"Then spake Jesus again unto them, saying, I am the light of the world: he that followeth me shall not walk in darkness, but shall have the light of life. " --- John 8:10

Sunday, November 24, 2013

Dropping The Ball



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It scares me to death that some mistake that I make could stop people that God wants me to find from hearing about the gospel....  But thats ok.... It doesn't mean the church isn't true. It doesn't mean that God doesn't speak to man. And it doesn't mean we can stop trying.

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I've come to the conclusion that lately my weekly reports have been somewhat on the boring side. This week I'll give you a run down and then move on to other things.

Last Tuesday was temple day/p-day, so we did that. Then we hit up our favorite American buffet, Ashleys, ate an ungodly amount of food, then went and sweat it out in a bathhouse for a couple hours. Talked a lot about the zombie apocalypse, especially what my roomates may remember as the Cruiseship dilemna. Led to some nice philosophical discussions about the nature of man and practicality vs ideology. In a bathhouse. Aren't we so Greek?

I found my favorite Korean food. It is some sort of honey tea thing. Changed my life.

We met H and...I don't want to talk about it. Things went decisively less than well. Makes me upset.

English class continues to grow, especially our beginners class. We even got some crazy guy from our class to come to church. Also met and picked up an older guy with no religious background who tried to come to church at 10am, but, bless his heart, got lost and went to some Presbyterian church somewhere instead.

Taught my ward mission leader's family and saw their family home evening. He's the best of the best.

Also found out that what we learned last week in the combined mission conference is less classified than I thought. Really interesting stuff.  Every missionary in Seoul is going to have a "mini ipad" within the year. In addition to mapping, and dictionaries, there will be an integrated area book that the missionaries and the ward leaders share access to. There will be a continuous language learning program that will continue to push missionaries throughout their missions instead of just for the first couple months like they have now. Part of that includes an online pre-mtc language program where they will form digital districts, complete with district leaders and MTC teachers, to start language learning for a few months before anyone gets to the MTC. The ipads will be kept after missions for poorer missionaries as part of the church education program to help them improve the quality of their lives. All records will be kept on the device. It is going to make things go a lot smoother and the language program will really help us, I think. Granted, this won't really affect me until I can already speak Korean pretty well, but it is exciting for Tyler. There's more, but that's what I think I can say. 


Life generally goes on much as it always does. I still hate shaving. I've lost my motivation to work out in the mornings, so I go at night instead. I figured out how to hard boil eggs (judge not) so I have those for almost every breakfast.

Life in my house is really good. I'm living in one of the nicest houses in the mission with a total of 7 elders inside, so every meal time is a party.

길음1 is made up of Elders L, V, and A. Elders L and V are our zone leaders. Elder L looks like he belongs on a cover of the New Era, loves Batman, is one of the nicest happiest people I've ever met and has a sugar addiction that could cross borders. Which is saying something around here. Don't tell him I said it was an addiction though, in his self control efforts I was not the friend that helped him quit eating, but the friend who helped him quit trying. The way the best bros do. Elder V was the other guy that quit sweets with him. He has been out for a little more than a year and only had a testimony for about a year before that. He's got an interesting story. He is a philosophy major at BYU, so he has filled the role of counterpoint that I so love and need. He, like me, is up front about how he thinks, and doesn't back down easily, so we have a right merry old time. Elder A is from Arizona and he's a running machine. His dreams include things like learning the martial arts forms from each bending style in Avatar and competing in the Olympics. He lovingly refers to me as "Uncle Baydo" which means Uncle Apostasy. Don't ask why, I swear I'm obedient and stuff. Good thing, too, cause if I wasn't the other greenie (besides Elder A) might kill me.

His name is Elder R. He and Elder J make up 길음2. Elder R is from Washington DC, used to work at some sort of dysfunctional scout camp, and has excellent calves. He is more of the sunshiny happy kind of Mormon that would give out passalong cards at school and he can't talk about either politics or dating (not really girls, just the idea of dating) because they get him too excited. Elder J was a soldier before he came. He is our district leader and he is very serious about missionary work, but I can pull his quirky side out of him. We joke a lot about how I'm going to go to hell.

