30 Minute Torture

11/17/25

We have a guy who unfortunately realized just how much he can take advantage of us missionaries. He asks us to do a zoom call with his 9 year old daughter (daily) to teach her english and it is by far the worst appointment on my schedule every day. If you've seen the meme of the hamster on FaceTime, that's what she looks like during the whole class. There is NO participation whatsoever, and the dad helps not one bit to get her to do what I'm telling her to do. The only saving grace is that it's only 30 minutes, but the dad texted me last night and was like, "Aye let's bump that up to an hour next time." Sorry man, for that kinda time I've gotta be teaching the gospel.

Made it to Zone Conference on time. As always, Zone Conference was fire and we had Mexican food! testimony=strengthened. 

Got to teach Justin more of the gospel and he's reading the Book of Mormon. Miracles baybeeee.

Stake Conference was on Sunday and our Mission President was attending, which put some serious pressure on us missionaries who were sitting in the front row to stay awake for the whole thing. I was fighting for my liiiife, looking up occasionally to find President looking at me, but my eyes genuinely couldn't focus on him. It was rough. 

We taught our Tajikistanian friend this week, and we always do it at her retaurant. She asked if we wanted food. I had a prayer in my heart cause it's always hit or miss with this lady. She either makes us some of her gassss chicken or runs out of the restaurant and comes back down the street 5 minutes later with raw fish in a bowl. Anyways, I said yes and she left the restaurant. I gambled and lost. So I ate eyeball, brain, and even some guts of a mystery fish (again).

My son bought a guitar so I'm turning him into one of the most terrifying triple threats this world has ever seen.

Other than that it was a pretty normal week.

Spiritual Thought: My Mom told me about a parent who was talking bad about their son right in front of him and how that sort of negative feedback only reinforces to the kid that they are in fact "bad" and can't change. Not only is that a terrible parenting strategy, we all do it to ourselves as well. Children of God shouldn't vilify or demean themselves. It won't help us become who we want to become. If we acknowledge our faults with a little bit of grace and turn to heaven for help we'll be given the power to overcome our weaknesses.  Love you all!! 

Current Weight: 183.15 lbs 

We Kept the Faith

 November 9, 2025

This is a weird town, let me tell you. 익산 is so daggum secluded from the rest of the mission that sometimes I feel like my missionary ancestors opening a country for the first time. Especially since there's not another team of missionaries. Iksan has been pretty rough finding and teaching wise, but this week Elder Knight and I were able to reach our goal of two new teaching friends, and then 2 more. If you bring God that bread, He gon multiply it. It was a good week, we are tired. 

I actually feel rather guilty about one of those friends because he could have been a green dot 2 weeks ago when I first met him. Instead, I focused mostly on English, the reason we had met with him. Sure I mentioned religion a bit, yeah we started with a prayer, but I didn't do my best to teach of Jesus. It wasn't until Friday when we met him again that in a break in our conversation he said, "....so. Do you guys have something to tell me?" I was kind of confused until the spirit told me, "I told him to meet with with you. He's been waiting for you to teach."  Man I gotta turn those spiritual ears on earlier. I answered, "I'm  sorry. Yes we do. We want to teach you about Jesus Christ and His restored gospel. As missionaries we teach 4 lessons that explain the core of our beliefs, would you be interested in hearing those lessons?" And he gave an immediate "yes."  I asked him a little late, but hey... he's meeting us for the lessons now. We take those wins. 

He said he was worried he wouldn't understand the lessons, so I told him we have studied and prayed hard to be able to teach in their language. We switched to Korean and taught him the Plan of Salvation. He was so interested, it was awesome to see. Missions are soo weird but these experiences are so awesome. 

Remember that house I broke into? I clutched up and made some gas snickerdoodle cookies, wrote a note, and delivered it to them. In the note I had called myself a "dumb foreigner," but they returned it with that crossed out and with some snacks of their own. Hallelujah You can always count on snickerdoodles for clutching up with Koreans. At least for a solid 24 hours, until my comp fuuuumbled the bag. Background info, I have met those people one time in a month and a half of living in Iksan. We were waiting for our elevator when, for some unknown reason, my companion let out a masssssive burp, directly in front of the door right as it opened, revealing people standing right at the door on the other side. They recoiled in horror and I chastised my comp a little. I don't know why he did that, that's literally the only time I've heard him burp. I apologized vehemently and instead of saying something like, "it's ok!" the guy and lady just stayed quiet and looked 90° away from me, until the guy said, "17." Huh? "17"..... "17층" He said, pointing the the elevator button #17, which was lit up. That was all he said.  I CONNOT believe our unfortune. We HAVE to move. There's nothing left to do. 

