Elder Geddes and I, on our weekly P-Day exchange (because both of our companions are still enslaved in the Mission Choir down in Busan) got to go over to the downtown of our area, eat a meal with like half of our zone, and then all go to 디스코 팡팡 ("Disco Pang-Pang") together. What's Disco Pang-Pang? If I'm being honest I still don't really know. But I'll try and get some good imagery going on. Everyone sits in a flying saucer while a DJ spins it as fast as he wants trying to fling you into the middle of the saucer and periodically stopping the spinning to put a spotlight on somebody and try and roast them. There is also another worker there that stands in the middle of the saucer runs around, does backflips, and just defies gravity I guess. It was hard for the DJ to fling us or roast us though since we were all holding on so tight and he didn't feel comfortable completely 100% roasting a bunch of foreigners in Korean. Probably not the most missionary-like thing I've done as a missionary, but now I know. It was good fun though, worth going once at least.
The next day was Zone Conference! We got to do double Zone Conference with Daegu which was awesome because we had the 안동 ("Andong" - the Northernmost area in our mission) come down one night early so they wouldn't have to travel the day of. So we had six Elders in one house for night, which of course was a ton of fun. But an even more awesome point was I got to see my father, Elder Fox! I hadn't seen him for a while so the reunion was even sweeter than last time. It was just nice to sit down and catch up with each other and remember how my training was only seven months ago. Love the snot out of that man, I hope to see him again before he dies and goes home a transfer or two from now. The actual Zone Conference was awesome. We got trained on technology for the first half. We already have smart phones, as you know, but starting next week we'll actually be able to use them! Facebook, Kakao Talk (Korea specific social app), and all of the other applications certified for missionary use will be up and running on February 14th. More updates on that in the future. And the rest of the Zone Conference was all about repentance. It was one of the better zone conferences I've been to. The main message of the meeting was that we are meant to change and become like Him, and you can always start again in the process of doing that, no matter what your mistakes are. it was a Spirit filled meeting and it was nice to have some thoughts turned to the Savior. Also, we now sing "I'm Trying To Be Like Jesus" in Korean every companionship study in the Korea Busan Mission, just to be able to remember it.
Wednesday, Elder Minson and I cleaned the church for a few hours, by request of our Busan Stake/Ulsan District custodian. It was just nice to do some straight up service. Walking around outside for a few hours just trying to greet some people in the freezing cold is nice but I thoroughly enjoyed the cleaning for that day. It was all in preparation for the District Conference on the weekend. And a general authority was coming too so it had to be in tip-top shape. Elder Robert C. Gay, the Asia North Area President was going to be our guest speaker. More on him later (it was AWESOME). And then we went to a member's academy in our neighboring area by request. She likes having missionaries there so the kids can get used to them when they're young and better accept the gospel later. She's an awesome, hard working member to say the least. And she fed us. And there was another team's investigator there so it was a big win.
Thursday we went to Sister 추하은's ("Choo Haeun" - our Branch President's daughter, one of the main youth in our branch) Middle School Graduation ceremony. She apparently had invited the Elder's before I even was in the area and her parents weren't sure they could make it to the whole thing so all four us us Hogye Elders went to it in support. We came in a little late and when we opened the doors to the gym, literally everyone in the room turned their heads and saw the three tall white dudes at the entrance. We were popular enough to get asked to take a lot of pictures afterwards too. And days afterwards we still have kids on the street asking us if we went to the Sangan Middle School Graduation. So it turned out to be a lot more effective than we thought it was. And every class got to make fun, super well-edited videos for their graduation, so that was fun to watch too. And it turns out that Haeun was already super popular to begin with but has achieved legend status thanks to her American missionary friends and the fact that she's going to America for high school next year. Another big win.
Friday was just weekly planning and proselyting. But we did have two female high school students try to bum a taxi ride off of us (they knew us from the graduation ceremony; we're famous too now I guess). We lied and said we had no money. That usually works. But it's also kinda true so we didn't feel too bad. Ended up working. It was a nice night of 전도 after that.
Saturday was the first day of District Conference. Before that we balled up with a bunch of potential investigators. They all also knew about the graduation ceremony (if any missionaries are reading this, please try graduation ceremony proselyting, it works) so they brought another friend to prove it. It was good BRT. Not sure how to turn them into investigators but there are one of two of them who seem to have some real potential. A few hours roll by and we get the privilege to hear Elder Gay give his first talk of District Conference. It was the best talk I've heard in the field so far. Maybe that's just because I could actually understand all of it (thank you Korean) but the Spirit was piercing in the room. There's too much to share but the central point of his talk was firing up the Korean Saints, to have courage and really *live* the gospel if you intend on trying to find joy on it. He spoke with some of the greatest boldness and love I have ever seen. His talk on Sunday was just as good too. A lot about miracles brought by faith, the dangers of being at ease in Zion, and just so many promised blessings of sacrificing time and efforts for building His kingdom and keeping His commandments. Too many take-aways to list them all but I think I definitely need to work on "sacrificing the world's way" and instead remembering His sacrifice. Thinking like that, there is nothing too big to covet, and nothing that we can render or give-up. I hope to hear more talks like that again as I continue doing missionary work.
Really long, but that's all of it! And I got to celebrate my 20th birthday yesterday during all of the fire talks we heard. And the Sisters in my area made tacos and cake; they're the real MVP's. But I'm still 21 in Korean age. I still don't know how that works. Anywho, gotta go! Thanks for reading/writing~
-Elder Metcalf
1) What Disco Pang-Pang looks like 2) Foxy Papa at Zone Conference
MORE PICS
1) What a Korean Middle School Graduation looks like 2) Haeun and our Branch President (FUN FACT: she got the most flowers in the room, and then some. People like to give flowers at graduation in Korea I guess) 3-4) More Middle School Grad pics 5) 장어탕 Eel Soup; we got it for free the one day we proselyted a bunch. It actually doesn't taste that fishy, it's a lot like tofu.
No comments:
Post a Comment