Me and my companion are 길음3. I already talked about him, and I'm basically the same as you knew me. Or maybe I'm not. I can't really measure the change in myself very well, besides Korean speaking ability so...maybe ya'll will be disappointed when I get back, I don't know.

Lately I've been reading from the Bible. Last week I studied Acts, and this week I hit up the surprisingly good book of Daniel. Interesting how nicely he predicted Alexander the Great. Anyway, I learned other more useful things, but a common thing of the two is that prophets can... drop the ball. They are human.  They make mistakes. So, too, can missionaries. If you don't believe me, come watch me jundo for a day. When they (missionaries) teach, they don't always feel the spirit, and when they do they don't always understand. Honestly, it is sort of a terrifying realization. It scares me to death that some mistake that I make could stop people that God wants me to find from hearing about the gospel. Honestly, I haven't actually made much of a difference, at least not yet. In these first six months, no one that I've taught has been Baptized, or even met more than twice. But thats ok. It doesn't mean the church isn't true. It doesn't mean that God doesn't speak to man. And it doesn't mean we can stop trying.

Back into the storm,
Whitlock out.






Sunday, November 17, 2013

Back in Nam


May we, in a world that feels like it is sufficient, that feels that it needs no king, be willing to stand for the King of Kings with as much courage and boldness as Peter and Paul. Let us make our allegiance known and show the world that we, like Paul, are "not ashamed of the gospel of Jesus Christ: for it is the power of God unto salvation to everyone that believeth." (Romans 1:16)

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The defining feature of this week was the combined conference with our Seoul Mission and the Seoul South Mission (Or in Korean 서울 남 Seoul Nam, hence the poor attempt at a witty title).

I got to see a lot of people that I wanted to see. Honestly, I don't know most of the south mission, but I was able to see ConCon (Elder Brienholt) from my high school again, if only briefly, and I got to meet my big brother, Elder B. He's a super nice guy. I like him. Elder Coats, if you are reading this, then you should have already gotten that picture of your posterity, including Elder M, who I guess considers himself Elder B's little boy, contrary to everything Elder V has told me. You've got some posterity man. It was also really fun to see my Seoul mission friends again. (Posterity is a reference to those trained by another missionary.)

By the way, my information last week was faulty. It looks like the majority of my generation got kicked into the pool prematurely, not just the people that I talked about. There are a lot of companionships like mine with young missionaries, and there are a couple other trainers, including Elder G who picked up one of the new mission wonder boys.

Anyway, the conference main speaker was Elder Evans, who heads the missionary arm of the church. It was super good. I felt the spirit a lot, learned a lot about myself and the spirit, and learned a ton of church secrets. Like really though. Don't trust a general authority. He told us about...well he did tell us not to tell, but holy moses. Missionary work is getting revolutionized. I'm part of "the surge" but most of the big changes are yet to come. Tyler, buckle up, they are going to do things a lot smarter with you and your generation.


Revolutionizing missionary work and ninjitsu at the same time. Call me Elder Kakashi.
And yes, it is that cold over here.
The main message of the conference was about how revelations come in series, with the example being the late missionary changes in age, new missions, new mtcs, 30% reduced training (which, by the way, has apparently actually boosted the amount that people pick up in the MTC by a tiny bit) and the like. Really good stuff.

This last week we found one person who may be of some potential. He's a Chinese divinity school student. He speaks English, but not Korean, and thank the Lord I took all those Mr. Atwood classes, 'cause thus far our conversation has revolved around things like irresistable grace, and election. I can match him, but I don't know if I can create interest beyond the surface level curiostity that he has. I met him while I was street contacting. Sort of. I met his friend and he asked about the Book of Mormon and then took me to J's house and introduced me. My companion was fairly confident that we were going to be assaulted when we followed him into the building, but the good news is that even though I'm not a strong American, I'm bigger than everyone here. We met him, talked, got his number, left, called to set up another time and found out that he was summoned back to China to help his Dad deal with some sort of family crisis, but will return sometime in the future. I'll keep you posted.

My spiritual thought for the week centers on boldness. We were counselled by Elder Evans to focus on our missionary work rather than tell members how to do theirs, but I feel like this is more of a discipleship thing than anything else.

