July 1, 2009
I am going on 4 1/2 months in this area, it is great right now, we are teaching quite a few people. Last week we tracted into this guy named Yam Chemoria from Nepal, he has been a refugee for the past seventeen years of his life! Anyways he has been located here and he is trying to get his life going, he has a wife and a 13 month old baby who are currently up in Maryland working, he just happens to have a job down here so they are separated until they can find a job here... anyways we met him on Tuesday, taught him on Friday, and then again on Saturday, he came to church this Sunday and loved it! He said that he will be there for all three hours this next week. He has a Hindu background but says he feels much happier and loves the thought that families can be together forever instead of becoming a grasshopper.... Anyways it has been a neat miracle to see.... Transfers are next week, we will see what happens... Elder Shattuck
July 8, 2009
I got transfer calls last night, I will be staying in my same area, but I will be combining with a neighboring area and training Elder Bell to become a new zone leader.... still in a car, still a zone leader and still in the same area just covering two wards now :)
I got the elder that I wanted, if I could have chosen what would have happened to me at transfers this is exactly what I would have picked.... Elder Johnson is going up north to the Annondale stake and will be a zone leader still and yes he will still be in a car.
July 15, 2009
We are teaching a lot of people, it has been quite the week trying to coordinate two wards and all that good stuff. We did however just schedule Yam Chemoria for baptism! He is the man from Nepal and is amazing! I am really enjoying the teaching experience with him. He has been a complete sponge in everything that we have taught him. He just accepts everything that we teach him and rarely has any major concerns. My new companion is great as well. He is from Farmington UT and is actually 21, he has been out just over six months now. I am also living in a new place, (pretty close to my last apartment), it is a two bedroom, three bath town home. Missionaries have been living there for years so it has been beat up quite a bit. There is this one closet upstairs that missionaries have just been cramming full of junk for centuries it seems like. It has been nicknamed the Cave of Wonders. I found old soda and an ancient type writer, mountains of clothes and all sorts of other junk. missionaries are weird. Anyways, love you. Elder Shattuck
Monday, July 20, 2009
Thursday, July 16, 2009
Elder Adam Walker:
June:
Cade's mission is right above mine. 3 or 4 areas border with many of their areas, maybe we will serve in bordering areas and go to lunch or something one of these times here in the near future. That would be pretty cool huh? It looks like things are all messed up with transfers and everything, and me and Mackay are just going to be staying another transfer together. Not for sure yet, but that's what it sounds like. I will survive I guess.
Tracy's baptism went awesome, by far the best baptism I have been involved in. It was so cool. The baptism was great, but also in sacrament meeting on Sunday, she was confirmed and 2 of her kids were blessed as well, so it was an extra treat. She told us that she wanted to pull a prank on us by calling right before they got to the church and tell us that she was backing out and she wasn't going to get baptized. Her husband, Pat, wouldn't let her. It was awesome though. Her husband is a member already, he has been a member for a long time and they are looking forward to going to the temple in a year, so we will be looking forward to that. It was a really good weekend though, I wish every one was like it.
So Wednesday night, I get down to say my prayer, I begin it by saying, "our dear heavenly father....." all the sudden I hear BANG BANG BANG BANG BANG!!! I drop to the floor and wait a minute, cause I knew they were gun shots, I just didn't know how close it really was. To make a long story short, come to find out the guy who lives right below us I guess is involved in drugs and he didn't pay the drug lords their money in time. Luckily he was in his Bedroom at the time of the shooting because 3 of the 5 bullets went through his window in his living room, and one went right through his couch where he normally sits. Pretty crazy huh? Needless to say the member who owns the house kicked the guy out. It threw us for a loop that's for sure though. But we are all alive and doing all good! So yet another Gun Shot story, they seem to just follow me around.
