Better

I've got obedience nailed to the wall. I act without knowing on things that I hope are true... Just keep going out and doing my part and waiting for something to save me.

 

This week was better though. Not good. Better. There are two ways I feel like I've improved on my mission. One is humility. The other is endurance. I can keep enduring.

 

Love you so much... Hope you enjoyed Korra for me.

 

Elder Whitlock

Rough Week

(Referring to Exodus 17:9–13 )  ...That's the tough part, really. Holding up your arms when you can't feel any other hands there. And then another missionary comes along and jumps on and you've got to hold him up. Then another. And you start to get tired, but there's no relief in sight. Your arms are shaking, but you're only 7 months out.

I'm doing about as good as that might sound. I used to think that President Scoresby’s thing about Korean missions being a sort of like being a prisoner of war was overdramatic, but I feel that way sometimes. Trapped between a rock and a hard place and tallying days til I can get out. I'm about guaranteed another transfer at least and I might be around for a while yet. 

Uncle Joseph wrote me an email one time and he also encouraged me to check out section 76. Pretty genius stuff, for sure. The bummer in the situation is that I'm not one of those people to whom it is given to see and understand (D&C 76: 116-117). Or do much of anything really. I hear about spiritual gifts and revelations and all of that stuff, but it doesn't happen to me. Even the things in my patriarchal blessing that were promised me aren't mine. I'm just a massive ball of "lack".

This week has been a harder one. I usually give happy banter because I'm genuinely happy, but this week was hard. Things will be better next week.

Still working on the couple from China. We taught them about exaltation this week and the man told me that they want to be baptized, they are just deciding when. He said something to the effect of them waiting for good news, which we interpret as they are having a baby or something and are waiting on some kind of results to make their decision. If you want to shoot me your contacts email or his name or something, then that would be cool. I'll let them know about him.

Thank you so much, as always, for the support and love. I love you, too.

Elder Whitlock

The Briefest of Weeks

New ideas this week:

• Jundo, skip the handshake. First time I tried it I had the best contact I've had in weeks.  
• Restart English class after a two week break; advertise a storm, get something new started, and re-sort everybody to the level where they belong.

Last P-day was probably the best of my mission. We went to the temple, then to Outback, then to a sick museum.

Pictures inbound.

Outback was great, as usual. Didn't end up going for the Chocolate Thunder from Down Under for time reasons, so me and my companion (transfer calls came and went, and we are staying) will be returning for one later. I ordered a cheese fries right off the bat, but there was a communication problem with the waiter (poor guy did his best) and so the manager ended up giving them to us for free after we asked about the lack thereof. Epic. We had some trouble finishing them, so we started playing a... game where when you lose you take a fry, then remembered that we still had our tags on and just attacked. We came. We ate. We conquered.

    

The museum was also sweet. It is underneath Gwanghwamun (Korean Time Square) and is a combo deal for the two most famous and loved Korean Heroes. King Saejong and Lee Seongsin. King Saejong was cool and stuff. He invented the Korean alphabet and reigned during a the golden age of Korea, sponsoring advancements in science, music, and art and establishing 7 garrisons that made the country more secure. He was fine, but Lee Seongsin is the MAN!

His part of the museum was all about himself and Korean naval warfare. They were pretty into artillery and were really innovative. The coolest inventions were something called a turtle ship (look it up) and this rig that lauched a whole bunch of arrows via rockets. Mega cool. Captain Lee himself was also sweet. He never lost a battle and saved the country multiple times. He innovated, wrote, went to prison on false charges, wielded a massive sword and was generally a boss. Look him up.

Also, I got that camel you sent. His name is Arphaxad. Thanks!

Love you!

Humpdydoodledandy

Bum. bum. bum. Another year bites the dust!

Can't imagine that tastes super good. At least not as good as the McDonalds/Coldstone combo meal that I got last Thursday. Elder S, my district leader, is from the same MTC generation as me, so we celebrated together right. On exchange. Our area is one of the biggest in the mission and covers several cities and villages, and, since we had no appointments, we decided to go scout one of them out. Currently, we are infamous in Chuncheon, so everybody knows who we are, most have been jundoed to by us, and no one is really interested in talking. Gapyeong was almost a breath of fresh air. All the people that we talked to were very nice and down to talk for a while. The only problem is that there weren't many of them. We did find this statue though. It's a monument garden to veterans from Ceder City, Utah of all places. Elder S used to live there.

Anyway, without people we came back to Chuncheon and grabbed the above mentioned dinner and did some regular stuff til the end of the day.

This week Elder Quentin L. Cook came to town, so Seoul and Seoul South missions had a combined conference. He talked about inviting being success and how we should treat new missionaries like real missionaries and about being warm and friendly with everybody.

We stayed the night in Gireum house again. Elder V is the last one there from when I was there, and he's having a rough time. The feeling that I got from the visit is that everyone in the mission is struggling pretty hard, or at least most of my friends.

