Lessons learned from a boy in Korea - March 29,

A lot of stuff happened this week and lessons were learned.  Let us begin:

The first big thing that happened this week was we went to the Paju Unification Observatory.  Very Fun!  We were supposed to go to the DMZ this week, but because of a fire, they wouldn't let us go up there.  Well, we had changed our pday and had jumped over hurdles and through hoops to go, and now they are barely telling us that we cant go.  What the heck are we supposed to do?  Sister Thomas had been waiting her entire mission to go.  No chances before, this was it.  And it was crushed.  We all scrambled to think of things as her companions comforted her in her tears.  All of a sudden I thought of the observatory and going there over a year ago with Elder Smith.  I told everyone else, who thought it was good, and then told her to elated cries.  We mobilized and got going, only to find out that it was going to take us about 2 hours and 15 minutes to get there.... holy moly.  Well, we left and soon were having fun playing games making jokes, telling stories etc.  Eventually, we got there and had a great time and the same on the way back.  Our sadness at not being able to go to the actual DMZ was overcome with joy and fun.  I realized that even though we didn't get to GO where we wanted to, what was more important was who we were with and how we were spending the day.  When I realized that, the entire day became so much better.  We were able to have a great time and make awesome memories!  What a great lesson to learn

The next lesson came because of studies.  This week I have taken to studying faith. Elder Diede in our district always complains about wanting to see Lehi's dream.  And that he has faith.  So I decided to study faith to understand what we need to see visions or baptize people.  It's one in the same.  What I learned:  We have to say something, then we have to act.  I have told Heavenly Father that I want to do something, now I'm going to do it with his help.  This is how we accomplish acts by faith.  I will let you know more as I study. This might go for a while. 

The last lesson I learned this week was the value of timed goals.  Not just weekly monthly or yearly goals, but daily and sometimes hourly goals.  I have taken to giving myself a personal commitment after personal study every day in order to improve myself and how I do work.  This has helped me vastly increase the rate at which I improve and how I do it.  I follow up with myself 2ce a day and really work hard towards achieving my goals.  elder day helps and its great!   I highly recommend it!

Other news this week, all of our investigators have left and are busy so we are trying hard to find this upcoming week, also transfers have come and I'm staying in Dongdaemun another transfer, and  We also had our ward game night this week that went really well and brought lots of nonmembers into the church to play some fun games!  Super awesome! 

Looking forward to a great week!   Love all of you!

Elder Seon Hyeong Su

Hey this week! - March 22, 2015

What's up family!  Not much happened this week, had another double exchange week that was super tiring.  But I had the opportunity to be with my zone leader and friend, Elder Weight.  He talked to me about a lot of things, but instead of telling the other person what we wanted to be trained on, he suggested that we pick for each other. Obviously he already had a topic in mind so I just let him roll with it.  He trained me on trust.  I thought "Well I trust the Lord and the lord trusts me, what's the problem?"  He, though, wasn't talking about trust between the Lord and I, rather he was talking about Trust between the District and I.  It really was an eye opener to me.  Was I not setting a good example?  Did the district not trust me?  It wasn't that at all, but we must remember that we can always do better!  We can always work harder, talk to more people, set a better example of our Lord Jesus Christ.  Then the Day after I was with Elder Weight, I went with my friend Elder Olson.  We went to a training meeting where we talked about leadership, and setting a better example.  Needless to say, I got the hint from Heavenly Father about what I needed to improve on next.   I will definitely be working harder throughout this week to set a better example for my district. 

The other thing this week was the improvement of prayers.  I recently have taken to keeping a prayer journal.  Every time I pray and receive revelation I write it down so that I don't forget and so that I can show Heavenly Father that it is important to me.  In response, I have gotten a lot more out of my prayers this week!  Definitely recommend that to everyone!  

Not much else outside of that happened this week!  Working hard to bring people into the Gospel.  We have a Black Swede James and a Muslim Mustafa as our investigators right now, we are the foreigner companionship apparently.  We always seem to get in well with them.  So pray for them and the Korean people if you get a chance!

