A Refining Week

Oh boy, it was tough again. Not too many details I will share, but I figured out that all the hard stuff is just because Heavenly Father seems to know what he's doing. Although there hasn't been much outward success since I've shown up here, I feel like I'm being sharpened by it all so I can take comfort in the inner progress. Hoping next week will be better, time to carry on~

There isn't a ton to update this week so I'll just skip right to the SPEED ROUND:

- We're trying to find some young and hip people for our English class that we're trying to start back up. We got some super well-made flyers from our WML and we're hoping to recruit some people these next two weeks.

- We're working on moving all of our paper documents into digital. There is a TON of records in our house. But as we've been going throw we've managed to find people who pick up and talk to us! A lot of them live in different areas or just can't meet anymore but I've had a lot of nice, fun, natural conversations with people in Korean over the phone this last week so that was kinda neat to witness. We' found two people so far that are willing to meet us! ... sometime next month. Back to the grind.

- We were invited to the American Military base to help volunteer for a "Literacy Night" at the elementary school. Still weird to be around all the English speaking and American people. They probably think I'm just really awkward or something but I really have just forgotten how to act around them haha

- I ate Taco Bell for the first time in a year. Shout out to our Military Branch President Gustaves~ <3

- We met with our first potential investigator of this transfer. He's a super busy guy but when I first met him, I walked and talked with him for like 10 or 15 minutes and he said he'd be down to meet up this time so we can help him with his English and get to know each other better. And that's exactly what we did. My inner missionary was yelling at me the whole time to try and push a principle or teach something. I didn't end up teaching anything and was beginning to nag at myself until he said that before the meeting he had with us he was super prejudice against missionaries; he though we were just there to force a church on him and didn't care about helping with English or who he was. He enjoyed it enough to want to do it every week! He might join our English class too. He's on the slow track right now but he definitely has the potential to accept the gospel because he's actually comfortable with us now. We also gave him an English name; you can expect more updates on Benjamin next week~

Just a quick thought to end the email. This week at District Meeting, I wanted to have a discussion with my district members about who we should be comparing ourselves with. The answer is obvious, Jesus Christ, but you'd be surprised how often missionaries forget to stop comparing themselves with others or measuring their success from the things that don't matter. In Jacob 4:14, it says "Wherefore, because of their blindness, which blindness came from looking beyond the mark, they must needs fall; for God hath taken away his plainness from them, and delivered unto them many things which they cannot understand, because they desired it. And because they desired it God hath done it, that they may stumble." The verse talks about how hard headed the Jews were in ignoring the center of the gospel and instead focused on the rules, traditions, and nit picky things of that nature. However, you can liken "looking beyond the mark" unto anything, and in a missionary's case: we look beyond our marks by comparing our success with others. That's not what the mission is for. We all sat down, looked through the Christlike attributes, found one we'd like to work on, a scripture to make your "catchphrase", and what we're going to change. I decided to work on love, using Moroni 10:18's "perfect love casteth out all fear", and decided that I needed to stop focusing so much on myself and put other people, His children, in front of it all so I can do missionary work with confidence and refocus myself back on the mark. I know as we compare our growth and progress to our "marks" we'll be much more grateful, constructive, and happy than we would by comparing it with the far away things that don't matter. Remember the true mark~

That's all I got! Thanks for reading and writing. Buh bye~

-Elder Metcalf

1) Just a chapstick that I used completely to the end. 100%. Call Guinness. 2) Elder Nations getting trapped into a member's massage chair 3) View of a city street at night in the middle of Daegu (poor quality but the lit-up signs go on FOREVER) 4-5) God Bless America