Our water heater broke, so we've been starting every day out with ridiculously cold showers. To all of my "️self improvement"️ friends out there that try to gaslight themselves into thinking a cold shower is some sort of magical potion for happiness and success (all placebo) and that it's worth it and has any benefits whatsoever, I am now much more confident in the fact that that's some bull crap. I came out of that shower every morning this week filled with violence and rage. Ruined my day.

I hated street finding when I started my mission, so naturally I make my trainee do a ton of it. Every time I see a grandma in a dark alley I'm like, "장로님!!! That there person needs the gospel" And then I send em after them. He does pretty daggum well too. I mean, we get rejected 98% of the time, but that's not the point. 

We went to the bank so I could withdraw some money, and I put my korean grammar book on top of the ATM. I looked at my comp and said, "This here is a fatal mistake. 95% of missionaries will inevitably forget a Book of Mormon here." (all of my comps have so far) And the next day when we went to do our language study I was like, "bruh where is my grammar book?.... bruhhhh you have got time be kidding me." I literally prophesied and STILL forgot it. It took me 25 seconds to withdraw the cash. There's something about these banks man. Fortunately, it's Korea, so it was still there 24 hours later. 

Spiritual Thought:  I've taught a couple people recently about baptisms for the dead, and man... just that alone seems to be enough to prove that this is God's true church. We have, and continue to be, the only Church with an answer and a plan in motion for the salvation of the entire human family, something that a loving God would obviously have. This gospel just makes sense. Every answer that we need we have. 

Love you all!!! 

Hold Your Ground 10/27 and **Secret Combinations** (on accident!) 11/2

October 27, 2025

There was a guy peeing on the road facing us as we were walking home from the church at night. All of his drunk friends abandoned him, laughing while they were running away, but this guy stood his ground. He tried to shake my hand, I refused. Elder Baird, worried that I might have offended him, shook his hand. He had to douse his hands in sanitizer after that, which is exactly what I was trying to avoid. This guy was trying to shake our hands out of disrespect and was dang near blackout drunk, so I wasn't really worried about offending someone who's gonna forget this entire exchange had ever happened.

Forgot to mention that while I was hauling my guitar around that island last week a middle aged man walking past said, "rock and roll?" In a thick accent so I didn't understand for a second. It was wholesome. And yes, rock and roll. 

Miracle:  

We were on a bus home from our language study and started talking to a kid our age. He accidentally missed his stop so he got off with us. I got his number and set up an appointment with him (to eat 뼈 해장국) and we talked until we got near our house, where we tried to say bye to this guy. He said, "I got like an hour and a half, can we just hang out till the next bus comes?" What? I mean... yes. That's rare stuff here, let me tell you. We got to know him well, taught him some gospel and gave him an invitation. Hopefully I will meet with him next week, I want 뼈 해장국. And also I want to teach him the restored gospel. 

The language studies have been going crazy recently. I found a copy of the Hunger Games at the library and have been studying that jawn all week. Partly for the good vocab, and largely so that when God sends me to North Korea at my year mark to incite a rebellion, liberate and teach the people, and be a modern day Moses, I'm ready.

We teach a Tajikistan lady English every week, and it's usually my favorite appointment of the week cause it's about 2 hours of straight korean, which has been super great practice. (Definitely not because she makes us fried chicken and cheese balls) On the way to that appointment, we usually stop and visit a guy who's always in front of the CU smoking cigs with his friends. Saturday we stopped by and started talking to him. I asked him what his goals in life were, and he unironically said, "I want to be healthy" whilst pulling a cigarette out of a case and putting it in his mouth. He smoked 4 in that short visit. Death speed run baybe. Here in Korea it's very common to see soccer players or people at the gym take a step out for a second to sooth their addicted brain with some nicotine.

