Elder Gavin Metcalf's Adventures in Korea: ZONE CONFERENCE WEEK

The short summary: we went to three different zone's zone conferences this week and it was FUN~

They all had the same theme in common though, according to the focus of our mission this transfer, R E P E N T A N C E. So I was thoroughly educated on repentance this week by fellow missionaries along with President Jeong and Sister Kim. This is only my first transfer serving in the mission headquarters but I was able to realize this week what a cool opportunity it is to experience zone conference multiple times in one transfer and enjoy the spiritual pump-ups from missionaries all around the mission. My heart goes out to the Daegu, Changwon, and Jeju zones this week for their hard work planning and putting together their individual zone conferences this week~

Also, it's 추석 (Chuseok) in Korea starting today! It's Korean Thanksgiving and it's HUGE in Korea. Everyone took off to go back to their hometowns and see their families for the week. And my companion Elder Kim gets to call back home sometime this week as well to talk to his family for a bit over Skype. And because it's Chuseok week here in Korea, not only were we schooled on the gospel of Jesus Christ for zone conference, but we also got to have some time to do some fun activities and traditional Korean games for a bit. I would explain what all of the games are but it would take a bit of time, and they're honestly not all that interesting if you read just a written description. But if you get 30 or so bored missionaries together in a room altogether, even throwing some wooden sticks around can be exciting.

WHAT DID YOU LEARN ABOUT REPENTANCE THIS WEEK? Oh wow, I'm so glad you asked.

Well, I've thought a lot on my mission on how repentance is a necessary step for someone to change and experience conversion but this time around I wanted to think more about how repentance is specifically important to the missionaries. Before my mission I looked at the missionaries and I was like, "Oh wow, they are so righteous. They know everything about the gospel. They probably don't even need to think about that repentance thing." NOPE, I WAS WRONG. Ladies and gentleman, even missionaries need to repent (so shocking right?). In fact everyone needs to repent, constantly, in order to progress and become what we need to be. I keep saying "repentance" but actually, more simply, repentance is just "change". The harvest is plenty and the laborers are few, and God needs people who are willing to change to serve Him. When we make the decision to serve Him, He hopes that we sacrifice and give things up so that we can find more of yourself. Jesus Christ himself promised that those who lose their life for his sake are those who will end up finding their life. The mortal life is a time to repent, but the mission life within the mortal life is a time to really become dedicated, really find out, and really change (or repent). I've been doing it for almost a year and a half and I'm thankful for the time that I've been given to change. The blessings can't be counted. Yay for repentance~

ONE MIRACLE FROM THE WEEK BEFORE I END:

Elder Kim and I saw two miracles simultaneously this last week. We were doing our companionship study outside on a bench right in front of a Subway one day. Which was a super dumb idea because I LOVE sandwiches and we hadn't eaten anything for lunch yet. But we were determined to be outside for as long as we could since we knew we wouldn't have much time to proselyte this week, and wanted to find some prepared peeps to talk to. AND THEN CAME MIRACLE NUMBER 1: We got some cookies. But that's not it, I promise. We were given cookies by a lady who approached us, said that she attended our church a while ago and is currently less active, and then ran away. The miracle wasn't the cookies (although I was pretty dang psyched about the heavenly messenger delivering us the tastiest chocolate chip cookies I've had in five-ever), the miracle was the Elder Kim recognized her face from somewhere and now we have a less active member to help. Boom. AND MIRACLE NUMBER 2: Almost immediately after, some guy walked past us while we were being handed cookies, we failed to say hello, but he came on back, said hi to us first, and we talked to him for like 15 minutes. This guy is a man from the Philippines who just recently moved here to Busan, has a lot of Mormon friends, and said he wants to meet with us again and hear more about what we're sharing and why we're here. We set up an appointment for tomorrow! We got one-two punched by miracles out of NOWHERE. And we didn't even do anything other than be outside haha. So that was cool, I wanted to share it with you all~

Alrighty, have a fantatstic Korean Thanksgving! Thanks for reading and writing~

-Elder Metcalf

1-4) Daegu Zone Conference; we had a 떡볶이 (tteokbokki) cook-off and then played some games inside

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Changwon Zone Conference; one of the games we played was human snake. You try and eat the "tail" of the other snakes to win. We also played human knot. Fun times~

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JEJU ZONE CONFERENCE; I got to go over to Jeju Island again! We did our zone conference as we traveled in the car and while we walked along the coast at some park.