Two blocks, zero coats

Heyyyyyyy~~~~

It was a pretty busy week this week, not a whole lot of time to 전도 actually. Lots of random things, some happy things, some less than happy things. All fun though; I love this missionary stuff.

To start out, Elder Seely and I got our haircuts and it's super Korean.They call it a "two block" over here but if I had to explain it without pictures: it's a glorified bowl cut. When they first cut it they left my hair up too so I looked like a rooster for a day. Had to fix it later and put part of it down so I don't look like a punk on the Lord's errand. I'll include pictures at the bottom. The Koreans love them though, so as much as I hate it I might just keep it. I definitely don't plan on rocking it in America though...

Other stuff that happened this week:

We went an hour on bus to an area called 하양 ("Hayang") that was still somehow part of our proselyting area of Gyeongsan. Turns out our area is huge, just full of a bunch of countryside where's there's not a ton of people to proselyte to. Anyway, Elder Seeling and I decided that since we had such a large block of time on Tuesday, and we probably wouldn't have a day as empty as this, that we should go out of way and try to 1) visit the less-actives out there that were on our list 2) see if there were any areas worth coming back to often 3) find the elect. Unfortunately, none of those things were accomplished, haha. The less actives didn't exist, and we didn't find anyone with interest way out there. But it sure was fun proselyting on a Catholic university's campus. None of them were actually Catholic though. The staff definitely was. We got some looks and a security guard coming up to us. We left right out of there after he looked at our name tags and went back to his booth to make a call. Good thing w 전도'd the whole thing before we got out. There's another substantial college out in Hayang too, but we never made it to it, so I guess we can half-check off #2. We also felt an earthquake that day. My first earthquake ever. Super fun. Definitely one of my favorite 전도 days.

I went on exchange with 설진영 장로님 (Elder Seol Jinyeong), and it was my first time spending a whole day with a Korean. And I gotta say, nothing makes you feel more insuffienct in a foriegn lnaguage than to serve a whole day with someone who is fluent in that said foreign language. But it's okay, because we got along great actually. I was good enough in Korean and he was good enough in English that we could talk in half Korean and half English. We went hunting for less actives in another far away sector of our area that was crazy countryside. If it wasn't for the towers of apartments and green mountains far off, I would've felt like I was back in Iowa. Those less actives also didn't exist unfortunately (I'm starting to really not trust this list we have). But we had an appointment with a guy Elder Seely and I met once, ate some Korean food, I helped him with some English, we built some relationship and trust, and he's down to meet more often and said it would be fine if we talked more about our church with him. So I'd called that a successdul exchange. But I did have to blow a lot of money on some expensive Korean food, for both me and Elder Seol. RIP MSF... And then I lead our ward correlation meeting without Elder Seely, and our ward mission leader totally understood everything I said. Another win. Ended the night blowing money on chicken, as exchange tradition.

I HAD THANKSGIVING IN KOREA!I am so blessed to be serving in the same district where there is an American military branch. They invited us to their Thanksgiving party and it was amazing. I almost felt trunky for a second with the turkey and cranberry sauce. Oh boy, so good. Fun to talk in English, see other missionaries who got invited. It was just a nice time. A good tender mercy of the Lord.

We got three new investigators!!! That's my favorite one. We've been dry for a long time and we're finally meeting with people. The trick now is to try and meet more often and see how much potential they have. We're really shooting to give Christ a baptism for Christmas. I have a feeling it could definitely be one of them.

Aside form that, we're still doing missionary work. Actually right now our main focus is to just try and get these members happy her in Gyeongsan. We'd love to bring investigators to church but our members aren't prepared for it yet. And we can't prepare or ask them for any big help yet before they're ready to do that. So we're starting from the ground up. We're going to pump these spirits up and see if we can get Gyeongsan poppin'. Just like it says in Mosiah 4:27 "see that all things are done in wisdom and in order; for it is not requisite that a man should run faster than he has strength". And it's super true. I'd love to be impatient and just ask for referrals and fellowshippers right off the bat but that's just not the right way. We have to show patience and love in all aspects of the work, even if it doesn't show immediate fruit. Even just being a chipper at the sculpture of Korea is good enough for me. I know that everything I do with this calling is consecrated to the Lord for the hastening of his work.

Also it got really cold all of the sudden. And I still have no winter wear... Shout out to my baller companion Elde Seely for lending me his out shell coat to save my life. <3

That's all I got! Sorry it's so long! Thanks for reading and writing!!