Love all of you and hope you are doing well!  Pray for the missionaries daily!  

Elder Yamagata

Hey Fam Bam - March 15, 2015

Well, this week was absolutely awesome!  Had some great miracles happen this week and some investigators pick up and drop off (some in the same day)Great things studied and learned so let's dive into what I call, the week...

So First off, had a great lesson this week with a new investigator Name is GyuRi.  Met and he is one of the first Koreans I've seen to have tattoos of any kind.  They are not very popular here and having them generally disqualifies you from working in any professional office.  They really don't care too much about discrimination until very recently.  Anyways he was really great, taught the entire Restoration to him in about 35 minutes and didn't have any questions.  Sounds great!!!! till he texted us the next day and dropped us haha.  It wasn't too sad, more irritating because he texted us about dropping us and being sorry for the next 7 hours.  Oh man.... Couldn't work without getting a text every 5 minutes saying sorry or something.   Anyways, we got another investigator yesterday.  He's a black Swedish guy that was born in Russia nad grew up in Tanzania.  Super SICK!!!! He is prepared from the Lord!~ We taught him the entire message and then some in an hour yesterday.  Wow!!!! We felt great and he accepted a soft baptismal invitation.  So We will see how he goes soon!  

Another cool thing that happened this week was the miracle of District meeting.  I had a prompting to ask everyone what they wanted to be trained on.  And everyone gave the randomest and not at all interconnected things possible.  But something crazy happened as I wrote them all down and prayed about them.  What they actually needed came to me as clear as day like a voice in my head.  They all needed to know about conversion and the power the book of Mormon has in solving any problem.  It was a wonderful district meeting!! I was surprised by how well it went.  Definitely got down on my knees that night and thanked heavenly father so much for how much help he gave me on that one!

This week I also had exchanges with our Assistant to the President: elder south.  And also with one of the other members of my district.  Super stressful but learned so much from them as I went out and worked hard with them both days.  Learned a lot about patience, about never giving up and about how much it takes to bring people into the gospel.  It's not easy!! Remember that!!!

Probably the most exciting part of our week was the Sudden visit to the temple that we were able to do.  We were selected to go out of 60 missionaries in the stake to go to the temple with the youth and do baptisms and confirmations for the dead.  The spirit was strong as these young men and women came to the Lords house and helped in his sacred work.  The spirit was even stronger when we had to do the ordinances in Korean.  My companion witnessed.  But I actually gave the baptisms and did the confirmations and let me tell you, Being in the Temple as a missionary with the gift of tongues, no better place to speak Korean.  Haha.  It was great and didn't make any mistakes.  Wow!!! 

Well, it was a great week, and now I must bid you farewell.  But I wish to leave you with a commitment,  the same one that I gave my district this past week.  It is mentioned in the MTC during a talk called the Character of Christ that Elder Bednar gave there.  It is to take a blue book of Mormon.  And take anything that you're trying to learn, or fix, or need help with, etc.  Write it in the front of the book, and then start reading from the very beginning.  And then mark everything that may have to do with what you are trying to learn.  Then at the very end, write abo8ut what you have learned.  Simple.  I'm doing it right now for patience and loving others.  We'll see how well it goes in a couple of weeks when I finish!!!

Well, I love all of you  and I know this is true!  I know the lord loves us and he watches over us every day!  Be safe and spread the gospel!

Elder Yamagata

Speaking as one having Authority! 3-8-15

Wow this week went by super fast!  I felt like it was just yesterday I was emailing everyone!  Great to hear that everyone is safe

This week was definitely a roller coaster and a half.  The first thing that I wanted to share is that for anyone looking for a great read in the bible, I recommend Ecclesiastes.  The writer really shows the beauty of the transitoriness of this world.  That everything is temporary, but with the knowledge of the plan of salvation, we know that everything from this world will be left behind, but our relationships, loved ones, etc will move with us onto the next life.  I'm eternally grateful for the plan of salvation and the knowledge of the gospel of Jesus christ in my life!