After Elder Cook, we got to visit with other missionaries for a bit. I saw a lot of usuals from the Seoul Mission + Conner Brienholt (briefly) and Lauren Brocious (who went to AF with me and was in my companion's district, I guess). Super good to see everybody.

Anyway, back to the decreasing efficency thing. I've been thinking a lot about innovation this week. We are digging a hole here, with next to no results besides the increasing fury of the populace. I'm trying to find new finding methods that can supplement all the jundo that we can't escape.

A few ideas:

Increase the controversy level of our jundos, so that people not only have but are more willing to share an opinion and invest in the conversation.

Embrace the counter culture image and start hammering the Apostasy message harder.

Combo Streetboarding and English Class. Ask a simple question "Does God exist?" in English at a University and let people vote, and give them English flyers while it happens.

Heck, I may even try soapboxing once Elder J is gone (he's less than down). Anything to try to change.

Any super great ideas pop up, let me know.

Love you all and have a great week!

Hello

Hello! 

We went hiking today. The original plan was Outback, but the sisters set the hiking trip up and kind of roped us into it. Felt like my arm got a little twisted. Beautiful hike, though. Felt like I was walking through middle earth. It was one of the most beautiful places on the Earth.  I think it is called Samhak Mountain. We saw this Buddhist temple and watched a guy praying for a little bit. Idolatry, but extraordinarily reverent and devout idolatry.

Apologies for the sizeable gap in my blog-style letters everybody.

Spring has come and gone and the natural shift into summer has commenced. The cherry blossoms have been replaced with regular leaves, so that mountains are unbroken seas of green once again. The bees and the wasps are back in action hard, as Elder K found out this week when he was wasped in the face. The miniskirts are still here. Somethings don't change, I guess. Winter's coldest day to the peak of a Chuncheon summer, the miniskirt lives on.

This week was the first fairly normal week in a while. Following the passport fiasco of yesterweek, we were spared another Seoul run and were able to concentrate on our missionary work this week.

When I first got to Chuncheon, the people were especially nice. It was fairly easy to talk to someone if you wanted to. Now the core of the town, where all of the walkers (here used differently than I may wish it to be used) congregate is pretty fished out. If people are talked to there, it is usually because I pursue them after they wave us away or tell us they're busy or whatever else. We've been trying to expand into the rest of the city, but without much sucess. Jundo effectiveness has taken a blow, especially in the last month or so.

To counter that, we have been trying our hands at street boarding. Last week we had people put a sticker on our poster to vote for what was most important to them (out of family, friends, religion, work, money, and health). The overwhelming majority voted family, which ought to be encouraging, but we weren't very effective at pulling phone numbers or lessons out of it. We tried again yesterday by having people write a question that they would want to ask God on a sticky note. We are getting better, having fun, and each time we learn a lot, but I'm afraid that the novelty of a bunch of foreigners waving a poster around might disappear around the time we figure out how to find investigators by that method. Trying to think of other options, but nothing amazing has jumped to mind yet. Hopefully by the time this venue is exhausted I can think of something else to compensate for the Jundo hole.

This weekend should be fun.  Elder Quentin L. Cook is coming to do a day of training. Missionaries from my mission and the Seoul South mission are going to the first meeting this Saturday at ten, so I get to cross the border again. You can throw that in with the other more obvious benefits, like learning from an apostle. We also will be returning for the member meeting with our Chinese investigators. Hopefully.

Lots of love for everybody. And also, before I forget, I totally heard the "Hello", the "marshmellow"  song in Lotteria (Korean McDonald's knock off) the other day. Brought back memories to say the least.

Elder Whitlock

The Work

This week the most notable thing that happened was that Elder Whiting from the Seventy came over for a mission tour. I asked him a question, and he answered both of the two seemingly unrelated questions that I had written down. He also called me in for an interview after the thing. Apparently I'm supposed to punch him the next time I see him. Exact obedience, right?

This week is temple week, so I get to see the new video (finally)! Also, since we live a ways away, we are going to be bunking back home in Gireum for the night so I'll get to see my old pals. It's going to be a night to remember! 

I actually do have some investigators. I don't talk a lot about the work, especially with regard to investigators, because even when I'm feeling fine about stuff my lack of success tends to worry other people. Also, most investigators don't tend to last very long and I don't want to burden other people's weeks. 

Last week we had two people with baptismal dates. One we referred to a different mission area because he is moving; the other one didn't make it to church again, so if he is going to make his date, he's got to come the next three times in a row. He's been keeping the Word of Wisdom fairly well, so that's cause for celebration, but keeping appointments and other commitments is proving difficult. There was another guy who didn't have a baptismal date, but was reading all the way through the Book of Mormon after the first meeting, who we had to refer to Seoul as well. Got dropped by another guy because we did a 40 minute lesson instead of the hour that he expected. Another guy is barely an investigator. We met him once and things seemed fine, but he took a trip to his hometown and hasn't made it back to town yet. 

