Birthday Dinner at Outback!!!
We sent him a "party in a box" with cake mix, frosting, sprinkles, candles, balloons, candy ice cream , noise makers and gifts! He said he had a fun birthday!
Elder Chizzy, Januario from East Timoor and Elder Coats
Super happy day to get KRISPY KREME donuts in Seoul!!!!
Another investigator!
On July 31 they got 1/2 priced ice cream for Baskin Robbins, looks like the boys (Elder Chizzy, Coats, Arrington and Whitlock) are enjoying it immensely in the heat and humidity of Seoul!
Over the past few weeks Elder Chizzy has had two new companions. One from Idaho and now he is training again a new missionary from Guam. He is a zone leader over 22 missionaries and has had a few great weeks and a few very difficult weeks. He is halfway through his mission and I have really seen his growth in so many ways. He is totally fluent in Korean, he relies on his Savior completely, he loves the scriptures and the people and he loves his mission. He remains positive when he has trials, and he has a great attitude even when it's so hot and humid and he has a lot of responsibility! I am so proud of my 20 year old boy and am amazed at his growth in this past year. I miss him terribly but I am so happy with how he is doing and wouldn't trade it for the world. Here are some excerpts from his letters this past month.
"Haha it's still humid beyond belief though... I have never sweated more in my life!!! Haha it was an amazing week:) 19 Lessons, 2 New baptismal dates, 5 new investigators.... OH man I don't know what exactly is going down in this area but it is exploding!! It is awesome!! Haha funny sidenote.... Those stats don't look like much compared to a lot of missions in the world, but those are the best stats I've had in my mission so its cool:) Haha but really, it has been a great, super tiring, week!!! Just throw in on top the fact that it was my birthday and I am a bit worn out to say the least:) Man.... I don't really know where to start with all of it!!! I guess we will start with the fourth of July... So I went to the dentist in the morning who lives in the other mission actually, (I got permission so it's cool:)) and it went well.. I explained to him what I wanted and he checked it out. It didn't have much decay so I just filled it up and all was well... Well, then we were going back home (a hour and a half long subway trip) and got maybe twenty minutes into it when my companion told me he forgot his bag and the dentist.... So we got off at the next station and walked to the other side... Well, we walked onto the train, and my companion started talking to this guy, and it turns out the my companion had met this guy the night before in our area and this guy bought my comanion apple juice... (this is a solid hour or so away from our house and area...) haha it was honestly the craziest "coincidence" ever... Just the fact that we had to get off the train we were on and got on the same car of the same train of that guy... Blew our minds.... He told us he was thinking about coming to church and meeting with us, but now he will have to because of that... haha super crazy!! We will meet him next Saturday... then we went and ate at a buffet cuz it was the fourth of July and made our way home. That night, we met with a guy that I met on the street and he was amazing. He totally accepted everything we were teaching him and said that he wants to become a member of our church. It was super easy to understand him and he was just super awesome. Totally prepared. Maybe the most prepared person I have taught yet on my mission. We are going to meet with him again next Monday hopefully:) Then, we met with this kid on my birthday, (I'll explain a little about that in a minute:)) and he is going to the army on July 31st so we thought maybe we could get him baptized before then... well, we taught Jesus Christ's Gospel and he accepted a baptismal date for the 28th!! haha totally crazy and now we just have to get him to church. His name in Jeon Joon Woo and he is a nice kid. He has no faith so we have a lot of work to do, but I have a lot of faith that he can get to where he needs to be!!! So that is our one baptismal date... Then the other one is with a guy named Januario from East Timoor... Ever heard of it?? Me neither!! Haha we met him on the street my first week here and he came to church yesterday and was bomb.... He speaks Tetum (east timoor lanuage) Indonesian, Portugese, Some English, Some Korean, and a little Malasyian... Yeah sounds tough right?? Well, we taught him throughMormon.org which was a cool experience cuz it was awesome to see how we can use technology in spreading the gospel. We taught him about the Book of Mormon and then watched the Restoration movie (in indonesian:)) and the spirit was crazy strong so we invited him to be baptized on the 28th as well and he accepted!! Haha it was insane.... Just a crazy way to finish out the week... It was a crazy week with a ton of blessings involved that is for sure:) Then for my birthday, Me and my companion were sitting there during study and decided we had to go do something for it... so we decided to go to outback!!! (most expensive decision of my mission so far:)) haha and it was sooo dang good to eat some american style steak and bread and stuff!! Granted it was 70 dollars... BUT, it was sooo good and sooo worth it:) Haha it was way fun and it made my day a little bit better. I also made the funfetti cake (lanta..... Soooo dang good!!! Haha) and I opened those presents and stuff!! It was super fun and by the way, those nerf guns are stinkin beastly for little guns!! Haha super fun:) Thank you for your package!! I loved it for sure. I hung up all the b-day posters on my wall and of course I love the Independance Day stuff!! Especially the sick quote from the president:) Haha so sweet. So thank you for that!!! That was a short version of an insane week!!!"