This week also we dropped our investigator David, the semi-crazy guy from last week!  WE taught him for 2 hours and finished our discussion of the plan of salvation, the validity of the Book of Mormon, etc with 2 Nephi 33:10-11:

10 And now, my beloved brethren, and also Jew, and all ye ends of the earth, hearken unto these words and believe in Christ; and if ye believe not in these words believe in Christ. And if ye shall believe in Christ ye will believe in these words, for they are the words of Christ, and he hath given them unto me; and they teach all men that they should do good.

 11 And if they are not the words of Christ, judge ye—for Christ will show unto you, with power and great glory, that they are his words, at the last day; and you and I shall stand face to face before his bar; and ye shall know that I have been commanded of him to write these things, notwithstanding my weakness.

What a powerful ending as I looked him in the eye and told him, with the support of my two companions at the time, in essence, "Well David, we will see you at the Judgement Bar then, and I and my companions and millions will testify to you of the truthfulness of God's word. "  He felt the Spirit as the words, not my words but the words of the Spirit, came from my mouth.  He told us he wants to be remembered as the man who told us that we believe in a false book and prophet and mock the bible.  As we left the cafe, my companions elder day and olson both said "Yeah, we will remember him at the last day."  It was slightly funny, but I came away from that cafe that day knowing that we were servants of God, that we spoke the words of Christ, and that the Lord protects and testifies through his servatns.  What an extremely powerful experience!  I know it sounds like we were rude, but we only spoke the things taht the Spirit gave us.  We told each other and ourselves not to argue or fight, and thats all he wanted to do and tried to prove every concept taht we believed in was wrong.  We spoke as ones having authority!  It was a great spiritual experience, and we walked home singing Called to Serve loud and proud.  

 This week we also had an awesome miracle of a man coming to the church and ringing our doorbell.  We answered the door to a wonderful: "I want to know about the Latter Day Saint Church."  We were in the middle of weekly planning, but you better believe we dropped everything to teach this man.  Taught for 30 minutes before having to go back and finish.  What a great miracle from God!  He was supposed to come to church on Sunday but didn't make it for some reason.  We don't have his number so we are praying that he will come again.  

Well this week was amazing, it all goes faster and faster and snowballs until we come to the end of our time.  One of my companions once gave me this reason for time going faster as we get older, longer, etc:  "Well if you think about it, when you were 5, the reason why it seemed like a year was so long was because it was 1/5 of your life.  Now your 21 and its only 1/21 of your life.  As you get older eventually its 1/60 or 1/80 of your life."  Some profound words, but true, as we get older, or longer into something, the time we spend in it becomes shorter because of its percentage, on the whole.  Remember that as we go about our time here.  Our time here on Earth is precious and needs to be spent wisely.  This time is a time for men to prepare to meet God.  I pray that each one of us is doing all we can to prepare to meet God. Reading the scriptures, regular church attendance and sacrament, temple attendance is all fine and dandy.  But also, spending time with your family (or husband/wife), practicing skills like music or art, increasing our learning, understanding, wisdom.  All of this is extremely important to returning to the presence of our Heavenly Father.  Remember this: Therein Lies wisdom brethren (and sisters).

I love all of you.  May the Grace of our Lord Jesus Christ fall upon all of you this week!

With much love, 

Elder Yamagata

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Hey family just gonna drop in this week! 3-1-15

Hey family just gonna drop in this week!

So first off, last monday I spent 60,000원 on stuff at a 문구... I dont want to talk about it.... 

This week we had a huge miracle of having a couple of lessons for the first time since a long time ago!  We met thought with a man named David.  A very fun and exciting man... haha.  he is obsessed with Daniel 9? I think, I dont remember.  He tried to prove to me and Elder Day, that Jesus is the Christ, with math!  Oh man that was such a hard lesson.  Finally got control of the situation and testified to him about the restoration, which he of course denied was true.  He has to, hes an investigator haha.  But anyways we were blessed with being able to meet him and he accepted a soft baptismal invitation so pray for him!!!