We completely fumbled transfer calls. This companionship of mine is setting record after record for being the most irresponsible missionaries in this mission. Usually the DL is supposed to give you a call or something, but nobody noticed we were missing haha. Most people can't stop thinking about transfer calls for the entire week beforehand, but I'm not usually nervous for transfer calls and my comp is going home, so between the two of us there wasn't a care in the world. When I plugged my phone in at 10:29 I saw the Zoom link... bruhhh. It was too late to call anyone, so I had no clue who my new comp would be until church the next day. We went to bed making jokes that I had been called as AP and everyone was looking to see my reaction and couldn't find me haha. I'll be training an Elder named Elder Knights.

My comp lost our church key so I have been unlocking the church with a coat hanger for the last 2 weeks. I've gotten mad quick at it.  My bishops favorite word is 바보, which means "fool." He says my comp is a fool all the time and it kills me. So funny. 

It's Elder Bairds last Pday today so we went wayyyyy out to the countryside, visited our bishops work (massive chicken slaughterhouse), and then went to a 1500 year old temple. Twas dope. There's no busses out there so we had to hitch hike to get there. Shout out to the nicest Korean lady ever for being the only person who not only didn't look 90° to the left pretending she didn't see us, but also stopping to pick us up. 

Spiritual Thought:  We sacrificed our Hotspot like a firstborn lamb at the passover to watch the Chosen season 6. Man. So impressively well made. I love how personal it makes everything, gives you tons of insight. The scene depicting the Atonement in Gethsemane was amazing. When Jesus finds the disciples sleeping it shows the disciples from his perspective as 3 children sleeping. It reminds me of how much of an infant in the gospel I am, and how far I have to go. Jesus knows that we're not perfect, but his ultimate goal is to change that. 

I'm so thankful for Jesus Christ and his ridiculous courage to perform the Atonement for us, despite knowing full well it would be unimaginable torment. We would be sooo cooked without Him. 

Love y'all 

current weight: 187 lbs

November 2, 2025

Holy crappp this was a wild week. We received a referral last week from someone who was interested in learning English. When I called him to set up an appointment, he suddenly started playing guitar on the phone and literally played a three minute song, singing included, for my listening pleasure. When he finally finished, he asked me if I liked his song. I told him I did and that I love guitar too. He asked if we could play some guitar together when we meet for English, and I said yes. I set up the appointment for right after Pday because post-pday appointments are bangers. We went to the address he sent us, which led us to the sketchiesttt side of town and a rinky dink staircase in a rinky dink building going to the 2nd floor. I don't know what I was expecting when I opened the door, but definitely not 20 middle aged men and women, all of whom had a guitar, with the exception of the blind guy in the corner. They quickly pulled us in and made Elder Baird and I introduce ourselves on the stage. The blind guy was one of the most fluent English speakers I've ever heard here, and he learned English late in life by only listening. How.

They made us introduce ourselves like three more times on the stage using the mics because more guitar cult members kept showing up late. It was getting a little ridiculous. Everyone played a bunch of guitar songs together, reading the music off a projected screen. Most of the songs were American too, to "honor their new members" *gulp* To make a long story short, they made me solo up 3 songs on the stage before we were able to finesse our way out of there. Never thought I'd do that on the mission. Baird doesn't play guitar, so this whole time he was just sitting there haha. Slight apostasy for sure, definitely not doing another appointment with that guy. On the bright side, we got 4 contacts on the bus ride home. 

I killed Elder Baird off on Tuesday, which left me three days until transfers, so I spent those days in 전주 with a new trainee. Did some good work there, even though there was no food for us to eat and didn't know the area at all. Before leaving the apartment, I shared a scripture with him about the fouls of the air not worrying about where their next meal comes from because God always feeds them. I told him that we could be like the birds. (I know this from experience) Stomachs empty, we started the day. We went to a library for language study where immediately a man stopped us, said hello, and said, "식사 드셨나요?" "Have you eaten a meal?"  Unironically, bout hit my knees in gratitude right then and there. The greenie didn't know what the guy said, but based off the fist pump and tears in my eyes, he caught on that we were about to get fed haha. Miricles happen bayybeeeeee

