4-27-14

This past week has been a pretty good one. My companion has began to think that I am super lucky. I guess before I came into this area they only had like 2 male investigators that were ok but needed a lot of help. And ever since I've come to the area (i think its been like 3 weeks now) we've received over like 15 contacts and have made 4 new male investigators with 2 of them who show a lot of promise. So ya things are starting to look up. 

This last week I've been really trying to focus on hope. And I've noticed that the more i do, the easier things seem to work out. One example is with all the contacts we receive. This past week over the span of 2 days we probably proselyted for like 14 hours total. It was tough and at the time little to no success was visible. But I guess that's the hing about hope. Hope is being able to look past the minor bumps in the road of life, and to focus on what is really important. With a specific goal in mind, and a sincere desire to attain it, hope will allow us to trudge through the trials of life unto a greater field.

 Another example, this last week I got received a camera in a package. I was so happy because I had lost my camera I had originally brought on my mission within the first week of being in the field. So I took a couple of pictures with it over the days until one day, maybe last Thursday, during study time I heard a popping noise come out of the camera. So i grabbed it to check it out to find out that it wouldn't turn on. So my camera lasted a total of three days. 

I couldn't help but start to laugh at my own misfortune. As I contemplated my situation i quickly came to the conclusion of  "oh well". There's nothing I could've done to prevent it, and it being broken has no effect on my being or my ability to complete my calling and achieve my goal. To have hope is to realize what things are worth worrying about and what things don't matter. With hope we know what we want to achieve, and can determine in situations what outcomes will effect us in our respective duties. 

This week also had other pretty fun and pretty terrible experiences. We actually had a lesson last for 7 and a half hours. Ya. I basically died from Korean overload about an hour and half into it. But the investigator shows a lot of interest in the church and may be receiving baptism soon. It has also been raining super hardcore but its super hot outside so i dont really ever know what to wear. Last P-day we went to some really cool looking waterfall in seogwipo with the jeju city elders. we took some pictures and i had an interesting experience. So there are these things called "Bon-dae-gi" which are boiled silk worm larva. And people in jeju love them. So i got to try some. They werent bad necessairly they just werent good. And in case any of you are wondering i eat rice at just about every meal. i usually skip breakfast and every other meal has rice... lots of rice. 

I think my back is starting to feel the effects of sleeping on the ground for the past 5 months too. I can now also text faster in korean than english(its pretty cool). Korean is coming a long slowly but its definitely becoming easier. Korea is just an interesting place. Interesting people, food, and places to go. Its been fun and tough so far and i only expect it to get funner and tougher. This upcoming week i plan to focus on "charity and love". Good luck in your missionary work. Until next week.  

Elder Maccarthy