Septermber 24, 2018: The Book of Mormon is True

Dear People,

Yesterday was Korea's equivalent of Thanksgiving-day called Chuseok. Bishop Jung invited us and the Thompsons to his house for a traditional lunch. The Thompsons couldn't make it so it was going to be just Bishop, his wife, Elder Buxton, and me. We got there to find a table with enough food to easily feed the six people that were originally going to come. We started eating and realized that they had both already eaten so they only took a couple bites and then sat and carefully watched us eat the food that was all prepared just for us. It was really high pressure. Especially in our stomachs.

We had an awesome Thanksgiving dinner with the Thompsons and Hye-ran that night. Don't tell anyone in my MTC group though or they will be jealous. Sister Thompson made pumpkin pie. Hye-ran was fascinated with the turkey and cranberry sauce combination, she is either a really good actress or she loved it.

We got a call from Elder Heap in Daejeon who had sent out a mass "Happy Chuseok" text. One of the many responses they got was someone in Gunsan who had time to meet that day so they called us to refer him. We decided to do the same thing and sent a simple message to all of our Kakao Talk contacts. One of the many people to respond to us was Tommy, one of the very first people I taught on my mission when I first served here. He had since moved away but in his text he said that he was in town because he's visiting his parents. We are going to meet tomorrow. That was such a tender mercy. I love Tommy so much and am so excited to see him again.

We've been reading the Book of Mormon over the phone almost every day with Hye-ran. It's so exciting to be able to understand and explain the confusing parts to her and hear her interesting comments. Nephi reminds her of Joseph of Egypt because they both seemed to be the favorite child and their brothers tried to kill them. When people read and understand the Book of Mormon, there is little that can stop their progress. The Book of Mormon is true. 

I'm so grateful for the gift of the Holy Ghost. Just before starting emailing we were eating lunch and something felt really wrong. Like I was carrying some burden I couldn't identify. I started praying and immediately remembered that I forgot to invite Hye-ran to a dinner appointment with a member tonight. I called her. She can come. I felt completely fine afterwards.

I'm in happy denial that anything special is going to happen next Wednesday. I'm just going to not think about it and probably regret not buying presents for people.

-Elder Brown

Today we went to a "Cat Cafe". You pay to hang out with some cats. 

Delicious pig feet.

September 17, 2018: Mother

Dear People,

Yesterday I morning I was reading about the reason Helaman's stripling warriors did not fear death and plainly understood the priority that some things hold over preserving their lives:

"Now they never had fought, yet they did not fear death; and they did think more upon the liberty of their fathers than they did upon their lives; yea, they had been taught by their mothers, that if they did not doubt, God would deliver them. And they rehearsed unto me the words of their mothers, saying: We do not doubt our mothers knew it."

It's pretty easy to discern when someone is teaching, how strongly they are living and applying the principles they teach. I can imagine how sincere and intense their family home evenings must have been. 

Later in the day I was talking on the phone with a friend named Jason who's been obsessing over something unimportant and hoping that an extremely unlikely event will occur. I told him that it would honestly be best to just forget about it and move on. He asked "should I not have hope for a miracle?" 

As I thought about how to respond to that, a teaching of my angel mother came to my mind. I must have been four or five years old because it was in the Highland house. My mother was teaching us about prayer. She explained the concept that God will will grant our requests but only if our requests are in line with His will. I vividly remember the object lesson because it involved candy bars, something I was very interested in at the time. She said that no matter how hard we pray that candy bars with appear in the kitchen cupboard, it won't happen because that's not an important thing. I was disappointed but I remember that it made sense to me.

I shared that teaching with him emphasizing that the things that are important to God are things that will give us not fleeting, but everlasting joy. There is only one way to achieve that.

I'm so grateful for my angel mother. 

Sister Thompson, a senior sister missionary in relation to her past callings in primary told us: "Teach a child a song and the song with teach the child." 

My mom has taught me many songs, sung and unsung, that teach me regularly.

