You're Boxed Like a Fish

 October 6, 2025

I went on a fire exchange with Elder Starley in Gunsan this week, which unfortunately did not end with me on the Air Force base. Such a fumble, great heavens. Good thing though, cause I've been itching to prove to Hegseth my years of Microsoft Flight Sim have truly paid off. Next time baby. 

Elder Starley and I set a goal to give out 5 book of mormons before we got back home, which we promptly accomplished literally 10 minutes after leaving the house. The funniest moment of the day was when a Jehovah's Witness in his car started yelling at us. He stepped out of his car and started bashing Elder Starley and I. Noticing we had the numbers advantage, I thought it would be funny to take the opportunity to walk away from them both to go preach to his elderly mother in the back seat of his car, whome he left completely unprotected and open to my left side flank 

It's been Korean Thanksgiving recently, so everywhere we go we've been handed food. Koreans won't take the gospel from you but they'll give you food and walk away. I'll take it though. 

We met with a Uzbekistanian guy that we found earlier this week. We went and got Uzbek food which was sooo good. Side note, the guy from the gigachad meme walked into the restaurant. I invited our friend to church and it was an absolute no. It soon afterward became clear that he was using me to get a VISA to the States.

The Uzbek guy met us only because he wanted to get to the US, but at least he met with us. We had 3 appointments (basically all of them) get canceled literally 10 minutes before we were supposed to meet, so Uzbek guy gets some points. Our goated teaching friend was the only Korean who actually met with us. Like last week, he invited himself to church and was 100% confident he was coming, but then never showed.  We have reason to believe his mother has interviened  May this young generation escape the clawed grasp of the traditions of their fathers. 

General Conference rahhhh! I've always liked it, but as a missionary it feels like watching a marvel movie lol. 

Spiritual Thought:   Seeing the news that members raised $200k+ for the family of the man who shot up the church in Michigan made me spiritually energized like a pink bunny with a drum. I love being a deciple of Christ. (I didn't donate a single dollar) Unfortunately, the world is gonna keep getting worse and worse, and the Church will be more and more targeted as the years (hopefully that's plural) go by. But all the people who want to argue that the LDSaints aren't Christian are gonna have a dang hard time making that argument if we continue to follow Christ's example like that. It will become more and more obvious that this is Christ's true restored church. Love everyone!

Love you all, don't make too stupid of decisions.  

Current Weight: 184.14  

Street Fighter

September 28, 2025

 My comp and I were walking around the streets and told these two landscapers that they were doing great work and that Jesus loves them, the typical stuff, and one of them asked, "Are you missionaries?" We said yeah and he came up to us, pulling out his wallet while he did, and then tried to give us a fat ol wad of cash. I hit em with some moves that surely shattered his ankle bones, making it away, but my comp couldn't outmanuver the man and got caught by the collar. He tried to resist the money but the guy pulled his fist back and said, "I'll fight you if you don't take it." Like an absolute roooookie my comp took the cash instead of just taking the punch. I went back and grabbed the wad of cash and hurriedly placed it in the guys wheelbarrow. He tried to corner me in, but with his previously obliterated ankles, there was nothing he could do. I got around him and we sprinted off. He looked mad defeated back there, literally fell to his knees, but the three of us were laughing our butts off. Agressively nice guy. 

It's been a great week here in Iksan. We found a kid while street finding who knew a little bit about the church. We've met with him twice since then and taught him the first and second lesson. Bro literally invited himself to church and dang near baptism too. Most goated friend ever. I felt the spirit during our first lesson with him stronger than any other lesson I've done so far, and the Gift of Tongues was going crazy cause he was asking hecka questions and I was able to answer them all. When we finished talking he said, "I feel so warm and amazing right now." I got goosebumps when he said that, the spirit was palpable. It was the type of lesson that makes you and your comp skip down the stairs, simultaneously clicking your heals, and stop randomly for a 감사 기도 (prayer of thanks). Also worth nothing that while he's an almost 18 year old Korean kid, he sounds like a 40 year old black American. Most wild voice combo I've ever heard but it's kinda sick. Pray for my man to dodge the typical Korean route of being completely ready for baptism and then absolutely annihilating their tiny seed of faith. 

My mission president visited my tiny ward this week, which meant I gave another talk. It was fun and scary to have him there, he's such a legend. 

Fun Chinese lesson for you. The Chinese character for women is the character for "loud" repeated three times.

I made two lightsabers using stuff only found in Daiso this week. My comp took a picture of me soldering what lowkey looks like a bomb, so pray that picture doesn't get out or ya boy's gonna lose his VISA lol. 