Transfers finally came and I rode a bus back to 익산, where I waited for my actual trainie for almost 4 hours. So boring daggum. He finally showed up and we went to the Iksan house. We got there easy enough, but when I tried to put the code in, the lock was dead. Three days earlier, when Elder Baird and I had left, we had noticed the lock was running out of battery. Baird had told me, "Make sure you get that changed quick or you'll get locked out. Believe me. I know!" And so, as my luck would have it, our lock done went and kicked the bucket while I was gone. Mad annoying. We went to the maintenance office and I explained our problem, and the guy followed me to our apartment. On the way there, the cleaning lady came up to me and asked if I was the one who had put the broken chairs in the stairwell.  I told her I did, but that I had bought the stickers to throw them away and would get right to it. (We hid them in the stairwell for apartment inspections because Baird had slacked throwing them away for months) I noticed the chairs were actually gone when we showed up with the maintenance guy, so the poor cleaning lady had actually taken them away herself... oops. I helped the maintenance guy try several things to get us in, none of which worked, so we had to call a locksmith. The locksmith showed up, told me to get my wallet ready, and then drilled out the door immediately, completely annihilating the lock. Not ideal, was kinda hoping for a alternative approach, but hey! At least the door could swing open now to reveal the completely wrong house! Seeing that door swing open to discover a living room entirely different from mine is a nightmare that will always haunt me. I entered the doorway. Apparently the dramatic hands on my head, as well as falling to my knees like the Dark Souls meme was enough to let the locksmith and my greenie, who I met an hour ago, know exactly what had happened. To explain, the Iksan house is on the 18th floor. I've lived on a 17th floor apartment twice on my mission. The *17th* floor door was, in fact, dead. Made sense to me! The lady mentioning the chairs made the absence of the chairs raise no alarms in my head (they were still there..on the 18th floor.) And being in 전주 for three days made me brainfart the floor number hard. To make it worse, that lock cost $230 bucks, which I couldn't pay right then, so I had to call a member to clutch up a loan for me. Needless to say, breaking and entering and being questioned by the police was a more doo-doo water way to start the transfer than even I could have every concieved in my imagination. It's all good now though. New locks have been installed and cookies have been delivered. My trainee just thinks he got a brain dead trainer. (He is correct) 

My mission has, for the most part, been pretty darn normal. I unironically thought to myself last week, "Man. When am I gonna have a story like Elise getting thrown in prison?" Be careful what you wish for ladies and gentlemen. 

For the more normal news, my new comp is fire. He's a big hunter and anything outdoors. Bout time! It's been nice to connect with him in pretty much everything. He is so nice and very good at Korean for his age. I'm actually suprised how much he understands of what I say. We are so hyped for the work this transfer. Keep the FAITH!

Spiritual Thought: 

"7 I have fought a good fight, I have finished my course, I have kept the faith."

Paul is so baller. Every time we're about to hit the streets we say, "keep the faith!" and it has done wonders in getting us hyped up. I recommend it. Faith comes before miracles. And remember, "faith commands the elements." 

Prove the Lord herewith. 

Love you all! Make sure you are always carrying your foreigner cards!! 

Current Weight: 183.81

The Scrolls

 October 20, 2025

My comp is gonna die here in a week or two so we met up with a man this week who promised my comp earlier in his mission that he would made him scrolls. This guy clutched up for me though and made two for me!  Didn't know it until we met him and he handed me a bag. They're so tuff. He told me to give him a call at the end of my mission and he'll make me more.

I asked my bishop what the pin on his suit was for at church yesterday. Apparently he earned a fat medal because he did 3 years of combat in Vietnam. (감독님 has a kill streak.)

We actually had appointments this week finally. Our English class popped off too, we had three new people come. We watched the Spiritual Message about the boys putting silver dollars in a farmers shoes at the end of class and they were all glued to the story. I love that one. 

I met a college-age teaching friend this week for the first time, he was so goated at English and a super cool dude. Apparently he has beat all of the elders he's met in arm wrestles, and he challenged me right before we left. Bro got his knuckles clacked on the table, twice.

