Sunday, September 27, 2009
package
Letter from September 24, 2009
Dear Family,All is going well here. Elder Rowe is good. He is really a country goat farmer from the south. He is really naive... i guess it is a Christ-like attribute to be child-like right? Please pray for him. He is really forgetful. On the way to transfers last week he lost his wallet which had every kind of card you could think of in it as well as a little bit of cash and other items of value. We have tried calling around to several places like the subway station lost and found, but nobody has seen it. On Saturday he lost his glasses, he thinks, at a park we were proselyting. He says his family will not be happy about replacing them.
So another transfer opens up the doors for more adventures. Here is a story you might find interesting in a weird way. On saturdays we teach an English class. All of the students started showing up for class and then a strange man came into the church building. I asked him if he came to study english and he said no and that he had questions about God. He then proceeded to tell me that he just attempted to commit suicide 30 minutes or so before. I told him we could talk for a few minutes. So we started to teach a little bit about God. The man then started to tell his entire life story- growing up as an orphan and all his bitter outlooks on people and life in general. I was afraid to interrupt him while he spoke...needless to say he talked for about 40 minutes straight and i knew people were waiting in English class. We were supposed to leave shortly after to a baptismal servicein another ward with our investigator in which i was asked to play the piano. He ended the story and left the room just as the bishop arrived. We apologized to the students and we drove with the bishop to the baptismal service. Later Bishop and his wife were asking me if I had actually seen the man try to kill himself and i said no. They were laughing because they said i looked scared after talking to him. (i was more stressed than scared for the record)I then asked isn't it kind of scary to talk to a suicidal man? and they laughed and said no not really. I wish i had a better ending to the story... I don't know what happened to the man after he left. But Hyung did get to go to the service with us and it was really good. Anyway, the gospel is so true. I love sharing it everyday. Sometimes you meet strange, confused people, but hey, maybe they will come to their senses someday and get baptized. I love you all and i love the gospel of Jesus Christ!
Love, Elder Brian Woodbury
Letter from September 17, 2009
Dear family,So transfers did hit Anyang, but to my surprise, i will stay here for a 5th transfer. Elder Bessey moved to Kang Nam this morning, which is considered the "Beverly Hills" of Korea. (Apparently it is a really wealthy area right in the middle of Seoul.) My new companion's name is Elder Rowe. (yes, at one point in time I had a companion named Elder Roe. Same pronunciation.) He is from Columbus Georgia. He came to Korea in May. I am not sad at all; Anyang really the happiest ward in our mission. We had a fun time at the music concert on Saturday... there were several non-members there that we invited, that the sisters invited, and even one that the bishop invited. It was great. I sang "Come Thou Fount of Every Blessing" and Elder Bessey played guitar. I sang it in English because some Koreans told me the Korean lyrics were really weird. The ward did some good choir pieces and it was a good experience for everyone who was there.
Something else that is fun is that our bishop takes us hiking in the early morning on Mondays now. The leaves showed the 1st signs of yellow and orange this week. The air is fresh and really cool at night and in the morning.
I believe there is a really special reason I was assigned to stay here for another transfer. I hope to see miracles explode here in this transfer. Pray for Gwan Hyung. He is a member referral we are teaching. He accepted a soft baptismal commitment on Saturday. Pray that he will move nicely along toward baptism and that he can come to church on sunday. I love you all. Hope you have a good week!
Love, Elder Brian Woodbury
Letter from September 10, 2009
Dear family,It has been a great week. There are a lot of good things happening here. I don't remember if i told you about our Family Home Evening that we do now. We have done it for about 3 weeks now, just inviting recent converts, singles, and investigators out to the church for a spiritual message, fun activity, and refreshments. Bishops family has been coming out every week as well. It is good for our investigators to spend time with the members. We thought of it as a way for members to invite their friends to the church and have a chance to explain a little bit about it... so far no new investigators have come from it, but it has potential. Our activity on Monday night was a ping pong tournament and Uno as well. It was fun. The ward is also doing a music concerton Saturday and Elder Bessey and I are supposed to be doing a guitarist/soloist song. I'll let you know if we end up doing it. We still do not have a baptismal date with anyone, but we are close. Transfers calls will come on Tuesday and i am thinking that my time is far spent here so i could be emailing you from a new area next week! Anything could happen though. We just won't know for a few more days. Love you all. Have a great week!
Love, Elder Brian Woodbury
Letter from September 3, 2009
Dear family,It has been a great week here in the Korea Seoul West Mission. The training we got at zone conference about planning and accountability really blessed my missionary work this past week. President Burton said you would pay thousands of dollars to get the kind of training about planning we got.. and everything we learned about managing time and setting goals come right out of Preach My Gospel chapter 8. Anyeay, we are going to try to set a baptismal date with Yun Hyun Gun tonight! Pray that all goes well. He is so ready to be baptized, he just needs something to push him to make the commitment.
