One by One Part 1

Pictures!

1. Elephant Rock 

2. Cool Graves we found in a forest 

3. Selfie!

4. Nice mountains!

5. Cool little lookout area that we found and actually met someone who are going to teach this week! 

Heyy Family and Friends!

This week like last week, we have been really trying to focus on visiting less active people and finding new people as we travel from house to house. Not an easy task for sure! We have had little to no success with this so far, but that's okay! It doesn't matter how much success we have, it matters if we are working hard, being smart, following the spirit, and having fun while doing it! In relation to the title of my email, every time I feel discouraged about not being able to find anyone, I just sing the song "one by one" and I feel all better because we have to focus on individual people to really make an impact. We have to love people one by one. Also, we sang that song when we caught one of the rats that is living in our ceiling. There are more to catch so it is a song that is very applicable haha.

Wednesday was a really busy day so I want to tell you all about it. We had four appointments which included starting to teach a new guy who ones a bakery, teaching a bomb lesson about commandments to a kid who is close to baptism, being taught Korean by a less active man that has agreed to meet with us, and being bombarded with some of the hardest anti-church questions in the book by our German teaching friend. And to top this awesome day off, we got home around 9:35pm (we are supposed to be home at 9:00pm) because no one wanted to give to foreigners ride in their car. What a fun day!

Friday we met with a less active young man who has a really hard family. We just tried to show him as much love as we can and then shared a message about God's love for him. We invited him to church and then he came! He said he was going to come back next week to and we also might meet him this week again. Super AWESOME!

My companion elder Gailey keeps the boring times interesting. We have really deep discussions about awesome church topics and other topics. We are both learning a lot from each other and finding we have to be patient with our differing views on controversial things. It's a lot of fun with him.

Due to our awesome German friend, I have been thinking a lot about the topics and questions in our church history that are a little harder to understand and answer. I have come to realize on my mission that we have to be brave in asking the hard questions because if we don't , then when our faith is tested, those questions that we failed to ask may shake our faith and let doubt creep in. WE CAN'T LET THAT HAPPEN! We have to take time to research and learn about these hard topics, ask the questions about them, and then take it to the Lord. I have done that a lot this week and my testimony and belief in this church  being Jesus Christ's true church as increased. I want to share a poem with you guys that my dad sent me a little while ago.

"Doubt sees the obstacles

Faith sees the way

Doubt sees  the darkest night

Faith sees the day

Doubt fears to take a step

Faith soars on high

Doubt questions, "who believes?"

Faith answers, "I"

Let our faith never be shaken as we rely on Jesus Christ, the Savior of all mankind!

Love you all!

Elder Meeks

Personal Revelation

Pictures

1.Legend Grandma cruising down the roadways of life

2 funny selfie

3. Looking for the next meet buffet meal... Amiright? 

4. Real selfie

Hello Friends and Family!

I guess the big news this week was the permission missionaries received to call our families! I just had a super awesome conversation with my family and I am so grateful for the changes that have been made! Our church is truly led by men and women of God!

This week we have been working to help people start progressing in the gospel. It is easy to hear messages about our church, but until people start to begin to repent and act, change can never be made! We traveled a lot this week due to our area being really big, so we had a lot of fun conversations with people on the buses. We hitch hiked a few times this week and we got to squish in the back seat of a car two other grandmas and drove with a guy that was going like twice the speed limit who also thought we baptized people naked...yikes...

We have been working with the young men of our branch to help them fight all the horrible trends in korea. We usually call one every night and talk with them and share good stuff with them. The young men really love the missionaries here and they really enjoy spending time with us so we get a lot of free meals from them haha.

Zone conference this week was really great! We focused a bunch on the message of the restoration and how it is our unique message we have to share to the world. While were having the meeting, I thought about how to teach about the restoriation of the true church, we have to be personaly restored through repentance and obedience! I thought of this scripture that I wanted to share with you all! D&C 11:21

"Seek not to ^adeclare my word, but first seek to ^bobtainmy ^cword, and then shall your tongue be loosed; then, if you desire, you shall have my ^dSpirit and my word, yea, the power of God unto the ^econvincing of men."

I love this scripture so much because it does not make not mistake about what the promised blessings are if you sinceriley seek God's word!

The church is still true and will always be true!

Elder Meeks

Blessed are ye when men revile ye... for my sake

Hiking

Add Week 18 pictures

Hello! 

Missionary work never ceases to amaze me. It can pull thiings on you that you would never expect. Thank goodness for the goodness of a Heavenly Father and his strength he lends to those who seek and ask for it. I have really felt his strengh this week.