During district meeting this week we talked about Unity and being one with your companion!  Totally went by the spirit as I taught and the sPirit guided that conversation, of that I can testify.  It was powerful, and everyone realized their responsibility in the district and to their companion.  We ended with a group "amen on 3" that was super fun!  The spirit was strong! 

Also randomly this week a lady came up to us and stopped us momentarily, asking us to visit her mom in the hopsital, gave us the room number, and then left.  So we decided the next day would be perfect, and came to find a woman in her bed, early 90's and very frail.  It was a sad sight, but the daughter had such hope in us coming.  She fully expected her mother to be healed because of our presence alone.  She had us pray for her mom and then we left.  Suddenly got a call on saturday to go visit this woman again and again pray for her.  I saw even more faith as a lot of family members were there and all got up to welcome us into the room that the mother was in.  They all expressed reverence at our presence and it was amazing how strong the spirit was.  I got confirmation that that woman was not ready to leave yet, and she would yet have more time on earth.  It was amazing!

This week had been extremely hard on me in finding though.  These past couple of weeks piled on me and I started to lose hope in misionary work in kroea.  I was ready to give up on the older generation of koreans here.  "They are too lost in their own culture," I thought.  But Stake conference was this weekend, and Sister Christensen, our presidents wife, spoke to the stake on sunday.  She talked about testimonies and conversion.  It really touched me in a different way, inspiring faith and hope in me to continue to do my work.  I felt the Spirit confirm to me how important it was for me to keep talking with people and work my butt off and now let anything get in the way.  I felt renewed strength and hope for the korean people instead of wanting to "dust my feet" of them.  

Finally the last "event" to happen this week.  I had some deep impressions this week with the Korean Elder in my district, Elder Song.  I had a distinct impression that he was not fully trusting his companion with their investigators, area, etc.  I prayed about it and realized I needed to talk to him.  So I prayed again, asking for the gift of tongues to be active and his Spirit to be there as we talked.  I called him in and then began talking to him, the gift was there and the langauge was no problem. Eventually ended up talking to him about how I felt like he was "Older Brothering (theres no word in english sorry!)" us in the house.  Eventually we just worked out problems between us and the spirit immediately flooded us telling us that needed to happen!  It was great and we hugged it out at the end.  

So thats what happened this week!  Not too much but powerful expereiences for all of us here in the Dong Dae Moon!  We are excited for this upcoming week!  

Just wanted to share one thing from personal study this week from a talk called The Strength of Being Clean: a study of The quest for Unearned Happiness.  

"Happiness must be earned, like other good things, else it cannot be held. It can be 1deserved only where its price has been somehow paid. Nothing worth having is given away in this world, nor in any other that we know of. No one rides dead head on the road to happiness. He who tries to do so, never reaches his destination....No one is ever miserable who would truly pay the price of happiness. No one is really miserable who has not tried to cheapen life."

This was a great eye opener to me this week. WE have to constantly be stiving to be happy!  Happiness takes effort!  Work hard this week!

Elder Seon Hyeung Soo

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Happy 설날!!! - 2/22/15

So it was just Chinese New Years here (or as we call it Lunar New Years) and we had a great time! We had the blessing of having a zone conference on the actual day of 설날 (pronounced Solar Or Solal) and we had to sessions.  The first session it was wonderful to be able to watch Meet the Mormons with many of our missionaries here in the mission and hear the wonderful stories of 6 members from around the world that are living their faith in a variety of capacities.  Semi-professional MMA fighter, Navy football team coach, or just a mom.  We felt the Spirit strongly, even some people unto tears as they watched these people live our faith.  IT was wonderful!  Afterwards, we talked about the book of Mormon in upcoming prep for this next months mission focus.  We also watched a movie called A New Day for the Book of Mormon.  I highly recommend this for everyone, it's just interesting.  Super cool!  After that president talked with us about the Social Media and other efforts going on to bring more people into the fold.  Then he said from the pulpit "The time for fishing with nets came and past, we all know we are hunters.  And with Social Media, the time for the gathering is soon coming."  Whoa President!  Heavy words man! You can't just drop that on some missionaries who are trying to do the Lords work!  The mission was abuzz after that. Haah  The rest of the day we spent working trying to talk to people and get them to stop, unfortunately, it was new years and so everyone was bustling around not caring about the missionaries.  So we worked hard anyways!

