hello family

Dear Family!!

Well, hello there familia! This is Elder Josh and it is quite an interesting week/day already. So I just got off the phone with my dear friend Dustin [Chung]. Ya, I got permission and all and he's doing so good. Dang it was really interesting. He speaks Korean and I understand it this time. It is really different! But crazy and really fun. It was great. We will keep in touch and see if we can't meet up with him (and his grandparents ㅋㅋ sometime)

So me and elder 조광진 are just absolutely going to tear it up here in 전주. I love it here. It's an awesome ward and when we got here the first thing that we got to see was a member baptize one of his daughters. It was so awesome to see a soft-hearted father get up there and sing a song to his daughter. He was all choking up and stuff and it was a really cool experience. The church is so awesome.

So my companion Elder 조 is absolutely a stud. He just got out of military service before he got trained by Elder Jolley. He is a super star. Works hard, is patient with me as I try to learn this difficult language and try to figure out how to do this senior stuff and best of all, I am his second companion (I'm not training this transfer). It is great.

전주 is so cool! The church is huge here - has an indoor basketball court and everything. Love it. It reminds me a lot of the 첨단 church but bigger which is a ton of fun. The ward here is hilarious and the work here is going pretty good. The members seem like they have a ton of interest which helps a lot and we are always welcome at the members houses to eat and talk which is great because 전라도 food is the best. 

We did get to meet with two of our 구도자 this week and they are so cool. One of them is an absolute stud at English and he has a baptismal date for 11/11. Hopefully we will be able to stick him to that. He wasn't able to come to church this week however because of army recruiting things but he should be able to come next week and then from then on as far as I am concerned.

The other guy that we got to meet with has been meeting with the missionaries for a little bit. He attends the 장로 교회 and he is a way cool guy. But I think that was one of the coolest lessons that I have had because we just went off. He was asking all these things and he had all these doubts about the Book of Mormon and stuff because of what he has been taught to believe in his church. But I was able to use just about everything that I have learned from reading the Jesus the Christ book in like one sitting. We answered all his doubts and stuff like that and pinned it all on his faith. He blatantly told us that he is excited to meet with us more. 

Overall the new area is great. I pray every day for guidance and things are just seeming to fall together. It is great. I love it. I love the gospel and the peace that it brings. I love the Holy Ghost and how through just little things he guides us every day. It's so cool. I pray that I will be able to see success here in this area and to help people to come unto the gospel. I love the mission! Gah it's so cool.

So lately the words just kinda fall out of my mouth (in Korean) and my language is getting kinda sloppy. So please pray for me. Need some help. I'm praying for it too and trying to slow down a little bit to help things get better but it's hard to slow down your speaking once it gets comfortable. Gah. There was a point not too long ago that it was awesome. I could say what I want, it came out pretty fluently and ya. SO, let's try to get back to that.

So love ya'll tons! Hope ya'll have a good week. Enjoy some of the pictures!

Love 

Josh

HEY!!!!! 저는 떠나간다!!!

Hey, so today is TRANSFER DAY....

And guess what...??????

I'm getting Transferred! 아싸 [Yikes]!!!!! YAYAYAYAYAYAYAYAYAYAY!

It's been fun here in the office but I have got to say that I am excited to be getting out of here and back to the field. I am so excited. I will be going to 전주 [Jeonju]. I will be serving with Elder 조광진 one of the new missionaries to our mission (he has been here for 3 transfers). I will also be going Senior Companion.... (no pressure right?)

It is so crazy here though. I now have two "greenies" here in the office. But since I am leaving I will be getting to serve in one of the coolest areas in our mission. 전주 is one of the few wards in Korea that has a basketball inside and I intend to use that to its FULL capacity. Koreans surprisingly like basketball alot if the facilities are provided. So I will probably try to use basketball as a way to find some investigators (I have heard of a lot of stories of people who were found and baptized through basketball here) and we will see how that goes. 

