Elder Daniel Jackson Picard : Week 36 March 16, 2015 "More miracles in Korea"

To start off the week Elder Willy and I went hiking for P-Day! It wasn't much of a mountain more of just a big hill but it was still pretty fun. Well it was a Korea mountain so for sure not as big as ones in Utah or Washington. I definitely am not in basketball season shape anymore because when I got to the top of that mountain I was pretty gassed. On the way to the top we ran into a lot of interesting things. For example we found this weight room like a literal outdoor weight room, it was the coolest thing. So of course we had to lift a bit before continuing to ascend up the mountain. We talked to a lot of funny old dudes while lifting and they were pretty confused on the fact of why 2 Americans were there. We started to walk back up and ran into this buddhist shire, which was pretty much just a rock, and this guy was singing and playing this instrument. It was kind of strange but also interesting. While passing by the "sacred" rock this really friendly and loud lady came up to us and told us we were good people. She said we were doing a good job as missionary but then wanted us to worship the rock and we were like nah that's okay. As we were leaving she told us to come back anytime and gave us a chocolate bar! So it was for sure a strange experience but hey we each got a free chocolate bar out of it! This week I get to go to the temple so of course I am pretty excited for that because going to the temple is the BEST! The only thing bad about temple week is you don't have P-Day Monday, so the whole day of Monday, my body is like hey isn't it P-Day why are you working hard? haha. Not that I don't do missionary work on P-Day if I get the chance but I think you know what I am trying to say. We still email Monday so that is why I am emailing right now so mom I am not being disobedient haha.

This week we went on exchanges with the Zone Leaders and that was pretty fun. I went to 화곡 with Elder Bodily and we straight balled out together. While we were out proselyting we had so many miracles happen. God was just sending people our way to talk to. We literally got 3 numbers in like 10 minutes. First we talked to this old guy who asked us a lot of questions and went off on Christianity and how see saw it. We attempted to try and answer his questions best we could so hopefully we did. He gave us his number so hopefully the ZLs can start meeting him. Then after talking to him we ran into this middle aged man that we had previously said hello to again. I thought we needed to talk to him again so we did. He said he was on his way to a mental hospital and surprisingly spoke really good English! He was the nicest dude and was way funny. He said hey aren't you guys Mormons and we said yeah. Then he said my mom told me about you and we said yeah what did she say about us and he simply responded that his mom said "Be careful." haha. So yeah that was pretty funny to hear and we told him that we were nice guys and he thought so too so that's good. He told us that he was Christian and we said that's great. He was a bit curious about are religion and gave us his number too. He told us he was bipolar and schizophrenic so that could be a problem... but idk. Then after talking with that really nice kid we ran into another guy who said he met missionary like 20 years ago or something crazy like that. He was in a hurry but then we chased him down and got his number because if he hasn't met missionaries for a while he probably still has questions about the church. For dinner a LA in the ward told us to go to this chicken place and that she would cover the tab so we got free chicken woo hoo! The English class over there was way funny and they all loved me. They asked if I would be there again and I said not for a while because it wasn't my actual area and they were all pretty sad to hear that. One guy even said that I have to come back so he can buy me dinner. This guy was a straight baller. He was pretty old but was rocking some Kevin Durant basketball shoes! After English class the same lady that paid for chicken took us out to get ice cream because during English I said something about liking ice cream. We go to this little mart and she grabbed two baskets and just started filling them with ice cream. She even got us M&Ms too like 10 packs of peanut ones. We told here it was fine and that she didn't have to buy that much but she did anyway. She ended up dropping like 40 bucks total! I found out from E. Bodily when we got home that she is way rich so I could kind of understand why she did that. Either that or I just attract food and people that want to pay for me haha. We ate so much ice cream that night and couldn't get anywhere close to finishing it all.

We met the guy that took us out the other week for dinner at his bike shop to teach his kid English and share a message. His son is so cute and couldn't really focus that well and was hard to teach. The guy, 손정수, was working on a bike but his gf was there and Elder Willy ended up teaching her about families and prayer while I kept the little guy entertained by throwing paper airplanes with him. We ended up being able to leave them with a prayer and just had a good time. We both have good feelings about that family and hope we can continue to teach them. We met this guy from Bangladesh at a cafe that is one of E. Willy's friends. We also went to the park and when we were walking through the park we ran into some dudes playing basketball and joined so that was pretty fun. Well some more stuff happened but I don't have enough time sorry.

This morning during personal study I had a really good study. I will end on something spiritual real quick. Well first off this church is true 100%! Immortality is given to all man but Eternal life is something that has to be earned and obtained through the atoning sacrifice of our Lord and Savior, Jesus Christ! One thing that blocks us from receiving this gift is sin. Sin is a roadblock but with the Atonement we can all make it through that roadblock. This being said makes sin the only thing that will hold us back from being able to walk back into the presence of our Heavenly Father clean and worthy to enter His presence. So I don't know about you but I for sure want to receive exaltation and eternal life! It is not going to be easy but nothing is easy. All things take work. I am so grateful for Jesus Christ and all He has done for me. I can't even come close to comprehending all He has done for me but I can have faith in Him in all that I do. I hope that made sense haha. Well anyways I love you all!!

Love,

Elder Picard