June 22- Moroni Look Alike

So every Friday, we sit down for 3 hours to plan out the next week. We were trying to brainstorm ideas for how we could work closer with the ward and help them out more. We couldn't really come up with anything good and then I realized the problem, I was trying to think of ideas without my thinking cap on! I ran into the other room and grabbed my Mexican Sombrero, (by the way do any of you realize how much it cost me to get that shipped all the way from Mexico??). I kept it on for the rest of planning and the ideas just started flowing like crazy! The best idea was to have a ward party on the 4th of July at the church since its just another day here and have a culture night where we play traditional American and Korean games (bobbing for apples, ring toss, doughnut on a string). I need more ideas of simple games we play in America for the party, cause I forgot.

We had a good week here. I'm sure the World Cup is going along just great. Ever since I figured out I would be here during the World Cup, I thought people would be going crazy and there would be all this hype here, but I really haven't seen too much of it yet. I said that to someone and they responded by saying the party starts right about when you go to bed and ends right about when you get up, so that is probably why you feel like your not seeing it, haha.

I think the highlight of the week would have to be having the opportunity I had to baptize the sisters' investigator, Sister Lee. We had the baptism on Saturday and it went really well. It was so great to see that a large chunk of the ward came out to show their support and welcome her to the ward. She has this cute little 7 year old son named Taeki who she brings to church with her every Sunday. He is so fun to be around. After the baptism, one of the young men in the ward (he is the coolest) comes up to me and asked me if this is the first time I've baptized someone. I said yes and he said "Wow!! this is such a big day for you! you work so hard and you earned it!" I told him it wasn't about me at all and that it was sister Lee's big day and he just responded with "I know but....." I could write so much about Jong Min, he is the funniest kid I've ever met. He got baptized only 4 years ago and is so excited for missionary work and probably like my best friend in the ward.

Maybe the next greatest thing would be finding Brother Park. We were walking along the river when we found him and then met him there for our first lesson. We were introducing the Book of Mormon to him as he flipped through the pages and stopped towards the front where it has about 10 pictures. He looked through them and stopped on the last one of Moroni burying the plates and started studying it. He looked at it. then at me. then at it. then back at me. Then finally said you look like him!! ......huh? He clarified by saying "No, no, no I know he is old, but when you get older I think this is what you'll look like. Welp, I'll take it.

I wrote last week that we had to stop meeting with most of our investigators, but luckily we were blessed with new ones this week! I've already told you about Brother Park and the other one was Brother Lee. So, I had a big list of potential investigators to call one morning, I thought I called them all so we went out to go do a quick stop by Grandpa Yoon's office, even though he just wants to be friends. We were about half way there when Elder Huffman asked me if I called everyone on the list. I double checked my planner and saw that I had forgotten one name. I didn't really want to call then since we were already on the way to do something else, but I did and right when he answered he said lets meet at this convenience store right now! We turned around and met him there and he bought us tons of snacks and brought us back to his office where he started asking all kinds of questions about the Book of Mormon. We were able to teach all about the Restoration and Joseph Smith right there in the first meeting. I went back and looked at the records to see how we found him a couple of months ago. We talked to him while he was on his way to dinner, so it literally lasted no longer than 30 seconds, but he gave us his number and we were able to meet like this!!!, such an awesome miracle.

I have one other kind of simple but cool miracle. Next week is ward conference so we took a night to just call all the numbers of less actives we have in the phone that we had never met, (which is a lot). We did it for a few hours and grew pretty weary as pretty much every number was either the wrong person, out of service and just rang forever with no answer. We made our way through most of the list when we both kind of sat there and complained about how frustrating this was. After about 2 minutes of that, I said okay listen this next guy on the list is an actual less active (I had never seen his name before) and he still lives in our area and this is his number and we are going to reactivate him. I said all of that having no idea who it was but then he answered and was so happy to talk to us and said that he went to church a long time ago and was too busy for church now, but that he was happy to talk with us and that we could meet sometime! It was the first actual less active member in our area we had found on the list! I still don't know if we can get him back to church, but we sure are going to try.

Like I said the baptism was the highlight of week, which is kind of silly because it wasn't even my investigator but it was still such a good experience for me. I think since I got to interview her and give her a blessing to help her keep the commandments (in Korean which was my first time and kind of scary!) and baptize her and do all these things leading up I felt really good about it all. It got me thinking about my own baptism and the only thing I can remember is my cousins telling me after the baptism that I was smiling the whole time in the water, hah. It was funny cause it was kind of the same for my first time giving baptism in that I couldn't seem to stop smiling. Even in sacrament yesterday, as she received the Holy Ghost, I just felt so good. Nothing more could motivate me better to help others work towards baptism, because I know how much it can bless other people.

Thanks for all and everything, peace n blessins! From 금천,with Love. Elder Nixon