-Elder Metcalf

1-3) My two block, when it was first received

1) Some BOMB homemade chicken 2) Elder Seol and I 3) One of the sisters drew me on the whitboard 4) Fixed haircut, still getting used to it

Middle of Nowhere:

When miracles happen

Hello hello hello~ 안녕하세요~

This week was a little difficult to be honest, but the Lord definitely noticed because he blessed us a bunch this week. Great experiences this week. And we managed to stay warm, thanks to some nice weather...

Where to start? We had a goal from our district meeting last week to make a goal everyday, then tell another team to be accountable, and then inform God to consecrate the goal and let Him help us. And every daily goal we made this week got accomplished! We had a few good ones I'd like to share real quick... We made a goal to give a Book of Mormon to a family on a day where we had a lot of time to proselyte. We had nothing the whole day, and by the time it was about thirty minutes before we needed to head home, we met a family by the river who were really friendly to us, didn't want to meet, but was happy to take our book and would find us if they wanted to know more. That was the daily first goal that we made as well, so after that happened we figured we have to keep doing it, so we did! The next day we had a goal to see a less-active. We have been hunting for the less-actives in our branch for the last transfer and a half and we have not seen a face yet. But after walking all the way to the other side of the area, knocking all the doors and getting nothing, we had one left. And it opened! Sad part was we couldn't do anything since we can't be in a place alone with a female. But she invited us in, we politely explained, and she had a smile on her face when we showed up. The sisters are going to go visit her this week and hopefully we can see her at church. But the very best one happened on Saturday, when we made a goal to find a new investigator. The area has been dry for a few weeks. We only have two investigators and that's only if you count our disappeared one. We had been praying to find one for a few weeks now and it came to Saturday, and this goal-making thing seemed to be working, so we made it and hoped for the best. The day went on and stuff kept popping up but nothing that would lead to finding somebody. So we went over to set up for church, practiced a musical number for church, and had only an hour to go out and find. So we went out the door and there's a man that attended our English class last week and he felt like even though class already ended that he should just come and see if anyone was there. Long story short, this man (이도양) is a new investigator! He told us his life story, he has dreams to come closer to God, we taught the Restoration, he accepted a Book of Mormon, and he even fed us dinner because he thought he was bothering us. Super sweet guy. I can see him in white for sure. He gave us some miracles when we really needed them. I hope I'm humble enough to try and always remember them.

Other than that, we just had random stuff this week! It was 빼빼로 Day on Saturday as well so people kept giving us candy and whatnot. I love that Koreans show their love through food. We also had district meeting this week. And they're starting to change some more stuff in the mission but we won't find out until zone conference. But they did tell us that there's a new rule that we can't email back and forth. Just one sent, one received. No more chatting. A lot of missionaries aren't happy about it. I'm still figuring out to even email effectively so it doesn't affect me too much. And Elder Seely hit his year mark! I forgot when we celebrated but the man is half way done already. Another wake-up call for how fast this thing goes. 

That's all I've got! Thanks for reading/writing!

-Elder Metcalf

1) Elder Seely and I eating some good food this week (it's called 찜닭) 2) Elder Seely celbrating a year in Korea with his favorite food: Korean BBQ 3) A little clown car we found meeting a member for lunch one day

Changing Seasons

Helloooo~

We're a week into the new transfer and it looks promising! Still sad about 박상민 though. We have tried calling him on multiple phones and he won't pick up anything. We just hope he's okay at this point. But we press on! We have found some people to teach these past few days and it looks like we might start really getting the ball rolling here in Gyeongsan the next few weeks. Here's the big stuff that happened this week...

Elder Seely and I went down to Busan for DLTM (district leader training meeting); which is two hours of talks, training, and announcements for district leaders, and two hours of 전도 (street proselyting) for the junior companions. But it was super fun to be honest. I just love being with missionaries. I got to 전도 with my older brother too! Elder Fox's first trainee Elder 송우성, who is awesome and a ton of fun to be with. The Korean missionaries always compliment my Korean too, which is nice because heaven knows I need the confidence, haha. Got to see my father Elder Fox as well. Fun times, good training, nice change in the regular swing of things.

