What the? I seriously feel like I was JUST here emailing, but according to the calendar, it has indeed been another week. Actually, it's been a whole month since I hit my 6 month mark. I know I have said it time and time again, but seriously. Someone please tell me how time works on a mission. I don't understand it. At all. Each day, week and month seems to go by twice as fast as the previous. I would say "I'll just stop keeping track from now on" but I'm afraid that if I do that, my whole mission will slip right through my fingers.
ANYWAY... this week. This week was the last of our major travels for the transfer. We went back to Cheonan (the place that takes 1 train and 3 buses and a sleepover to reach totaling 6 hours of travel time) for combined district meeting. The meeting was really good and afterward, instead of heading home, Elder 류 and I both stayed in the area and went on splits the with Zone Leader and his companion. It was really fun because the Elder I was with (Elder Bigler) was one of the Elders that was in my same group in the MTC. Cheonan is HUGE by the way. On a regular basis, it has 4 Elders and 2 Sisters working in it. Elder Bigler and I took two buses to the outskirts of the city to the University to meet one of their investigators, BUT it turns out there was a bit of miscommunication and the investigator had thought they were meeting on a different day, so he didn't show up. So we headed back, had dinner and then went out contacting for a half hour and then our day was over already. Seriously not fair. Getting to be with my 동기 (Don gee) (a missionary that you were in the MTC with) is seriously like a home away from home, and in my mission there are only 2 besides me. So I was a bit disheartened that my split with Elder Bigler went by so fast. Ah well.
So we had to sleep at their house that night because there was no way we could make the journey home that evening. So altogether there were 6 of us in an apartment that was about 2 times the size of my bedroom back home. Also it's summer. Yeah... it was pretty much a sauna in there with all the body heat and humidity and what not.
The next day, Elder 류 and I started our trek back to Jecheon. We took a city bus, and then an intercity bus to Cheongju and then took another city bus to the train station. Only, there was 1 problem. We got on the wrong city bus. Elder 류 used to serve in Cheongju, so I was kind of following him blindly everywhere and assumed he knew which bus was right. Well, it HAS been a year since he served there, so I guess I can't blame him too much ^^ Anyway, long story short, we had to get off the bus after having ridden it for 20 minutes before realizing it wasn't the right one, hop on a different bus, get off that bus and book it for 8 blocks to another bus station and take another bus to the train station. We got there 3 minutes after the train had left and the next one wouldn't come for 4 hours. Needless to say, I was pretty discouraged. It already takes us FOREVER to get back home without having a 4 hour delay. I have been focusing on the Christlike attribute of Faith this wek though, so I took a deep breath, and prayed that we could make good use of this time, and then kept saying to myself "have faith to find the miracle Elder Fund". With that attitude we started walking back toward the city. We literally almost had no money and would not have enough for our train tickets if we rode the bus again, so we had to walk. We walked, and walked and walked. And walked. And walked. And w a l k e d...... After an hour and a half, we made it to a little section of the city. We did some contacting there with little to no success. Literally JUST as we turned around to start walking back, a man stuck his head out of a store door and told us to come inside. We did and started talking to him. He explained that he had once gone to an English class many years ago, so he recognized missionaries from that.His store is kind of on the outside of the city though, so the missionaries rarely if ever come out there just to work. After talking with him and teaching him a few basic principles, we gave him a book of mormon and the phone numbers of the missionaries whose area we were in. I walked away completely floored. Now, I don't know very much about this guy and wouldn't go as far to say that he was golden or anything like that. In fact it's very possible that his main interest is learning English. I don't know. I was just so grateful and quite frankly surprised that we had found the miracle I had prayed for. I'll be honest, I hoped that we would find one, but I was expecting something much smaller. I was humbled and encouraged all at the same time. I really learned the power of faith. Such an incredible experience.
To answer your question, yes we did manage to make it on the second train, arriving home with almost no time left to work in our own area. The rest of the week was pretty much business as usual. It has absolutely been POURING rain though. I love it so much! A lot of missionaries say they hate the rain because less people are outside and it's harder to work. I choose to look at it like a filter though. I figure that I have a much better chance of finding those who are looking for us when there are less people outside to sort through, than when the streets are flooded with busy people hussling and bustling from one place to another. Maybe that's not true, but I'll keep my optimism for now thank you very much^^
Life is so good! The church is true. Seriously. Don't ever think it isn't because it is. Being a missionary is the craziest experience of my life, but I'm learning so much every day. Thank you all for your kind words and prayers on my behalf! Until next week,
Elder Fund
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