-Elder Brown

 We found a tree growing out of the drain in our balcony

 I discovered a brand of cat milk where they have the opening on the bottom so you can eat it frozen without cutting yourself trying to tear at the plastic.

Ward Conference

Ward Conference

Baptism

Baptism

September 3, 2018: Miracles

Dear People,

For the last several months we have been doing mission wide fasts for finding. As we entered our meetinghouse after we started the fast Sunday morning we were greeted by the bishop's wife who excitedly introduced us to her (non-member) younger sister who agreed to take the missionary lessons starting that day after church.
She is super accepting and basically has a date for the 16th, ward conference. We are meeting her again tonight. 

That evening after we ended the fast we had a little time to contact some of our seventy so-called "people with interest" in our area book planner to find out if they actually had interest or not.

One of the first names on the list was a man from Ireland named Niall who neither of us had met and who had very little information on his record. We had called him three times before with no answer so we were just going to move him to the "unable to contact" category but...

"You know what they say, Elder Buxton, fourth time's a charm"
We both were totally not expecting him to answer so when he did Elder Buxton was a little off-guard. After some kind of awkward small talk there was a pause and Elder Buxton asked: "Yeah, so we were just wondering if you had any . . . interest."

He started talking about how his (Korean) wife goes to a church but he has been looking for a church to go to preferably in English and preferably on Sunday mornings. We told him that we meet on Sunday mornings and we translate. He said he would love to come to our ward conference with his little two kids.

Last Saturday night we were walking through this popular lake park that has a lot of people on the weekends. A young woman with her daughter and son approached us excitedly:

"Are you missionaries?"

"Yeah!"

"Wow, I love Jesus so much, my dream is to become a missionary!"

"No way, that's so great, we love Jesus too! We are trying to be like Him."

To her 4 year old son- "You love Jesus too right?"

"Yeah!" *hugs my legs for a second and then holds my hand as we continue walking.

We talked for a while. It sounds weird in English but she said we "smell" like Jesus. Her maybe seven year-old daughter was all like "Mo-om, we didn't come here to talk to missionaries!"

We have her number and will hopefully meet again soon. She asked us to teach her and her kids English too.

Another miracle in Gunsan is that a brother and sister, both recently returned missionaries just moved in. The will be a huge strength.

We have a new bishop, a meetinghouse that was cleaned of junk for the first time in like thirty years and great new members and friends. I sure hope I don't transfer or go home any time soon.

Favorite quote of the week is from President Ballard:

"Life can be filled with faith, joy, happiness, hope, and love when we exercise the smallest amount of real faith in Christ."

This stylized quote was in the Liahona. It didn't mean much to me when I first saw it but I ripped it out and stuck it to my wall. when I read it over the next day or so I kept thinking about "real faith in Christ". I asked myself what fake/not real faith in Jesus Christ would be. I started to feel like a lot of my daily activities aren't actually an exercise in faith because I know that what I'm doing is right and I know what results will come. I'm re-learning that exercising faith is doing things that I don't want to do, that I haven't done well in the past. Getting into unfamiliar, unknown territory, and doing it because we think it's what Jesus would want us to do. That's when life can be filled with faith, joy, happiness, hope and love.

I'm still not doing this very well but when I do have little moments of real faith it works.

Elder Brown

We spent ten bucks each and way too much time in a "teddy bear museum" last preparation day. I don't know what I was expecting but it turned out to be walking through a bunch of exhibits of little teddy bears posed in random scenes. At the end there were actually a few vintage teddy bears and stuffed animals. Most of them were really creepy and had been knocked over for some reason. There were some cute bear head things that we got to wear though. That almost made it worth it.

August 27, 2018: Desires of Happiness

Dear People,

You may have heard about a so-called typhoon named Soulik...

We were told to stay inside from 6pm on thurday and not expect to go back out until Friday evening. We put little tape X's on our windows and cracked them open because of air-pressure stuff. We were all excited, we had our emergency kits, and were ready to eat our ration bars and sleep in our mylar emergency blankets. Not so.

