안녕하세요!!
This
week we pushed back our P-day a couple days because of a big holiday
weeking in Korea with Children's Day and also Buddha's birthday. So I'm a
couple days late...
It's has a been a
great past week or so. The weather is really starting to warm up and we
can feel summer coming! My companion, Elder Kwon, isn't too excited for
summer just because Korean summers are so hot and humid, but we'll just
make the most of it.
Right
now we still have two investigators who are really progressing well
towards baptism! Gwang-Sheek Choi (최광식) will be baptized this
Saturday!!! Woohooo!!! It will also be the last baptism in the old
building since we are moving to the big new building soon. Also,
Jeen-Hyung Lee (이진형) will be baptized on the 18th. So exciting!! If you
can pray for them, that would be great! It's really weird to type out
their names in English, but I do my best to type it similar to how it is
really pronounced...
One fun
experience I had this week was that for the 3rd hour of church on
Sunday, the ward all met together and had a little discussion about how
to get their family history work going. Family history work in Korea is
so amazing. Korea is huge on family trees and respecting ancestors and
such, so every family in Korea has these massive volumes of their whole
family tree all printed out in crazy old chinese characters that trace
back to as far back as 300-400 AD (maybe some even further. So all they
need to do is just type it all in. The hard part is that it is always
all done in Chinese, so they have to know how to read it to be able to
do their family history work. Super interesting. Here's a picture of one
of the member's old family history book:
So cool!!
One
of the thoughts that has reoccured to me often lately is the importance
of the phrase "In the name of Jesus Christ." As a missionary, we
probably say that phrase 10-15 times a day and even as a regular member,
hopefully at least 3-5 times on an average day. But because we repeat
it so often, it almost becomes more of a thoughtless tag saying that we
are done talking. But it's not. It ought to be a sincere acknowledgement
of who our divine Mediator is. It ought to be a humble declaration that
both the words we just said and the actions that will follow will be,
according to our best efforts, in harmony with what our Lord and Savior
would say and do Himself. Every time we say the phrase we are
reaffirming to God our covenants to always remember Him and to give
everything we have and are in our efforts to follow Him. We are promised
that when we really act and speak in His name that we will have His
spirit to be with us and we will be given guidance, blessings, and
strength from on high.
I
know that Christ is our Savior, our Redeemer, and our Mediator with the
Father. I know that there is nothing in this life that will be more
important or bring more joy and satisfaction than following and serving
Him, including our efforts to share His message to all the world!! Let's
be a little more conscious of how we use His name and truly, humble,
meaningfully act and speak "in the name of Jesus Christ."
I love you all and hope you have a wonderful splendid beautiful week!!!
Love, Elder Tolman
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