Transfer to Punghyang

Apr 13

안녕하세요?

This has been a great week! Last Monday we received transfer calls and got transferred! But the funny thing is that I moved to the closest possible area. I was serving in Chungjang, the south part of Gwangju, and I moved to Punghyang (풍향) which is the north part of the same city. The funny thing, too, is that the two wards are actually going to combine in May, so I will practically be back in the same area! I am serving with Elder 권동엽 (Kwon Dong-Yup) as co-zone leader. 

Elder Kwon is a convert of about 3 years and he's just a stud. He works really hard, he's really smart, he is funny and personable, and he just gives his all to the work. I'm really excited to work with him! It will also be fun to have a Korean companion again. Koreans are the best! 

I will definitely miss Elder Dursteler, but he's still in the area we are combining with in just a few weeks and we have lots of combined meetings up until then, so it wasn't too hard to transfer. I am so grateful I was able to serve with Elder Dursteler. 

One thing I really like about Elder Kwon is his "all or nothing" urgent perspective of missionary work. This weekend we made two new baptismal dates and I'm super excited to work with these people! 

One of the investigators is 최광식 (Choi Gwang-Shik) who is in his mid-30's and is really good at "Hanja" which is the chinese characters which about 60% of Korean words are based on. It's super interesting. So this weekend my companion and him gave me a Korean name based on the Chinese characters that ends up sounding something like "Tolman." (see below) It was a lot of fun.

One related interesting Korean fact is that almost all Korean names are 3 characters long and they are almost always based on chinese characters which each have special meaning. So each name has it's own cool meaning, which they like to talk about sometimes when they meet each other. It's really cool.

Also, I obviously enjoyed conference and was so grateful for the opportunity to listen to the words of the prophets!! One of my favorites was Pres. Uchtdorf's talk on gratitude. It is so easy to let our situations heavily influence our attitude and desires, but one of the miracles of God is that He is eternal and consistent. We can always trust in Him and can always find a way to cultivate an attitude of gratitude!

I also liked the common themes of truly loving God and being true to the faith. We are all going to face times when we will be required to stand up for our faith! Sometimes we are asked to stand strong in the face of opposition and evil. Often we are asked to not only stand strong, but to press forward doing good and preaching the truth. We are asked to make and keep sacred covenants and to more fully and more diligently focus our efforts on helping others do the same. Regardless of the situation, it will not be easy, but despite the difficulty, it is always worth it!! 

I am so grateful for living prophets who guide us in these latter days!! I would like to echo the invitation of President Ballard to treasure up the words of prophets not only in the standard works, but to also turn to Preach My Gospel often and seek guidance and revelation there. I know from personal experience that Preach My Gospel is written by revelation by prophets of God. Study it!! And let me know how it goes. I would love to hear!

I love you all and I know this gospel is true!! I hope you have a wonderful week being true to the faith with an attitude of gratitude!! 

Love, 

Elder Tolman (or)

톨만 장로 (or)

도온만 (Do Ohn-Mahn) 장로 (or)

Elder 道溫滿 (Do Ohn-Mahn in chinese characters - it ends up meaning something funny like "the path full of warmth")