This week was the Chinese New Year so the amount of people on the streets were a lot less then usual. Therefore, there were not that many at all...yikes! We did a lot talking with the people on buses though. I got to teach the first lesson to an old guy on the bus and he seemed like he liked me a lot less after I was done, but its alright. I also met a nice guy from the States living in my in the same city as us. Just overall, talking to people is just so fun and its the only way for people to know about the restored Gospel of Jesus Christ!

There have been a few things on my mind lately, but one that has really stuck out to me this week. Before my mission, I heard about missionaries getting scoffed at and hated only because they carried a blue book in there hands. I heard of people getting spit on and kicked of places only because they wear the name of Jesus Christ on there chest. I had read about the missionaries in the scriptures and the hardships they went through and experienced. They persevered and kept going because they believed and new that God was on their side. I was so grateful to have God on my side this week. I experienced a few of these things in small ways this week. 

We had meal at a members house that turned into a very heated debate after coffee was mentioned. The people their had varying opinions about the subject. After a while, my companion and I had the opportunity to testify of the truthfulness of living prophets and their words being God's words. They did not take it kindly what we said, but I know that the Lord was on our side.

Saturday we had a less active randomly contact us and said that he wanted to meet. When we got to his house, it was apparent that his parents were devout believers in the Buddhism. He showed us pictures him and the missionaries that baptized him 30 years ago. He expressed to us some concerns about his life and about satan. His mother was in the same room and it was apparent she was not happy with what we were talking about. He began to feel emotional and then I was moved upon by the spirit to share with him a scripture. He loved it and was really grateful for it. We asked him if we could pray before we left and his mom began to get angry and started to yell at us to get out of her house. He really wanted to pray still, so we decided to pray outside his house. As we left, we gave his mom a gift of some fruit and she told us that we are never allowed to come back. We prayed with this man in his car and then we went home. I am so grateful for the Lord being on our side! 

After these experience, I was reminded of the the Lord's words in Mathew 5:11 which reads  "Blessed are ye, when men shall revile you, and persecute you, and shall say all manner of evil against you falsely, for my sake." I know that as we testify of Jesus Christ and his love for us, no matter how much people scoff at us and revile us, we will be blessed and the Spirit will be with us!

Love you all and I hope you have a great week!

Elder Meeks

This is definitely my first rodeo

Add Week 17 pictures


Hello everyone!

I have officially finished my first week in my new area called Sacheon! It is a really interesting area and it does not have a lot of people. But the people that are here are very awesome and very nice to talk to so that is great! My new companion elder Gailey is an older missionary so that means his Korea is really good and I am learning a lot from him. He is from midway Utah so he is a small town boy for sure. Super fun guy!

My first night in the area we had an appointment with a man who unfortunately does not have a lot of interest in the gospel. Isn't it so weird that people can love to white guys but not the saving gospel Jesus Christ? Haha theres a thought!

My first day was filled with a lot of planing for the area. This area is small but it has a lot of potential to become a big one. There are a lot of people to keep track of and a lot of things to do. It is a very big area because there is so much farm land and such so traveling is yikes sometimes. Our planing skills area realkh being put to the test!

Here is where the title of my email comes into play. Missionary work is all about adapting to knew things. We have an island in our area that has a long bridge that connects to it. After riding a little while on the bus you have get off and... Wait for it... Hitch hike!!! We hitch hike very very much in this area because most of the members live on the island and the people we are teaching also live on the Island. Since I was a kid I have wanted to hitch hike, and now I have the chance! It is super fun and also a very good way to meet and talk to people.

We have had a few appointments this week which went well. We hope to see one of the students we are teaching be baptized soon. We also got to play basketball with a recent convert and then play soccer with a young man whos parents are less active, but he is not baptized. Super interesting way to do missionary work, but these people need to be loved and so we find ways to love them!

Sunday I got to meet all the members! They are very kind a loving people. There are not very many, but they love with all there hearts and they are great! Our branch president really reminds me of my seminary teacher brother gentile. Love just eminates from his countenance. Super happy to work with him more! 

Some other highlights from my week

1. There is a special needs man on the street that always gives us high fives and walks us to the corner

2. There are a lot of Indonesia people here that love taking pictures with us so we are basically famous. 

3.we have a rat living in our ceiling that loves to keep us awake at night...yayyyyy

4.We got home pretty late one night he week because a guy we hitched hiked with dropped us off pretty far away.

5. Always get free banana bread from the banana bread man on the street. 

Love you all! Keep the faith!

Elder Meeks