Week 46 May 25, 2015 "I can testify that life is hard but that Jesus Christ truly does LOVE us!"

     Well time just keeps flying May is almost over! I am excited but also not that excited because I heard summers here are brutal and I hate sweating! Hopefully I can endure without getting too angry or ripping any heads off because I am so hot. The humidity by far will be the worst part. I could do hot but I have been told that the humidity here makes summers straight brutal. I forgot to take pics of my apartment but I will try and remember to do it so I can send some next week. I may just keep forgetting because it is a mess. My comp and I are the only ones that ever clean the place so that is kind of frustrating. I just can't live in a pig sty because I am so used to a mom that keeps the house so clean. I feel like the mom of the house sometimes because I seem to always be cleaning up after the another elders in my house or asking them politely to clean their dishes haha. We all get along really well in the house and have a great time together. Sometimes it even seems impossible to stop laughing because of all the fun we have. Of course we work too because you can't just have fun on your mission you gotta work too. 

     We met a recent convert this week with a girl that he teaches English too. We all had lunch together and were even able to tell the girl a bit about our church so that was pretty cool. As we were coming home one of the nights this week I talked with this really cool guy on the bus. It was funny how we met and I will now explain that. I was standing on the bus and a guy walked by me and even said "excuse me" so obviously I got out of his way. It at first was really strange  because it took me a sec to realize that he just had spoken English too me. Adding to the fact of him speaking English he even said "excuse me" and that never happens in Korea people just push their way right on through. As I stood there I decided to talk to him even though he had headphones in. I greeted him in Korea and then he asked me "why are you speaking Korean?" haha so then I just switched into English. He teaches English at a school here so he was really good. We had a good conversation and he seemed to be a little interested in the church so I gave him my card as I got off the train. So yeah that was just the meeting him part I will explain the miracle later. 

      We went to the old ward mission leaders' house this week and man does he have quite the character. He was super funny! It was later at night so we all just had a little bit of soup. All the elders came and for the message we just had a testimony meeting. As we left the house the old ward mission leader gave us hugs and even kissed us all on the cheek! Since you can't receive a kiss and not give one back we all kissed him on the cheek too. He was telling us the way he showed love for his comp on his mission was by kissing him on the cheek and giving him spankings haha. I am not sure I will start that and express my love in that way but I guess we will see. We got to go to the temple this week and my comp and I did initiatories. The workers were really cool and a few of them spoke English so it was 50/50 Korean and English. One of the guys asked me if I understood Korean and then switched to Korean on me for practice. I could pick out a few words and understand a lot more than I thought I would be able to so that was really cool. After temple we went to 영등포 after we went to Costco to play basketball. We showed up at the building and the elders of that area were there to tell us that we couldn't play because their bishop didn't want people using the building if the elders of that building weren't present. Good thing we had a bunch of Koreans there to save the day. They called the bishop and we ending up being able to play. We played for a while and had a blast. 

      I ate something not even that spicy this week for dinner but it sure did come back to haunt me during our meeting with the ward mission leader. Turns out my tummy does not like spicy food. I got up and ran to the bathroom during the meeting and when I arrived into the bathroom it happened. It felt like I had a little goblin in my stomach trying to stab its way out the pain was brutal. I ended up having to have my comp go to the pharmacy with a man from our ward to get me some medicine because the pain was so bad. The bus ride home was the worst and once I got off the bus it was a straight sprint to the house... In all that pain on the bus I looked to my left and saw the man I had met earlier in the week!!! He had not called us and I was wishing I got his number. My comp talked because I was in so much pain. We got his number and it seems like he will come to church with us next week. Even in pain you can experience miracles! It was such a cool experience. 

      One of our investigators, 배성호, came to church yesterday with us so that was really cool. He is a way solid dude and has so much potential. My comp has even talked to him about baptism before and he is so concerned about it and doesn't want to do it unworthily. He truly does care and really is searching for truth. I hope my comp and I can continue to help him out. Last night we had dinner with a member and they even had beef steak there so I was in heaven. The dad kept saying to me in English "beef steak eat a lot" so of course I didn't hesitate. The message I want to end on is something I learned this week during personal study. I was reading in the Book of Mormon manual I have after I read the actual book of Mormon and it talked about why Christ even coming to this Earth was a true act of love. If you think about it Christ was in heaven with God living in all glory and power. Then accepting His Fathers' will he agreed and entered this world through His mother Mary. He went from all power to having to be 100% dependent on Mary and Joseph, His earthy parents, to nurture and look after him. Adding to that instead of being showered by jewels and all wealth He was born in a stable!! What an act of love!!! I can testify that life is hard but that Jesus Christ truly does LOVE us and did what He did because of the LOVE He has for us!!! 

Love, 

Elder Picard

He didn't send any pictures this week so I thought I would send a blast from the past. This is his artistic impression of Captain Underpants which I thought was appropriate since he keeps talking about his "tummy" issues with the food lately.  He has always added lots of laughter to our home.