Seoul Chaser: Sokcho Week 11

Dear Family and Friends,

This week was filled with new snow and baptismal preparations. Brother Jeon is scheduled to get baptized next Sunday which is super exciting! We are going to have the service after church and Brother Jo and Sister Park will give talks on Baptism and the Holy Ghost. So basically, this week we spent quite a bit of time meeting with Brother Jeon and helping him prepare for baptism. He seems really ready and quite eager for the date. We met with him on Tuesday and Thursday and talked a lot about Preisthood and the temple. He is super excited to get the Aronic Preisthood and go to the Seoul temple where he can be baptized on behalf of his father! This past Saturday, Sister Kim (a member) joined us for a lesson with Brother Jeon too. It was super nice to have her there because Brother Jeon just talked openly about the things in his life to her. The power of members during lessons is amazing.

On Wednesday, we headed to Zone training in Gangneung where Elder Demordaunt and Elder Johnson talked about "Teach People, not Lessons" and "Recieveing Revelation at Church." I learned a lot from the things they taught us and the commitments they gave us. They gave us commitments to go to church with a question each Sunday, take notes during church, and to do a "Purification Challenge" The Challenge involves us making a list of things that distract us and things that we need to improve (like over sleeping). Then, for forty days, think about the list every day and strive not to do those things that are on the list. They committed us to do this so that we can each have the Spirit more in our lives and constantly teach with it. So far it's been difficult but cool.

For our weekly service project at the Nursing Home, we went and sang mostly hymns from the Korean hymn book. The residents really enjoyed it. After the project, we watched as some of the women who live there particpated in a hilarious snowball fight. (A picture is included in the e-mail.) It had snowed quite a lot that morning, and we got to see the beauty of Sokcho covered in a layer of fresh snow. This week we also started preparing for a dance that our branch is doing in front of four other branches next month at the music night in Gangneung. The Relief Society President, Sister Park, chose a really funny dance that the other Elders and I have to do. It will probably be really embarrassing, but at the same time really fun.

I had a really awesome week and hopefully I will be able to send some baptismal photos next week! Thanks for all your support. I'm just grateful for the opportunity to do this wonderful work!

Your favorite missionary,

Elder Wheeler