This
has a been a good week, especially the weekend. 최광식 (Gwang-Sheek Choi)
got baptized on Saturday and was confirmed on Sunday. It was a beautiful
baptismal service! It was so great to see him just at peace after his
baptism. He's come a long way in preparing for baptism and you could
just see the calm and cleanliness in his expression after having just
made a covenant with God. The gospel is true!!!
We
also combined wards on Sunday and had our first meeting all together.
Next week we will all meet for the first time in the big new stake
center. It's pretty massive. I moved from Chungjang to Punghyang a few
weeks ago and now the two wards and areas will be combining, so in a
sense, I transferred right back to my old area and just brought a bunch
of new friends with me! It's pretty fun to see them all together in one
ward now. I'm really excited to work with the new big ward.
We
also have another investigator planning on being baptized next Sunday!
His name is 이진형 (Jeen-Hyung Lee). If he can just live the Word of
Wisdom, he's all ready and wants to be baptized. So if you could spare
an extra second in your prayers for him, that would be great!
Last
week we also were interviewed by a reporter for a Foreigner newspaper
in Gwangju because he wanted to do a story on missionaries in Korea.
With a few rare exceptions, we are the only non-koreans in Korea who
aren't here as foreign exchange students or here teaching English. He
took some pictures and wrote a short little summary of what we do and it
might show up in their little free newspaper next month! Kinda fun,
huh?
One
of the lessons I feel like I have been learning lately strangely comes
from Saturday morning soccer... My companion, Elder Kwon, is a Soccer
athlete and actually lived in France for a year to play soccer for some
semi-pro league in Europe, so he's the real deal. Koreans also generally
love playing soccer, so we often will invite investigators and
referrals to play soccer on Saturday mornings. I love to go, but I'm
honestly pretty horrible, especially compared to all the Koreans who
grow up just playing all the time. My companion gave me the nickname
"자동문" which means "automatic-door" because I'm better at missing the
ball than hitting it. Yet, when I forget about my inability or what
other people might be thinking, the game is a blast.
It's a silly
analogy, but there are so many times in life where we get so tied up in
what the world view of us and how well our ability matches up to
responsibility. We sometimes become "automatic doors," so worried about
ruining opportunities that we let them pass by. President Uchtdorf
compared life to a toddler learning to walk. We are sometimes so worried
we might fall that we never take the steps necessary to learn to walk
and eventually run. It's ok to fall. We will fall! We just need to
always get up and keep moving forward! And one of my favorite parts of
the Gospel of Jesus Christ is the promise that we can get up and we can
always keep moving forward. He knows what it feels like to fall and He
has promised to lift us up, dust us off, wipe our tears, and lead us
along the trail of devoted discipleship. He truly is our Savior. Through
Him we can find peace, forgiveness, and strength. Through Him we can be
healed.
I know that God lives and that He loves each one of us!!! Have a wonderful week! I love you all!!
Love, Elder Tolman
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