First Week in the Field! [week 12]

안녕하세요! How are you all on this fine day? I am doing fan-darning-tastic! (Darn is the strongest euphemism I can use, but if I could have put a good old flip in there that would have sounded better) ANYWAY, this week has been mighty swell. I got to teach two lessons. Or my companion got to teach two lessons while I watched. Well I helped a bit in the English lesson, and I learned a lot. We taught a guy named Dipen (in English), and a guy named Rooney (in Korean).

President and Sister Sargent!

We talked about temples with Dipen. His main question was "Why can't we say the same prayers that members of your church use in other religion's temples?" We told him about sealing power and how the temple is set apart and is a sacred place and lots of good scriptures were read, but I don't think we made a ton of progress with him. We are meeting with him again next week. Oh, I almost forgot, I suggested we pray to know the truth in the middle of the meeting, and then I suggested we have a minute of silence to let the spirit work on us, but no one wanted to speak first, so it turned into 25 minutes of silence. That was really neat. 

Dipen has a strong desire to know the truth, but he is wary of choosing one church. He doesn't know how we can claim to have the true church when so many other churches claim the same thing. Elder Titensor, (my new companion) said he has taught all of the lessons at least once to Dipen, which would include the Restoration. So I think if Dipen continues to desire the truth, then he will be baptized eventually.  He was a cool guy.

I am not sure exactly what we taught Rooney. (I love that band: Rooney) I know it had to do with the gospel of Jesus Christ and his earthly ministry. I LOVE Rooney (I'm talking about the person now) he had an 애기 (pronounced eggie, which means baby) and a three-year-old daughter and a wife. His apartment was full of family pictures and baby toys and educational posters for his kids. You can tell he got interested in the church because he wants the best for his family. What a nice guy. He was constantly holding his baby and smiling at him. I think he will join the church for sure. He is in a place to feel the promptings of the spirit.

Elder Sean Titensor and Elder Truman Renfroe

My new companion is elder Titensor. He is super cool and obedient to the rules. We both like lo-fi hip-hop, and punk rock, and anime, and the author Brandon Sanderson. He just got done being trained, and now he's training me, so he is a top-notch Elder. He's pretty good at Korean. I'm going to learn a lot from him. He is an upstanding young man!

I met the Sargents in person. President Sargent is so super fun and nice, but definitely more intimidating in person. Sister Sargent is super nice and loving and fun as well. I love them, they are good presidents (or President and First Lady? First Sister? IDK.)

Dickey and Renfroe, eating at the Sargents' house

Binks and Prock, at the Sargents

President Sargent showing us cool stuff

Some friends of the Sargents sent them these Mandarin oranges from their own tree

My new favorite food is 떡 (dohk). It's delicious rice that has been processed into a kind of hard, cheesy texture. I had it deep-fried. It was so good!

Well I think that's all fellas. I love you guys!

PICTURES!

The pictures of the city are pictures of the city.

The sleeping fellow is Elder Titensor. He fell asleep while studying... 

The two food-looking triangles are rice balls. One was tuna the other was mysterious. They are also the same food as in some Asian video games, and they are used as health potions (e.g. Spectrobes, Naruto, Pokémon Go). Yeah, I'm that cultured on Asian culture. 

I Got Out of Quarantine! [week 11]

 Hello! 안녕하세요 여러분. 어떻게 지내세요? Guess what!?! I got out of quarantine today and it was a most joyous experience. Most joyous indeed. INDUBITABLY JOYOUS FOR A SURETY, WITHOUT A DOUBT! Me and the quarantine 선교사 (Sonkyosa missionaries) got to go to a sushi buffet with some other elders. It was a jolly good time. Then me and Elder Binks split off from Elders Prock and Dickey, and we wandered around 대전 (Daejeon) for a couple hours it was great! Lots of stores and sculptures and art galleries and big buildings and people. EVERYTHING! 

I'm talking to this guy named 규 (Kyoo) right now, and he is a chill fellow. I met him on HelloTalk, which is a language exchange social media, and we are going to play some 장기 (Janggi, Korean chess). Then after I destroy his face at Janggi, I'm going to resurrect his face with the Book of Mormon. 규 seems pretty cool. He agreed to meet already now we just need to figure out when. 