Brother Soulik slowed way down and in the morning we barely had any wind or rain. The updated forecast was that he would greet us Saturday morning at 2AM.

Apparently President Madsen and Elder Cragun's mom's prayers were more faithful than ours because we got nothing.

We're not to upset though because there are supposed to be more next month.

Excerpt from my study journal

"The one raised to happiness according to his desires of happiness, or good according to his desires of good; and the other to evil according to his desires of evil; for as he has desired to do evil all the day long even so shall he have his reward of evil when the night cometh."

-Alma 41:5

When offered the choice to do evil, our fallen natures prompt us to choose evil. 

It makes sense.

It's the natural choice.

It's cutting along the grain.

It brings the immediate pleasure we seek. 

Always.

Choosing good initially doesn't make sense to us.

It rarely brings immediate pleasure and usually brings some discomfort.

It requires acting without sure knowledge.

It is cutting against the grain.

Swimming upstream.

But as we deny our nature and repeatedly choose the good

the joy comes.

It makes sense.

Our desire changes because we are more well informed.

We have tasted different fruit.

We desire good.

I might have mentioned this but recently the Korean translation of the Holy Bible that the Church uses was added to Gospel Library. When I heard about this I gasped and immediately covered my face with my hands. As far as I know, the only other languages that have a Bible in the gospel library app are English, Spanish, and Portugese. Korea is so cool.

I love my companion, Elder Buxton. I never would have guessed how much we have in common.

Gunsan is the best area on earth. There is nowhere I'd rather be.

I know that the indisputably real man who lived in Jerusalem named Jesus was who He said He was. When I act like I know that and choose to do what I think is good or what He would do I become very peaceful and happy. More happy and peaceful than by doing anything else I've ever tried. I've had a lot of peaceful and happy experiences being with friends or watching cool movies or camping.

Pushing myself to do something I know Jesus would do makes me happier than any of those other things, period. So that's what I'm going to keep doing.

I also know that I didn't just get lucky and was born with this ability. It's not a genetic thing or how I was raised. I know that it works for every human. It just takes faith and practice.

In the name of Jesus Christ, amen.

August 20, 2018: Peaceful

Dear People,

Last Wednesday was Korean independance day. In our area there is a pretty famous little lake where there are musical performances most weekends so a lot of people hang out there. For the last week or two we've been planning a big proselyting activity to do at this lake on independance day because it was obvious that a ton of people would be there.

It was going to be hot so the plan was to wear our helping hands vests and give out iced drinks while we did a family history themed activity and Elder Cragun drew free caricatures. We even invited Hye-ran to come with us.

We ate dinner at the Thompson's house then walked over to the lake with our table and all the stuff to find that there was absolutely no one there.

It was super awkward. Four missionaries traveled for like two hours from their area to get to an empty plaza.

We regrouped at the Thompson's house, prayed and counseled about what to do. We decided it would be best to just get back to our own areas as soon as we could and do something else.

We were all a little disapointed but the overall feeling was that we did our best and we excersized faith so something good will come of it.

On the way home Hye-ran was talking about the home evening we did at Bishop's house that Monday and how she felt there. She said his house felt so happy and peaceful, and remarked that it was the same feeling she had recieved when we had dinner together in a different family's home the week before. She continued with a note of surprise that that same day when we ate dinner in the Thompson's home she felt the exact same thing!

What a coincidence.

I'm so grateful for the fruit of the Spirit. I'm so grateful for the promise that we can always have the Sprit with us when we keep our thoughts and desires focused on Jesus Christ.

The immediate happiness that comes from having the Spirit with us is not super different from the happiness that comes from worldly entertainment. A big difference I've noticed is that the first kind of happiness is coupled with deep peace the comes from an actual knowledge that Heavenly Father is also happy and proud of our descisions.