This week I even have an atheist story! We were out tracking about 10 days ago and we knocked on this atheist guys door. Our welcome included: Be careful, my dog hates Christians. Eventually I coaxed my way into his door and he let us in and we had an awesome lesson! But at the end, it turned out to be that he didn't think it was such a great lesson, as I thought. He says thank you for coming into my home, have a good day, bye. It was pretty weird. I left him one little pass along card with the churches website on the back and we left it at that. Well, 3 days go by and we get a media referral for someone who requested a bible, come to find out it was this guy. So we call and set up an appointment to give it to him the next day. When we get there he tells us that he has had some interesting experiences the last while. One of them being that his grandma came to him in a dream and told him pretty much that he needed to be a christian because Christ does indeed live, he has just had some awesome experiences that truly show God's love for each of us. He wants us to come back as often as we can now. It's been really neat to see him come along. He doesn't know if our church is the true one yet, but he is interested enough, I can imagine that he will be baptised pretty quickly. I guess miracles still do happen each day.
Its been a great week, hot, muggy, humid, rainy, sunny... But we have been successful and we had an awesome baptism so it was great!!
So my story for the week! here it is...
It was hotter than the dickens so we thought we would go see this less active couple that wanted us to come out and see them and they live out in the middle of no-where. 30 miles away, and that's if you take the West Virginia Turnpike, it took an hour to get there. West Virginian directions are ridiculous as I have said before and the roads that we were driving on were barley suitable for our car but we managed. So we follow the directions that Elder Mackay had taken down and he tells us that we were there so I turn into the drive way and he says now drive exactly a mile up this holler (hollow) (long driveway) it was unsuitable for our car so we decided that it would be best that we just walked up the road to their house so we didn't smoke our car, and the members advised us to do the same unless we had a pickup, and of course we didn't. So we start walking and a mile later we get to the house... so we thought, come to find out, we had the wrong holler. So we turn around and hike back out. So this is over an hour later and it was all up hill in and all down hill out. It was a mess. But we get back to our car and we figure out exactly where the place we needed to be was and we drive to that place. This holler was even worse than the last one and it was much steeper than the last one we had just got done coming out of. So we start walking up it and I couldn't believe my eyes just walking up there, I think I counted 40 junked cars, 20 washers, a bunch of dryers. Big water tanks, batteries. and there was just all kinds of stuff! It was ridiculous! and this goes on for a whole mile!! Then we get up to the house... oh boy and did we ever have a wonderful greeting. Out of the forest around us all these chickens come out of no where and start making a huge racket and start coming towards us, I bet there was at least 100 of them and they are all just surrounding us. This house that they lived in was all but caved in, I would never have guessed that anyone would have ever lived there let alone how far out that they lived. Then we see the members, the guy had a beard down past his chest and just says, Whhhyyy HOoww youu do-in. He invited us in to his home and there was a trail leading up to his front door and once we got into the home that trail continued up to the couch that was covered with crap but had 1 cushion cleared off so that I could sit on it. The kitchen had 2 trails in it. 1 that led to the fridge and the other to the sink. What a journey it was. This explains my mission in a nut shell.. The nicest people in the world but boy are they interesting!! haha I love it though. The missionary work is pretty slow, we have a couple people that are coming along but we definitely get a good experience and meet some interesting people every day! Their names were the Purdues (Jack and Katherine I believe). I love it. Everything is going well here in West Virginia, you gotta love this place. It sounds like Brantley is getting a little taste of what my mission is like in his area that he is in now. Its great.
July:
For the 4th of July we went to this big festival that they had here in a town nearby and we just did a bunch of street contacting. There were 4 of us missionaries there and we actually had some good successs on finding some people for missionaries to teach. We didn't stay for the fire works that they had though. It gets pretty dangerous at night here. You just never know how many phsyco's are on the roads and everything. Everyone drinks and its just a mess. Its just a little different than Idaho. I really think it is for our own saftey.
I had my interview with president. Elder Mackay is leaving this transfer. I don't know who I am getting yet but I do know for sure that I am getting a new companion. He just told me to hang in there for 1 more week and then I would be getting a strong missionary to help this area get going again. Cause Beckley is an awesome place, good members, pretty good sized city, good people. But when the members don't like one of the missionaries too well things seem to just drop dead. But next week there will be a change but for right now I am just working hard trying to get things up and going a little to make it a little easier on the new missionary coming.
Cade's mission is right above mine. 3 or 4 areas border with many of their areas, maybe we will serve in bordering areas and go to lunch or something one of these times here in the near future. That would be pretty cool huh? It looks like things are all messed up with transfers and everything, and me and Mackay are just going to be staying another transfer together. Not for sure yet, but that's what it sounds like. I will survive I guess.
