September 20, 2021 - Quarantine Suji (Yongin)

Quarantine hits different as a missionary. Sure, we may still be locked up, and sure, our sanity may slowly be diminishing, but not only has nobody died yet, but we're keeping busy! In just the last 8 days, I have had a mission devotional with an apostle, a stake conference with the same apostle, a zone conference, zoom sacrament meeting, and 1 to 2 zoom classes every day! 

First of all, I don't know what kind of silly elder would fail to mention that they had had two meetings with an apostle of God, but it couldn't possibly be me. That being said, I thought I might remind you about it for a moment. Elder Anderson met with several of the Asian missions including Korea, Japan, and Mongolia. It was awesome! He gave some very powerful and specific tips and tricks I'm glad I get to put in my tool belt this early on. One thing he recommended we do is to find scriptures in the Book of Mormon and in the New Testament that we KNOW with all our hearts are true, and memorize them, so that when we share our testimony we can boost it with the power of the scriptures. I loved that! I wish I had time to share thoughts from all of the meetings I have had this week, but the most important thing I learned is that the spirit is the same here in Korea as it is back home. I was perhaps cheating a little bit - there were English translations for most of these meetings - and it might be stressful at times for a myriad of reasons, but the gospel is true for everyone, and that is the gospel I get to share with others!

I also found out who my trainer will be! Normally you meet your trainer day one of the field, but the mandated quarantine messes around with that. My trainer is going to be Elder Young! He is an American missionary at the very end of his mission, so I only get to be with him for his last three weeks. He has actually been working with the quarantined missionary training, so I somewhat already knows him. He seems great! I will be in a trio with Elder Ralphs! I will be in 수원 (suwon), which is just west of where I am staying right now in 용인 (yongin). I am sure I will have more to say on these fine two elders when I meet them in person at the end of this week, but that's really all the info I have.

Everything else is going swimmingly! We ordered some Nene Chicken one night, and oh boy if all Korean food is that good I will never be able to eat food in America again. It is still quite stressful knowing I have to hit the field for real later this week. Every opportunity to listen to natives speak the language is quite overwhelming! But as I said last week, I feel nothing but comfort from the spirit. Im sure Ill have more to say next week, so in the meantime thanks for your live and support! I don't have many pictures because I haven'

t been outside in more than a week, but you will likely be getting many in the coming weeks. Having a camera on your phone is super convenient!