As for the 4th hour guy, bro was at the church literally 8 hours after church ended. Unfortunately, we didn't expect that, so we got snuck up on. Terrifying. 

Spiritual Thought: 

President Nelson was such a wonderful man. I will miss his simple, yet profound words of wisdom. He frequently taught in words that could be easily remembered, like: 

Think Celestial 

The Lord Loves Effort 

Let God Prevail

Be a Peacemaker

These have been plastered on millions of t-shirts and signs, but they really are so helpful. Such simple wisdom, if followed, would do the world a whole lotta good. His most memorable talk to me will always be "Peacemakers Needed" because that talk had a profound influence on my life. I have never been caused to reflect on my own behaviors quite like I did after listening to that talk. While I've never really been a particularly rude person, that talk brought up a lot of ways that I need to change if I truly want to proclaim myself as a disciple. God's love excludes nobody, so neither can we. I know President Nelson was a prophet of God, and I know the next prophet will be as well. I am so glad to be a part of a church led by God given direction through a prophet, just as God has always done from Adam and Eve. He will be missed greatly, but you can't doubt for an instant where a man like that goes. 

Love you all! 

Current weight: 185.46 

The Encounter

 September 15, 2025

We had an encounter with Wheelchair man (Won Jong-geun) this week. And I mean encounter in the most literal sense of the word. My comp and I were in the downtown this week and were both looking at his phone for directions, when I heard *squeaky squeaky* over my shoulder. I looked back to see 원종근 wheeling backwards towards us. He's always dressed in a green hospital gown, so I immediately thought he was a creeper. Because his arm is paralized, he moves his wheelchair by going backwards everywhere, so he stopped literally a foot away from us and had no clue we were there. I can't even explain how random this is, we weren't even that close to the hospital. What was bro doing? I quietly tapped on Elder Rusts shoulder to get him to look. It was like the scene in The Prince of Egypt when the priest taps the other priests shoulder because theres a sand tsunami coming, hopefully that put a good image in your head. Anyways, Mr. Won was absolutely flabbergasted when we finally revealed our presence, and it made him very happy. He's adorable.

We got transfer news this week, and I'm getting banished to the countryside. I'll be moving to a city called 익산, and my new companion will be Elder Baird, who is one of my Sister Elise's students. Shoutout to Maeser Academy for making me an honorary student once a year. This transfer news is an answer to some prayers fr. I went on an exchange to some country side last week and loved it. It was so much more enjoyable than Sejong, especially during fall.

We unfortunately had to push Wheelchair man's baptismal date back for a while. We talked with him outside for a while and it was a sad, but also very spiritual meeting with him. When we were saying goodbye, he went, "whoa!" and then zoooomed off to a nearby field and stood on his one leg and peed in the field. This was one of the funniest moments of my mission for a couple reasons, the first being that there just happened to be a field. It's the only block of the city without a building on it, its literally surrounded by tall buildings. And the second being that there was literally a bathroom the exact same distance away, just in the opposite direction. I respect it though. I'd be lying if I told you I never picked nature over an actual bathroom before, ladies don't judge. You wouldn't understand.  Anyways, we used our bodies to block him from the view of passerbys, because that's what friends are for.

Koreans absolutely love meetings and uselessly wasting their time away because that's what they've been doing since the day they were born. Yesterday we had out MCM meeting with the members before church,(which lasted an hour) and then for some unknown reason, they called another one after church, and it lasted an hour and fifteen. I know my dad would've been mad lol. It was such a useless meeting. Shoutout to Riverside 1st ward for doing that meeting in under 15 minutes every week and covering just as much, if not more, info. 

Saw another kid wearing an astronaut shirt. 기회를 잡았다 fr. Space vocab uses: 2 

Spiritual Thought: 

I woke up to a text from my man Xander this week telling me Charlie Kirk had just been shot. Because of the time difference, it had happened right before I woke up. That was a super crappy way to wake up, and a pretty crappy day from there. I've watched a lot of Charlie Kirk and have always thought he was one of the smartest guys God's ever made. The man could debate with no notes as if he had chatGPT in his head, and despite what a lot of people say, he's way better at keeping a level head and keeping contention down than almost anybody else I can think of. 

Jordan B. Peterson said something I thought was interesting. 

"You can turn yourself into an unbelievably dangerous person by brooding on your vengeful fantasies for years... You ever ask yourself how someone gets to the point where they do something terrible? They spend about three years fantasizing about it." 

I was thinking about how this can be applied to any sin in general. All sin starts when we start to let our grip on our conscious slip gears. Becoming virtuous requires rigorous effort and focus on the Savior. 

"Integrity is the light that shines from a disciplined conscience." 

