I'm gonna be a dad, and here's some pictures

***Note from his mom:  When he says that he is going to be a dad is means that he will be training a new missionary....like BRAND spanking new.****



I'm training for my last transfer! I'll just send pictures this time. Write more next week~

PICS:

1-2) Deep cleaning; I found some mystery substance in the house 3-4) We visited the guy our member referred to us last week and he gave us some free drinks at his cafe. He's a babe. 5) Me and my boi Hunzeker

MORE

1) The youth of Busan Ward; because Elder Hunzeker was leaving 2-3) Our District and Elder Seung (we love him) 4) The last picture I took with Elder Hunzeker (I dropped the phone on the ground)

We have a cookie adventure and meet a lot of less-actives

HELLO!

We are currently teaching a handful of people right now HOWEVER none of them have time, which is heartbreaking. I don't think we even met a single on of them this week. But we somehow had a packed schedule for everyday of our week. And it consisted of a cookie adventure. And seeing a lot of less-actives. LET ME ELABORATE~

THE WEEKLY UPDATE:

- I met with some people I used to teach in my past areas a little bit this week. One of them was my friend Lorenzo (don't be fooled by his name, he's still Korean) who Elder Sayer and I used to teach when I lived in Daegu. Conveniently, Elder Sayer lives down here in Busan too so we planned a P-day exchange and got to eat some food and talk with him. He hasn't met with missionaries since I left Daegu but he says that he's continued to pray almost every night! And the next day before he took his train back up to Daegu we met him for lunch and I felt the need to share something out of the Book of Mormon. We shared the conversion story of Alma the younger and how he got his testimony. Lorenzo said that recently he's been feeling like he should "return back to God" (he used to attend church a long time ago) so he felt like these were some words he needed to hear. And to my surprise, Elder Sayer and I never gave him a Book of Mormon when we were meeting and teaching him (he didn't progress to well back then). But he super happily accepted a Book of Mormon from us and said he would start reading it and committed that he was going to start meeting with the missionaries again up in Daegu. 

- OLD FRIENDS PT. 2: I used to teach a college student named 영철 Yeongcheor when I was serving in the office. He used to have a lot of prejudice against religion, and people who try to share it (a.k.a. the missionaries), and was a man who lived by logic and didn't believe God at all. By the time I had left the area, he started to believe God, he was praying on his own, and he even introduced his girlfriend to us. He recently started his mandatory military service so right now he's living in his hometown working as a public worker at a less-fortunate children's center. But he still has to come to Busan every now and then to receive dental care so he came through town this last week with his mom and we got to meet and talk with them. Our meeting went suuuuuuper well. Apparently he's been continuing to pray and since his supervisor is a religious man he says he's been reading the scriptures at work. His mom was super interested in us and we gave her a Book of Mormon with our contact information. And the best part was that we referred him to the missionaries over in his hometown and he's going to be able to start meeting with them soon! LESSON LEARNED: Don't give up on people. Whether it be family, or friends, or other members of the church, as long as you keep contact and continue to show Christlike love their hearts can be ready to accept the gospel later on. God has his own timing, I guess we just need to wait for it~

- Judy and Tony are finally going back to America! Tony is in working condition (although he's not all the same in the head anymore). They were extremely thankful that we continued to visit them for the month they were in Korea. And another happy ending, we got to give Judy a Book of Mormon! She would hug us everytime we visited her and because I had guilty conscience I told her that missionaries don't actually make physical contact with anyone of the opposite sex and that we were pretty disobedient but she said it's okay because "I'm like your grandma". And then she gave us a grandma kiss on the neck. I think we're going to be cast down into missionary outer darkness now.

- We had a day where the fine dust was TERRIBLE outside and our mission president told us not to go out in the morning. And because our cookies were such a hit last week with the people that we visited we made some more this week for some of the more active members of our congregation and went to pay them a visit. AND THUS BEGAN OUR COOKIE ADVENTURE. We've recently been focusing on referrals and so we had a goal to ask all the people we visit about any friends or family they could introduce us to. We didn't get any referrals for people to teach but we got an entire list of less actives to visit from our former bishop. We sat down and called a billion less actives and then got an appointment with one of them that week! An another member was a total homie and asked us to wait until he arrived at his home so he could feed us.

- We saw a handful of other less actives this week but one of them was related to my companion Elder Hunzeker. She was Elder Hunzeker's mom's cousin's mother-in-law. But we just call her 미미 할머니 Grandma Mimi. She took our arms (more disobedience, I'm sorry white handbook) and we escorted her to a restaurant for lunch. After eating and talking we showed her the location of the church. SURPRISE! She's actually a member of the church and she had been here before a very long time ago for a stake activity or something. She was baptized when she was 12 and went less-active when she started college. She hasn't been to church in a really long time but she said she would start trying again. 

- We are currently very good friends with one of our young adult less-actives who just started college in a city right outside of Busan. She's the same sister we rode bikes on P-day with. She was in town for a job interview this weekend and so we made an appointment to meet up and eat. And after we were done eating we were heading to the same part of the city for two separate appointments and I asked her if she had any friends to introduce and she pulled out her phone and said she'd be able to introduce us to her friend later that day. Miraculously for the time we had with her, all of our other appointments got cancelled so we were able to have that opportunity to ask about and meet this friend of her's. He's a nice guy who works at a cafe and now we're in contact with him. And we got her to come to church on Sunday for a hot second!