I got my last transfer call yesterday and I will officially be ending my mission in my first area. Elder Cragun will be going home tomorrow and I my last companion in the field will be my beloved Elder Buxton.

I'm so happy to be a member of the Church of Jesus Christ. I know that this is His Church.

-Elder Brown

Everyone told us this place would be packed.

August 13, 2018: Home Evening

Dear People,

Bishop Jung invited us and Hye-ran to their home evening yesterday and we got to do the lesson. Elder Cragun had the idea to break up the chronology of the plan of salvation and have each person draw their part. Then they would go in order and give a brief explanation of their portion (pre-mortal life, earth life, death, kindoms of glory, etc.)

We had a great time and learned that the members have some interesting ideas about the plan of salvation.

Bishop Jung has apparently been the first bishop in thirty years to decide that we should clean out the random old stuff that fills the closets in our meetinghouse. We threw out boxes and boxes of church magazines from the 80's and we found one of the slide projectors that missionaries including President Madsen taught the lessons with. He was super excited to hear we found one and we are going to bring it to him this week so he can digitize all the film strips.

Life's been good. I love President Nelson so much, I am following his exhortation to "study the messages of this conference frequently-even repeatedly-during the next six months."

This has got to have been the best conference of my entire life.

Love,

Elder Brown

August 6, 2018: Thoughts, behaviors, and desires

Dear people,

I was sitting on a bus and the guy next to me was watching a very intersting-looking movie. I kept looking at it out of the corner of my eye but finally gave up fighting the Spirit and started praying. I thought about how conflicted I was inside. I really wanted to look at this interesting, fun thing but I was held back becuase Jesus' work is so boring and strict. A phrase that I thought was from Preach my Gospel came into my head saying "When we repent we change our thoughts, behaviors, and desires that are not in harmony with God's will." I looked it up later and the real phrase is "thoughts, beliefs, and behaviors" but my version did the trick in that moment.

I acknowledged that I had a desire that was not in harmony with God's desire for me. I explained this discovery to Him and told Him that I want to change that desire. It worked very quickly, I got opened up the Gospel library and started reading where I had left off in Gospel Topics. One thing led to another and I stumbled across my new favorite talk by Elder Bednar in April 2006: "That We May Always Have His Spirit to Be with Us"

"The standard is clear. If something we think, see, hear, or do distances us from the Holy Ghost, then we should stop thinking, seeing, hearing, or doing that thing. If that which is intended to entertain, for example, alienates us from the Holy Spirit, then certainly that type of entertainment is not for us. Because the Spirit cannot abide that which is vulgar, crude, or immodest, then clearly such things are not for us. Because we estrange the Spirit of the Lord when we engage in activities we know we should shun, then such things definitely are not for us.

I recognize we are fallen men and women living in a mortal world and that we might not have the presence of the Holy Ghost with us every second of every minute of every hour of every day. However, the Holy Ghost can tarry with us much, if not most, of the time—and certainly the Spirit can be with us more than it is not with us. As we become ever more immersed in the Spirit of the Lord, we should strive to recognize impressions when they come and the influences or events that cause us to withdraw ourselves from the Holy Ghost."

Changing that desire was very exciting and refreshing. Since that experience I've noticed other times when what I want to do has been in conflict with what I know brings actual happiness. I've had major fails and some successes.

If we take time to think about our choices we will realize that we know which choice will lead to real happiness. We tend to avoid thinking with real intent. We are afraid that what we realize is right will conflict with our current desire, so rather than being willing to change our immature current desires we rush to act and distract ourselves.

We are changing the term "investigator" to help change our mindset about it. I wish there was a word to swap for the term "repentance" and give us a new mindset about it. It's just being honest with ourselves and admiting that what we thought would make us happy won't. Admitting to God that Jesus Christ was right, we'll stop being so stubborn we'll listen to Him.

Yesterday I told someone who has been meeting with missionaries for a long long time that "We don't want you to pray. We don't want you to get baptized. We want you to be happy, and we know that these doing these things will lead to your happiness."

