Week 5 in Mokpo

Wow. Another week! I think time is beginning to pick up speed now and time is flying by faster and faster. It has been a good week in Mokpo, South Korea. It hasn't been easy and wasn't as successful as we would have liked, but it has, nonetheless been good. We had quite a few appointments cancel this week, but the fact that we have people agreeing to meet with us is a blessing in and of itself. Just hopefully more of them will follow through this next week. Probably my favorite success of the week was with our member referral. He is so quiet all the time, but especially during lessons and when we ask questions. But this week, he kep the committment we gave him to read a page from the Book of Mormon everyday and he also was willing to pray at the end of the lesson. He is progressing pretty slowly, but I have high hopes for him and I think that he is humble enough to make the changes in his life that will bring him closer to God, even if it takes a while. I am excited to see that change take place! We also met with our old investigator who had a baptismal date but couldn't drop alcohol. We just visited and played ping-pong, but I think he is remembering his desire to attend church and spend time with us, which gives me hope, even though I think it's still a long way away from being enough to help him quit alchohol. We will keep him in our prayers.

 

As for me, I had some pretty tired rough days, but I'm doing great. I love the opportunity I have on my mission to be stripped of pretty much any false form of comfort or solace and only have God and the gospel upon which to rely. It is a powerful lesson to me of how able God really is to aid us and carry us through ANY situation, whether it be a spiritual, emotional, or even physical challenge. Christ knows it all, He experienced it all, and He payed it all. What a blessing to be able to rely on Him for strength and comfort.

 

Thank you all for being such wonderful friends and examples to me. I am forever grateful for your love and support! Keep being spectacular!

 

Love, Elder Tolman

week 4 in Korea

Week 4 in Korea

Show Details

From

• Skyler Tolman

To

• Sheri Tolman
• Brad Tolman

Hello, Hello!

 

Before I talk about my week, I just want to express my love and gratitude to all of you! Thanks for your love, your consideration, and your support. It means a lot! You are all wonderful!

 

This week has definitely been better than last week, but the progression is still slow. We have a lot of people who are mostly interesting in English, but who are hopefully taking on more interest in the gospel. It is difficult to make the switch, but we are working on it. Our member referral is SO quiet and so it is really hard to understand his current situation, but he listens intently and is opening up more. I have high hopes for him. We also had a cool miracle happen this week. We took a bus to an appointment about 45 minutes away and we got there about 30 minutes early, so we just sat in a nearby convenience store to stay warm. While we were there, some guy a table away from us said "Are you missionaries?" We were happy to say yes and talked to him for a bit. He was heading to an English class and was mostly just practicing his English. But then he said "I want to go to church." I was way surprised that he invited himself. He also knew where are church was too, so we think he met missionaries before, but didn't really take lessons or anything. But we told him the time, got his number, and headed to our appointment. Then yesterday, he actually came! He felt bad and apologized because he was late, but I was just happy he was there at all. We taught him a little intro lesson at the church and will try to meet during the week. I hope it all works out!

 

As for me personally,  I am doing really well. I am beginning to comprehend more and more (although I still only understand about 5 or 10% probably). But the language is slowly coming. I also had the chance to give the special musical number for our Zone Conference. It was fun, but it was at like 10 in the morning and I hadn't warmed up at all, so it was pretty bad. But I did my best and at least tried to bring the Spirit and it was fun.

 

Here are a couple fun stories. Yesterday morning while we were studying, there was a mini earthquake! It only lasted about a second and it was really small, but it was kind of exciting to feel. When we felt it, we couldn't help but wonder if it was a nuke or something, but all is well in Korea and it must have just been some tremor or something. Hopefully it wasn't a side-effect of something worse somewhere else.

 

Also, I learned a super interesting funny thing about Korea this week. As we were waiting for a bus, we saw this tow-truck drive by, but it was the nicest tow-truck I had ever seen in my life. It looked pretty cool, was shiny, was all "suped-up", and had (what my companion confirmed to be) a big tank of NOS in the back! It was crazy! The funny part is that all the Korean tow-trucks are the same way! The reason is that the tow-trucks are all individual businesses and when an accident happens or something, all of them are notified at the same time. After that, it's just first come, first serve. So it's pretty much like fast and the furious, but with tow-trucks because whoever gets there first gets the job. And Korea seems to be a lot less strict in enforcing traffic laws, so they can actually do it. I even was able to witness it a little later because there was a little accident near our apartment and the tow-trucks just kept zooming up to scene hoping they were quick enough to get the job. It's kind of crazy, but super funny.

