Thank Goodness for the Missionaries

August 30, 2015

So we had church yesterday, and I'll tell you about that. There were a total of 11 people in attendance at sacrament meeting, and of those, four were actual members of Daeshin branch. Then my companion and I, the two sister missionaries, the branch president (who is a member of a different ward), a lady from the neighboring branch, and a random drunk guy who apparently is a member of a different ward in Busan. So that was kind of sad.

I'm sure there are a ton of inactive members, since this used to be a pretty big ward. I guess Daeshin is where the church started in Busan. As far as things we do to run the branch, I passed the sacrament and played piano, Sister Kim led the music, and then Sister Nielsen and I gave talks since we are new, and Elder Seo gave a talk to fill the rest of the time. We also came to church two hours early to clean and set up, and stayed after for a little bit to do ward clerk stuff.

We have a few investigators, mostly English learning interest. One of them is a Pakistani who wants to learn Korean from us. Then we have two Koreans who like learning English. We only met with one last week and we just read out of the Book of Mormon together in English. He actually had a lot of questions about the actual doctrine and history, not just English questions, so that was good.

There isn't much of a theme for this transfer, but next week we have mission tour with a Seventy from Japan, and in preparation for that they asked us to read in the Book of Mormon about missionaries and think about how they helped others to come unto Christ. So I guess that is kind of the focus this transfer.

Have a great week!

Love,
Elder Hines

Daeshin Branch

August 26, 2015

​Well, I got transferred, if you didn't figure that out yet. Right now I am in the city of Busan, serving in Daeshin Branch​. It's actually the south Busan zone, so we're right on the ocean. My companion is Elder Seo Jeong-beom, and we have been given the assignment to be co-district leaders (normally there is only one district leader per district, but "co-district leader" is a new thing that President Barrow just started this transfer, he thinks it will be more effective). So I've suddenly received a lot of stress because now I am responsible for more than myself and my companion, but I'm excited :)

Daeshin is one of the most famous areas in the mission, for multiple reasons. The church building is the oldest in Korea (not the first, just the oldest). There is such a lack of priesthood holders that the branch president isn't even a member of this ward. So the missionaries basically run everything here. There are only ten people at most who come every week. Oh, and do you remember "tie guy?" Well he's in my area. We have one of the biggest shopping areas in the mission, and that is where he is. The missionary house is also probably the smallest in the mission. It's literally one room, and it has a bed in the corner that takes up a quarter of the room. The kitchen takes up another quarter, and all our stuff is crammed in the remaining space. It has a comfortable feel to it though, so it's okay :) Anyway, that's all I know about the area so far, but let me know if you have any questions.

We weren't able to meet Z again last week, and he didn't come to church. I'm sure he will keep meeting with the missionaries, but I don't really know anything about that. So BH is this guy we met who is the owner of a coffee shop. He has been Buddhist most of his life, but he lived in Utah for a little bit, as well as other places in the US, and since he has been back in Korea he has been wondering about religion a lot. He said that the day we walked into his shop, he was thinking about the things he heard about Mormons, and thought it would be cool to learn about their religion. What a coincidence, right? So we have been visiting him once a week for the past three weeks or so, and he always has a ton of questions for us, and basically asks for reading assignments from pamphlets or the Book of Mormon. He said that in a couple months he won't be as busy with his job, and then he wants to come to our church meeting.

Haven't been able to meet with T for a while, and he is going back to Canada for a couple months, so that will be a while before the missionaries meet him again. We still meet KH, regularly. When he found out that I was leaving, he drove to our house and brought us pizza and some t-shirts as a present for me, and introduced us to his family.

That's all I can think of for the week, whenever I transfer, my short-term memory of the previous area goes out the window. I can barely remember last week at all, so hopefully nothing interesting happened... :)

Have a great week!

Love,

Elder Hines

Independence Day

August 17, 2015

Z actually came to church yesterday, it was pretty surprising. Earlier last week, Z called us and asked if he could meet with one of our church leaders to discuss a personal problem. So we had him meet with our old bishop, since he can speak English decently. So through this, they have become friends, and our old bishop invited him to church, so he came. It's amazing to see the difference between the effect of missionaries versus normal members on other people. I've definitely come to see the importance of member missionary work on my mission. There's only so much the missionaries can do.

