October 27- Spook Season

안영하세요 여러분! 이번에 한국말로만 쓸까요? ㅋㅋㅋ

I had a really good week here in Suwon. I spent part of the week down in another area with none other than my trainee, Elder Huffman. He came to our zone this transfer and is now serving on two American military bases English speaking!!! He says he hates that it's only English speaking, but also loves being around the military and great members. I've been really curious about what it is like to serve down there, so I scheduled an exchange to go down for a day. We were on the Osan Air Force base and let me tell you it was Culture Shock!! Going on base is literally exactly like going back to America and I was so weirded out by so many little things. We had a member family invite us for dinner. We were were in the elevator with this other military family that our member knew. Their kid had a cast on his leg, so we asked what happened. The Dad said "I went all Adrian Petersen on him!!" I had no idea what that meant! Is that some kind of thing now? Oh well. We then walked in and he told us to keep our shoes on if we wanted to...so we took them off and then walked in to a living room of what seemed like 8 little kids just going crazy. I counted again and there was just 4 all under the age of 6, but there were twins and they were everywhere. They were speaking English that I didn't understand. It was crazy. Over the noise of the kids, I heard the mom ask me if I wanted Root Beer or Dr. Pepper...how did she know?? We had a great meal of chicken, gravy, biscuits, root beer and cupcakes! It was so good, but so funny in that it all seemed so foreign to me. It was fun to reconnect with Elder Huffman and see how he has been. Looks like we'll be in the same zone till I leave.

This week was my last zone conference. I can honestly say it was one of my favorites from my whole mission. The theme was living by the spirit and we spent the whole day talking about doing different things by the spirit, (studying by the spirit, planning by the spirit, finding by the spirit). The zone leaders part that we were supposed to train on was finding by the spirit. I really wanted to make it good because the spirit really is the most important thing in what we do and this would be my only one as a zone leader. We prepared really well with a really detailed outline and plan for what we were going to say. The only problem was I got up there and couldn't find my outline anywhere. I looked for a good 2 minutes of just silence in front of everybody and then determined that I wouldn't be able to use it. Because of that, I felt like I stumbled through it and forgot to say things and didn't know where to take it and all this other good stuff... Overall, I felt like it could have been a lot better. So, I said all that to someone in my zone after the conference was over and they looked at me and said "Are you serious? Do you not realize how good you and your companion did? I've been struggling so much lately and have cried multiple times this week and I felt like you and your companion were speaking specifically to me and and telling me things I needed to hear and now I feel like I'm going to be okay". It was actually a really humbling experience. I was so focused on making sure it was good by my standards and that everything came out nice and pretty, but apparently that is not what needed to be said and that it took me loosing my plan to actually say what some people needed to hear. It's kind of ironic because we talked most of the time about how we need to rely on the Lord rather than our own talents and abilities and there I was worrying about my ability to deliver it. It was humbling.

We couldn't meet Brother Jeong this week:( It is so close to his big test that it might be hard for the next couple weeks). We did get to meet with Brother Lee and we had a really good first lesson! He is on the 30/30 program and it seemed at first that he had a lot more English interest than Gospel interest. We met with him and he let us know that he had a lot of problems right now and he doesn't know what to do. We promised him that whatever his problems were that learning and accepting our message could help him solve these things. He kind of gave us a puzzled look because a lot of his problems are practical everyday life problems. So going forward, we need to stick by what we say and apply The Book of Mormon to his life.

Two good stories came from street contacting this week. The first was last Monday night. It had been raining all day and for some reason my companion and I were just off. We couldn't seem to have any lasting conversations with anyone and we both were kind of down. I saw a man ahead of us walking, smoking a cigarette. For some reason, I thought to myself that I need to be extra nice to this guy and really show him that I love what I'm doing. I think he was kind creeped out by the over smiley guy coming on real strong (most people are..) But after talking for a minute, he started smiling too and really said he usually doesn't have much interest, but that it must be important to me and agreed to exchange numbers. The second was right after zone conference waiting for the bus. We saw our bus stop about 100 feet in front of the stop due to traffic and let people off. We walked over to get on and the bus driver hurriedly shut the door and drove off before we could get on. He was then stopped by traffic about 20 feet ahead and so we tried to get on again but he hurried and switched lanes into the main traffic. I was bugged...What did I do to him? We waited for the next bus and I quickly realized that it was my works that were frustrated not God's. (D&C3?) I sat down on the next bus and met a student who was willing to talk and wanted to know why I was here and why this thing I was doing meant so much to me. It was a great chance to bare my testimony and share the gospel that never would've happened if I would've been able to get on the bus.

Time is going quick right now! I'm just holding on with all I can! (I don't think I have used that one yet, right?) Anyway, have a good week. Love you.

peace-n-blessens From 수원, with love. Elder Nixon