Talking to people you don't know

Hello everyone! 

This week has been really great, the weather has been great and I've gotten to meet a lot more of the people we've been teaching recently. In fact, we met with a man named 서정훈,(Seo jeong Hun) who loved in America for 15 years. He lived mostly in California, and actually lived in Modesto, California for 6 months during the time I lived in Modesto! So who knows, maybe we were neighbors back when I was 7...  We are helping him to try and quit smoking so he can be baptized, it's very difficult to quit but he recognizes that having an addiction can limit the choices that we can make, and he really wants to stop. He has recognized that when he prays for help, it's easier not to smoke, so he is starting to see that change is possible with help from the Savior, and it's been amazing to see.

Other things this week:

-Do you remember our class with the North Korean and Chinese students? This week, we were accompanied by President and Sister Turner (the Mission President), as well as Brother and Sister Robinson, the couple in charge of Public Relations for the entire country of Korea. They were very happy with the interaction that they saw, and they even mentioned wanting to bring 25 or so missionaries to the school to do a big activity day. Here's some pictures that we got~(notice that you don't wear your shoes inside the classroom)

It's a super fun class, I'm excited to keep working with them~

-After the class, we ate lunch in the cafeteria with all those that had attended the class, I sat across from Sister Turner (we call her the mission "Mom"). She turned to me, scooped the tofu out of her soup and dropped it into my soup. Then she said "you're my son, so you have to eat the food that I don't want :)" It's a good thing I developed a taste for tofu on my mission...

-We have been teaching a mom and her daughter both English and about our church for the past few weeks, they are both really great. And the mom found a music video that was made by a missionary somewhere else. It was a parody of the song "Hello from the Outside" by Adele, and she would highly recommend it to everybody :) But someone in Korea had uploaded it to a blog with a description about what the job of missionaries is, and how we want to share our message of happiness even though there may be things that are difficult or out of our comfort zone, and even though there are a lot of times where we face rejection. When the mom read that, she said it really hit here and she said to me "that's not really your personality, huh? Talking to people that you don't know is pretty hard, isn't it?"

So I told her "Definitely, it's hard for everybody and it's definitely not natural for me either. And I knew that before I came on my mission, and I worried about it a lot. But I knew that being a missionary and sharing the happiness that I've felt with others is worth overcoming any doubt or fear that we may have."

Missionary work is the greatest. The end. Have a great week everyone!

Love,

Elder Bigelow

Are you Arabic?

Hello everyone!

Well, I'm here in 안성 (Anseong) now, Monday and Tuesday was spent packing and saying goodbye to lots of church members and people that we have been teaching that I was able to get close to during my time in Suji. I can't fit all the pictures in my email, but they are all on DropBox! Here is one though, this is 최석원, the ex-pastor that we have been teaching for a while, he's the best~

Then on Wednesday I met Elder Price, my new companion in Anseong. I made sure to get a picture this time Mom :)

Elder Price is super cool, he's from a city called Cedar Hills near Provo. He was actually companions with Elder Curtis (my last companion) in the MTC(he's been in Korea for 4.5 months now), and he is also the first companion that is younger than me. He likes singing, all music, and running and he is a killer missionary. I'm super excited to work with him.

We live with a companionship of 2 Korean missionaries, Elder 추지웅 and Elder 김지현, and this is also the first time I've lived with a Korean missionary. They are also both super cool, they are great cooks and it's like a nonstop language exchange in our house.

As far as the Anseong area goes, it is quite the change from all my other areas. It is pretty much all countryside, with a very small section of city near our house. All I can say is that I saw cows here for the first time in Korea, and I saw many cows this week. Most of the people that we meet on the street have talked to us before, so it's definitely a smaller community feel here. 

The branch (our church congregation) had 15 people in attendance on Sunday, 4 of them were missionaries, and another 4 were people that weren't actually members of the branch. Everyone there is so nice, and I'm excited to be serving here. I'll let you know more next week!

-Other things this week:

-"No I am not Arabic": Because I have dark hair and dark eyebrows, there are so many Korean people I meet that think I have ancestors that are Arabic. This is how the conversation goes every time:

"You look like you have ancestors that were Arabic"

-"No, I don't have any ancestors from that area"

"Are you sure?"

