Sept 22 2013 추석 week

This week was good, but definitely a little different than normal because we had the massive Korean national holiday, 추석, on Thursday. We had a hard time meeting our investigators and such, so it was a good thing that President Shin had us meet together as Districts and practice teaching for a few days this weekend. In a lot of ways the meetings were really helpful and I remembered a lot of things I need to be doing better to be a more effective teacher of the gospel. This weekend we had a kind of interesting and somewhat exciting announcement from our mission president about a change in some of our focuses as a mission. Previously, we were focusing on talking to a certain number of people each way to help us strive to open our mouths. It had the right focus, but it was too easy for missionaries to distort into a quota that had to be met (whether or not it was effective), often at the expense of other more important opportunities. So, we dropped that focus and now we have a new one called "BRT 1-2-2." Usually BRT stands for Building Reletionships of Trust which is definitely good and we are still doing, but President Shin redefined it as Baptisms, Referrals, and Teaching. So now, we are expected to strive for at least 1 baptism each transfer, 2 referrals each week, and 2 hours of teaching every day. The teaching part has to be in 20 minute blocks of teaching, which is cool because it makes us be sure that we always strive for meaningful extended gospel conversations, whether with members, on the street, or with investigators. I believe it is revelation from God through our mission president and I'm excited to give it my all and see what blessing the Lord has in store for our mission as we do.

 

As for the actual 추석 day on Thursday, it was just a P-day. We had also done our e-mailing and shopping earlier (since everything is closed), so we had a pretty open, relaxing day. Or at least so we had hoped... We went to the church to play piano, play ping-pong, etc. and Elder Brady, one of the other elders living with us accidentally dropped the edge of the ping pong table on his toe. 안되요. It totally broke is nail bed, split his toe pretty bad on each side and it was just nasty. 징그러웠어요. So we spent a few hours getting him the the emergency room, getting him all patched up, cleaning the church, etc. before finally enjoying the last hour or so of P-day. It was necessarily relaxing, but it was definitely a memorable P-day. Poor Elder Brady.

 

Recently, I have realized that one of the things that would help me progress most in the language and helping bring people to Christ is that I need more confidence. As I was praying and pondering about how to gain more confidence, the somewhat paradoxical thought "I need to be humble enough to be confident," came into my mind. I realized that I needed to be more humble, not so much because I was being cocky or over-confident, but because I was refusing to let go of my imperfect view of myself and accept God's. God really does know us perfectly. He also sent His Son to atone for our Sins, our sorrows, and our imperfections, so we always have someone to turn to who not only understands us perfectly, but is the means of overcoming those imperfections. So this week I am working on being humble enough to give up my imperfect view of myself and to allow God to fill me with His love, both for me and for those I serve. There is no way I, or any of us, can do it all alone. The beautiful thing is that we don't have to! I know that my Redeemer lives and I am so grateful to be able to proclaim that truth to the world!

 

I love you all! Have a wonderful week!

 

Love, Elder Tolman

Sept. 15 to Mom

Thanks Mom!

 

I got a kick out of Tyson's car story. That is so him to "steal the show" in everything he does, isn't it? It made me chuckle. I also loved Landon and Chases "Classic carpool" that they did. What funny studly guys. Haha I bet everyone just adores Landon at school. He's amazing. I bet he has so many incredible examples to be a great example to others - probably even far more than he realizes. Let him know that I think he's pretty amazing and that so many people will look up to the amazing example I am sure he is setting in all that he does. And I love that they were all able to sing together! It will be a blast to re-join the new and improved Tolman Choir when we're all back together. Fun stuff. My showed my companion the Inside-Out versions of Brightly Beams and he loves it. He's listened to it maybe 50 times and made me teach it all to him in English (because it doesn't exist in the Korean hymnbook).

 

I'm glad to hear you are all doing well. Good luck with your cupboard project! It sounds like a lot of work, but I'm sure it will be beautiful!

 

Thanks for your wonderful loving letter and your stalwart example to me and the rest of your loving sons and daughter. I love you! Have a wonderful week!