But ya it has been a busy week. Transfer prep week is always like that. This week however it has been kind of weird. Elder Carter (if you remember my second companion) is going home this transfer.... SOOOOO weird...... I don't know exactly what to think about that. But ya. I have however been busily planning how I can be a good leader with Elder 조 and we are going to absolutely tear it up in 전주. 

Ya, I am excited to be getting out of the office. (Not that I haven't loved it here) but I'm really, really excited.

So we did spend a busy week of getting to say our goodbyes to all of the people in our ward and we have some activities planned today to hang out with most of the missionaries going home. So it'll be a good day.

Ahhhhhhh, so excited

Anyways, I love ya'll. I have to go upstairs and clean (we have to do that before new missionaries come ALWAYS) but ya. I hope all of you know that I love you and that this church is true. I love it, I love the church. Specifically lately I have really loved sacrament meeting. Elder Clark's talk at conference is a good one and I recommend it to all of you (he gave a more firey version of that to our mission when he came for Mission Tour here)

Love ya'll TAKE CARE!!!! Talk to you more next week!

Elder Josh

내가 진짜 좋다 (I'm real good)

Wow, well hello there family. How ya'll doing? I attached some pictures for ya'll to see! I wore my new suit for the first time at conference and I have got to say it was absolutely a 대박 week. We were pretty busy during the actual week itself and then the weekend came. It was so awesome. We got to watch conference! AHHHHHH.

I have to apologize to all of you because I don't think God made conference for anyone but me this time around. Every single talk addressed something that I was looking for and I don't know if anyone else got the things they needed! It was truly awesome. I loved Elder Holland's talk, I think I always do. But especially this time around. He is just kinda my motivational style, up in your face, loud, direct, no messing around. It got me thinking again about obedience and gave me a renewed surge to try and be more and more obedient to what God wants me to be doing as a missionary. I also Like Elder Nelsons talk where he addressed the world "Talk to the missionaries." It was funny when I was in the MTC he came and visited us and his granddaughter was there. And he called her and a couple other missionaries up and was talking to all of them and he shook a bunch of their hands and then he all of a sudden goes and just gives her a huge hug.... Like I swear everyone in the audience was just like "I thought that wasn't allowed!!!!!!!!" I remember thinking: "Well he's a general authority I guess he can do what he wants...?" Then he tells everyone that this is his granddaughter and we were all like "Wahh!!" It was way funny. 

As I listened to conference I kinda caught onto a theme in the conference. Almost every single speaker made specific mention to how through the Atonement of Jesus Christ we can be forgiven. It was really a cool thing for me because I, being a very self critical person, needed that a lot. I do want to testify to all of you that the Atonement is real. I have felt that power in a way I can not even begin to describe. To feel the weight of sin LITERALLY lifted off of your soul is the most amazing feeling I have ever felt. That is not an excuse to sin, but it truly is a blessing for if we slip up on the way up the "heavenly highway"

I really loved that Conference a LOT. It really was a blessing to me to hear the words of our inspired leaders. I truly want to be so much better, gah if I could have faith like them that'd be so cool.

It is weird, transfer week is almost here and I am not that busy. I study Korean during the day. Training when I need to and ya. I am going to go into overdrive this week so that I can get Elder Palmer 150% trained. I am excited for this next week I gotta say. It's gonna be busy come the weekend. Wah, gonna be busy.

I did however get permission to try and vote. So I registered to vote online I'm gonna vote! Haha. 

So good to see all the pictures you sent. I like getting pictures from home. It's fun to see what you are all doing and brag to everyone about my family. Ya'll are the best and you're worth bragging about. So I'm gonna do it!

I love ya'll tons. Hope you know that. So good to hear from ya and see your smiling faces. One of these days I'm gonna get to see ya'll in person and that'll be awesome! It's crazy. I'm kinda an old missionary. I don't feel like it.... But I am... But then I think about like Chase... He's ancient. Weird.