Lately I've been studying a lot from Acts trying to learn about how to work with the spirit. I've pulled a lot out of it, but one of the most obvious features is boldness. The primary protagonists are Simon "the Rock" Peter and Paul, two of the most gutsy men that ever lived. Both of them faced massive opposition but confronted it in a very confident and unflagging way. 

For those of you who have seen Lord of the Rings, you may remember the scene where everyone is planning what to do with the ring. If you haven't seen it yet, hit up youtube and watch the Council of Elrond. At one point Boromir makes a derisive comment about Aragorn, the one heir to the throne of Gondor, praising the valor and accomplishments of his people and declaring that, "Gondor needs no King." To this, responds Legolas, who, in what may be his greatest moment in the movies, defends Aragorn whose identity he knows.

"This is Aragorn, son of Arathorn, and you owe him your allegiance."

No apology, no softener, no hesitation.

We, likewise, know who our king is. May we, in a world that feels like it is sufficient, that feels that it needs no king, be willing to stand for the King of Kings with as much courage and boldness as Peter and Paul. Let us make our allegiance known and show the world that we, like Paul, are "not ashamed of the gospel of Jesus Christ: for it is the power of God unto salvation to everyone that believeth." (Romans 1:16)

Whitlock out.

Sunday, November 10, 2013

The Gireum Legion Grows


For a lot of Christians, the debate about salvation is whether grace saves us or we are saved through our efforts. Clearly, the answer is grace, but it is grace that we have to use. Christ has provided his gospel for us for a reason. It isn't so that we can ignore it and be saved anyway, it is so that we can follow it. We are drowning. We are little kids washed out to sea, stuck in a current of our own inadequacies. We are sucked down into our despair, our fear, our weakness, unable to swim out despite our best efforts. We are drowning. And yet, even though we are the ones who drove the nails through his hands, he reaches them out to us. The only choice that we have to make is whether we will grasp what he has offered us.

Take hold. No matter what is happening in your life, grasp them. The hands of our Savior can pull you from whatever pit you are in, save you from whatever fate, no matter how inevitable it may seem, and in doing so shape you and mold you into more than you can imagine. So take hold, and hold on tight.


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Hello all. Another great week in the Land of the Hangook has come and past, with some changes.

Transfers came and was eventful in that nothing really happened. Our zone split, but the districts remained exactly the same, plus an additional pair of Korean sister missionaries in our district. I did, however hear that the Arch district represented again. Last transfer, me and Elder S were two of the four missionaries to go co-senior in their second transfer with an equally inexperienced greenie. This transfer, Elder Sc and Sister B became the only members of our group to train. My MTC district was the best. Things in the Legion are going well too. I'm still working with Elder LJC and life goes on.

Me and my Comp at some Members' home.


And boy does it go. This week was marked by the chain dropping of about 8 of our potential investigators, an exchange with Elder R (from my younger group) in which we jundoed for literally the whole day and I misrecorded phone numbers in such a way that we got almost no new potentials out of it, and meeting with H___.

H___ is a Korean who only likes to speak English when he can help it. For example, I don't know his Korean name, he is just H___ to me. I met him on the street near our apartment and he gave me his number and things went well. When I called him (as I may have talked about a little last time) I talked to him for like ten minutes in a conversation that included me teaching the Word of Wisdom, him inviting me on a trip to Jeju (Korea's Hawaii), and successfully setting up the appointment for last Thursday. We met him in a cafe and I taught him about the  Restoration and learned about his needs (which I finally was able to understand). The moral of the story, is that since I could communicate, I learned about what real missionary work should be like. The lesson went great and he's got genuine church interest and I'm going to invite him to get baptized just as soon as I can.

Really, really happy about the whole situation. Throw him into your prayers if you have room. I think I found a real investigator.

I also had a freak run in with someone from back in the Jungnang days. I don't know if ya'll remember J___, but he was an English class member that me and Elder C had a really good conversation with after class. I assumed that we had picked him up, but he sort of disappeared. The miracle is that he showed up at my Gireum English class out of nowhere. He said he had just been too busy to attend, but that he remembered our conversation, and still wanted to learn more when he had the chance. Elder C went home today, but before he left I checked up with him about J___, and he hasn't been back to Jungnang since I left. What are the odds that he picked my class of all classes to show up to? Now if I can just get him to show up again...

