Hey family,
Weeks go by so fast here. It’s weird. So today we get the transfer calls, so we are both
nervous to see what happens.
We have an "investigator" (he has been
meeting missionaries since 1991)- we hiked
wit him a couple weeks ago- Well he called today to see who is leaving. (Idk how he knows
this stuff!) He told me he hopes I stay here longer. It felt cool to see
that someone likes me here! Haha jkjk.
So I had to give a talk at church again (with 20
members, I need to speak a lot apparently) It was only 5 mins. so that’s
good, and in Korean, I read 3 scriptures; that usually
takes me a while haha. I
talked about charity and how it relates to missionary work. Then, our whole ward did
something super cool. The bishop asked us to bring a bunch of Book of Mormons to church and
during sunday school, we
gave one to every member and they wrote their testimonies in them. So cool. Danget I wrote a
bunch and the computer did something and deleted half my email ugh.
Our stake has this program called Easy Member
Missionary work. It has a list of things members can do to do missionary
work like put a picture of Christ
up at the place they work and testimony in Book of Mormon, etc. I will
try and translate it and send you the list next week.
I have been praying a lot lately to get faith that
Heavenly Father can speak through me, and this last week, I wasn’t
scared to teach. I wasn’t a perfect teacher, but I wasn’t afraid so
that’s awesome, I think.
It’s so amazing when the Lord answers our prayers.
This week was awesome. We found 4 new
investigators. Its so cool, like they
are just coming from everywhere, mostly with English interest, (we have a
30-30 program: 30 min English; 30 min Gospel) and its cool a lot of people
in Korea that get baptized start with English interest, so this is
awesome to find 4 in one week.
The family we teach that want to get baptized,
there is an unseen force messing
with us so we can’t teach them. Every week, their work schedule gets changed so we cant meet
them. But we keep persevering. haha.
Hmm what else this week… Oh at church yesterday, we were sitting and church was about to
start, and in walks this less active family that we have been visiting,
for a while. They haven’t come to church my whole time being here. I was
so happy-like filled with joy. It was amazing and I thought Heavenly
Father must feel the same way right now. Then our amazing bishop stands
up and has one son (Priest)bless the
Sacrament and the other (deacon) pass the Sacrament. Soooo awesome. I was so happy. Our
ward is so awesome! I hurt my wrist (I don’t
know how) but it really hurt to move, so I put an ace bandage on it so it would not hurt as much
and every member of the ward asked me what happened. They are so caring
I love them. haha.
I saw the moon this week, which is one of the
pics (the black sky and the white light is the moon). You see the moon
everyday, but here with the pollution and clouds I never see the moon,
but I did this week so cool.
So also, only one person showed up to English
class this week and he said “shall
we have outside English class?" So we drove to the river by here, a huge river (the
river was wider than Woods
Canyon Lake,
haha). It was so awesome and beautiful. Super cool; I loved it. I’ll
try to send pics-- i forgot my camera so
we took pics with our phone.
So, spiritual
message this week. I read in the
scriptures this morning and an elder gave a spiritual thought
about it a couple weeks ago in district meeting.
Book of Mormon Helaman 6:37-38.
37 And it came to pass that the Lamanites did hunt
the band of robbers of Gadianton; and they did preach the word of God among the
more wicked part of them, insomuch that this band of robbers was utterly
destroyed from among the Lamanites.
38 And it came to pass on the other hand, that the
Nephites did build them up and support them, beginning at the more wicked part
of them, until they had overspread all the land of the Nephites, and had
seduced the more part of the righteous until they had come down to believe in
their works and partake of their spoils, and to join with them in their secret
murders and combinations.
So background to this scripture: Nephites were
good people, Lamanites were bad. Then the Gospel was preached to the
Lamanites and they became good, and the Nephites got prideful and turned
bad. Gadianton was an evil
person, and he and his group of robbers wanted power and did secret evil things, like murder and
other things to put themselves in power.
So we can relate this scripture to ourselves. We
are all imperfect and we all have unrighteousness in us. When we have
that unrighteousness in us, we have two choices: we can hunt it our of
ourselves and get rid of it (study scriptures and pray and become more
righteous) and get rid of the bad thing in us; or we can build it up and
help it grow until it overtakes us and we become worse and worse.Helaman
is a great book, by
the way. I stared it yesterday, and today I read about Nephi and Lehi teaching the
Lamanites, and they taught with the Holy Spirit and it was so strong in
them that they baptized 8
thousand Lamanites; people that just before that,
they had been at war with. How amazing!
8 thousand people. And I want to teach with the Spirit like they did, and, if I can, I can
baptize lots. Actually a member of the Seventy promised us at mission
tour that we if we teach with the Spirit, we can baptize hundreds. Wow
so awesome.
Well I will attach photos and go.I love you all!
Take care of Jessica.
 |
| Elder Rice and his first district |
Bye family,
Elder Rice
P.S, pics, the one of me on the park bench: I look
super cool in it,
and the mannequin was on the side of the road to
direct traffic, (it has a car battery at the bottom of it) and it waves
the light stick to direct traffic. Instead of paying some one to stand
there, they use a mannequin. It was so
funny.
I love Korea!