We had district meeting where we got all the announcements about our new phones. And the announcements are.... no announcements! It's just a pretty brick with easier texting and Gospel Library. All the same rules apply; which is a bummer because we can't take pictures with them now. Oh well. We talked a lot about goals too. Our zone here in Daegu has a goal for 15 baptisms; one for each team. Missionaries when making goals often shoot for the stars when it comes to their goal setting but this transfer and up until Christmas, President Jeong wants us to fully attain our goals, work towards them, and give Christ some baptisms for Christmas. Talked about when we make goals to actually think about them and look at them EVERYDAY, because whenever we make them they get trapped in our planners and never become anything. So we've started making not just attainable long term goals, but a daily accountable goal. Like just yesterday, Elder Seely and I made a goal that we were going to give a Book of Mormon to a family, called the sisters for accountability, and had it in our focus the whole day. And we did it! Twenty minutes before we had to head home! Awesome testimony builder. Goals make the magic happen for sure. 

Also this transfer. we've been challenged to read the Book of Mormon cover-to-cover focusing on "How can I be a better missionary?" up until Christmas Eve. I looooove it. Before my mission, I tried to prepare to be a missionary to the best degree that I could, and one of the simple things I did was read the Book of Mormon. I had hard times staying awake, understanding, and getting far into the book but I found that as I read everyday, my concerns slowly faded and I felt the beginnings of my testimony. As I've read it everyday of my mission, it just gets stronger and stronger. I feel nurtured and ready to go. I'm not too far into the challenge yet but I'm already loving it, this book is a book of comfort. 

Other than that it's just starting to feel like there's a palpable change in the work. I can't really put my finger on it. But it might just be because it's starting to get freezing over here. Fun fact: I was in the hottest area in the summer and now I'm in the coldest for winter. Hah. I just hope I get my winter stuff in the mail soon...

Thanks for writing/reading!

-Elder Metcalf

1) My older brother, 송우성 장로님 (Elder Wooseong Song) 2) A picture from the top floor of a high-rise while me and Elder Seely were hunting for less-actives 

A quarter in

Hello~

This week went by so fast but I feel like we barely did anything to be honest. It always ends up speeding up like that at the last week of the transfer... Anywho, I have some news!

1) I'm not transferring! Which isn't much of a surprise really, since I've only been here for one transfer. Everyone in the mission was unsure about it though because we still don't know what our mission president's pattern of transfers are (or if he even has one). But for the next six weeks I'll be remaining in 경산 (Gyeongsan) with Elder Seely. It's going to be a good transfer here and I'm sure it will be a great one for the entire mission as a whole. Firstly because we have 11 new missionaries coming in (all elders) so it'll be exciting to see some fresh faces. And secondly...

2) WE HAVE SMART PHONES! It's a missionary work miracle. I read just last week that the church was making changes to missionary work in terms of technology and some other aspects and lo and behold, this Friday night that we were getting smart phones in the mail tomorrow morning. Oh boy. It's super exciting. We turned them on and set them up yesterday with our district and now we're going to get them activated for service after emailing today. I don't really know what this means but holy cow it's going to useful. Mainly for Kakao Talk, which is an app that every single Korean uses to communicate (we've lost a lot of contacts over not having the app, that's how popular it is). It'll be nice to have other resources too, I'm sure but we really don't know everything about them yet. We're going to be getting all the information this week about rules and procedures and whatnot.

3) I'm 1/4 done with my mission already. I feel like I got here like 2 weeks ago. I'm sure it's been said time and time again how fast time goes by on your mission but I'm here to tell you my witness that I'm actually rattled that I've experienced such time travel. But looking back at those 6 months that I apparently lived through, I've learned a TON, and there's still so much to learn. I've valued my missionary youth ever since I got to the field but this has really been a wake-up call to maybe start valuing it some more, haha. It makes a little anxious but I try to remind myself that missionary work is missionary work: as long as you're doing it, the Lord is consecrating it. 

Other than that, nothing much happened this week. 박상민 is still missing, we're still figuring out what the Lord wants us to do here, and we're working hard and pumped to see what happens the next six weeks. Ahh, but we did have this lit Halloween Party on Friday with our branch in Gyeongsan, our neighboring area in Suseong, and the American military branch of Daegu. Tons of fun. So much stuff going on we didn't even know what to do with ourselves. Also really nice to talk to some fellow military Mormons. Some of them even know where Rock Island is, haha. 

That's all I've got for the time being. Thanks for reading/writing~

-Elder Metcalf

1) Smart phone VS ancient flip phone 2) Elder Seely and I went as M&M's for the party; found cute kids that wanted pictures with us 3) Gyeongsan missionaries (Sister Monson is heading to Jeju Island today so we're getting a new sister for the next six weeks)