"I am doing pretty good:) I am tired.... haha this week has been a long one... I wish I had some really cool things to tell you about this week.... But everything, every single thing we had planned fell through!! Ugh.... it was rough... so I am just happy it is a new week and I get a new start... Cuz it was definitely one of the harder weeks of my mission!! I didn't want to have bad news.... But yeah... Januario just had work so he couldn't come on sunday... He still should be baptized though next week so that is still good:) Our other one, the kid going to the army tomorrow, came in on Friday and told us he didn't think he was ready.... He passed the interview technically by answering all the questions right, but he failed himself... It was ridiculous and soooo sad to see him reject that chance cuz we did everything in our power to help him... he grew a ton in his faith and there was nothing else we could have done... but he couldn't take that stuff and it was soooo hard. I was pretty crushed. That same night, our other investigator with a baptismal date took a baptismal record home to get it signed by his mom and she opposes him getting baptized and ripped up the baptismal record and threw it away... Some background story on that, he told us on Thursday that he was moving next week.... Freak.. Haha so we thought about trying to baptize him this Sunday and had a pretty good plan to do everything and teach everything, but his mom wouldn't let him... super sad.. We are really going to try hard this week to work with her and try and convince her otherwise cuz he wants to be baptized. He has that desire but because he is only 14, he can't without parental permission... rough stuff. So, this week kind of all fell down the drain and it was insanely mentally, and physically draining in every sense.... I am exhausted and really needed this p-day more than any other p-day!!"
"It has just been one of those situations that absolutely nothing has went right in the last week and a half. It is really kind of insane how nothing has went right at all.... I have searched a lot for things that I need to improve and I think I have found some things so I am working on those... I did have a good experience during sacrament meeting where I was just praying and thinking about how everything has been so bad, and Heavenly Father, through the Holy Ghost definitely comforted me in saying that it will all be for my good and that I will become a better person through these experiences. I think that is true. I know that is true. Things are hard, and things aren't always perfect, but up to this point everything has helped me grow and so I know that I need to learn from this and just keep moving forward with faith. At the end of Sacrament meeting, we sang Press Forward saints and that was kind of cool as well... I felt like that was a message directly to me... And I love the part of How firm a Foundation that you included... It is true... Heavenly Father won't always take those trials away, but he will bless them so that they will sanctify us and make us better. He did the same to Joseph Smith in D&C 121 and 122. He tell him that all these things will be for his good and I know that is true in this situation as well. It's cool. I am learning and it has helped me see my progression. I don't know how I would have dealt with something like this before my mission or even at the beginning of my mission. So that progression is good!!"
"It is my time. I learned what I needed to. Had the experiences that were necessary. Now it is my turn to go out and just do missionary work all out and work the hardest I can. I have a standard and I need to raise it even higher cuz that is what the Lord needs me to do now. Haha it blows my mind that it has been a year.... Really cool though:)"
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