This week was Korea's Independence Day, and there were a bunch of festivals in the downtown area of Daegu. Elder Mitchell and I happened to be riding the subway a little before one of these festivals since we didn't know that it was going on. I don't think I've ever seen so many people in my life. The subway was packed to the rafters, we were squeezed cheek to cheek, and there was an endless line going up the escalator of people waiting to get on. It was so crowded you could barely breathe.

Have I told you about B yet? The guy who works at the coffee shop? Well we met him again this week, gave him a Restoration pamphlet, and explained a little bit about it. He told us that he wants us to come by often, and that as soon as he has time he wants to come to church. He has a lot of interest, so it's really exciting. People like this don't come around very often :)

That's about it. This week is the last week of the transfer, and since I've been in the same area for three transfers, I will probably leave. Hopefully it's a good area and companion :)

Have a great week!

Love,

Elder Hines

Another Week in the Books

August 9, 2015

Dear Family,

Actually, I feel less adventurous now than when I first came to Korea. When I first came, I was basically willing to try any food, but now that I've tried a lot of Korean food, I don't really branch out as much. But I had to try dog meat, because you can't live in Asia and not eat it, right? :) So I don't think Koreans totally look down on eating dog meat, but a lot of people think that it's weird. I asked Sister Park about it, and it's mostly just older people who eat it because they think that it's healthy. A long time ago people ate it when there was nothing else to eat, but now that part of their culture is starting to die off in the younger generation. No, they don't just kill stray dogs :) They actually have dog markets where they raise and sell them. They're not very common, but I think there are a couple in Busan. Lots of Koreans have dogs for pets, but I haven't seen too many Koreans with cats for pets. Mostly just stray cats.

Sister Park's companion is pretty fun, but they never do anything with us. They are always studying since Sister Cooper is a trainee and thinks she needs to be studying all the time. Elder Mitchell and I and the two sisters are all assigned to Jungni Ward, and that's it. Normally Elders only have one ward to worry about, but it's fairly common for Sisters to be assigned to two wards or branches.

The weather here has actually been pretty weird. In Jungni area, it hasn't rained for over a month now, but in Suseong (which is the next area over and part of the same city) there was a major downpour. My companion was on exchanges there at the time, and said it felt like he was just walking through a swimming pool because there was so much water coming down. Luckily our apartment has AC, we would literally die if there wasn't. It's interesting, because for some reason when you use the AC and the temperature of the room goes down, the humidity almost completely goes away. Maybe it's just not noticeable when it's cool. Yeah, Koreans don't use deodorant, and deodorant is basically impossible to find here. But Koreans actually have a reason for not using it. For some reason, they just don't have body odor. It's really weird, because I haven't really smelled body odor since I was in the MTC. Koreans also don't sweat as easily, so maybe that's why they don't have body odor. They sweat when they eat though, which is kind of weird, but that's besides the point. So no bad BO smells, just kimchi and sewage :)

Not much happened this week, we weren't able to meet very many people. On Wednesday, our mission leader took us out to lunch, and after that we were planning with the sisters when another member came to the church and wanted to play ping-pong with us. So that day was shot. Thursday we had Zone Conference all day. And on Saturday we had a ward picnic all day. It was really fun, I'll send you a few pictures. We went up in the mountains and hung out by this river and just ate and talked and stuff for most of the day. We got quite a few non-members to come, so it wasn't a total waste of time :) So like half our week was taken up with other stuff, and the people who we had time to meet cancelled on us, so that was kind of depressing. We don't really do much together with our district or zone, so I don't really have anything to say about that.  Today we had a zone p-day though, we just hung out and had lunch together. Nothing much, but it was pretty fun.

I think I got off on a lot of tangents there, hopefully I answered your questions. Have a great week!

Love,

Elder Hines

Sushi Buffet

Daegu Zone Conference