 

I am so grateful to be a missionary and to have a knowledge of this gospel in my life! Sometimes I think I forget that the God that is a God of miracles and of power doesn't just exist to prophets and in Ensign articles. He really is a God of miracles to each and every one of us personally! I am beginning to realize that and to become better at remembering that more and more. One of the best ways to remember that is gratitude. A great example is Nephi and Laman & Lemuel. When God delivered them from destruction in Jerusalem, Nephi and Lehi thanked the Lord for the absolute miracle while his brothers completely missed it as they focused on what they had lost rather than the miracle they gained. It's important to have the faith that God can bless us with miracles, but we also need to have the gratitude and ability to see those miracles.

 

Thank you all for everything! That is a really broad statement, but I really do mean it! You all mean so much to me! I love you all!

 

Love, Elder Tolman

Letter to Mom:

 

Wow! That is a lot of incredible news! It is wonderful to hear about all the great things you experiencing and enjoying! I will definitely look forward to seeing Scarlett on Mother's Day in a month! I hope you will be able to figure it all out with Cameron and I both trying to call into so many different places. I don't have any details about how that will work, but I will let you know when I do.

 

As for Mokpo, it is definitely a big city compared to Orem and maybe our standard, but you could consider it either a small big city or a big small city. It is a lot more empty compared to some of the other big cities like Gwangju, Daejeon, or Suwon. But yeah, it's fun. I don't really know a lot of the history of Mokpo as a mission area, but I don't know of it being closed and reopened recently... As for the e-mail thing, I'm pretty sure that was just a mistake because we have talked about it in district meetings and such and it's ok for everyone. And you can buy peanut butter in Korea, but it is just really expensive and probably a bit harder to find. I would definitely choose creamy over crunchy.

 

For our meals, we mostly eat them at our apartment and eat out every once in a while, but we haven't really had very many meal appointments. I've only eaten at a member's house once or twice so far. It's more just if they want to have us over, they offer, I think. I don't know if there is any set program of the ward feeding the missionaries. But it's not too bad. We get by just fine. It is a bit difficult not having access to a lot of the same things I am used to for making meals in America though, so I'm going to have to learn more and more how to eat the "Korean way" (which definitely isn't necessarily a bad thing).

 

I am happy to hear about the garden and the yard! You put a lot of effort into all of that and it's so fun that you are finally seeing the fruits of you labors! Maybe missionary work is a lot the same way. Sometimes we have to get through the cold of winter until we finally see growth in the spring.

 

I will talk about the rest of what's been going on in my letter to everyone, but thank you so much for your love, Mom, and for all the love that I know you send me from the rest of the family through your letters and prayers. I definitely appreciate and am so grateful to have such an amazing family!!

 

I love you!

 

Love, Elder Tolman

This week has been good, but not easy. We saw some good things happen this week, but there were also a lot of disappointments and frustrations. Our investigator with a baptismal date broke down on Tuesday and pretty much completely dropped us. He just isn't ready or willing to give up alcohol. I guess we were a bit too enthusiastic in helping him quit before he really had the desire to do so for himself and he just said that he has too much stress, that he doesn't think he can quit, and that we can't continue to contact him because he is too stressed. It was pretty heartbreaking to hear. Hopefully he will find a way to come back later and we will try to keep in touch, but we can't help him progress if he is not willing. We also had another investigator drop yesterday who just doesn't have time or enough invested interest to continue to meet with us. He seems to be pretty religious and eager for truth, so it's hard to see him reject the truth, but I have hopes that he might still find it in the future.

 

On the bright side, we have been meeting with a member referral and although I think progression might be slow, there is a lot of potential and I'm very excited to work with him. There was a lot we couldn't control this week, but there is always room for improvement, so we will press forward, hopeful for a better more successful week!

