Hi Everybody! March 9

Hi Everybody!

This week was freezing! Winter came back. It snowed on Sunday. Elder Fowler said it was the coldest week since he's been here. I thought it would be warming up during March, but no dice.

Had a pretty good week here in Gum Choen, not a whole lot of exciting things went down but the few things that did are really worth writing about! On Saturday, our ward had a ping pong tournament. Just like every American Mormon church comes equipped with a basketball gym, every Korean church, without fail, comes equipped with a ping pong table. Before the event, I was under the impression that it was just a young mens activity, but the entire ward and (less actives and in-actives and nonmembers!!) came out. It was sort of funny to see that there were more people there for the ping pong tournament than people that come to sacrament meeting, ha. We had a lot of fun playing with the members but they're really good. I thought I was okay at ping pong, but an okay American doesn't match up very well with the Koreans! They taught me a trick or two and said it was okay that I wasn't a pro. We then got Chinese take out at the church as a ward, which was delicious! I love Chinese food here. It is nothing like American Chinese food and apparently its not even what they eat in China.. it was fun.

Okay so my Korean Grandpa, Brother Yoon, his story takes quite some explaining so I might use the rest of the email to explain because he is by far the best thing that happened this week. When Elder Fowler and I started here we had lots of time looking for investigators. In that time, we got lots of people's phone numbers on the street to meet again. But every time we'd call back, they would always say they were too busy. Brother Yoon was one of them. I think we met him like our 3rd day together. He had lots of English interest and said he would come to English class that Saturday. We called him after he didn't come and he apologized and said he was busy. We then made another appointment to meet. Then he cancelled again. He was starting to seem like one of those guys who doesn't want to hurt our feelings but at the same time really doesn't want to meet. We called him last weekend and made yet another appointment for last Friday. Well he actually showed up and turns out he is the coolest Grandpa ever (in Korea you call all older people Grandpa). He is just happy to be alive and loves us. He said that he had never studied English because he never had the money and had never gone to church but wanted to try both. We invited him to Church and he came!! He is the first investigator that has actually come to church. It was so fun to sit with a man in his 70's who had never been to church and see him experience it for the first time. He sat down for sacrament with this look on his face like "woow this is soo cool!" Then we started singing the opening hymn, which he loved! He was sitting between me and Elder Fowler and after the song he just grabbed both our thighs and said this is fun! The Stake Presidency spoke for sacrament. When the first speaker finished, he told me his words were too hard then the second speaker he said was really fun, then the Stake President got up and at that point he was shouting "Amen!!" to stuff the stake president would say. It had our Bishopric crackin up pretty bad. In Gospel Principles, we learned all about baptism pretty thoroughly and he seemed to have no problem with the idea. When members came up to introduce themselves to him he would just say, "My young American friends brought me!" hah. He is just a sincerely happy grandpa. We told him we wouldn't be having meetings in our building next week because of stake conference. After explaining about stakes and wards, he said sure I'll go to stake conference. I'll take the Elders in my car! He's the best. It was a good lesson in persistence because part of me wanted to just not call him again, but I'm so glad that I did. Unfortunately, We couldn't meet Brother Cho or Bae this week:(

Today we had to go the immigration office to renew my stay in Korea for another year. I can't believe I've already been here for a year. A man came up to me today, it was one of those men who know a little bit about mormons but just want you to tell them everything about the church. We talked for about 20 minutes in the book store while I was buying Korean books. Every time I answered one of his questions about the church, he would just say that's amazing. He was reacting so well to everything I was teaching him that I asked him if he came to know that the Book of Mormon was really true, would he be baptized and he said yes! He doesn't live in our area so I'll have to give him to some other missionaries, but it was an awesome experience its those kind of contacts that make every rejection worth it!

Thanks for the love I love you too!!! From 금천, with love. Elder Nixon