August 26th, I started my mission 2 years ago, and I am happy to announce that I will spend my last 6 weeks in Gimpo. We received transfer calls, I will continue to serve with Elder Barnes, and only one missionary will be leaving Gimpo ward, Sister Woo

She is the first Sister missionary from Hong Kong to serve in Korea (99% of people think she is Korean when they first see her), and we took a final picture with our most diligent intermediate English class students, both of whom we are also learning a little bit about our church.

Other things this week:

-Double baptism!: The other Elders in our ward have been teaching two boys and this week they were both baptized! It has been almost a year since the last baptism in the ward, so having 3 this month was really great.

-Zone 전도: We had a zone proselyting activity in our area this week, so around 20 missionaries all came to Gimpo, switched companions, then split up and shared the joy of the gospel! And of course, we ended with a zone dinner at my favorite restaurant~

-Drills: Some of you may have heard about increased caution with regards to the activity of North Korea. Nothing is going on, but our church makes the safety of its missionaries a high priority, so our mission president got special permission to do a "drill" of sorts. If things do seem to escalate, the missionaries will meet at our headquarters in Seoul, so we woke up to a text on Friday morning that said "This is a drill, grab your 72-hour kits and be at the mission headquarters by 10 am" Since we are one of the farthest away from the headquarters, we had to leave as fast as we could, but we made it~ There we just got more training on what the actions we are to take in different situations are, then we finished by watching a slideshow... It turned out to be pretty fun!

That's it for me this week, we are getting lots of rain here but I know there is some bad flooding in parts of the US, stay safe everyone!

Love,

Elder Bigelow

Bonus round extra 6 weeks

Hello everyone! This is week 104, which would be the last week of my mission had I not gone home for surgery last year, But I can say that I am truly grateful for my "bonus round" extra 6 weeks.

Yesterday I said goodbye to my companion from the MTC, Elder Santana. He will leave next week, leaving me as the oldest (in time since starting the mission) missionary in our mission.

Other things for this week:

-Thumbs: If you look at my right thumb in the picture, you can see the sad little thumb brace I am wearing. I hurt my thumb a month or so ago but it couldn't seem to heal enough before getting hurt again, so I'm trying to protect it for a little bit~

-Broadcast: We had the special opportunity  in all of Korea to watch a broadcast just for Korea. Several General Authorities, including the General Primary President and Elder David A. Bednar did a broadcast from Salt Lake for all the members in Korea, it made us all feel special~ They taught us about the importance of putting God first in our lives, and also principles that can help us raise families in righteousness, super good!

-Bucheon: For that broadcast, we had to go to a church building about an hour away from our home. The broadcast ended at 12, but we had to attend another meeting there at 5 pm and we figured that it wouldn't be worth going home at all, so we spent the whole day there, and did a big stickerboarding activity with several other missionaries. The meeting we went to at 5 was a training meeting for teaching children's English classes. We teach for free as a service, but we want to make sure that the people we teach are actually benefited from our service and that they can maintain a positive view of our church as well, so we learned ways to be better teachers.

-Interviews: Usually when we have our interviews with our mission President, we just do it and leave, but this time we met as a district (10 missionaries) for a few hours, and those who were not being interviewed talked with Sister Turner. We did some fun group activities, and she taught us about how we can become one with our companion. We are focusing on becoming one as a mission and being able to follow the Lord's will, but it is something that has to start in the companionship before it can spread to the mission. Loving others is good~

-Sandwiches: The person that was planning to get baptized this week did not end up doing so, but we are still teaching a lot and having great experiences. One happened several days ago as we met with Brother Yoo. He has been meeting with us for a while, and loves the Book of Mormon. He said "If everyone just lived according to the words of the scriptures, tis world would have no problems!". On the other hand though, he struggles a little bit with prayer. We asked him if we had been praying, he told us no, and I was a little disheartened at first. But then he said "can we talk about prayer today? I want to be able to pray well, but I just never really know what to say. Can you give me some advice about prayer?" So, we taught him about the principle of the "prayer sandwich", because it does not matter what goes on the inside of a sandwich as long as there is a piece of bread on each end. In a similar manner, as long as we address God to begin and end in the name of Jesus Christ, what goes in between is up to the individual. He loved the metaphor and left determined to make his own prayer sandwich~

That is it for this week, have a good one!

Love,

Elder Bigelow