 

Maybe my favorite part of this whole week, though, was General Conference. I know you all already saw it, but it is still just as good a week late halfway across the world. I loved it! There is a lot that I learned, was reminded of, and definitely need to improve upon. It is such a blessing to have living prophets to give us up-to-date reports and guidance on how we can improve our lives, come closer to our loving Father in Heaven and our Savior, and to increase our efforts to help others do the same. Most of the English speaking missionaries in the area all meet at the Stake Center to watch it together, but we stayed in Mokpo to watch it on a laptop because we had a lot of appointments we didn't want to miss out on and we were out of money to make the trip. I loved it!

 

Here are a couple interesting/exciting things that happened this week. One day were were proselyting and we heard from behind us someone call out "Hello! Hey!" We turned around to see who it was and it was some random Korean kid on the street. He came up to us and just wanted to talk with us, so we were happy to oblige. His English name is "Ocean" and apparently he saw us a few times but just wanted to talk with us (probably to practice his English). But he took us to his nearby business and we just talked for a while. He is 26 and he is pretty much a genious. He owns his own whole compositions studio, a game programming company, and a stock trading company, and he works at the three for a living. He was just a super cool guy and has some cool perspectives on life, like how he notices he is blessed and just wants to help other people because he can only be truly happy if both he and others are happy. I hope we will be able to meet him again and teach him more about the gospel.

We also helped a member salvage some glass shelves from an old store. It took us an hour or so to take it all apart and then we headed back to drop it off. We were about to pull into an intersection when we heard a massive crash from behind the truck. The back of the truck had opend and the glass slid out and shattered all over the street. It was crazy. We scrambled to pick it all up with cars honking and driving on either side of us. Luckily we weren't in the intersection yet, but it was still a pretty exhilerating experience. Crazy days... gotta love 'em.

 

I'm pretty much out of time, but I just want to share one thought I have had recently that has really helped me a lot. I have kept the last line of "Come Thou Fount" in my mind a lot recently and it has had a renewed and deeper meaning to me over the last few weeks. It's the part where it says "Here's my heart, O, take and seal it! Seal it for they courts above!" I love that because I think that that is one of the hardest things to remember to truly give to God - our hearts. I think a lot of us are pretty diligently in doing our best to give our offering of time, effort, love, tithing, and almost everything else, but in our scramble to sacrifice it all, we forget that we are still clinging to our hearts. I often worry if what I'm giving is enough, if I'm truly doing my best, or if everything is really all going to work out the way it should, but all of those are sure signs that I'm still holding onto my heart and haven't let God take it - let HIm heal it, seal it, and send it back to me full of peace, power, confidence, charity, and assurance that He is God, that this is His work, and that I am His son. I know that through the power of the Atonement, as we turn to God and give it ALL - especially including our hearts - He will make up for the lack and imperfections that we unavoidably have bless us with the peace and power to press forward in all that we do.

 

Thank you for being wonderful! Thank you for being 1004s!! (haha that's a Korean language joke - I challenge you to try to figure it out)

I love and appreciate you all! God be with you!

 

-Love Elder Tolman

Dear Family and Friends,

 

This has been such a crazy eventful week! I will try to remember all the important things that happened. After about 16 or 17 hours of traveling, I finally arrived at the mission home on Tuesday night (Korea time). It was pretty interesting though because for us, the sun never went down from when we woke up Monday morning in America until when it set on Tuesday night in Korea. We followed the sun around the earth, so I pretty much just had one massive 30-something hour day. The first night in Daejeon, we went straight out on the street to proselyte. I was pretty nervous. We had an experienced missionary with us, so it wasn't too bad, but it was tough. It's still not super easy and it's hard when I don't really know what people are saying, but I'm getting better at it and it's definitely less frightenening than the first time.

 

We spent a couple days in Daejeon doing some orientation stuff and then we got assigned to our first areas. I am serving in Mokpo! It is a decent sized city, but small compared to Daejeon. But it is right on the coast on the southwest edge of Korea. I can see a inlet of the ocean from my apartment. I have a bunch of pictures from both the MTC and here, but I forgot my camera today, so I will try to send some pictures next week.

