Hey Everyone!
This week has been kinda ridiculous! super fun, but kinda ridiculous. Monday we didn't have too much going on, so we went out in search of a ton of less actives and found none, but we did find a ghost town. No one there, and lots of broken windows. I'll be honest, I kinda wanted to break one, but that's not what a disciple of Jesus Christ would spend time doing. We were just making sure that all the apartments in that area were indeed abandoned so we could know that we wouldn't ever really have to go back. Good use of time, but not too much fruits unfortunately. Just saving time for future missionaries I suppose.
Tuesday we didmore of the same sort of thing with not too much success. There was this one investigator that we met that we thought had a solid amount of interest, but it wasn't so. It was really interesting. We taught him a little and he was trying to get out of the appointment, so we decided we'd just testify and finish up. He said he was a devout Christian so we thought "GREAT! Why don't you say the prayer?" Nope, no dice. I ended up saying the prayer and I felt really sleepy, but i feel like the prayer that I said was more close to Heavenly Father than a lot of other ones for some reason. I don't know if that was because I was trying to make it closer or if I was partially asleep, but nonetheless, was that way.
Wednesday we had district meeting, which was okay. It 's kind of strange having been district leader for like 9 transfers and then not being district leader. I feel like they are just never as edifying for the people hearing the training as for the one training based on that experience. I feel like when I gave the trainings I always learned SOOO much. But now, when I hear them, I'm not sure if it's the people that give them, or what, but that people just don't put time or something. I think that might be the case because there's this one district leader that was in the zone who always had fantastic district meetings, and I know that he put a great deal of time into his meetings, and the spirit followed. Good stuff.
Afterwards we had a finding activity, but I didn't get to go because there's this teacher improvement program for new missionaries and I was doing that with a missionary so we didn't get to participate but I guess it went well. I went from there on exchanges which were fun. I was in an area in the mission that I've never been in before which was cool. A first for me in a long time. The exchange was good. lot's of cool people that we got to meet.
Thursday we went to the temple and had Pday. That was also cool. Temple is always great. Elder Thompson and I went to this bookstore afterwards to get a Korean study book, and then ate at this buffet restaurant which was utterly delicious.
Friday we had weekly planning which is whatever but then we went on exchanges again. That was fun but kind of frustrating also. At first my stomach was killing me but it finally stopped. When it did, we went out to start talking to people and we started talking to this guy that was taking pictures of a tree, and it turned into 45 minute long worthless argument. The missionary I was with was a Korean so they kind of stopped including me in the argument which was fine with me, but I was sick of wasting time just sitting there. When we finally left he followed us and started arguing again. I told him like 3 times at that point since we were going different places for him to just go his way and we'll go ours, it wasn't a valuable use of either of our time. He still wouldn't give up, but finally he agreed to meet when the other missionary agreed that if they met and taught each other, that if my companion learned his church was true he'd convert. So ridiculous BUT! As a result when we went to visit a less active, they were not there, but on our way out there was a drunk guy I said hi to and turns out he was a less active of like 30 years! Crazy right! Super cool. Finding lost sheep.
Saturday was CCCRRRAAAZZZZZYYYY!!!
So in the morning we went to a joint mission conference where Elder Cook came and spoke. It was super awesome. He spoke about missionary work and how there is more or less a formula for happiness for us as missionaries. It was cool saw some friends from the Seoul Mission.
On the way home Elder Bae the Korean missionary I was on exchanges with, forgot his bag on the train so he had to go sort that out. Elder Thompson and I went to meet this man who is the filibuster king of the earth!!! The man talked for like 45 minutes straight without breathing. I swear. Crazyy. But he did come to church yesterday so it was a victory in the end.
On the way home that night after our english class and pingpong activity, we were walking home and something special happened. There was a man lying in the street, presumably past out drunk. We decided that was not an appropriate place for someone to be passed out and picked him up and put him on the sidewalk. Then he woke up and this other guy came by to see what was up. We told him the story and he decided to go tell the police while we kept him from rolling back into traffic. Guy was soooooooo toasted drunk and couldn't even stand up. Fun story to tell later.
Sunday was cool. Had an investigator at church. Talked to lots of people. Went to ward counsel which was good. Good things going on.
This morning in study I had a cool experience. Closing thoughts. So I was kind of frustrated with my prayers being lame so I decided to just read from the book of Mormon and see what came up. I was reading in Alma 29 and it's Alma the younger talking about desires and eventually says how he is more happy in the success of others than in his own really. Yes, he originally says he is happy in his own success but then it gets better, but in the end it says his greatest joy is in others, and I wondered how to find that. I looked it up in the institute study guide. It had nothing, but it did talk about desires. I need to desure to be happy in others success. I'm happy to work for that sort of thing and I hope you guys can too. It's true happiness I believe.
Have a great week!