We do have a couple of the cutest Chinese investigators ever! They are a couple and they are super smart and speak English. The fourth baptismal invitation didn't go down, but that was because they know what a big commitment it is. The problem is that they are scared of not living up to that commitment once they move back to China and things get more difficult socially. They surprised me and Elder J by making it out to church for the whole time this Sunday after a Sabbath-day lesson that came across a little weak to me.

We also met two Catholics yesterday. They both handled the Great Apostasy pretty well, but are going to be busy for a long time, so I don't know when we'll see them again.

So yeah, there are people on my radar.  All is not lost.  There are things happening.  But when people read the above they think that I live in a constant state of "wants to jump in front of a train," which isn't the case. I'm happy and fine. It was hard, but I've been hardened, so to speak.

More next week, love you!

Easter Edifies

I don't feel like most of our learning in this life is supposed to come from textbooks or classrooms; most of it is experience. Often painful experience. But as we learn and become stronger, we can be confident that those experiences were given us for a reason.... No struggle need ever have been for naught. No cloud need go without it's silver lining.

-----------------

HAPPY EASTER!

Guess who has been saying that wrong in Korean for the entire week? Guess who figured that out last night?

My life.

부활날 말고 부활절...

Anyways.

As you may have expected, Easter isn't that big of a deal in Korea. We performed an Easter hymn for ward choir. I can't remember its name in English, sorry.

I got all the way through the Isaiah chapters in the Old Testament study manual that I found. That guy saw some things! I'm on into Jeremiah, which has proven appropriately lamentatious.

I went on a less active hunt with Elder S on an exchange. Complete fail. It was in a less populated part of the city and not a single one of them was home when we went. Time to shelve less active work for a while.

Also, you remember that massive jar of Nutella? Well it has been mostly empty for a while, but we never had the heart to throw it away because there was still some that you could scrape off the sides. Well, I sort of broke one night and went at it with a spoon for about 45 minutes and devoured about every scrap of Nutella left in the bottle. I'd be impressed if I wasn't so appalled.

We encountered a fair number of people who wanted to argue with us this week. A couple of JWs, a...전도사? (there isn't really a word for this in English. It's like a guy who is paid by his church to jundo or...proselyte? or something to people on the street. Anyway, he's sort of like a missionary for the church of SATAN!!!) who was representing the _________ church, which appears to be some form of Christianity that has everything valuable about Christianity taken out in favor of obsessing over weird last days prophecies, and also a guy who was flat out convinced that because if people don't eat food they die, but if they don't have faith they don't die, food is more important/powerful than God, therefore God doesn't exist. Does someone want to attempt to explain the grammar for this paragraph?

Also, just ate a bacon hot dog for lunch. "Looks like meat's back on our menu, boys! Wragh!" They just barely opened this place up right next to the college that we usually jundo at. Wow, I miss hot dogs and bacon!

Continuing on the food vein, the place that we eat at more than anywhere else is this little place called...don't laugh, it makes more sense in Korean, "Pork Cutlet Town". Everything there is big and cheap. They've recently begun to include some seaweed on my favorite fried kimchi rice, which I consider significant.

Spiritual thought this week might not come as a shock to any of you enlightened people, but I was supposed to teach people about the Spirit again in district meeting (which, by the way, is probably the worst idea ever. I'm the least competent expounder of the spirit, and yet that always seems to be my topic. Actually, maybe that's why it is always my topic. Anyway) and I came across a line in PMG that says something to the effect of "The spirit always edifies."

Well, I was really confused. In my experience, things that I've considered to be spiritual in nature have often come to me rather harshly. Sometimes even painfully. Yet, the spirit always edifies? My experience is backed up by scriptures. Look at Isaiah prophesying the horrors of the end of things as we know them. Look to Nephi viewing the destruction of all of his entire family, his entire nation. Think of the Savior weeping for the wicked of Jerusalem. Sometimes the truth hurts.

The problem arose from my lack of understanding regarding the word edify. I always associated it with good feelings like peace or reassurance. But it really connotes something to the effect of education + strengthening. It improves the mind and character and helps one to grow intellectually and morally.

Sometimes, the truth hurts. The spirit, which teaches us truth, sometimes hurts. And, when we remember that God, who communicates with us through the spirit, is our teacher, sometimes good teaching, even perfect teaching hurts.

I don't feel like most of our learning in this life is supposed to come from textbooks or classrooms, most of it is experience. Often painful experience. But as we learn and become stronger, we can be confident that those experiences were given us for a reason. And even if they weren't, even if we are just the victims of chance and circumstance then we can find a reason. No struggle need ever have been for naught. No cloud need go without it's silver lining.

Love you all, and have a wonderful Easter.

Elder Whitlock