It's Week 6 of the Transfer :0 (May 7, 2017)

Hello everyone!  I've got lots of pictures to send today, but first, we went to a member of the mission presidency's house this week with our recent convert, Brother J. The member of the mission presidency is Brother B. He is so awesome, and really looks out for Brother J.  While there, their cute little daughter pulled out something called a daygeum and played us a little song. Then the mom pulled a few more out of nowhere, and said, "try it!" So we did! Ha ha, I couldn't even make a sound come out of it, but you wouldn't know it from the picture.  Also, we shared a message and the Prince of Peace video, and gave them little invitation cards. We invited them to invite their friends to church!

Here we are pretending to play the daygeum!

This is our district p-day. These are super great elders! We went to a park, ate pizza, and played board games!

This is Elder S and I eating jim dak. SUPER GOOD! I can't believe Allie never ate this!

These are the two Kim brothers. AWESOME!

We ate with the Kim family this week (see brothers in picture above), and had a miracle! Their dad was the previous bishop, and they are just a POWER family. So good--always willing to make time to come teach lessons, and they really take an interest in Brother J, our recent convert. One time when Brother J hadn't been able to come to church, the father of the Kim family called us and said, "I noticed Brother J wasn't at church. Have you talked with him? If you plan on meeting him this week, I would love to meet with you all!" They just love and strengthen and help others. Anyway, we had not ever gone to share a message with the Kim family in the time that I have been here. Their son is our ward mission leader, too. Anyway, here is the miracle part.

So we had called them the previous week and tried to set up a time where we could share a message with their family. But we didn't hear back, and we got distracted and forgot to, until Thursday when we texted them again. They invited us for lunch on Saturday, and we eagerly agreed. Sister Kim is a great cook, so we were excited to see their house and have a fun lunch with their family (it can be hard to get to see member's houses in Korea, mostly people just meet in public). Anyway, at the last second, they called and asked us to meet at a different subway station, but we didn't know why. We arrived a little early, and were just talking to people, introducing our message, and met a few nice guys. The family showed up, and told us they wanted to take us to a restaurant. There is an awesome sister in our ward who is the only member of her family, always so kind to give us food and anything we need, visiting and taking care of less actives, etc. Anyway, her husband lives in Seoul, and he had come down for the weekend, so the Kims invited them to lunch with us, and at the last second we ended up going to this restaurant. Allie probably recognizes the food from the pictures! They have a soup that they put the body of a little stuffed chicken inside, it is pretty good!  A lot of work to eat, haha, but pretty cool. And there was this little half clam thing inside that has a cool looking shell that I kept hahah!

Here's the little stuffed chicken

The clam and shell

We shared a spiritual message about the plan of salvation, and about keeping the commandments. It was an okay message, but nothing too special, especially because we were in the middle of the restaurant. Anyway, it was while we were leaving that the miracle happened. There was one worker there, in his 20s, who kind of smiled funny at us when he brought us some food, like kind of curious. As we left, it was that same server at the cash register. He said, "Are you from Utah?" in great English! We were surprised, and introduced ourselves. Turned out he was a nonmember who went to school in America. He said, "I went to UVU for 5 years! Today I opened the Book of Mormon...and then you came in! I didn't know you would come in."

We were amazed! Our plans were changed last second, on the quick decision of the family we were meeting with. This guy had gone to school in Utah, surely heard lots about Mormons. That morning he had opened up the Book of Mormon, perhaps wondering if there was something more to be found in life. And then the Lord guided us to met him.

I know the Lord is in the details of our lives! He sees those things that we do to try to be close to Him, and magnifies and builds upon them. The Lord works through small and simple things:  "Now ye may suppose that this is foolishness in me; but behold I say unto you, that by small and simple things are great things brought to pass; and small means in many instances doth confound the wise." We are super excited to go meet with this guy again! Even better--it turns out that his uncle or grandpa is in our ward! So that is a miracle for the week. We saw SO MANY but I will share that one. :)

I better go! Love you all, and have a great week. One quick thought:  This week I learned a lot about prayer. I wrote this in my study journal:

"I just learned, through personal experience, that sometimes, in order to get an answer to our prayers, in fact OFTEN, we need to really think about the problem and TALK about it with God. Tell Him what we feel, and WHY. Explain our reasoning. Ask directly if it is right. He will answer. He will lead your reasoning. He will bring peace if it is right, and will tell you if it is wrong. Sometimes, when we don't receive an answer, it is because we need to discuss it a little more and come to a greater understanding of it, through prayer with God. But when we talk to God, like He is another man nearby. He will answer."

Love you all! Press forward, Saints!

Love
Elder Beckett