-"Yes, I'm sure"

"Oh... where are your ancestors from then?"

-"Mostly from the England, Scotland, Ireland area"

"Are you sure? You've got to have some southern European in there if you're not Arabic. No Spanish or Italian blood or anything?

-"No, I don't have any ancestors from there"

"Are you sure? There has to be some other blood there.."

-"I think there may have been some Native American blood in my family at some point in time"(the only explanation I can give that satisfies them)

"Ahh, that makes sense. Now I understand. You're native American!"

-English class!: Here in this area we have a very special service project, and that is teaching English to North Koreans~ I don't know if you can call them refugees, but there is a school for kids that came over the border from North Korea, or their parents came across the border, or they came from China. Kids that come from China or North Korea are often made fun of or left out by other kids in normal schools, so there was a school created where they can have a healthy environment for their education. And so once a week, we visit their English class and help them practice their English. It's super fun, and I'm excited to keep volunteering there!

-There was somebody in this area from Laos that was planning to be baptized the week before I got here, but then he called the night before and said something about his mom in Laos not wanting him to get baptized, and we haven't heard from him since (he doesn't have a cell phone so it complicates things a little bit). So we are just going to have to go to his college campus and pray that we'll find him so we can talk to him and see what's going on. So pray for us that we'll be able to find him!

That's it for this week, I'll let you know how things are going next Monday!

Love,

Elder Bigelow

Going to Ahn-seong!

Hello everyone!

I guess I'll start with transfer news~ This Saturday we got transfer calls letting us know if we would stay in our current area or move. And as much as I would love to keep working here in Suji, I've been assigned from this Wednesday onward to serve in 안성 (Ahn-seong). This area is the most opposite of Seoul that you can get while still remaining in our mission boundaries. It is at the very southern tip of our mission, and it is primarily a farming city (if you remember the day where I visited an area and cut down sesame stalks with a sickle, it's that place). As far as church attendance goes, there is about 10-15 people at church every week. The stake leaders are considering combining this branch with the ward above it. The problem is that the closest building is an hour away, so if they combine them, the members of the church that haven't come to church in a while have a very small chance of coming back to church because the new building would be so far away. So what they are trying to do is focus missionary efforts there for about a year and try to bring all of those people back to church, and if it doesn't work, combine the two congregations after that year. What that also means is that they are having missionaries serve in the branch presidency, one Korean and one foreigner. The foreigner that has been serving there for the last 3 months is going home, so I am going to replace him there, which may mean serving in the branch presidency but I'm not sure so I will let you know next week~ There's going to be a lot of effort required and I will probably stay there until I finish my mission, but I'm excited to do all I can and see the hand of the Lord revealed in this area~

Other things this week:

-Giant Book of Mormon!: There were missionaries in Japan a while ago that made a giant Book of Mormon out of a door, then took it to a busy subway station and shared with everyone how great of a book it is. It was very successful there, so we thought we would try it out here. This is our finished product:

Cool right?

-More Book of Mormon: There is a woman in our ward that has a doctorate in Korean language and is very celebrated as a blog writer, she even proofreads the Korean translations of the church produced magazines. She just published her second book a few weeks ago, and her first book was her testimony and thoughts on several verses from the Old Testament, New Testament, and the Book of Mormon. In fact, it was the first book that talks about the Book of Mormon to be sold in Korean bookstores. And this week as a parting gift she gave one to the missionaries, personally signed and everything!

-English mistake of the week: I was eating some ramen noodles with my companion a few days ago, and it was a type of ramen with very skinny noodles (many types of ramen in Korea have thicker noodles). So in my attempt to say, "This noodles are really skinny, huh?" I instead said "These noodles are really skinny, honey." Not too long after, my companion's noodles were everywhere because he started laughing mid-bite. I'm going to start living with Koreans for the first time starting this week and I'm a little worried because my English ability has nowhere to go but south...