 

-Love Elder Tolman

Another Transfer in Gwangyang Sept. 15, 2013

Last Monday we got transfer calls and I am staying in Gwangyang with the same companion, Elder Ahn Gwang Oak. I love working with him and I love serving in Gwangyang, so I'm really excited for the next six weeks! I really believe that as we continue to work hard, to improve, and to be obedient, God will bless us with bountiful opportunities to bring people to Christ. I had a quick thought today. Maybe part of the reason missionaries see so many blessings and so much of God's hand in their lives is because we have so many opportunities to recieve God's promised blessings through obedience to their respective rules or commandments. We ought to look at commandments as opportunites for God to promise us His blessings!

 

This has been a pretty good week. Some of our time was caught up in spending with time who don't really have desire to accept the gospel, but no person is worthless and no effort is completely wasted. We'll just be looking for more effective, more useful ways to use our time this week. But regardless of our desire to use our time effectively this week, it is going to be pretty tough because this week is 추석 (Choo-seok) which is one of Korea's two biggest national holidays. It is a lot like our Thanksgiving and is a holiday celebrated on the same day as the harvest moon. But other than the origins and the fact that they don't eat turkey, it seems, all in all, to really be pretty much the same as Thanksgiving. But because of that, President Shin is having us meet togethers as districts to practice teaching and stuff like that rather than most likely very fruitlessly trying to scramble together appointments around our investigators' hectic holiday schedules. So we won't be doing a lot of traditional missionary work this week, but I'm excited for the opportunity to practice teaching and make the most of what opportunities we are given.

 

As I have been in Korea (for almost 6 months now), one of my favorites things is when Korean try to make up their own advertisements in English. The country is crazy about English, so most stores and most products will have something in English, but there are not a ton of people who are fluent in English, so their advertisements are almost always really awkward or just slightly off enough to make them funny.

 

Here's my favorite so far (this was found just on a cabinet at a store):

 

It is the good morning.

I open my eyes in the morning, and I make a base crab.

I make up, and I wear wonderfully clothes.

Today what kind of thing is come into being?

It is the girl whom a war is attractive, and it is kind, and it is bright.

I'm not give it up. I'm not disappointed

Let's always laugh.

 

Hahahaha I have no idea what it's supposed to mean, but it love it. Koreans are so cute.

 

Last week I mentioned that I had a thought from our mission tour that I wanted to share, so I'll do that today. It's about how to petition in prayer. Elder Whiting compared prayer to if our mission president had a super nice Ferrari and then we came up to him and asked if we could have the keys. The first things he would want to know are why we want them and exactly what we will do if we have them. Prayer is the same way. Often I find myself just asking for a list of things, often genuine requests for good things, but I don't usually explain why I want them or what I will do both to obtain them and if I receive them. Obviously God knows all our intentions and desires, but there is something powerful about expressing those desires in humble prayer to God. In my case, sometimes I really haven't thought about exactly why I want certain blessings and haven't committed to God what I will do with them and what I am willing to do to obtain them. But I know that as we think about those things and express them to God in prayer, our prayers will become more effective, not just on the recieving end, but also I think it provides us the opportunity to receive revelation as to what blessings we need and what things we can and ought to be doing to live up to the full potential of God's blessings for us. I really enjoyed that counsel and want to continue to learn how to apply it better. Prayer is so powerful!!

 

I'm so grateful for the knowledge that we have a loving Father in Heaven who's ultimate desire is our happiness. I am thrilled to have the opportunity every day to proclaim that priceless truth to the world!!

 

I love you all! Thank you for everything!

 

Love, Elder Tolman

 

 

Great Week Sept. 8, 2013

This has been a great week! We had lots of meetings, so some of the "numbers" side of things didn't indicate success, but I definitely learned a lot, made some improvements, and saw miracles, so it was a successful week to me.

