A beautiful day to all. Unfortunately, once more I must be more brief today, but it has certainly been a rewarding week. I was thinking about change earlier this week, and how being out here changes who you are. I'm still thinking a lot about that. I was feeling that I was largely the same, just maybe my desires have changed in large measure, but as I thought more, it really does change you. To trust, to open up, to turn out, it does change you. In the past I have certainly been more closed at times, maybe sometimes a bit stubborn, willing to listen but not always to change, but change is definitely a choice. Desire, righteousness, obedience, it's a choice, and when you make that choice, you can be changed, but only if you let it happen. I want to let it happen. When all is said and done, I want to be a missionary that was changed through Christ.
We were at Insa Dong this past week, a charming little village in central Seoul with beautiful traditional architecture along with the new, the modern. It's a quaint little place that I really like, though to me it feels more like walking down a street in Boulder {Colorado} than anything else. As we were there, we met a 74 year old Welsh reporter named Paul, and he was just one of the most humorous guys I've ran into for quite a while. Interspersed among his social and political commentary about everything from the role of religion to affirmative action, he had several gems such as "Hello, what do you know about the Mormon church and would you like to know more? HA! Beat you to it." "I was quite a popular DJ in the day, in the era of the Rolling Stones and the Beatles. I made it big. They don't make 'em like us anymore." He asked if we had any nice friends over in Utah that would be "willing to marry an old crazy Welsh man," and just so much more. On my inquiry of whether he could pronounce the capital of Wales for us, he said "No one can."
Zack {recent convert} is through the Book of Mormon and into the Doctrine and Covenants {another book of LDS scripture}. He taught with us this past week, and is just so incredible. Seriously like Three Nephite incredible {Mormon story of super-human angels}. He helped us to teach Ziyong, from China, who is also great and accepting things quite well. Though we're not quite sure why, his English name is "Amir." We also met Chad and Jason this week, two great guys from China who showed a lot of interest. Actually, Chad was met on the subway by the assistants {to the Mission President} as they headed back from district meeting, so it's fun how that worked out. On Saturday as we prepared for another Chinese lesson, Sister Gu commented "Agh, I feel like I'm in China."
There was a conference this past Thursday that was enlightening and spiritually powerful, and left me with certainly a lot to think about. I spent the night before in Dongdaemun, at my old house, which is always fun. Going home. The other elders in the district were scheduled to help someone in our branch move the following morning, and the next day after the conference President Christensen slipped in that my companions had made it into the Seoul South mission that morning. It turns out that after some confusion and an hour of truck-riding later, one elder had indeed made it past the boundaries of our mission as he rode with a member. Exciting times when Elder South is gone.
Elder Cook {a prominent church leader} will be coming to address us this coming Saturday, for which we are quite excited, and we are making our way to the temple tomorrow, which is of course always wonderful. All my love and prayers from Seoul-
Elder South
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