Tracy's baptism went awesome, by far the best baptism I have been involved in. It was so cool. The baptism was great, but also in sacrament meeting on Sunday, she was confirmed and 2 of her kids were blessed as well, so it was an extra treat. She told us that she wanted to pull a prank on us by calling right before they got to the church and tell us that she was backing out and she wasn't going to get baptized. Her husband, Pat, wouldn't let her. It was awesome though. Her husband is a member already, he has been a member for a long time and they are looking forward to going to the temple in a year, so we will be looking forward to that. It was a really good weekend though, I wish every one was like it.
So Wednesday night, I get down to say my prayer, I begin it by saying, "our dear heavenly father....." all the sudden I hear BANG BANG BANG BANG BANG!!! I drop to the floor and wait a minute, cause I knew they were gun shots, I just didn't know how close it really was. To make a long story short, come to find out the guy who lives right below us I guess is involved in drugs and he didn't pay the drug lords their money in time. Luckily he was in his Bedroom at the time of the shooting because 3 of the 5 bullets went through his window in his living room, and one went right through his couch where he normally sits. Pretty crazy huh? Needless to say the member who owns the house kicked the guy out. It threw us for a loop that's for sure though. But we are all alive and doing all good! So yet another Gun Shot story, they seem to just follow me around.
This week I even have an atheist story! We were out tracking about 10 days ago and we knocked on this atheist guys door. Our welcome included: Be careful, my dog hates Christians. Eventually I coaxed my way into his door and he let us in and we had an awesome lesson! But at the end, it turned out to be that he didn't think it was such a great lesson, as I thought. He says thank you for coming into my home, have a good day, bye. It was pretty weird. I left him one little pass along card with the churches website on the back and we left it at that. Well, 3 days go by and we get a media referral for someone who requested a bible, come to find out it was this guy. So we call and set up an appointment to give it to him the next day. When we get there he tells us that he has had some interesting experiences the last while. One of them being that his grandma came to him in a dream and told him pretty much that he needed to be a christian because Christ does indeed live, he has just had some awesome experiences that truly show God's love for each of us. He wants us to come back as often as we can now. It's been really neat to see him come along. He doesn't know if our church is the true one yet, but he is interested enough, I can imagine that he will be baptised pretty quickly. I guess miracles still do happen each day.
Its been a great week, hot, muggy, humid, rainy, sunny... But we have been successful and we had an awesome baptism so it was great!!
So my story for the week! here it is...
It was hotter than the dickens so we thought we would go see this less active couple that wanted us to come out and see them and they live out in the middle of no-where. 30 miles away, and that's if you take the West Virginia Turnpike, it took an hour to get there. West Virginian directions are ridiculous as I have said before and the roads that we were driving on were barley suitable for our car but we managed. So we follow the directions that Elder Mackay had taken down and he tells us that we were there so I turn into the drive way and he says now drive exactly a mile up this holler (hollow) (long driveway) it was unsuitable for our car so we decided that it would be best that we just walked up the road to their house so we didn't smoke our car, and the members advised us to do the same unless we had a pickup, and of course we didn't. So we start walking and a mile later we get to the house... so we thought, come to find out, we had the wrong holler. So we turn around and hike back out. So this is over an hour later and it was all up hill in and all down hill out. It was a mess. But we get back to our car and we figure out exactly where the place we needed to be was and we drive to that place. This holler was even worse than the last one and it was much steeper than the last one we had just got done coming out of. So we start walking up it and I couldn't believe my eyes just walking up there, I think I counted 40 junked cars, 20 washers, a bunch of dryers. Big water tanks, batteries. and there was just all kinds of stuff! It was ridiculous! and this goes on for a whole mile!! Then we get up to the house... oh boy and did we ever have a wonderful greeting. Out of the forest around us all these chickens come out of no where and start making a huge racket and start coming towards us, I bet there was at least 100 of them and they are all just surrounding us. This house that they lived in was all but caved in, I would never have guessed that anyone would have ever lived there let alone how far out that they lived. Then we see the members, the guy had a beard down past his chest and just says, Whhhyyy HOoww youu do-in. He invited us in to his home and there was a trail leading up to his front door and once we got into the home that trail continued up to the couch that was covered with crap but had 1 cushion cleared off so that I could sit on it. The kitchen had 2 trails in it. 1 that led to the fridge and the other to the sink. What a journey it was. This explains my mission in a nut shell.. The nicest people in the world but boy are they interesting!! haha I love it though. The missionary work is pretty slow, we have a couple people that are coming along but we definitely get a good experience and meet some interesting people every day! Their names were the Purdues (Jack and Katherine I believe). I love it. Everything is going well here in West Virginia, you gotta love this place. It sounds like Brantley is getting a little taste of what my mission is like in his area that he is in now. Its great.