Anywho, remember that I love ya'll and that I keep you in my prayers always. 

Love,

Elder Josh

(P.s. I attached one of my "manuals" ya'll could come and do the Financial Secretary job if you'd like!)

네가 연차 대회를 보고 싶다!

Well, hello there Family! It has been a pretty good week here in the 대전 선교부. I had a pretty good week. And a really good fast sunday which was nice. But ya lets see.... what's went on this week.,......

Ah, so I managed to find a way to keep myself busy all week which was nice (thanks for the prayers mom :)) and it was a pretty good workweek. I got a nice training built for Elder Palmer that will help him out as he adjusts to the Financial Secretary Job (which is coming along alright!!). It has been an absolute wild week. With these "non-busy" weeks (basically any week that I am not preparing for ZLC, incoming Missionaries, outgoing missionaries, etc) I have got to find projects. Lately I have been working on some stuff that president has asked me to find/make for him and that is coming along nicely. I also got a chance to go through the SMMR computer and kind of clean up some stuff. Then I also decided that I am not much of a trainer in words (because things to me just make sense) but that I can pretty effectively make Manuals. So I have been doing that for both the SMMR and Financial Secretary Jobs of late. It has been pretty good experience and I can usually just refer any questions that I get to the Manual because I already wrote it down with diagrams and screenshots and everything... (maybe I'll send you one to just give you an idea of what I do)

This week was also nice because we were able to find 2 investigators this week. One of them is a college student but he changed his job schedule late this week and said that meeting in the future would be hard, but it's okay because we have some other possibilities that are pretty good! The next guy is a man who lives ni a city called 옥천. It's about one hour from 대전 and we can just take a bus there. He is learning english for this test called the OPIC (An oral profficiency test) and I have am drilling him like Dad drilled me in Basketball. He has a sample test book and I basically just make him do each of the sections of the test to me each time we meet. I may not be much of a Grammar teacher but I can Coach. And so I'm just making him do that over and over. He however as an investigator is going to be a little tough. Kinda stubborn because he has done a lot of study and so even though he reads the 몰몬경 he doesn't get anything out of it, He doesn't even remember it. Kinda difficult but me and Elder 구 are working on it. He's a good guy and he's way honest which are two good qualities and we hopefully while we meet with him we will be able to help him out.

So this week we really kinda buckled down toward the end of the week and just worked. It was really good, it was fun and ya. I liked it. But ya it was just a good week. I really did have a happy good week.

SO, I have heard so much about conference and it kills me because I like the only one in the mission in a position to get on conference, but I can't. I have to wait a week till the rebroadcast here..... It kills me... The link is right there..... AHHHHHHHHHHHHH

I never thought I would come to like General Conference quite as much as I do now. I love it. I absolutely crave it. It's the best! But we don't get sacrament meeting which is hard (I absolutely love sacrament meeting and getting to partake of the sacrament too) but I guess hearing from the Prophet is a good enough reason :)

But ya, so exciting to hear that Jenna made cross country state!!! That's awesome! I hope you kick some trash Jenna. Start off strong and finish the season on top 'aight? Make your brother proud! (Already am :))

Well, I love you all so much. I hope you know that this church is true. I hope you know Christ lives. I have had a really REALLy good time lately reading Jesus the Christ. It is interesting to see how your thought process changes when you wanna be like Christ. I love having the moments where i remember things that Christ said or did while he was here and how I can do similar. It is cool. Christ lives, I hope ya'll know that. His Atonement is real. I testify to that. The Atonement is truly real, it heals us and makes us better. It makes us better than we could ever possibly imagine. We just have to be willing to let Christ do that to us. I am trying every day, it's hard, but it is so cool to see when Christ begins to have an influence on your life. I hope I get to have more of that experience and that you all too will get that experience.

Love you again, take care, have an AWESOME week

Elder josh!