Day in the Life [생활에 있는 일]: Adventures with "Jorge"

7/28-8/3
Monday was the kind of PDAY I have come to appreciate. To start, Sister Gapinski and I were able to spend our day at home doing the full P90xYogaX DVD. It was awesome! With any extra time, we spend it sleeping or writing letters. Perfect PDAY. When 6PM finally rolled around, we found ourselves at the church with 정예림S (Sister Jeong), our English class coordinator, waiting for the elders. We were supposed to have a meeting to consolidate plans for a speech contest we are holding this month and then head to a members house for a practice lesson.... but the elders were pretty late. The meeting went long and we ended up having to cancel with our ward member. It was a bummer. Instead, we boarded a bus to take us to the mission home for tonight. Tomorrow is my last MLC. I have been pretty melancholy today just thinking about all of "my last" things that are coming up. Sister Gapinski was a big help, I'm grateful for her.

Tuesday morning was like a dream come true! We slept in beds with air conditioning on all night and it felt like Heaven. When we finally woke up we were both convinced that that was our best nights sleep on our whole mission. I love that President and Sister Morrise are so willing to let us stay in their home the night before meetings.

MLC was fine. Honestly, I was a little disappointed. Our previous AP, Elder Schofield was the man! He completed his mission so President Morrise had no other choice but to bring in a new assistant but instead of their training being spiritual uplifting and motivational, it was presented in a very factual and matter-a-fact way. We literally read from PMG together and were given a commitment. Amid my disappointment, our cute office couple, the Grosebecks, came up to me to have me fill out some retuning missionary paperwork. 😭 Nooo!! I was pretty sad for the rest of the day. We traveled home just to have both of our appointments cancel. We spent the night proselyting. It was a letdown of a day, however I did receive some personal revelation about how I need to better take care of the sister missionaries here in 인천 (Incheon), so it wasn't all bad.

Wednesday morning was quite the adventure. Earlier 박동규E (Elder Park) and Elder Stowe had referred us an awesome family to teach, and today was our first appointment. We invited a ward member, 김미란S (Sister Kim) to teach with us. She was great and super helpful. As the lesson began we started with introductions just to interrupted by our good friend George (김명하B). He is a member of our ward who prefers to go by George or Jorge, as we like to spell it haha. This man was in a serious car accident which caused major brain problems. While he is still able to function, the wires in his brain aren't all in place- translation, he's a little crazy. Anyway long story short he disrupted our lesson by passing out milk, showing us weird pictures on his phone, and falling asleep in our lesson all before the elders came to save us by pulling him out... It was interesting to say the least.

When the lesson was finally able to progress, the mother was fascinated with Sister Kim's conversion story from the Presbyterian church. She currently is an active member in that church so she had several questions. While this new investigator, 이은실S (Sister Lee) isn't all that interested in studying about our church (mostly English interest for her children) she expressed that she had a dream the previous night that taught her that she needs to be open minded as she meets with us. If that wasn't an answer to our prayers, I don't know what is. It was pretty cool hearing her tell us this. Heavenly Father really does prepare His children to learn about His restored gospel. It was a phenomenal lesson.

As we wrapped up and saw our member and investigators off, the elders finished their lesson with George as well. George was persistent about wanting to make a plan to eat 팥빙수 (Ice Flakes) together. He has been pushing for this since I arrived over 6.5 months ago. I sighed and looked at Sister Gapinski suggesting that we just get it over with. She agreed but pulled the elders in too so we wouldn't be left alone with this crazy man haha. Maybe Elder Park was less than enthused but he came anyway. We walked his scooter all the way down the hill from the church to a Paris Baguette cafe. We ate, he talked about a bunch of nonsense, and we left. I hope that is the end of his persistence.

Next we went back to the church for another investigator appointment but she punked us again, that makes three or four weeks in a row! Today we'll take the hint. :/ Our member still showed up so we made posters for the English speech contest together. It was productive. As we wrapped up, 유경숙S (Sister You) called us and told us to hurry over if we wanted dinner, so we did haha. Her, her husband, and oldest son were home. Their oldest son is serving his time in the military and is quite the rebel nowadays. It is clearly taking a toll on his parents but he seemed to be oblivious to the hurt in their eyes. We ate a delicious meal, shared a spiritual message, and left quickly because Sister You and Brother Beck were on their way out too to go to the temple with the ward. They are awesome members! Our evening ended with visiting former investigators and inactive members. No success yet.

Thursday was our Zone Training meeting. Since last transfer there has been a lot of movement in the mission but especially with leadership positions. Our former Zone Leader, Elder Clawson completed his mission and I was so sad to see him go. He was probably one of my favorite zone leaders. Anyway, with him gone our normal prep meetings for everything have been done away with. So this morning Sister Gapinski and I were hounding the zone leaders to please tell us what we would be training the zone on. We finally decided 30 minutes before the meeting began- not cool. But by the grace of God we actually did really well. We focused on the section of PMG title "Ask Questions." We were both inspired to share several experiences and opened it up for everyone else to share as well. I felt the spirit super strong. I'm grateful that we were still blessed to do well despite out lack of preparation... but hey, sometimes it's better that way. After all, what has Jesus taught us? "Take no thought how or what ye shall speak: for it shall be given you in that same hour what ye shall speak." (New Testament, Matthew 10:19). I know we are blessed when we prepare but maybe today I learned the power of inspiration and revelation when we are called upon to teach. It was cool.