This week we were able to find 4 new investigators!! 2 of them are the husband and daughter of member referral that we just met. They are all amazing and really seem to be looking for truth! I'm so excited to keep teaching them. The other one is a brother of one of our investigators we've been meeting a while (김지웅 - Jee Oong Kim). And the last one was a miracle find. I might have mentioned him last week, but I'll mention it again, just in case. We were just talking to people on the street and my companion had an impression that we needed to go talk to a kid a little ways down from where we were planning on crossing the street. We did and it turns out that he was attending a church, but it was pretty far, so he was looking for a closer church to go to, and yesterday, he came!! He's a total stud and seems to be really honest, pure, and open. I can't wait to keep meeting him!

Chan Ook Lee, our super cute amazing 13 year old investigator was finally able to get the Gift of the Holy Ghost yesterday. I can't wait to see him progress in the gospel. He's amazing.

I'm out of time, so I'll have to share my thoughts from our meetings another time, but we learned what it means to really "petition" God in prayer, and it has really helped me improve my prayers. If I don't share later, remind me!

I know this is God's work, not just because we see miracles as it goes forth, but because the witness of the Spirit undeniably testifies it is! Nothing can imitate the redeeming power of Christ and His Atonement that we can feel through the Spirit! 

I love you all! Have a wonderful week!

-Love, Elder Tolman

This has been a good week, but wasn't as effective as we had hoped. We got rained out this weekend and just haven't been as effective with out time as we should have. We are definitely looking forward to pushing forward more this week. This has been my first transfer staying with the same companion, so it has been interesting, but I'm so glad that I am able to stay two transfers with Elder Ahn. He is technically the greenie, but he is amazing and I learn alot from him. We have a lot of differences, but plently of similarities and have been able to kind of cover each other's weeknesses. I love serving with Elder 안광옥!!

 

This week we were able to find three new investigators again!! We hope we can keep it up and teach them all effectively! One of our new investigators, though, is still kind of mystery to Elder Ahn and I. We first met her one night when we were coming home for the day and we was at one of the entrances of our apartment complex. The wierd part though is that is seemed like she was waiting for us. She seemed really apprehensive and almost scared and just asked some kind of strange questions. But we taught a little, gave her a Book of Mormon and went on her way. We ran into her again a couple days later and it was still a little weird, but not as bad because it was just on the street in the middle of the day. We met her again at the same entrance to apartment one night and it just felt super weird again. So we were just going to be careful and keep our eyes out. Then this week, we got a call from someone asking if we could come teach. Elder Ahn said it was a lady who wanted us to teach her son English, so we went right away with a member. When we opened up the door, my heart took a jump when I saw it was Serena, the lady. I was especially worried because she doesn't even have a son at all. Also, in her living room, there was a little bike with a soccer pattern seat just like one we had seen a couple hours earlier halfway across town outside our apartment complex. I was kind of freaking out. The teaching appointment went alright, but it was still a bit strange. We found out later that the bike wasn't the same and that Serena never said anything about English and he had just confused her with someone else, so that easied our worries a lot. I think she is just a really troubled lady who needs a lot of help and doesn't really know what to do with her life at the moment. I think God might have some work for us to do to help this poor daughter. It was just an interesting experience getting to know her. I'll keep you posted if anything else exciting happens.

 

I am so grateful for the Gift and power of the Holy Ghost. In 3 Ne. 19:9, the people pray for that wich they desired MOST and it was the Holy Ghost. What an incredible gift God has promised to give us as we live up to our covenants!! I realized as I read that scripture that I ought to focus more not on just living worthy for the companionship of the Holy Ghost, but to be constantly striving, desiring, and asking for it's constant presence, guidance, and influence in my life. I know that only through the Holy Ghost can we truly understand and come to know these truths and only through the Holy Ghost can we effectively share these truths with others. The Holy Ghost truly is the channel God has provided for us to transcend our imperfect knowledge, ability, and desires as imperfect people and partake of God loving power, truth, and guidance as our perfect Father in Heaven. That is so amazing to me! I love this gospel and I am so grateful for the opportunity to share it with others!

 

Have a wonderful week! I love you all!

 

Love, Elder Tolman