Tuesday, November 29, 2016

Thanksgiving in Korea? Pizza and Fried Chicken!



Highlights from last week...

Because American Holidays are not a thing in Korea (for me at least), it is suuuper hard to keep track of holidays. Literally on the 24th I finally remembered that it was Thanksgiving, so that night I pulled some strings and a cool member bought us Pizza and Fried Chicken and we feasted! Pizza for Thanksgiving two years in a row now--a bit different from the traditional family turkey feast.

This week I went on an exchange cleaaaarr into the countryside to a place called Anseong and it was so sick; it literally took two hours to get there. It reminded me of home: no people, no cars, and a nice little cozy church (haha), but it definitely looked a lot different than home. The craziest thing, though, is only about 6 members and 4 missionaries come to church (I thought Seongnam was small). My little realization about that was just that even in small numbers, the gospel will roll forth! No matter how many people show up on Sunday, the Gospel is still true and the Spirit can be felt for ever single one of these members. 

One other story to illustrate just a little bit about how people look at missionaries or anyone very religious in Korea: Yesterday I had a meeting in our stake building and it takes quite a bit of time to get there--about an hour both ways--which makes for great proselyting time! Yeah baby! For the sake of brevity, I will skip the ride there and get to the ride back. There were a lot of people so I just stood by one of the doors (my strategy with that is that at every stop there are more people to talk to), so I started talking to some younger-aged guy and he was a little shy at first but it was fun trying to get him to open up and make him laugh and stuff like that. Right when I thought it started to go well, I got a phone call from another missionary that only lasted like a minute tops. While I took the call, though, this random old lady grabbed the guy I was talking to and "whispered" something a little too loudly because I heard pretty well what was being said: "watch yourself, they are a cult!" I hurried and hung up the phone and "whispered" back, "who in the heck is that?" He said he had no clue, but he (not surprisingly) shut down. I just figured I lost my chance to the old lady. A few stops later, she got up to get off and brushed his shoulder and said, "BE CAREFUL" with a pretty terrified look on her face. And that was that, but the hate is real! Anyway, the adversary is real in Korea, but I can tell you one thing: God is ever present! I feel Him in my life every single day, and I know He is in all of our lives if we choose to let him in!

I miss you all!

Elder Jenkins


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