God doesn't want us go to church or fast or to act out the law of Moses. He wants us to be happy. And He knows and He tells us how.

Love ya lots,

Elder Brown

July 30, 2018

Dear People,

Until this week there were two teams in Gunsan but  Elder Peterson was emergency transferred out and so Elder Cragun, Buxton, and I are a threesome now. It's wonderful.

We're busy.

The bishop who has been serving for the last 20 years in Gunsan was released finally. He was great but in the words of Bilbo Baggins he was butter spread over too much bread.

I forgot if I mentioned that we miraculously found a member on the street named Steven a while ago who has lived in Gunsan for two years but didn't know there was a church here. He came to church with his two non-member daughters last week. Aparently his nine year old, Seo-rim, was asking super deep quesions in primary like "Why did people want to kill Jesus?" "How were they able to if he was so powerful?". Steven wants us to teach his wife and daughters.

We finally taught Hye-ran the first lesson. It was the best lesson of my entire mission, not becuase anything super special happened but just because of it's simplicity.

We had just finished our Caricature lesson we've been doing with her and the transition to the lesson was smooth because she knew we wanted to share our message. 

She had already gone through the entire first lesson on the LDS pamphlets app.

We had our adult-male member with us but he didn't do anything besides just sit there and be an adult-male, which is all we need.

We started with an opening prayer and we went through the lesson showing her our phone while she followed along on hers.

We worked well as a companionship, taught very simply, and made sure she understood.

She knew that the Book of Mormon is the evidence that Joseph Smith is a prophet but she wasn't expected to just accept it, rather read it and seek an answer from the Spirit.

We invited her to say the closing prayer, asking to know if the Book of Mormon is true and that Joseph Smith was a prophet:

Hye-ran: "I don't know how to pray!"

Us: "Oh, there's a little guide in the back of the pamphlet. You can just think of it as talking to your dad."

Hye-ran: "Ok, I'll pray. Heavenly Father, thanks for sending these missionaries. I'm attending a different church right now, but I'm learning about this church and I'm going to read and pray about the Book of Mormon and if it feels right I'm thinking about joining this church. In the name of Jesus Christ, amen."

This week our dear Hye-ran showed up to church on her own holding her Book of Mormon.

Hye-ran: "I was planning on going to my normal church but I read all the highlighted parts in the Book of Mormon you gave me and it was just so good so I felt like I needed to come to 우리 교회 (our church).

She is the most sincere, childlike person I've met so far on my mission. She keeps every invitation we give her. Even the random homework we give at English class like: "Use your talents to serve someone" She called us the day after we gave that homework and was like "I've been thinking about how I can use my talents to serve and I want to start an art class at your church. I'll be serving with my talents and I think it will give your church more 'merit'."

We were planning a proselyting activity on an exchange last week. Elder Barber had the idea to give out lemonade as part of a proselyting activity because it's so hot. We decided to make it just giving out lemonade and not try to combine it with giving out copies of the Book of Mormon.

We just got our Helping Hands vests and gave out iced Kool-aid. Lots of people were confused and grateful. I was surprised, however, at how many people recognized us from a distance and walked past with their heads turned away, not willing to take a second's more investigation and realize we were simply handing out something they want. Very thought provoking.

One woman accepted a cup and while she drank examined us and said "음 예수를 믿으라고"

(Ahh, you're telling people to believe in Jesus)

Our vests have the name of the Church on them but the new Helping Hands vests don't. I like that they don't. We want to give. This isn't bait so that ultimately we can take from you.

Jesus Christ's commandments and ordinances are a gift. They are what everyone wants. They are the relief from the heat of the day. It just requires a second's more investigation and expirimentation to realize that.

I know that God wants the best for us. He has really cold Kool-aid. I know that it is very yummy. In the name of Jesus Christ, amen.

