Elder Rice Mail July 29, 2012

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!