A Marvelous Work

I'm excited about the way things are going right about now. I feel
so much more successful at missionary work since the Simplified
Curriculum came out. Just to prove my point, President Jennings
announced that since we rolled out the new program 3 weeks ago the
average number of baptismal dates in the mission has more than
TRIPLED!!! That's a miracle!!

The catch comes in that I was just barely starting to find some new
investigators last week when something got thrown in the spokes. In my
interview with Pres. Jennings we spoke about the unique situation of
the Chinhae and Pungho wards and how they really shouldn't be split
anyway and dividing the missionary work in them is really not all that
effective....so according to my wishes, President told me that we're now
back in both wards and the Elders are also---as a special exception to
the one team/one ward program he rolled out. This is perfect because
the area really needs to be covered by someone in both wards, but,
seeing as all of the investigators I found in the last week have been
men...it means that the Elders just picked up all of my investigators
and I'm practically down to zilch again. No complaints...the Elders
will be better for each of these people anyway...it just means I have a
lot of work to do and it's gotten to the point where I don't have enough
time left to be able to see my efferts go into full effect. It's
okay...this isn't about self-gratification anyway. The good news is
that one of my investigators that I had to give to the Elders because
she's in the Pungho ward is gaining lots of faith--and I get to go back
to teach her (she's been threatening Elder Heaton that she might move
into Chinhae ward in order to have me teach her--hehe). Right now her
fear is that if she goes to Church everyone will judge her for not
having her whole family there. It's hard because I can't actually
promise her that they won't---all I can promise is that it doesn't
matter if they do...it doesn't make the Church any less true. Her name
is Kim Hyon Ju---prayers for her to gain the courage to go to Church
would be fabulous.

Prayers for me to find new investigators and keep my head on
straight would be fabulous, too. My planner is such a mess...I keep
accidentally writing things on the wrong days and losing important
information. It's a good thing my companion is in charge of the keys
and the phone or I don't think we'd ever manage to find them. My brain
is getting quite fried from this whole missionary work thing. I hope
this goes away when I get home...the left-brained part of me is going
crazy.

Let it be known that I was effectively squashing any and all
trunkiness until Pres. Jennings had the nerve to bring up marriage in my
intervew. Isn't there a rule against talking about that stuff or
something?

I've kinda had a blast with this whole Sister's Representative
stuff. It's a lot of responsiblity that I don't really have time or
energy for, but It's really quite fulfilling. Serving the sisters in
this mission is such a wonderful priveledge. I split with Sis.
Patterson this past week. It was so delightful to bring her to the
beautiful land of Chinhae and let her artistic mind for free on it.
It's been a long time since I've spent much time with someone who was
really so delved into the arts that it was a part of their thought and
behavior. Even the way she speaks is very beautiful and poetic. It's
funny how much of a difference it makes to go from normal people who
just speak because something needs to be to go to people who say things
that need to be said, but in a beautiful and thought out way. Kinda
weird that I noticed, I guess. There just wasn't any stumbling
awkwardness about her words. Two Splits down....one to go. I love
this.

It's getting hotter and stickier now. I'm not quite sure that I've
dried out yet after my shower from last night---even with a fan right
on me all night. My eyes usually sting from the salt of my sweat...not
that you needed to know that...showering twice a day never sounded so
appealing since the dawn of time. Ick.

Things are going really well. Life is great and missionary work is
fun. I just know that God hears us and He guides us....simply because
He loves us. That's all you really need to know.

Be Happy!

~R~