Elder Brown

 We just want to give you some Kool-aid

Some weirdo in our house trying to make peanut butter with a bed post. (it's clean)

His peanut butter (the fools that mocked him mourned)

 Steven's kids

July 16, 2018: We Are His

Dear People,

Hyeran came to church! She fell asleep immediately after singing the opening hymn and basically had her head on my shoulder 60 percent of sacrament meeting. She said it was very different from what she's used to and was too exhausted to go to any other classes but she didn't cancel our next appointment so everything's looking good!

Several weeks ago an older member named Brother Choi Jong Gil in our ward invited us to a Poetry festival and we went for just about an hour. The people gave us some official composition paper for us to write our poems on. I wasn't about to give a serious attempt at Korean poetry so I just copied verbatim my Facebook post about rice plants and turned that in as a poem, completely ignoring the assigned topic of "Destiny"

On Saturday we went to the awards ceremony for this poetry contest because Brother Choi said we won a "Honorable Mention". The setting of the festival was in a random park with a bunch of old guys so we thought the awards ceremony would be similar but it turned out to be super formal. When we walked in we were handed a book. It was a poetry book. We realized that it was the published compilation of all the poems that were submitted at the festival, including ours at the very end, the only poems in a category called "Special Prize". 

I just found out I have a new niece and was reminded of something Whitney Meek from Studio C said in an LDS face to face. When she held her first baby she had felt and overwhelming love for him, but it wasn't because of anything he did, or any talent he had (he even pooped on her) she loved him because he was hers.

God doesn't love us because of our ability or obedience or good choices, He loves us because we are His. We cannot make Him stop loving us.

Another learning experience I had this week was watching the two (relatively) new church History videos in the perspective of Oliver Cowdery and David Whitmer. I love Joseph Smith's prayer before starting on a day of translation. 

"Father I thank thee for sending such a fine fellow to assist in this thy work. We pray for thy Spirit to attend us in the name of Jesus Christ amen." 

My prayers have been super... not like this. I am working on simpler more faithful and purposeful prayers.

I love you

Elder Brown

July 10, 2018

Dear People,

Bishop's family invited us to dinner and we said we would look at our schedule and call back. We have a friend named Hyeran who we are about to start teaching and we remembered that she conveniently met and exchanged contact information with the bishop's wife at English class on Friday. So we called back:

"Hey remember Hyeran who you met at English class? Yeah we were wondering if she could come too!"

"Oh sure that would be fine!"

"Great, you have her number right?"

"Yes."

"How would it be if you invited her?"

"Oh. . . ok!"

Hyeran was able to come and it was the best thing ever. We felt like we were in the District.

#makingfriends

A couple weeks ago we delivered cookies and banana bread to a few people who lived on our floor. Doing that is not very normal in Korea but we are foreign and missionaries so we can get away with anything. Yesterday we got a knock on the door. It was the dad and son from the apartment right next door to us and they had brought us a quarter of a watermelon. That is the first time I've heard of that happening to missionaries in Korea. It was super cute and kind of a miracle because it was in the middle of the day when we usually wouldn't have been home.

I have been binge reading James Talmage's Jesus the Christ and am super regretting not reading it all earlier in my mission. It is so faith-building. The parables get taken apart with all the historical context. I have been such a Pharisee for so much of my life and mission. 

I have done better this week to keep my covenant to always remember Jesus Christ than I ever have. I know Him and love Him. There is no other path to peace or lasting happiness.

Elder Cragun just got his last transfer call and he is staying. He will be the third companion that I have sent home. It's ok though because it doesn't make me trunky.

Ooh also a missionary gave me his clarinet which I am really rusty at but I'll record something sometime

love,

Elder Brown

Some of my companion's sketches

Some of my companion's sketches

A macaroon icecream sandwich.

 Kind of like Kentucky-fried chicken but a little more gamey.

Gotta be healfhy

 Korea is pretty

 Korea is pretty

 Korea is pretty

Our neighbor's watermelon

I was tempted to cause a nuisance in this elevator but I saw this sign and changed my mind.