Monsoon Season

July 3, 2016

Dear Family,

So last Monday evening, President Barrow called us, and said that he's been talking with Elder Kim's stake president as well as the doctors in the US, and they reached the decision that Elder Kim needs to go home to recover. So he told us to have Elder Kim pack and be at the mission home Tuesday morning by 9:15. A mission sure teaches you how to pack quickly. Tuesday morning we went to Busan, where Elder Kim's parents were waiting to pick him up. Elder Kim called me later after he got home, and after going to the doctor at home, they decided that he will probably be able to come back out in a month.

Anyway, he left, and then I was temporary companions with the two office elders at the mission home, and messed around with them for the rest of the day. Wednesday morning, Elder George (one of the senior missionaries serving in this mission, he's the one serving at the mission home in charge of finances) drove me to Jinhae because we had district meeting, and after the meeting drove me back to Busan to pick up my new companion. What happened was that there is a member in Daegu who is getting ready to leave on his mission to the Korea Daejeon Mission next month, and doesn't have anything to do until then, so that asked him on Tuesday if he would be willing to serve as a full-time missionary starting Wednesday (crazy, right?), and he agreed. So they put him with an elder serving in one of the Daegu areas, and that elder's old companion came to Jinhae to serve with me. His name is Elder Snyder, and actually happens to have come to Korea at the same time as Elder Kim, so he's in his third transfer right now. So we met, talked with President Barrow for a little bit, and then rode a bus back to Jinhae, just in time to teach the Chilean family, followed by English class. It was quite the day.

Teaching our South American friends didn't work out quite as well as we were hoping (for some reason that's always how things go as a missionary, I don't know why). They came a little late, and I think the dad expected us to only teach him the gospel for some reason, so it was kind of awkward. He came to us with a bunch of questions about the Book of Mormon and the church and stuff like that, and when Elder Snyder offered his personal English Book of Mormon for him to read, Manuel took it in the other room and read it for the rest of the evening while we taught English class. 

The next day (Friday), at the beginning of the day I had a feeling that we might run into the Chilean family, so I put a Spanish Book of Mormon (we had just barely gotten them, ordered from Seoul) in my backpack to give to them since they didn't have a copy yet.  We didn't run into them, but on the way home that night, it was already 8:30, but I thought that maybe we could stop by their house and drop it off. So we called Manuel and he was just getting off work, saying he would be home at the same time we would get to their house, so it was perfect timing. He invited us in, and we shared Moroni 10:3-5. When I started to explain about who Moroni was, he went off about all kinds of stuff about the origin of the Book of Mormon...turns out he studied the Restoration pamphlet I gave him last week.  And when we testified about it and said it was the word of God, he was like "oh yeah, there were lots of prophets throughout history who recorded God's word, and I believe this is one of them," and just accepted everything we said, agreed to pray about it, and we set up an appointment to meet him again after next English class.  Nothing like this ever happens when you teach Koreans, but then I meet someone from South America for the first time in my mission, and this is what happens.

It's officially monsoon season here. Starting about the middle of last week, it's rained every day. But when you're imagining this, you can't think of rain that you know. More like step outside your door and it's like walking through a waterfall would be more accurate. It's impossible to stay dry, there's so much rain that it's just rivers of water 4-6 inches deep flowing down the streets, it's crazy.

Okay answers to questions:

Elder Kim said that the oriental treatment made it hurt worse, so no, it didn't help.

The Jinhae elders' house originally has two teams in it, so no one had to move.

Probably the weirdest thing will be having a couch to sit on, or maybe eating at a big table (not on the floor) :)

Have a great week!

Love,

Elder Hines