July:
For the 4th of July we went to this big festival that they had here in a town nearby and we just did a bunch of street contacting. There were 4 of us missionaries there and we actually had some good successs on finding some people for missionaries to teach. We didn't stay for the fire works that they had though. It gets pretty dangerous at night here. You just never know how many phsyco's are on the roads and everything. Everyone drinks and its just a mess. Its just a little different than Idaho. I really think it is for our own saftey.
I had my interview with president. Elder Mackay is leaving this transfer. I don't know who I am getting yet but I do know for sure that I am getting a new companion. He just told me to hang in there for 1 more week and then I would be getting a strong missionary to help this area get going again. Cause Beckley is an awesome place, good members, pretty good sized city, good people. But when the members don't like one of the missionaries too well things seem to just drop dead. But next week there will be a change but for right now I am just working hard trying to get things up and going a little to make it a little easier on the new missionary coming.
Elder Scott Snell:
June:
We have this member in our ward who is working on his mission papers and so we have been helping him prepare. Almost like a mini MTC beforehand. It has been really fun. It brings back memories of when I was first learning how to teach and how hard it was even in English. To tell you the truth I have taught a couple of times in English, once on my mission and it was pretty rough. Anyway he is doing a good job. He is about 23, his parents aren't members and he is a stud. He joined the church when he was about 16. He already served his 2 years of military service for his country and now he is going to go do 2 yrs for the Lord. I don't know how Koreans do it. We are coming to the end of the transfer here pretty quick, we are on our last two weeks.
I just realized that this area is the farthest I have been away from the ocean since I got here. The first time I haven't been able to walk to the ocean. That will be a little different when I get home eh? The whole north and south thing here is not doing too well. I am not worried though and you shouldn't be either. The church is pretty aware of everything that is going on. We have been told to be ready with everything in case something does happen. Remember Mom the Lord takes care of his Missionaries. The ex-president just committed suicide last week or so, so that and the whole north thing are being talked about quite a bit but we don't understand the language good enough to talk about that stuff so that is good.
Other then that the work is moving forward and our Branch is really starting to pick up. They are beginning to talk a lot more about member missionary work which is really good cause when I first got into Korea it was almost impossible to get a member referral. We now are working on about six of them for the sisters. Still nothing coming for the Elders but the men in Korea are stubborn and we will keep working at it.
We had Zone Conference last week that I had to lead and give and training thingy at. It was really good. It turned out really good and a lot of people came up to me after telling me thanks for the good and fun training. I had a nail and screwdriver and the strongest person in the room race one of the sisters who had a hammer. Yeah needless to say that the sister won. I likened it to working diligently but also working effectively. It went over really well. Some tools that work in some areas don't work in others.
Yesterday we got to go to the fire side of one of the guys who helped with the translating of the Book of Mormon into Korean. He is a really cool guy, a little hard to understand cause he is old but it was a pretty decent fireside. He talked about how he was
inactive for 13 years or so and when the missionaries would come over, his wife, who was not a member, in fact, didn't even know he was member of the church always got mad when the "Cult with the big nosed foreigners" came by. It doesn't sound as weird in Korean. Finally, one missionary came and she didn't know why, but she liked this one. He was just different and she couldn't explain why. She was later baptized and her husband was reactivated. Could you imagine how different things would have been had the missionaries given up? That missionary also ended up being the Pusan Mission President in 1988-91. He is now a professor at BYU. His name is Peterson. Nice guy and still good at Korean.
It was also the birthday of the twins in our ward yesterday and so I made them a Banana Bread cake sort of thing. It was banana bread just in a cake shape with frosting on it. It turned out good. The frosting is getting harder for me to eat without getting a headache.