Elder Dickey has found TONS of people on HelloTalk. He found this woman who is Iranian, and she is super interested in the church. You can tell she could feel the church is true. Unfortunately, Elder Dickey found out that if she converts to Christianity, her government will sentence her to death. So he sort of had to stop teaching her forthwith. 

I saw four baptisms over zoom, that was awesome. Three on the 12th and one on the 5th. It was very nice to watch. The kids on the zoom call went crazy! They all wanted to get in the camera and say nice-to-meet-you. And they make head hearts and peace signs. They are happy little guys. 

We had Korean etiquette training yesterday. It was most informative: 

• Give and receive everything with both hands
• Don't put your hands in your pockets when talking to someone (especially oldies) 
• Stand up and bow when someone older than you walks into a room
• Don't point
• Use exact titles
• Don't hang up the phone until after three seconds of silence (hanging up has always been a struggle for me, so having set rules on how to do it is nice)

Elder Prock beat me at Janggi... again. The score is 3 to 1 now. 

OH! I forgot to mention this a few emails ago, but my uncle Eli sent me a bunch of super cool wood cuts of Christmas ornaments and tie pins for the mission. He made one for each member of my MTC district and for my mission president, and he made a Plan of Salvation puzzle in Korean for me to use when  teaching. 

He is a super cool uncle! I remember when he went on his mission to England, and I wrote him a letter or two. I thought of missionaries as superheroes back then, and I looked up to Eli so much, along with my other uncle who went on a mission to Japan, uncle Kevin.  I love those guys! I never had any doubt about going on a mission because of theirs and my dad's example. I'm glad I get to be out here to share the gospel of Jesus Christ. It has brought me so much happiness and peace, and I'm going to spread it around. 

Alright! I love you guys! Have a good week, merry Christmas! 

Truly Truman 

PICTURES!!!

I went to two art galleries today. One in an underground mall, and one in an above-ground-not-a-mall. The picture with the tiger was the above ground place, and the bird and horses and nice smiling lady were in the underground mall.

The two cute chubby monster statues were also in the mall.

The plate of delicious food was from the buffet. This was the first good meal since the MTC, and the first really good meal since my mom's cooking. 

Stay Completely Worthy of Revelation [Week Seven]

안녕하세요 여러분! (Hello everybody) how are you all doing on this fine Saturday!?! I'm doing pretty not bad so that is muy 좋아요 (muy means very in Espanola! 좋아요 means good or "I like" so together that makes VERY GOOD) Yeah, I'm trilingual. Deal with it!

Sooooo this week has been good. On Tuesday one of the quorum of the seventy came over and gave a devotional, and I forgot his name so we will call him 팕 장로님. He gave a great devotional about his conversion story. He made all the missionaries laugh several times while still keeping the spirit. The main take away of the talk was that this is a great work, and we don't need to be perfect, we just need to teach by the spirit and love the people. It was better when he gave the talk. He was so genuine and nice and sincere. I love the devotionals. I can't wait for the devotional tomorrow! There better be some good devotionals or sacrament meeting talks in Korea because I rely on those so much! 

That makes me think of the things I'll be teaching people who are looking into the church (we aren't supposed to call them investigators anymore, we are supposed to call them friends. But that is confusing because I am usually talking about my friends when I use the word friend.) ANYWAYS! What my relying on devotionals made me think of is what would happen if I messed up a message to one of my friends or investigators? It would probably be worse than what would happen to me if there was a really bad devotional. I have a testimony of the church and Christ's Gospel. I'll be fine, but the people I'm teaching might not have a testimony or might not know who Jesus is. I need to stay completely worthy of revelation so I can best serve those who need it most, and those who are relying on me to help them find their way in life.

I love you all! I am sorry if you emailed me and I haven't replied. I try to reply to everyone who replies to me, but alas I am imperfect. I'll do my best though! 

Again I love you guys and I hope these emails improve your day in some way. 

Here are some pictures!

1. The silverware in the blanket was found in the ceiling by an elder doing pullups who pulled up too hard and poked his head in the ceiling. Then he saw a blanket and was like "how queer?" And he pulled the blanket out and it was full of silverware from the cafeteria. Some Elders think they are soooo clever.

2. That's elder Dickey he always ties his ties in these crazy cool looking knots.

3. When I saw the picture of this chess board on my MTC phone I remembered that I BEAT ELDER HARDEN AT CHESS! I don't remember if I told you this already in a past email, but I beat him good.