October 5- Happy Korean Festival Season

So McDonalds Monopoly has made its way to Korea!! I was so excited when I saw that, but then I realized that I have no money to play or eat. McDonalds...guess I'll just have to watch from the sidelines this year.

Sorry in advance if this email is a little short. We're going to play soccer with a ton of missionaries today and it's kind of far away. We have to cut email time a little short today. There is still tons of awesome stuff to report on this week! The weather is awesome. We've been super busy with leadership stuff this week. We went on a 3 day exchange with 2 different companionships. The first one I got to go to Ansong. Ansong area is famous for one thing throughout the mission. It is that it is way out in the boonies with nothing but a bunch of countryside farms and no people. I was so excited to go because I've been in Seoul my whole mission and haven't seen any of the Korean countryside. I got there and was actually really surprised to see that they actually had a downtown area a little bigger than I expected. We ate dinner in a house and then left to go proselyte for the night. We then heard tons of noise coming from the one main street. We found out there was a giant parade going on involving every single person in the city either watching or participating in the parade. The street was jam packed full of people! Apparently once a year, they have a huge festival. I just happened to go on the day that it started. So I didn't quite get the full countryside experience, but it was really fun to talk to everyone in the town. They all seemed to be in a friendly mood because of the festival.

My other exchange was back in my area with a brand new missionary named Elder Tanner. This exchange was just funny. I will never forget going on exchanges as a greenie with my first zone leaders. I just bombarded him with questions like "Do you feel like you've been out for a long time?" "What has been the most fulfilling part of your mission?" "When do you feel like became a really effective missionary?" I asked all those questions to my zone leader and I distinctly remember it! The funny thing was getting the exact same questions from this missionary. I couldn't help but chuckle just a little bit when he asked them because I still remember so well asking them. I told him how I felt about it all and that before he knows it he will be getting these questions from greenies and he'll be the really old missionary. It was just fun to serve with a new missionary again. I miss some things about it sometimes.

So the greatest thing to come out of our work this week was brother Jong getting a baptismal date. He is a high school senior right now. (which is the part of a Korean's life where they do absolutely nothing but study) He found the church himself and called the missionaries almost a year ago now. He's been consistently meeting with them ever since them and has accepted all of the lessons so well. The only thing that was holding him back until now was him parents heavily opposing him going to church. They refused to give permission for him to be baptized, but he becomes an adult in November and can choose for himself then. He has such a strong desire to be baptized and progress in the gospel. We set a date for the end of November! Until then, we are going to keep meeting and reviewing and preparing him for baptism. I'm so excited for him! This next week is jam packed full of meetings and zone proselyting activities with all the missionaries in our zone, and General conference is next week for us!~ so it should be really fun

Thanks for all the support I love you peacenblessins From 수원 with love Elder Nixon