I really do love this work. I am having a great time. I love gimhae and my comp. He can be difficult sometimes but is great. I will probably have a new one when I email you next week. I am pretty sure that he is out and I will be staying.
It is the start of a new transfer. I took my last companion to the mission office last night so he could get ready, he is now the new Assistant to the President. I did a pretty good job at training him, eh? I hate to see him go, I really enjoyed him but we probably wouldn't have ended on such good terms had we stayed together for another one. Three is too long for most people to stay together. I got my new companion this morning, his name is Elder Sprosty, like sprosty the snowman. I know, lame, I am sorry, I am working on it. He is from Vernal Utah, you know, one of the three families there. We were actually in the MTC together for 6 weeks and then he came to Korea. I knew him a little bit. It is a little weird being the senior Zone Leader over someone older then me. But it should be an interesting transfer. I think we will do ok.
My mission is the best decision that I could have ever made. I never have and never will regret it. Speaking of missionaries, we had to send 17 missionaries home today. That took a big chunk out of the mission and also a big chunk out of the people that I know now. I lost a lot of good mission buddies in that group. Now, all of my senior companions are gone. Talk about weird. I was able to meet Elder Thompson's parents for a little bit as well. They came to pick him up. My area has shrunk to a 2 man area rather than a 4 man area so I have a little more ground to cover and a little more weight on my shoulders than last transfer. It will be a lot of fun. I am excited for it, Elder Sprotsty and I will have fun this transfer I am sure.
July:
We celebrated the 4th with a BBQ under the Church. Our church is suspended in the air with a parking lot under neath. We found some hamburger patties that weren't too expensive or big either. They turned out pretty good, the Branch President bought a new grill for us to use cause he said he needed one anyway. It was really nice of him. It was only like a little $30 one that fit about 4 burgers comfortably but it got the job done and we were able to have a pretty successful 4th. We live in the area with the airport so while we were eating we had planes flying over head and it was just like we were at the air show. Not to mention we live right next to the Fire station and it was just like the parade minus the candy. I felt like I was back in America for a split second.
We had our zone meeting this last week. It went really good. We have a new Zone motto that is "Washin' the Coffee Mug". There is a story to it, don't worry. There is a missionary in our district and his dad is a recovering Alcholic. When he was back in rehab when he was younger, his counselor was a ex-drug lord. He told his dad how, when he was into everything as deep as you could get, he lost it all, his money, cars, and family. He was miserable and realized he had to change. So the next day he said he was going to fix everything get his life and family back. After about an hour he was back smoking. He realized he couldn't do it all in one day. So he decided he would start small so the only promise he made to himself was that he was going to wash his coffee mug after he used it. He did it and then the next day he put it in the cupboard. Well, eventually he got his life back on track and now he helps at the rehab center. We can't try and tackle it all in one day, we have to start with the little things and work our way up. So that is our motto. We are starting with the small things and working our way up. It is going well. I really love this work.
We have this member in our ward who is working on his mission papers and so we have been helping him prepare. Almost like a mini MTC beforehand. It has been really fun. It brings back memories of when I was first learning how to teach and how hard it was even in English. To tell you the truth I have taught a couple of times in English, once on my mission and it was pretty rough. Anyway he is doing a good job. He is about 23, his parents aren't members and he is a stud. He joined the church when he was about 16. He already served his 2 years of military service for his country and now he is going to go do 2 yrs for the Lord. I don't know how Koreans do it. We are coming to the end of the transfer here pretty quick, we are on our last two weeks.
I just realized that this area is the farthest I have been away from the ocean since I got here. The first time I haven't been able to walk to the ocean. That will be a little different when I get home eh? The whole north and south thing here is not doing too well. I am not worried though and you shouldn't be either. The church is pretty aware of everything that is going on. We have been told to be ready with everything in case something does happen. Remember Mom the Lord takes care of his Missionaries. The ex-president just committed suicide last week or so, so that and the whole north thing are being talked about quite a bit but we don't understand the language good enough to talk about that stuff so that is good.
Other then that the work is moving forward and our Branch is really starting to pick up. They are beginning to talk a lot more about member missionary work which is really good cause when I first got into Korea it was almost impossible to get a member referral. We now are working on about six of them for the sisters. Still nothing coming for the Elders but the men in Korea are stubborn and we will keep working at it.