That is about it. I'm doing well. Happy, hardworking, and focused. My Korean ability to speak keeps improving, but I understand next to nothing still.

My spiritual thought for the day echoes something that I thought about a lot during college. For a lot of Christians, the debate about salvation is whether grace saves us or we are saved through our efforts. Clearly, the answer is grace, but it is grace that we have to use. Christ has provided his gospel for us for a reason. It isn't so that we can ignore it and be saved anyway, it is so that we can follow it. We are drowning. We are little kids washed out to sea, stuck in a current of our own inadequacies. We are sucked down into our despair, our fear, our weakness, unable to swim out despite our best efforts. We are drowning. And yet, even though we are the ones who drove the nails through his hands, he reaches them out to us. The only choice that we have to make is whether we will grasp what he has offered us.

Take hold. No matter what is happening in your life, grasp them. The hands of our Savior can pull you from whatever pit you are in, save you from whatever fate, no matter how inevitable it may seem, and in doing so shape you and mold you into more than you can imagine. So take hold, and hold on tight.

In the name of Jesus Christ, amen.

Whitlock out.

Sunday, November 3, 2013

Scaricles


...I still have no idea what would have happened, but I'm glad that we were able to listen carefully enough to respond. I'm glad God is looking out for us.

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Hello everybody.

This week is transfer week, so I'm slightly upset. I really hate transfers week, especially if someone is getting transfered. I haven't gotten called yet, but I should find out what is going on on Wednesday night.

But that's ok, because the Gireum Legion (for we are many) spent this week quite well, starting with a bomb Outback trip right after my last email. I dropped about 40$ but still ended up saving money on the pay period, so thank the Lord for cheap ramen. The only downside to what was an otherwise unbelieveable tastebud fiesta was that they stole roughly $4.50 of my Chocolate Thunder from Downunder, but of me it is required to forgive all men so...

The next big thing that happened is an absolute tragedy. As of this week, Gireum area has lost the goldmine that is Korea University. The second most prestigeous academic institution in the nation was home to people of all nations who spoke a lot of English and were a bit more open to reconsidering their religious views. Unfortunately, as we visited the campus on a quest for a music club to play at our stake musical fiesta (to be held this week), we ran into the Dongdaemoon sisters (including Sister Bevard, from my MTC district) who informed us, as later confirmed by the APs, that the college was Dongdaemoon territory. Mourn.

It's ok though, because the trip did yield a street lesson (I'm a vastly more effective missionary in English) with a guy from India that we are going to meet with tonight.

Actually, this week was a really fruitful one. Me and my companion opened the area with no potentials, and four investigators, three of whom I never met. We spent most of the transfer finding, building our potential list, and this week we managed to get a lot of lessons, and it looks like we are up for a repeat performance this week. Heck, one of them invited me to go on a trip to Jeju island (Korea's Hawaii) with him after a street contact and a phone call. So I guess all the birthday prayers were effective. Thanks everyone!

Well we hit up another college after Dongdaemoon on our quest for musical reinforcement and had an interesting experience.

Emptiness.

Me and the zone leader that was with me both experienced a complete loss of the spirit in such a way that clearly told us to get the heck out of dodge. We did. I still have no idea what would have happened, but I'm glad that we were able to listen carefully enough to respond. I'm glad God is looking out for us.

The real highlight of the week was the ward Halloween party though. One of the most fun things that's happened on my mission, and a huge missionary success.

We had over a hundred people in attendance, over 30 of whom were non members. Booyah!

We opened up with a pinata so hard that it shattered Thor's hammer and a set of battle axes before the kids swarmed the candy mess. Then we split off for games like crab soccer, bobbing for apples, some kind of cakewalk thing, and, my game and a favorite, that wierd game with food in bags that you tell lies to kids in. In the process of having kids touch monkey brains, eyeballs, and a spider (my gloved hand) we literally reduced people to hysterical tears and almost caused a middle school student to fall to her death. So that is the kind of missionary I am I guess. I also met a little Korean version of Ricky Stephenson, who emphatically informed me that the whole thing was a con. The night closed off with my referral friends (remember them?) singing and dancing for everybody. I love them.

And that's about it. Thanks again for all the letters and packages everyone. I may never get time to respond to them all, but thanks so much anyway. I love all of you. Probably.

Whitlock out.