I got to go on exchanges this last week with one of the assistants, Elder White, in Song Pa. Right now there is a big emphasis in our mission to find through a variety of ways. Elder White and I spent time with little door flyers with double stick tape, sticking them up all over buildings and subway station entrances and stuff like that. At night time we did what we call "Lemonade Jundo" or Lemonade proselyting. We just stood on a street corner with lemonade on a table and some posters about the church and talked to as many people as we could. A couple of the ward members even came out to help. It was really neat to see Korean church members out on the street talking with other Koreans about the gospel all by themselves. The majority of the Koreans thought the lemonade was nasty, but we still enjoyed it :)
The weather is perfect at night and in the morning now. It is still a little warm during the day, but the signs of fall are definitely showing. Well i love you all. Have a wonderful week.
Love, Elder Brian Woodbury
Letter from August 27, 2009
Dear Family,I hope you enjoy the pictures i sent! It has been a good week. We had a Family Home Evening on Monday. It turned out pretty good except that the Bishop and his family showed up late and so it was just us, the ward mission leader, and our investigator for a while... not a huge turn out but it was still fun. It didn't go quite as planned but we want to try it again, maybe with all the singles in our ward and tell them to bring their non-member friends. I think it could be a really good finding tool if it is well planned. We had a zone conference yesterday. There is this lady who is going to take the place of a sister missionary this coming transfer. She is from the United States but she was like an actress or something in some Korean film. I guess while she was here she met missionaries and members of the church. She told her story of how she came to know the Book of Mormon was true, which involved her praying to know if the Book of Mormon was the word of God and then randomly opening up to 3rd Nephi 27:26-27 and getting her answer. It was a really cool story. Some people come all the way to Korea to find the gospel. I hope everyone is doing well. Have a great week.
Love, Elder Brian Woodbury
Letter from July 30, 2009
Dear Family,
It was another week that just kind of went by in a blur. Oh yeah, I have some kind of bad news... I went to a district meeting on Tuesday and took the subway on the way back home and accidentally left my scriptures on the train :( They were scriptures that i had had for a very long time... since my baptism. I told the workers at the station and they made some phone calls and nobody was able to find them. I am a little bit sad, but it was about time for new ones anyway ( i kind of wish i would have gotten new ones at the beginning of my mission.) I prayed that i would be able to have them returned to me, but still no work from anyone. Who knows? Maybe they will be of some great use for someone else. I am not sure if you will have to send me new ones. I am going to find out if i can order some through the mission office. For the last couple of weeks i have been studying out of a paperback Book of Mormon in the mornings, like the one i sent home at Christmas. It's okay though, don't mourn my scriptures.
Other than that it has been a really good week. The bishop asked me to speak in Sacrament meeting on Sunday about an hour before Sacrament meeting started, about member missionary work. I really like the bishop in our ward. Did i ever mention that missionaries found him drunk on the beach 9 years ago and now he is a bishop, married with two daughters and one on the way? He has a powerful testimonyand he is a blessing to the other church leaders in Korea. Anyway, my talk was about 5 minutes long and I have been thinking about member missionary work a lot lately.I hope to see miracles that come as members and missionaries work together to find people ready to receive the gospel. Well i love you all. Thank you for your prayers!
Love, Elder Brian Woodbury
Letter from July 9, 2009
Dear family,There is still good work going on here. I am keeping my chin up and trying my best. I am learning a lot workingwith a new missionary. I have had experiences that have made me feel almost like a parent. There is wonderful advice in the Doctrine and Covenants that talks about Christlike leadership. (there is a reference to it in the missionary handbook) I think about how great it would be if everyone in leadership positions could follow that counsel at the end of section 121. I think about a loving Heavenly Father who gave all his children the gift of agency and i wonder how he feels when he sees them using that gift in ways that cause them to lose blessings. It has definitely been the greatest challenge i have faced on my mission, training that is, but i'm hoping it will turn out to be the rewarding as well.
We still have a baptism for Yun Jae Sung scheduled. Pray that everything will turn out well with that and keep praying Yun Hyung Geun will have the desire to be baptized. Other than that not much has changed here. We got to go to a special meeting today in Song Pa. A specialist on Korean history and religions came and talked with us and it was really interesting. I had no idea about a lot of the history, like the different dynasties throughout Korea's history. Anyway, I love you all so much!
Love Elder Brian Woodbury
Brian's letter from July 2, 2009
Dear family,
It has been a great week. Training a new missionary is quite a different experience. I have taken for granted how much there is to learn, mostly about the basic things of missionary work and Korea. Yet sometimes i feel i am still learning the most basic things about missionary work and korea. We are working hard though and seeing the blessings. We have another baptismal date set with Yun Jae Sung. It is for the 25th of July. Pray that he will be able to come to churchand that his baptism will go through. Also, pray for Gwak Gyung Lim to get an answer to his prayer.
My companion is doing good. He just needs a little bit of courage and faith to dive straight into the work. We are working on it. It is strange to think that it was last July when i first came to Korea. Where does the time go? I have been studying a lot about the doctrines of the gospel. Throughout the mission we have been talking about a quote given by President Packer that says something along the lines of " the study of the doctrines will improve behavior faster than the study of behavior." Anyway, it is a really cool quote and it makes me think of how amazing the Atonement of Jesus Christ is. Through His Atonement we can become new people, disciples of Jesus Christ and put away old attitudes and behaviors. I love you all so much. Have a great week!
Elder Brian Woodbury