We had Zone Conference last week that I had to lead and give and training thingy at. It was really good. It turned out really good and a lot of people came up to me after telling me thanks for the good and fun training. I had a nail and screwdriver and the strongest person in the room race one of the sisters who had a hammer. Yeah needless to say that the sister won. I likened it to working diligently but also working effectively. It went over really well. Some tools that work in some areas don't work in others.
Yesterday we got to go to the fire side of one of the guys who helped with the translating of the Book of Mormon into Korean. He is a really cool guy, a little hard to understand cause he is old but it was a pretty decent fireside. He talked about how he was
inactive for 13 years or so and when the missionaries would come over, his wife, who was not a member, in fact, didn't even know he was member of the church always got mad when the "Cult with the big nosed foreigners" came by. It doesn't sound as weird in Korean. Finally, one missionary came and she didn't know why, but she liked this one. He was just different and she couldn't explain why. She was later baptized and her husband was reactivated. Could you imagine how different things would have been had the missionaries given up? That missionary also ended up being the Pusan Mission President in 1988-91. He is now a professor at BYU. His name is Peterson. Nice guy and still good at Korean.
It was also the birthday of the twins in our ward yesterday and so I made them a Banana Bread cake sort of thing. It was banana bread just in a cake shape with frosting on it. It turned out good. The frosting is getting harder for me to eat without getting a headache.
I really do love this work. I am having a great time. I love gimhae and my comp. He can be difficult sometimes but is great. I will probably have a new one when I email you next week. I am pretty sure that he is out and I will be staying.
It is the start of a new transfer. I took my last companion to the mission office last night so he could get ready, he is now the new Assistant to the President. I did a pretty good job at training him, eh? I hate to see him go, I really enjoyed him but we probably wouldn't have ended on such good terms had we stayed together for another one. Three is too long for most people to stay together. I got my new companion this morning, his name is Elder Sprosty, like sprosty the snowman. I know, lame, I am sorry, I am working on it. He is from Vernal Utah, you know, one of the three families there. We were actually in the MTC together for 6 weeks and then he came to Korea. I knew him a little bit. It is a little weird being the senior Zone Leader over someone older then me. But it should be an interesting transfer. I think we will do ok.
My mission is the best decision that I could have ever made. I never have and never will regret it. Speaking of missionaries, we had to send 17 missionaries home today. That took a big chunk out of the mission and also a big chunk out of the people that I know now. I lost a lot of good mission buddies in that group. Now, all of my senior companions are gone. Talk about weird. I was able to meet Elder Thompson's parents for a little bit as well. They came to pick him up. My area has shrunk to a 2 man area rather than a 4 man area so I have a little more ground to cover and a little more weight on my shoulders than last transfer. It will be a lot of fun. I am excited for it, Elder Sprotsty and I will have fun this transfer I am sure.
July:
We celebrated the 4th with a BBQ under the Church. Our church is suspended in the air with a parking lot under neath. We found some hamburger patties that weren't too expensive or big either. They turned out pretty good, the Branch President bought a new grill for us to use cause he said he needed one anyway. It was really nice of him. It was only like a little $30 one that fit about 4 burgers comfortably but it got the job done and we were able to have a pretty successful 4th. We live in the area with the airport so while we were eating we had planes flying over head and it was just like we were at the air show. Not to mention we live right next to the Fire station and it was just like the parade minus the candy. I felt like I was back in America for a split second.
We had our zone meeting this last week. It went really good. We have a new Zone motto that is "Washin' the Coffee Mug". There is a story to it, don't worry. There is a missionary in our district and his dad is a recovering Alcholic. When he was back in rehab when he was younger, his counselor was a ex-drug lord. He told his dad how, when he was into everything as deep as you could get, he lost it all, his money, cars, and family. He was miserable and realized he had to change. So the next day he said he was going to fix everything get his life and family back. After about an hour he was back smoking. He realized he couldn't do it all in one day. So he decided he would start small so the only promise he made to himself was that he was going to wash his coffee mug after he used it. He did it and then the next day he put it in the cupboard. Well, eventually he got his life back on track and now he helps at the rehab center. We can't try and tackle it all in one day, we have to start with the little things and work our way up. So that is our motto. We are starting with the small things and working our way up. It is going well. I really love this work.
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