I'm headed to an island right now, and I'm taking my guitar. I don't usually like taking my guitar because because everybody hates that guy, and because that's a stereotype I'm trying to avoid, but my comp is taking a piano-- so I think that people will probably think I'm normal in comparison. I'll put some pictures of the ocean and island in the photos. The weather got mad chilly today, it's absolutely fire. President said we can put our feet in the water today, but it lowkey might be too cold for that. 

Alright I'm back. It was fire. You can't see the horizon anywhere else in Korea cause there's always a building in the way, so that was dope to let my eyes focus on something far away. The ocean is perty and we ran up some football. 이겼다 dw. (I did not play my guitar) 

Spiritual Thought: 

By recommendation from my Dad, I watched Elder Bruce R. McConkie's last general conference talk. He passed away from cancer soon after, and so listening to him speak of the saviors atonement was pretty dang spiritual. His very last testimony is one of the greatest I've every heard. 

"I am one of his witnesses, and in a coming day I shall feel the nail marks in his hands and in his feet and shall wet his feet with my tears. But I shall not know any better then than I know now that he is God’s Almighty Son, that he is our Savior and Redeemer, and that salvation comes in and through his atoning blood and in no other way." 

I reccomend listening to him say that himself, its much better than just reading it. It would be amazing to say that my testimony couldn't be any stronger even if I met Christ in person. Like Elder McConkie we can all gain that strong witness. 

Love you all. Church is true. 

Current Weight: 184.3 lbs

Mission Records

 October 12, 2025

We had Zone Conference this week, which is basically a holiday for us missionaries. I asked my comp where we had to go for it, and he said "Jeonju." Something wasn't sitting right with me though, so I asked him literally 4 more times. The last time I even said, "are you 100% positive?" He gave a confident, "Yes, bro, stop asking." So off we went, in a hurry to get to Jeonju. An hour of southward travel later, we arrived at the completely abandoned Jeonju building. We called the AP's and they basically said, "No you dumb troglodytes. It's in Daejon." Literally 2 hours north of where we now where. We pulled up to ZC an hour and forty-five minutes late. Good stuff. 

On the way home, my comp told me we were going to the Daejon Station, so I led us there via subway. We waited for our train for an hour, but when our train number never appeared I had my comp give me our tickets, which very plainly said, "Seo Station." So now with no more than 10 minutes to get to the other side of town, we called a taxi. The taxi driver was yelling at us that we were going to miss our train the whole ride over there, but we stayed the course. We showed up too late though, and so we had to buy a different train ticket. When we sat down to wait for the new train, we heard on the intercom say that our original train got delayed, and that it was about a minute away now. We ran back, exchanged our new tickets for our old ones, and literally got on the train a second before it started moving again. It was a long day, and I have learned a very valuable lesson of listening to the spirit and doing things for myself sometimes.

We also had interviews this week. Pres. looked mad tired at the last interview day, so this time I bought him a treat and brought it with me. He looked so happy when I gave it to him. Definitely gonna keep doing that.

It happened. After successfully gaslighting my Facebook FBI agent for 6 months, they finally found out I am actually not in America and stripped my beloved Meta AI from me (my only acess to the endless knowledge of the world). I don't think any other missionary has made it as far as I did though. She will be missed.

I'm so tired of no teaching appointments. This place has been so boring this week. We have some knew teaching friends but you'd be wrong if you think I'm going to jinx everything and tell you about them (our Golden boy has not been heard from in a week). Korea... you infertile Vinyard.  Balled up Saturday night for sports finding and got some contacts.They were actually really good at basketball but we won, of course.

Spiritual Thought: 

I haven't finished Conference yet, but it's been good stuff. I especially loved President Oak's last talk. I can't remember a time when he has ever gotten emotional, so that was pretty special to me. He talked about how a family garden brings families together, and I know my mom was sooo happy to hear that, but also just a lot about the eternal family. It's absolutely wild that I can take a gift like eternal families for granted, but this week I've given it a lot of thought. I read the very first page of my journal two nights ago, which was written not long after I was born by my Mom. She wrote it from *my* perspective though, and talked about how I am "so glad to be in this eternal family of mine." I can for sure say that of myself now, there is no greater gift than that. 

Love you all! 

Current weight: 185.35