Walking Down the Street

February 28, 2016

Dear Family,

OC is doing well, but we weren't able to teach him this week, he was too busy. He still came to church, but went home after sacrament because he was tired. Unless we can start meeting him more, we might have to move his baptism back to the 20th or we won't be able to teach him everything he needs to know.

We were able to find a new investigator (PSH), and he seems really prepared. We actually met him a week earlier. What happened is that we were walking around trying to find people who would listen to us. Elder Johnstun and I were playing rock paper scissors at each intersection to decide which way to go (it's a new method we've been developing to follow the spirit), which led us to walk past this guy, who we stopped and asked if we could share our message with him. He said he was busy, but that we could share something short. We gave him a Book of Mormon, told him how he can know it's true, and asked if we could meet again. Not only did he give us his phone number, but had lots of questions about the Book of Mormon and was really interested. We were finally able to contact him again last Friday night, and he said he would come to church. And yesterday, not only did he stay for all three hours of church, but also came to a ward dinner we had that evening, and is getting along with the members really well. It was so cool how everything worked out. He actually has no religious background, but he just finished his military service, during which he went to the provided Christian worship services sometimes. He's super awesome. 

Something else interesting happened pretty recently. One day Elder Johnstun and I went to eat at this real hamburger restaurant that we had heard rumors about. Which was really interesting in and of itself. As soon as we walked in, the owner came right to us, sat us down, and made sure we were comfortable. It was a pretty amazing hamburger that they brought out (for some reason they had us eat it with a fork and knife, kinda weird), and when we finished, he came back out and with a really nervous look on his face, asked us how it was. When we told him that we liked it, he was so relieved, it was hilarious. I guess he doesn't get Americans at his restaurant very often, it would probably be like some Chinese people coming to a Chinese restaurant in the US or something.  

Anyway, we had that, and as we were walking home, we had some interesting experiences. First off, we were walking (I feel like this is how every story starts) and two older guys on bikes passed us. We heard them mention our church's name, so we turned around, thinking they wanted to talk to us. Well, we were right that they wanted to talk, but not in the same way we were expecting. It turns out that they were members of a church called "Shin-chun-ji," which means new world or something. They basically try to destroy other churches to build up their church. For the next half hour, we listened to a one-way argument of why everything about our church is wrong, and how we need to throw away our name tags and join their church. We weren't even doing anything, just standing there and trying to be polite, but by the end they were getting really worked up, and yelling and spitting in our faces (and I don't think they had brushed their teeth that morning, it was pretty gross). They wouldn't leave us alone until they were convinced that we were going to their church. Unfortunately, they knew that we had proselyting materials on us with our phone number, so they were unavoidably able to get that, but fortunately, we also got their phone number, so we just blocked it on our phone :) It was really weird, because they acted kind of like they were drunk, but they didn't smell at all like alcohol...maybe it was just how crazy they were that made them act weird. 

So we finally got away from them, and not five minutes later, another older guy on a bike coming our way stopped to talk to us. We weren't too sure of this after the last experience, but we proceeded nonetheless. At first, he was spitting out random English words in an attempt to communicate, saying "Christian!" and pointing to himself. When he discovered we could speak Korean, he told us how he has been a Christian for 12 years, and is really proud of it. We gave him a Book of Mormon, which he took gratefully, and was really interested in it. It was just so weird having literally polar opposite experiences with such a short time in between. We've tried to contact him since, but for some reason his phone is always either off or he doesn't answer, it's pretty frustrating.

Speaking of interesting people stopping us, the other day, we were walking down the street (what did I say about how all my stories start?) and we said hi to this guy as he passed us. He stopped and said, "Do you know 'hemorrhoid?'" But the word 'hemorrhoid' was in English and the rest was in Korean. We just looked at each other and were like, "Uuh, yeah," which he replied to by pointing to his butt and then walking off. I don't understand why missionaries attract weird people so effectively.

Well, I don't have anything else for you today, but I hope those stories are at least a little entertaining, because living them was pretty fun :)  Have a great week!

Love,

Elder Hines