-Pamphlet kid: There are several pamphlets that the missionaries use to help them teach, and the ones in the Korean pamphlets include pictures of Korean people in them, it goes that way for every language. One of the kids that was featured in the pamphlet as a toddler is now a teenager and is in Suji ward! So of course, I had to grab a picture with him before I left~

Little fishies: We found a place where you can put your feet in a little tub and have little fish eat all of the dead skin and other stuff off of your feet, I would highly recommend it~

Well, I think that's it for me this week. I'm off to the countryside to work in the Lord's vineyard, and maybe even some real vineyards. I'm excited for the challenge, I love the Book of Mormon, I love Korea, and I love being a missionary~

Love,

Elder Bigelow

Jang-Yeon-oo

Hello Everyone! I don't know if I've mentioned our favorite restaurant before, but it's called 두끼(doo-kkee) Which translated means "two meals". That's because, after eating a buffet of 떡볶이(rice cakes in a spicy soup?) at a very reasonable price, you put rice into your leftover soup and have fried rice, hence the name "Two Meals". Here's a picture

Anyways, we go there when we can and have a great time. There is also an option to purchase fondue cheese which comes out in a ring around your pot which is delicious, but fairly pricey. However, the manager there likes us a lot so now every time we come, she dares the teenage waitresses to bring us free fondue cheese. We're not complaining~

Other things for this week:

-Fire training: This week in our apartment elevator, we saw a paper that told us we were having a yearly firefighting training and that all the residents were invited to come participate. So of course, me, being both a safety-concerned resident of the apartment complex and proud of myself that I understood the Korean written on the paper, decided that we would go attend the training. After all, it did only happen once a year. So we walked to the courtyard to find that the only people there were the building security guards/caretakers (it's a job for people of retirement age, so they're all 60-75 year old men). As it turns out, I didn't read thoroughly enough and this was actually just a training for them and the residents were just invited to come watch. And we were the only residents in an apartment complex of several thousand people to show up.. But we were already there, so we got to use fire extinguishers to put out some real fires, and we got to watch the caretakers do the same, only to accidentally coat a nearby car in fire extinguishing powder and subsequently give the car a free car wash with the firehose. So glad we went~

-Interviews in our house!: Every 6 weeks, we get to have an interview with our mission president so that he can help us to be better missionaries and reach our potential. Usually they happen in his office or in a church building, but every few years they do them in the missionaries' houses. So, we made sure not a particle of dust remained in our house, and welcomed them into our home, they even brought us homemade lollipops~ And they loved our giant Korean mask

-Lost in translation: We were practicing English with someone that we meet with often, we meet in their home twice a week. I was a little bit sick this week, so she asked if I wanted some lemon tea to soothe my throat. I said "I'm okay thank you", a common phrase in English used to politely decline an offer. But her english-as-a-second-language brain just heard "okay, thank you" and determined that I was indeed accepting the offer. So, she made me some lemon tea of course! I didn't have the heart to correct that English mistake, I just had to let that one slide.

-My Korean name!: A few weeks ago, a family from Suwon that I got close to while living there made a Korean name for me, and this week I got some cool nametags! It's pronounced (Jang-Yeon-oo)

This week we met a nice man that we met on the street a few weeks ago, he invited us into his home. He is a retired Japanese teacher and sells pottery, so his house was full of really cool pottery, needless to say. He likes to learn English and we have a program that we do as missionaries, where we help people learn English for 30 minutes and then teach about our church for 30 minutes, so we told him that we wanted to help him learn English and also share a message that has helped us a lot. He was open to do it, but said, "But what if I don't join your church, what if I don't accept your message? Then I'm the only one benefiting. You would have no results after all your work, what if that happens?" I was glad to tell him, "The work we do isn't about results. The work we do is about inviting. We have grown up and learned in this church and have found happiness that we can't describe, and that's not just because we can't speak Korean. But we don't want to force anyone to do anything, that's not what religion is about. Of course we'll be happy if you accept, but choosing not to accept is fine too because being a missionary means inviting others to come unto Christ, not forcing them" Being a missionary is the best, I love it.

Have a good week everyone!

Love,

Elder Bigelow

Most happiest meeting Elder Holland

Hello everyone! 

In Korea, one popular thing to do is to go to a cafe that has cats in it, so you drink your beverage in the company of cats. I have never been to one of those, but in my last area I walked past something called a "dog cafe" every day for 6 months, but never tried it. But now I have a companion that really likes dogs a lot, so we went and sipped hot chocolate while in the company of a small army of dogs~

And then there's this guy, whose hair may or may not have been crazier than mine then... (I promise I got a haircut later that day)

I would highly recommend it.