 

It is still pretty crazy to me that I am actually halfway around the world in Korea! Here's a few things I have noticed so far. I was actually surprised how much English there is here. English is a pretty big deal in Korea, so there are a lot of signs and stuff with English on them and a lot of Koreans have decent English. But even though English is pretty common, Americans (or any other people other than Koreans) are really rare here. It's pretty crazy! I would say that 99.9% of the people here are Korean. I might be overestimating, but we were pretty suprised when we saw 3 or 4 foreigners in one day. That's rare. It's fun. Because Americans are so rare and English is so popular, sometimes people get excited when they see us, especially the little kids, because they love to practice their English on Americans. So sometimes we'll get bunches of kids yelling "Hello!" or other English phrases from windows or from cars as we pass by. It is funny.

 

As far as religion goes in Korea, there are actually a lot of Christians here. It is super crazy, too, because there are TONS of churches in Korea! I can see 4 or 5 just from our apartment. It is like walking through Orem or Provo and seeing a church on every corner, except instead of all being our church, every single church has a different name and a different congregation. It's crazy. The tough part about it is that so many people have the mentality that because they go to a church and "believe in Christ," they are good to go, so they are happy that we are missionaries, but say something like "Oh, I already believe. Go save someone who doesn't believe yet." They aren't looking for a "true" church. They are just religiously complacent, which makes it really hard to do work here. There is also a lot of cultural pressures against the Word of Wisdom and stuff too, which also makes it tough.

 

As for the work, this week has been a pretty rough first week. We are the only two missionaries in Mokpo (which actually covers a pretty huge area), so there is a lot of responsibility. Also, this is my trainer's 6th transfer in Mokpo, so he will probably be leaving after this transfer, which means it's all on me to learn the area and keep any momentum going when the switch happens. I feel like I've definitely been experiencing some "growing pains" as I've tried to figure everything out and fill the responsibility of being a missionary. But I think I am starting to get the hang of it. My Korean still is not very good at all, but I'm learning little by little everyday and I know it will come even if it's not as fast as I would like it to. This has also been a tough week for the work just because we haven't seen hardly any success. We had 5 appointments cancel this weekend and an investigator who can no longer come to church because he has a class at that time. We do have one investigator with a baptismal date, but he is struggling with the word of wisdom and finding the desire to quit drinking. We went hiking with him on Saturday and he drank a cup of coffee and took a couple swigs of alcohol from his bottle while we were on the hike. It wasn't fun to see. But we will keep working with him and I really hope that he turns around. Mokpo hasn't seen a baptism in over a year and we are determined to do our best to change that this transfer. So the work is not easy by any means, but I know that it is God's work, so as I continue to do it in His way and diligently consecrate myself to this work, He will bless and guide our efforts.

 

Other than some disappointments and trying to adjust to a whole new world, I'm doing really well. It's not fun to see so much disappointment, but I am keeping my head up and will keep doing my best. Often we just do not understand the full grand scheme of God's will and His way, but I know that as I trust in Him and just give my best, that everything will work out for the best. I know that He is always there, ready to bless and deliver, but we need to do our part and we need to remember that it mus alway happen by His power, in His time, and in His way. But when it does happen His way, we have the absolute guarantee that there is no other better way. I love that. I also hope you all had a wonderful Easter! What a blessing it is to remember our Savior and His Atonement, the most significant, loving, eternal, powerful, intimate event in all of history. I am so grateful for His sacrifice. May we all seek to better sacrifice and consecrate our lives to Him through our service and love!

 

Thank you all for you prayers, your love and your support. It means so much to me and is always very needed. I love you all!

 

-Elder Tolman

This next email is from Skyler to me regarding giving people permission to email him.  You all may email if you desire as you read in this message:

Skyler's email is: skyler.tolman@myldsmail.net
I was just wondering who you gave permission to email me. You can give it to anyone that I actually know. I think I said to only give it to a few people last time, but I mostly just didn't want to have it posted on my blog for the whole world to email me. So go ahead and let everyone know if you haven't already, and then if you can, mention to have them put their physical address too in case I don't have time to email them, but can write them a letter instead. Thanks! Love you! Bye!