Awesome progress in 중리...

Hey everyone!

Not a lot of time to write, but this week has been fast and awesome! Just for starters, my first dropped investigator got (sort of) resurrected! We were heading back from an appointment on the other side of town heading to our weekly English class, saw him on the bus, and said he wanted to come with us! Turns out he has a lot of interest in English, and he found a girl at the class that's his age too which doesn't hurt too much, haha. He said he wants to start meeting with us again and do the 30/30 program (30 minutes of English and 30 minutes of gospel). We gave him the ultimatum that if he read one chapter out of the Book of Mormon that we would start teaching him again. We'll have to see where that goes, but for now it looks like he'll be involved in more church activities...

We got two new investigators this week! One invited us to his house and fed us; we didn't have a ton of time to teach but we gave him a Book of Mormon and he said he would come to church with us. Our other new investigator is AWESOME. He does a ton of service on his own, super nice, asks pastors around his house religious questions all the time because he wants to learn about God. And he has a family that he wants us to meet and talk with too. We talked about the whole Restoration with him at his office, invited him to be baptized and he said yes! We were super close to getting a date but there's still a lot of promise with him. We're going to be teaching at his house next time we visit with at least his wife there. we're super pumped. 

Work is good over here in Daegu! Can't write much more! Thanks for reading/writing!

1) Our area's missionaries eating pizza at E-Mart Traders (Korean Costco) 2) Elder Fox has decided that baking is his new hobby (Apple pie; it was awesome) 3) What a poor Elder's lunch looks like...

Seeing potential!

Hey Everybody!

It's been packed week and a lot has happened. First of all, new district! Half of our district has changed so far. Elder Lunt is still our District Leader up in 상인 and he's going to "die" this transfer and head back home to Utah in a few weeks. His new companion is Elder Aurich, and their area also got two new sisters who white-washed in, Sister Thurgood (who came to Korea just a couple of days ago from the MTC) and Sister Nielson (who's training her). And then over here in 중리 we also have two white-washed sisters who are also our zone's Sister Training Leaders, Sister Raju (who came to Korea with me and was serving in our District Leader's area last transfer) and Sister 강나리 ("Kang Nari"; who's finishing Sister Raju's training). They already gave us food at least twice so they are amazing in our eyes. And then of course there's Elder Fox and I! Our first district meeting was awesome and we are all pumped to kill it this transfer. We looking to get four baptisms this transfer and we're going to do everything in our power, with the Lord's help and guidance, to accomplish it. 

So Elder Fox and I have two major projects going on: the first being our possible Filipino branch, and the second being all of B-Team Elder's investigators that they handed off to us. So first off, there are a ton of Filipino's in this area and a couple of them are already members of our church! We already have two that regularly attend with our ward, Bryan and Alex, and we're determined to work hard with them to get less-actives to church and help them invite their friends to do as well. Last Sunday we had a less-active members, Marife and her daughter Arrian, attend and it was awesome to see them feel the Spirit working in them for what I'm sure must've been a long time absent. So we got that going... And then there's all of B-Team's investigators who we've all met so far but one. Two of them have families that might want to attend church so Elder Fox and I are psyched to help get them there. One of them, 김정세 (also known as "Spomartial" Kim), met missionaries 15 years ago, talks a ton about how much he loves our standards involving health and family, and at the end of our first meeting introduced us to his wife and had us call his daughter to try and convince them both to come learn with their husband/father. I think this is what it means to find someone "prepared" for the gospel. We're SUPER excited to continue meeting him.

In other news... I had to drop my first investigator because he wouldn't keep any of our commitments or progress in any way. It was a bummer but he might be more ready somewhere farther along the road. Elder Fox and I figured out how to bake in Korea! It's revolutionary in terms of expanding our menu. We also almost died moving desks and dressers to the sisters' house. And a ton more stuff that I really can't remember. It's going awesome here, and I hope it's going awesome for wherever you're at as well! Thanks for reading, and have an awesome week!

-Elder Metcalf

1) Elder Fox, myself, and our fantastic banana bread (complete with handmade whipping cream) 2) Our area's missionaries over here in Jungni

3) This full chicken (I forget the name..) that I ate with chopsticks (super difficult but super tasty)

4) I found Dr. Pepper in Korea and it was AMAZING. Dad would be proud.

***For those who don't know what he meant by white washing...It is a term they use to describe 2 missionaries put into a new area at the same time so neither one is familiar to the area.

These last 2 are just extra pictures that he sent with no captions

FIRST TRANSFER DONEZO

No time to write but I'm officially done with my first transfer! Elder Fox is going to finish my training here in Jungni, and the other team left for other areas. They're like my missionary uncles I'm going to miss being in a four man house (even though it was super cramped). We've got a ton of potential for baptisms this transfer already and I'd have to explain more later but we might be starting up a Filipino branch here in Jungni. We've met a TON, and crashed at least two parties so far. One of them was a christianing, haha. All super nice and super friendly to missionaries. Got to go! Bye!

-Elder Metcalf

1) I got a steak, it was AMAZING 2) The boys in Jungni; Elder Stevens and Elder Kirkham now gone ;( 3) Elder Fox, doing his thing

Time is Flying By

It's only been a little over a month that I've arrived in Korea and it has felt more like a week. It's been an early wake-up call on how precious the mission time is and makes me want to work even harder. Next week marks the end of my first transfer as a missionary. I'll probably end up staying here in Jungni with Elder Fox completing my training, but we recently got a new mission president so old patterns could be shaken up. And something that just hit me is that A WHOLE EIGHTH of my mission is already past! It makes me feel all antsy just thinking about it... 

As for things to report this week, there isn't a ton to say. I had an exchange with one of the zone leaders, Elder Casutt, who is going back home to Utah in just a week from now. It was super cool to see a missionary just a little over a week away from going home and still working super hard til the very end. Awesome example, and learned a lot more about how to teach people and see different styles of proselyting. We also had a district meeting this week, and focused on how we can teach to needs using the resources that we have and how to better reach our goals. It was a nice boost in the middle of the week. In other news, Elder Fox and I worked our butts off this week to start finding some new investigators, and trying to get more appointments with our current investigators. Big bummers when we couldn't find anyone that wanted to meet with us this week, and more than half our appointments either got rescheduled or couldn't make it. So closer to the end of our week, talking about our dry spell, we decided it would an effective use of time to sit down, pray, and make some goals/actions to help us reach some success. President jeong has been stressing a lot this transfer about the importance of specific goals so it felt dually appropriate to do so. We came up with our plan for the remainder of this transfer (and hopefully the next) on how we can bring the people of Jungni closer to Christ and have already started to see the fruits of it! One of the things we started doing is sending a message to all the members in our ward on Saturday to pray for our investigators to come to church (since we've only had one come this whole transfer). And the next day, one of them contacted us in the morning and said he wanted to attend sacrament meeting with us! Super strong testimony builder on the power of prayer and how far prayerful goals/plans go. I'm excited to see what other miracles will happen as we continue on...

That's all I've got for now! I hope everyone has a great week!

-Elder Metcalf

1) Sister Han leading our teaching practice in district meeting (she's also going home in just a week) 2) A bird's eye view of where we sleep; super huge. FUN FACT: If it was literally an inch shorter we wouldn't be able to fit all four of us in there. 3) My zone leader and temporary companion, Elder Casutt 4) My loving and exasperated trainer, Elder Fox, waiting one of our investigators after a large block of 전도