Also this week, we had the privilege of meeting with Elder Holland, a member of the Quorum of the 12 apostles. He spent several days in Korea and did several different broadcasts where he talked about the importance of raising children, what being a member of this church means, and the importance of priorities. Additionally, we had the opportunity as missionaries to go and meet him personally in Seoul. We each got to shake his hand, and he gave a wonderful talk. He taught us how to relate personally with those that we teach, it was a huge help. And he also emphasized that none of the missionaries truly understand the magnitude or importance of the work we are participating in. He invited us to consider why it matters that Jesus Christ lives, to consider what that really means. And he invited us as missionaries to consider our role, just how important it is that we are extending the loving hand of the Savior to those we teach or just meet on the street. I feel so spoiled to have had the privilege of learning at the feet of two of the Lord's apostles in the last 6 months, and I'm especially grateful that we do have living prophets and apostles to help lead us towards Christ.

Other fun things this week:

-My English mistake of the week: Instead of saying "most happy" or even just "happiest," I decided to say "most happiest" as I was relating a story. The worst part was, after I said it I stopped and thought "wait, that's not right", but then immediately following that I thought "no, that's right English.. I don't know why I'm second guessing myself"...

-Watching a 2 year-old Korean child dance to a Korean pottytraining song, I still can't decide if his dancing or the lyrics to the song were funnier~

-One of the women that we are teaching has a daughter that is helping to organize the 2018 Olympics, which will take place in Korea. So she gave us these really cool pens and pins that they created when there was officially 1 year left until the olympics-

Have a great week everyone!

(If you want to view Elder Holland's talk you can do it here!: http://www.lds.or.kr/event/devotional-with-elder-holland )

Love,

Elder Bigelow

Me love English

Hello everyone! I'll start off the week with a picture from our children English class~

The writing didn't show up very well, but it says We Love English. The problem was, one of the kids was holding the W upside down so it said "Me Love English".... Maybe we're going to have to be better teachers so these kids don't leave class sounding like the cookie monster...

Other than that, our week was super busy, we are meeting with a whole lot of people so I'll give a quick update on a few of them:

최석원- He is the one that used to be a pastor in another church and began meeting with us to 1-learn English, and 2-learn about our church so that he could start his own eventually. He knew that our church has very good systems, like the lack of paid ministry, worldwide uniformity in administration, humanitarian aid, and a system in the church that doesn't include advancement or being higher than any other member, and so he wanted to learn from it so that he could start his own church eventually. But as we have been meeting over the past 6 weeks or so, we have seen a change in him that I never would have expected. He quickly realized that the systems in this church are not just due to clever administrative tactics, but it is because this church is led by Jesus Christ in all meanings of the word. He realized that although many churches have become corrupt and all about money, that there still is a pure church out there, and his whole perspective has changed. We don't know what the future holds for him, but he intends to continue learning about the church. This is him~

민병희 (Min-byeong-hee)- We met her doing service at a secondhand store a few weeks ago, her son is marrying an American and she wanted to learn English, so we have met her twice now. She loves to practice English, and we love to help. One way that I have been teaching English recently when we teach 1 on 1 is having my companion lead the conversation while I write on  piece of paper. I write down things that we said that they didn't understand, translations of some words, and I write down what they say in correct and natural English, the students have really enjoyed it so far. But 민병희s is also very interested in religion, and has wanted a religion that matches her values. In her searches so far, the religion that has best matched her culture and values has been Buddhism, but she has been very interested as we have talked together about our church. She was excited to learn about the Restoration of the Gospel through the prophet Joseph Smith and the fact that it was such a significant event that happened not too long ago. And she said to us a few days ago, "Not a lot of people in Korea know about your church, I didn't either until I met you. But now that I know, I think that even if I don't join your church I can still help a lot of people know about your church. I've already told over 20 people since we met for the first time last week!"

I feel really blessed to be around such great people, both those that are of our faith and those that are not. I'm looking forward to a great week with a special visit from Elder Jeffrey R. Holland, of the Quorum of the 12 Apostles, I'll let you know how it went next week!

Love,

Elder Bigelow

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...