Monday, August 11, 2014

August 3- There Goes the Neighborhood

Talk about one of the craziest weeks of my mission! I'm mainly referring to the situation with Elder Seong. I really don't know how to explain this without being really confusing...I guess I'll lay in out in days from last week.

Monday: Elder Seong's mom emailed him saying there was a problem at the embassy and that his visa probably wouldn't come for a few weeks, which meant we'd finish off the transfer together. Tuesday:President Morrise calls saying that he'd gotten word from Salt Lake that he'd be leaving next week on Aug 4 to the MTC (Elder Seong was really excited to finally get the chance to go to the MTC) Wednesday: We get a text in the morning from President saying that he got another email from Salt Lake saying because of the embassy problem he would have to stay the whole transfer. (At this time, Elder Seong had a strong feeling that he was supposed to stay and we were supposed to do this transfer together.) Friday: The lady from Korean Church headquarters calls us and says that his visa has come and that he might leave next week or next month. President than calls us and asks Elder Seong what he wants to do. He tells him that he wants to stay till the next Tuscan, Arizona transfer which is Sept 16. At this point, we were excited to work through this transfer together and work really hard.

Saturday: I'm eating my oreo O's cereal in the morning when I hear 5 continuous text messages come in. I joked to myself that it was President saying that Elder Seong was leaving in two days. I open the phone and the first thing I read is "Elder Nixon I'll make a decision about your new companion by Monday......" what??? Today:Elder Seong left for the airport about 3 hours ago and I just barely met my new companion Elder Gibbons! President called Elder Gibbons yesterday morning and told him to pack his bags and that he would be to pick him up the next morning!! ahh! I think we are going to get along great though. He's from Sandy, UT. He came to Korea the same time as Elder Fowler, so it's been about 6 months. I heard about him before from Elder Fowler as the fruit man. Because in the MTC, all the food was so hard on his body that all he ate was plates and plates of fruit, hah. He is 24, really outgoing and I can already tell hard working.

So while the whole visa "staying or going" commotion was going on, we actually got some work done. We got bad news from Brother Shin this week. He told us that he was closing down Uncle Bob's. He said there were too many little snack bar restaurants just like his around the same area, so he closed. We obviously can't teach him as often as we did because we would go in almost daily to Uncle Bob's, while it was slow, and teach him. At least he agreed to meet once a week somewhere else. He says that the whole religion thing doesn't fit him well but that he still is curious about God and his existence. He also introduced us to another kid who goes in there all the time and we got his number!

This next story was by far the funniest thing that happened this week. So every week we meet with our ward mission leader in a meeting to discuss our investigators and coordinate our work with the ward. Brother Park was giving us advice that we need to be bold with people no matter who it is, investigators, members or just people on the street. He was saying that people will respect us and actually listen to us. So right when he was in the middle of going off about this we got a knock on the door. He opened it and it was a delivery guy in his 20's holding a big container of Chinese food. He asked if we ordered Chinese food and then Brother Park got really bold with him in a really funny way. "no we didn't order Chinese food!! no one else is here... if you can't find the address are we going to have to eat the food what food do you have?? noodles? how many?? Okay fine I'll buy it! Elders come eat these!" Right when he was giving us the noodles, he said "these are the missionaries you need to meet with them when do you have time?" The poor guy looked kind of scared and uncomfortable, but he said weeknights. Brother Park then said, "okay good, get an appointment right now"..so we are going to try to meet this week!! I saw it all play out with him giving the talk and doing exactly what he was saying and I thought I was watching a movie. It was so crazy!

It was sad to see Elder Seong go, but I'm excited for him to start his mission in Arizona. He improved so much while we were together and really motivated me to want to be better and keep improving. I had to send him off with a pic with the ole mexican sombrero since he's going to practically Mexico. Thank you for all the love and support!

From 금천,with love. Elder Nixon DSC02406

No comments:

Post a Comment