Elder Wardle's Mission Letter

  This is another two week email, and keep buckled because it's been busy! I'll start with Zone conference, which if you have read my comments on previous zone conferences, it will not surprise you to know that it was fantastic. I went in with two specific questions and proceeded to get 4 trainings to specifically answer them. I got to spend time with other phenomenal missionaries, hear the good word of God, and revisit Daejeon two weeks after I left it. The city is still as comfortable as I remember, missionaries continue to be the best company, and the Word of God continues to be the lifeblood of my time as a missionary. The big takeaway from zone conference was to work with and through the members of our areas, and as me and my companion returned to Chungju, we thought of effective ways to do that. The next day, over the course of several separate ideas, line upon line, that were then combined, we came up with our foolproof Chungju Member Missionary Work Program (tm) and got...

 A new place and some new faces! This week was a week full of news. I had been in Daejeon for a long long time, so this time, transfers felt strange. I am so excited to be here, though! Chungju (which is different from Cheongju and Jeonju) is a much smaller city than my last assignment, but also bigger than Gimjae. It's perhaps an hour and change across, which means we get to do a ton of walking. Almost everything important to us, such as the church, is all within 30 minutes, but the train station and bus terminal is 40 minutes by bus, which will make traveling to missionary activities much less convenient.  Online finding is not a thing here, and that is almost exclusively how we found in Daejeon, so I am pumped to pick up the skill of street proselyting. If we have any free moment we are outside talking to people. People in a smaller city like this are also more talkative, and talking with the old Korean grandmas is such a pleasure. The members here are fantastic! Our fridge...

Dawn of the Final Day - 24 Hours Remain - Hello everybody! Transfer calls were on Saturday, and if you can't tell from the subject of this email, I am leaving! I will be serving in 충주 [Chungju] with Elder Smith! This transfer was a huge one, but I want to talk about other things that happened this week first, so stay tuned! This week was busy! We finally finished preparing for the Daejeon Stake english camp! Well, I say 'finished', but there are still details to be ironed out, and because of transfers, many new missionaries need to be trained and informed about what the plan is. The big picture is done, however, and it should be excellent! I won't be here for the actual event, but the preparation should be well worth it (maybe, assuming whoever is there pulls it off) Normally, when transfers come around, we use the threat that we might be moving to guilt trip our friends into meeting with us often before we leave, but this time around we were actually too busy to do tha...

Things are going well in the Daejeon Kingdom! Transfer calls are this Saturday, so we have been using the excuse that one of us might leave to get a ton of appointments lined up. Combine that with contacting tons of old referrals (some of which are more than a year old, but still want to meet), and we are busy busy busy! Our existing teaching friends are a slow grind, but many are progressing. As an example, one teaching friend we have been teaching for 4 months came to Sacrament meeting for the first time this week! Many small miracles are leading into each other, and many of our teaching friends just need to take that last leap of faith. I went back and listened to one of my favorite talks this week. It's a BYU devotional titled "Cast Not Away Therefore Thy Confidence" by Elder Holland, and it lays the foundation of understanding revelation as it applies to us in our busy, temptation-filled lives. If you can find it, please listen to it! It really is wonderful. I hope e...