 - President James E. Faust

Making consistently good decisions in public starts by making conscious and intentional effort to change our behavior in our private life, and in our thoughts. As we try our best and ask God to help us we will be given all the help we need to change. 

God Bless America. I'm praying for y'all, keep her safe I want her to be there when I finish up out here.

Weight: 189.0 lbs

Elder Rust, Me, President & Sister Beck

Tidbit밖에 없다

September 1, 2025

Whats up gang. I have a zone pday today, so this gonna be mad short. 

원종근 (wheelchair man) is on baptismal date. We asked him if he would be baptised and he said yes, so I talked to him about how he will be following in Christs footsteps and showed him the "Baptism of Jesus" video by the Church. He started crying and I was feeling the spirit sooo strong. I love watching people experience the spirits comfort and confirming witness. I've never baptised a paralized person before, but we'll figured it out. 

Spiritual Thought: 

I've been praying for charity, and missionary work has been so much more enjoyable ever since. Prayer works, amen. 

Love you all

Not home today so dont have am official weight for y'all today, probably 190lbs. I've been skipping meals to try and counteract the stuff people feed us. May the Lord half my calorie intake, amen. 

Angle Rain

August 31, 2025

 On our way to visit wheelchair man a woman stopped us on the street and asked if we were hungry. Without waiting for an answer, she started dragging me towards a restaurant, apparently very eager to feed us. Because of our appointment, I had to refuse, but I got her number and told her we'd meet with her soon. She told me her name was Angel Rain, and that she came up with it herself. Pretty fire name if you ask me. During an exchange a few days later, my temporary companion and I had an appointment with Angel Rain and the sisters, because we wanted to refer her to them. We waited with the sisters for long past our scheduled time, until she finally showed up. She then dropped a sermon about how her tummy hurts and how she has greed for money and needs to stop praying for money. So relatable. She repeated that her tummy hurt a couple times over and then said she'd see us next week. Leaving us after literally only 2 minutes, so there went that appointment...! My comp and I decided to do our language study at a nearby café with the new hour of time that just opened up. When we finished our study and went out to the streets again, lo and behold, Angle Rain, walking towards us. She told us to follow us again because her pastor was gonna come give her cookies and she wanted to give them to us. We waited with her for a long time until her pastor showed up. When he showed up it was like a movie where the main character goes to a girl's house and knocks and a different guy opens the door lol. Bro was nottt happy to see his most loyal attendee with missionaries. It wasn't even cookies either. It was coke flavored roll-ups. Straight diabetes.  

Also met with Ice Cream man this week, and without the sisters this time because I'm pretty confident he's Sister Interest. We asked him if he wanted to take the lessons, and he said no because his pastor said not to read the Book of mormon. My comp started shaking a bit and told the guy his pastor was being controlled by the devil. Had to make a slight intervention after that comment but yeah, bro's not gonna be taking the lessons. 

Had three people show up to church and taught them all lessons. Miricles are happening in 세종 babyyyy. There still is some gold in them hills.

We made a pinwheel and went and did pinwheel finding, because Koreans go crazy for gambling, and it was super fun. One little kid landed on "name that tune," so I sang him jingle bells. He yelled, "CHRISTMAS!!" and it was adorable and made my day. He won a candy.

Spiritual Thought: 

There's a section in PMG that shares an analogy about fishing I like. It says that some fishermen spend 8 hours away from the house and spend 6 of those hours fussing with their equipment and getting to where they're going, while others spend 6 of those 8 hours fishing and catching. The first might wonder why they do not experience the same success as the second. 

I gave a training in a district council recently where I expanded on that by talking about celstial fishing (fly fishing) When I first started to get the hang of fly fishing, I would cast all day long, cause I thought it was fun, but my dad would always say, "you can't catch a fish with a fly in the air." 

You can even be standing in the middle of the river and still get nothing done. This has a lot of applications to missionary work, but another for me is my personal scrupture study. Before my mission I would study scriptures, but the difference now is huge. It doesn't feel like I'm just trying to cast, I'm actually trying to catch stuff. Prayer before and after, paper copies, and recording impressions has been very helpful for me. Don't just do the motions! 

Love you all!

Current weight: 189.3 (lowkey relapsed on oreos this week )

The Fourth Hour

August 23, 2025 

Well, I got here to Iksan on Friday. It was a pretty smooth transfer day. I have always had someone with me on previous transfer days, so it was a little weird being alone for a couple hours getting to Iksan. Kinda nice though.

