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
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