When the meeting ended, Sister Gapinski and I split up to do TIP (teacher improvement program) with a couple sisters. Sister Wright taught me. She was super nervous but did pretty well. I'm grateful to be able to serve near her, she is my "granddaughter" per missionary lingo. My first "daughter" or trainee, 한다솜S (Sister Han) trained Sister Wright. It's funny to see the small things that have been passed down. Posterity is a beautiful thing haha.

When it was finally time to leave, Sister Gapinski and I started an exchanged with 연수 (YonSu) sisters. I brought 곽남희S (Sister Gwak) back to 만수 (Mansu) with me. The only appointment that we had that night was with Momma Lee. She fed us and instead of going to our recent converts house (because she went to youth conference!!) we taught her a practice lesson instead. She is always so kind and loving, I'm really going to miss her. When we finished she asked if she could drive us home since she wouldn't have many opportunities to drive me before I leave for America. I really love her. She always made me promise to come back and visit her.. Duh! She will be a top priority.

Friday was a strange day. For starters, sister Gwak doesn't speak English, she knows it but is too afraid to speak, so I was forced to only speak Korean all day! It was a challenge but I was surprised how much I could spit out, even useless things that just came to mind as we were walked. I'm sad that I'm not better at Korean but hey, I'm able to fulfill my purpose AND I have forever to get better right? Anyway, we got a phone call from a member to meet her at the church. She called like 4 times while we were studying so I figured it was urgent but she wouldn't give a reason. When we came, she just wanted to record us reading English grammar rules for her to play for her students... I love people using me for English. Sigh. When we finished she drove us across town to our appointment. I thought she would join us but she changed her mind and just dropped us off.

Just before we walked into 이경호S (Sister Lee)'s house, our phone started blowing up! A member wanted to refer us to someone interested in our Family English Program but the catch was, we had to get to the church in 10 minutes. We were easily 30 minutes by car and more by bus! We called the elders to see if they could do us a solid and step in. After about 1,000 phone calls and 30 minutes later, everything was figured out and we were knocking on Sister Lee's door.

She was happy to see us. We were quickly welcomed in and served an early lunch ha. She made some dumplings from scratch and proceeded to teach me how to eat it properly (with soy says and green onion kimchee). Let me just say, I understood after the first demonstration but she was adamant on feeding me... I felt like I was a baby but it made her happy to prepare every little bite for me haha. Once we finished all the food we taught. We took a few steps back and recognized that we need to go back and build a firm foundation and faith in God and Jesus. I know that when she understands Them find Their purpose more fully, she'll be willing to act. It went well.

We left and made our way to unsplit. Today was Sister Gwak's birthday so we celebrated with dessert before changing back. It was sooooo good, especially because it is getting sooooo hot and humid nowadays. We attempted to find some former investigators and inactive members but ran out if time before we need to hop on a bus. It took forever by we eventually arrived at 박화성S (Sister Park-Elder Park's Sister)'s house for dinner. We ate a humble meal and shared a spiritual message. It was so good! We love her. As she walked us back to the bus stop, she decided to stay with us until our bus came because there was a mob of Cambodian immigration workers waiting too. One asked for my number purely using body language haha. Super weird! I gave him the Elder's number haha.

Once on a bus we tried to figure out the fastest way home and suddenly we thought it would be best to transfer at a big shopping center. Well boys and girls, I am here to tell you that it was life inspiration. I'll try to keep it short- as we waited for a bus a boy barely younger than us approached us in a panic, he was from Russia and lost. Immediately we get our cute couple investigators (who are fluent in Russian) on the phone and low and behold, the husband was across the street at the same shopping center! He was waiting for his wife so he quickly came over to help us. We went back and forth with English, Korean, and Russian- it was awesome!! Eventually he was reunited with his brother and we were in a taxi with the cute couple to get home by 10:30. It was quite an eventful way to end our day.

Saturday was pretty uneventful. Studies, less-active hunting, English class, and weekly planning. Maybe the only thing worth mentioning is that today marked the 60 year anniversary of the Dedication of Korea for missionary work. Pretty cool.

Sunday was so great! No investigators came to church today but something else monumental happened, our adorable recent convert, HyonChee, went to a long weekend youth conference with a couple stakes. She told us she had a blast and she made a lot of new friends. And to top it all off she got up in sacrament meeting to bear her testimony about it all! It was a proud 'momma head' moment, if that's a thing... She sat in the meeting with her new friends and they all rock, paper, scissor'ed how would go first. She won and went last. It was the last testimony of the meeting and I wanted to cry. I love her! She really has grown so much!

After church we took Elders Park and Stowe to meet a potential investigator. It all went really well until it started raining and he recommended we duck in a cafe where he wanted to buy us food. I tried to be polite and say we were fasting but Elder Park interrupted and told me it was for missionary work and they we could resume our fast soon haha. Uhhh... That's not how it works but for today, it did. Sigh. Besides that is was good.

The rain really started to come down so Sister Gapinski and I went home to do call backs. No huge success. The evening ended with our ward mission leader. This week was over all pretty good. I hope you all had a great week too!!

Love you!!
Sister Sloan