This week I have been studying Isaiah a little bit and read a wonderful scripture that I felt summed up quite a bit of things:

For all this his anger is not turned away, but his hand is stretched out still.

Isaiah 5:25.  How God feels is incredible, he may be angry with us and upset with all of the actions and choices we have made in life, but his hand is STILL outstretched, waiting to help us.  I talked to a man on  the street yesterday and told him this quote and it really hit him in a way that I couldn't have imagined.  He was holding a 40oz. and was slightly buzzed, but knew what I was talking about. I testified of Gods love for him and he was astounded!  Elder Day was freaked when I quoted Isaiah to this guy, but it worked out well!  

Well, this week has been good.  Elder Day and I are working hard and trying to find some people to teach.  We have been praying hard and really striving to find people.  He's a great companion and loves to learn and is open to correction and to being told how to be the best missionary.  He's great to at being honest and open with stuff that he feels like is going right or wrong.  

Anyways I'm done rambling for this week.  Thanks for praying for the missionaries and for the strength to keep on.  You would think that after over a year in the field that it just gets easy and that we don't have many troubles getting out and working.  But it's tough each and every day to get out of the house and find the Lords children to teach.  So thank you for your prayers!!!  Continue to do it!  We love you!!!

OH AND SHOUT OUT TO PEARCE NITTA ABOUT TO FINISH HIS MISSION!!!!  WE LOVE YOU BUD THANKS FOR WORKING HARD!!!!!

Elder Yamagata

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This week in a bottle - 2/15/15

Wow, this week was just as insane if not more than last week!  It may not seem like it to you but with everything that is going on out here,  I'm drained!

first off we have transfers on a pday today.  Super stressful because we still have to get done everything that needs to get done.  So we got back pretty late and I have to rush through this a little so I will give you the highlights.  

First off, Wednesday we had an... interesting? District meeting about trials and why they are important in our lives.  It wasn't a training as much as it was a realization and discussion within our district giving us necessary revelation to continue to press forward in our cause.  It was a struggle just allowing the spirit to guide our entire discussion and really lead me to say what I needed to say to them.  We had great input and everyone got a lot out of it.  Yesterday I called one of our sisters to follow up and see how the training has been applied and it was a really great conversation as she told me that it  was the perfect district meeting that she needed to really overcome some stuff that was going on in her life.  What an awesome thing to hear.  I was just glad that the Spirit led me to the revelation that I needed for my district.  I know that revelation still comes to me in this day through the Holy Ghost.  We must remember the words of President Eyring from last general conference:

“Revelation continues in the Church: the prophet receiving it for the Church; the president for his stake, his mission, or his quorum; the bishop for his ward; the father for his family; the individual for himself.”

And I would add, the missionary for his area.  It really is amazing to be able to help so many people through such small acts.  And I learn more than they ever will from the trainings!  

Thursday was an even crazier day as I was able to go with our dying Elder Mumford on his last exchange of his mission.  He had me help him with doing member missionary work and staying actively engaged when going home.  I could see in him a spark, something that showed me that this missionary worked hard for two years, and there was the spark that was going to grow into a blaze.  This man was truly converted  to the gospel and was willing to devote the rest of his life to it.  What a great thing to see in a missionary.  So we worked hard all day and it was fun.  I was glad to learn a lot from him too.  

Friday we got our transfer calls and I'm staying with a new companion: Elder Day.  He's a young missionary so we are going to have some fun this next transfer.  

And today is transfers where I was able to see some people, but now I have to go and get stuff done sorry this isn't a longer letter but I know the church is true and I know that God loves us, and that's really all that matters!!!! Have a great week, be safe, and may the Lord bless you!

Elder Yamagata

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