That's all I got for the week. We get transfer calls on Saturday. I'm pretty darn sure I'll be here for the next transfer too. My boy Elder Hunzeker will have to say goodbye to his first area. Love you all~

-Elder Metcalf

PICS:

1-2) Old friends (영철 and Lorenzo) 3) We gave the sacrament to a family that just had a baby in the hospital and we got to see the baby! His name is 영빈 ("youngbean") 4-5) Our less active member homie that introduced us to her cafe friend

It's been 3 weeks, sorry about that

SORRY,

I promise that I try to send one of these emails every week but every time I try to login on to write an email the computer wants to fight me. But we won the battle for today~

UPDATES:

- We've continued to visit Tony and Judy, the American couple that got stuck here in Busan when Tony fell off and escalator and landed himself in the hospital. He's been doing a lot better but he's not all there in the head yet but he's awake most of the time and he talks with us. He thinks Elder Hunzeker and I are his taxi drivers and we'll be taking him to the airport soon. They'll probably be leaving back to America soon since his condition is a lot more stable.

- We've been going hard trying to keep in contact with less actives. We were able to meet with one of their husbands whose not a member and he likes to eat lunch and talk with us so that's nice. One week he bought us dog, and the next week he bought us living octopus. Those are some interesting eats. It's weird that I can say that's not the best dog I've eaten too; this is my third time.. Sorry Fido

- Among the other less actives, we have one who hasn't come to church or seen the missionaries for a long time so we sent her a text and the next day she texted a member saying that she was really feeling like she needs to go to church and then she got our text (whooaaa). And so we payed her a visit and gave her some cookies with a message card and she says she hopes to see us again. Baby steps~

- ANOTHER less active we met with about two weeks ago and had dinner while we talked and afterwards she was really thankful to us because she was feeling kinda depressed beforehand. This member used to be super active a\but all of her friends in the church stopped coming to church and started doing not the best stuff so it shook her faith a little bit and told our Bishop that she needs time away from the church to figure things out. But we got her thinking about church again and we spent some more time with her on P-Day riding some bikes. She just started college so she's busy now but her college is right next to one of our churches so we're going o see what we can do

- We've been meeting with another awesome less-active, Brother 박명호, and his wife who isn't a member of our church. She's thinking about committing to baptism sometime soon. The missionaries have been working with them for a while so we're hoping and praying for the best.

- We have a friend that we meet with pretty often who's name is 명진 (but you can call him MJ). He's been meeting with the missionaries for a long time and he really likes us. But recently as we've been meeting with him we've felt that he's ready to commit to baptism and so we decided on a baptismal date together! He should be getting baptized two weeks from now but he has a few things he's not too sure about when it comes to our church. We had a really good discussion about faith and promised him that whatever his concern was he can receive an answer by sincerely reading and praying about the Book of Mormon. He's willing to work with us to get over these doubts so we're pumped to help him out.

- We got a random referral from a guy that lives up in Andong (very far away) and came all the way down to Busan to introduce his best friend to us. He gave a really sincere testimony about what the gospel means to him, how long he's wanted to share it with him, and how he feels that he;s ready to hear it now. We've since tried to invite him to come to church twice, he hasn't made it out yet, but he's down to see us again.

- We cleaned the church for 6 hours straight in preparation for Busan Stake Conference. We cleaned the outside of the church and Elder Hunzeker and I found at least 3 dead animals, but we gave them a proper burial so it turned out alright. The stake custodian guy felt bad for all the intense cleaning so he bought us lunch and ice cream. He's a great guy. I've helped clean the church in past areas with him before too and I let him know that cleaning the church with him are some of the funner days in my mission and he was really happy to hear that I think. He's got a lot of work on his hands so we're always happy to render some service to him and the church buildings. 

- We had Stake Conference! Elder Wada, from the Asia North Presidency came and talked too. He talked about charity, and specifically learning charity from Nephi in the first few chapters of the Book of Mormon. Nephi was a stud but he had to learn just like us so as we follow his example we can end up like spiritual studs too. Also, the Busan Stake youth formed a choir for the conference and it was sooo good. The youth always have a special spirit to them and they're always so awesome. 

- We visit 대신 할머니 (Daeshin Grandma) every week and she has been asking us to bring this member she knows for a long time. So I asked some missionaries, got his number, and he made a deal with us to come after Stake Conference. And she was so happy! She even started crying. It's easy to forget how lonely people can be when they're stuck in the hospital by themselves all day everyday. She thanked us for bringing him and the member agreed to come more often. Wins for the Daeshin Grandma~

I bet there was more but this is all I can recall. Sorry~ Oh WAIT, I made it into BYU! I don't know if I've mentioned that yet. I'll be starting in the summer term!

I'll just post the pictures now before the computer starts to wrestle me. Have a good week~~~

-Elder Metcalf

1-2) Dog soup Round #3 3) The first church building in Korea 4) Short ceilings in Korea 5) I cook all the time, but only because my companion doesn't know how. And all I know how to cook is 떡볶이 

A really expensive sunglasses shop. We went in one time on a P-Day. The aesthetic is really weird so people come in to look all the time.

Hospital visits to Tony and Judy, some dinner with Judy, and more cooking (except it was actually baking; we made cookies)

Bike riding adventures with one of our members

Cleaning the church, a tombstone for anonymous dead cat(RIP), Short ceilings part 2, living octopus legs (they were wiggling I promise), night views from Yeongdo Island while visiting less actives