Anyways, literally had the weirdest moment of my entire mission happen yesterday. We went to church and met all (8) members. They're pretty cool, but only one isn't over the age of 60, which is slightly depressing. We have a pretty massive church building here, but everyone apparently moved like 15 years ago, so now it's dang near empty. That has its percs though, I got to bless the sacrament for the first time in Korean, something I've never done cause there were always young men in my wards. I have a feeling I'm gonna be giving a lot of talks in church this transfer. 

One of the old guys in my ward has been dubbed by my comp the "NPC" because he comes to church an hour early, and then walks a very predictable path around the church nonstop until church starts. Well, he came an hour early, and began his programmed path around the church, just as I was told he would, stopping only occasionally to ramble about who knows what at us. After sacrament, a lady in the ward pulled me to a corner and told me "bruddah is click clack crazy, dont listen to a dang word he says." And then my comp told me, "beware the fourth hour," which was mad ominous, and he didn't expound upon that statement. For those of you who don't know... we only got 2 hours at church.... 

We said goodbye to everybody in the church and then walked upstairs to the chapel to clean up the sacrament and then did our daily planning and whatnot for about an hour. We went outside to throw away some trash in the shed and my comp beckoned me forth to look in to the shed. "You see that on the broom?" I looked in and saw a white shirt hanging on it. He had me follow him to the basement of the church building where he instructed me to, "take a look in that back room." Awwww heck  nah. He told me to walk very, very quietly. I got to the window and looked in to see clothes strewn out across the floor. I was mad confused until, in a rather horrifying realization, I noticed the bat crazy old man was butt naked right on the other side of the door. He was sitting like Golum, and was banging a pen on the ground as hard as he could. It looked demonic man. I escaped the dungeon safely, but strangeee things are happening in Iksan. 

Apparently he's been doing that for a while, and my comp, who's been here 6 months, has never thought it was a concern that should be relayed to the bishop.  I don't know how familiar y'all are with the General Handbook,  but bro firstly shouldn't even be able to get into the church, and secondly, shouldn't be playing demon in the basement. The members have no clue he does this. 

Sejong rewind: 

My last week there was pretty great. Our last english class went really well and everyone was very kind and gave me presents. I'll miss that class, it was very fun. The adorable grandma that comes gave me a coffee gift card. The ward sang me and Sister Lee some hymns to say goodbye, and then we went and at 감자탕 . it was the best 감자탕 I've had yet. My last meetings with some of our friend were indeed slightly depressing. There's a lot of great people in Sejong, hopefully Elder Rust clutches up fr. Saying bye to my friend Kang was lame cause he's genuinely one of the coolest guys I've ever met in my life, but I'll be back to learn how to kite surf from him someday. 

Final wheelchair man update: 

Wheelchair man doesn't let you help him harldy ever because he wants to prove his independence, which I respect, but sometimes it get a little wild haha. We were at a Cafe and he said he was gonna go to the bathroom, but told me to sit down when I stood up to go open the bathroom door for him. He goes backwards everywhere, and the hallway is too narrow to spin around, so he wedged himself in the hallway trying to open the door, so I went to the rescue. When I was sqeazing past him he said, "s.o.s!" and it was only of the funniest and most wholesome things I've ever heard. He doesn't know hardly any english but he'll just say random stuff like that that's perfectly timed. 

He was in a very good mood and we talked a lot about Jesus and had the spirit with us, it was a great time. We went to the roof of the hospital and gave him a blessing too, which was a pretty awesome opportunity. He ripped a page out of a notebook and wrote me a kind note, and then I did the same for him. When we said goodbye, I said, "I love you!" And after a little loading he went, "Me too!" I'm gonna miss that guy.

Back to Iksan, this place is weird. It remind me of the game Inside, kinda the gulag here. I love it though, the street finding is so much better than Sejong, and I don't know what it is about the country air, but it makes the grandmas feins for white boys. I got called pretty more the first night here than my entire time in sejong combined. My korean is feeling pretty good, I've had a lot of fun here already just talking to people, and I've literally gotten 3 contacts by people asking for mine on the street. They're coming to me??? What is going on. My comps pretty awesome too, it's weird having someone in the mish telling me stories about my sister though haha. We're making a lightasber battle for the english page because we have a computer with nice editing software. Gonna be a banger. 

Ate a whole fish, guts and all. 

Spiritual thought: 

So far Iksan has been very fun, and it's because my desire to serve and talk with people has recently really been grown by the Lord. I've been praying for that pretty hard, and I've been seeing a lot of blessings from it. One of the biggest growths is my desire to share about the Savior. I've been trying to bear my testimony more often and it's been really fulfilling. Point is, prayer works and focusing on the Savior will make your life brighten up real quick. 

Love you all! 

Current weight: 186.89