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!!!