January 18

It was a hard week this week, and not very much happened.  

One day I felt like I needed to call our hospitalized investigator to see if he picked up the phone and he did. He had just gotten out of the hospital and charged his phone that morning. He had said that because the hospital was boring he had been reading the Book of Mormon, which is a miracle in itself because he went into the hospital because he was going blind. He said he is about half way done with it and is praying about it.  The only bad part is that he goes into the hospital again today( i think) to get another surgery. So he has said we can visit with him next week hopefully.

We met with our Pakistan investigator and he is a tough one. He has a lot of deep questions and we are trying to teach him simply but his questions he asks are not simple questions. Elder Bodan and I will talk about him this more and think about dropping him, he just is not very prepared to accept what we are saying.

This week I got to read one of my favorite stories in the scriptures, the story of Alma meeting Amulek and both of them going and contending against Zeezrom. I love these two missionaries and the way they work together to confound Zeezrom. I loved it a lot! I found some cool points. I have also been working on improving my prayers so I have been studying a little bit about that as well. 

Playing the piano this week was in one word...laughable. In more ways than one. I found out a couple days before the stake presidency was coming to visit us. That made me a little bit nervous. Me playing was better than not having the piano, but not by much.. I was glad I could laugh at myself and everyone could laugh and forgive me..

Im super excited to go to Nauvoo that will be cool!!!!!!

LOVE YA LOTS!!!!!

Miles

 

 

Elder Boden burning a shirt

Elder Miles the Younger

It was a fun week for us out here. We had some let downs and lots of little happy moments that made it a pretty interesting week this week. 

One letdown this week was our investigator who was in the hospital has not had any contact with us. He is in a hospital where they will not let anyone but family visit and his phone is turned off. So we honestly have no idea how he is doing. We just have to wait until he comes out of the hospital.So we will just have to wait on that one...

On the bright side we had one of our investigators come to his appointment with his two friends. When we first looked at the situation Elder Bodan and i were both kinda bummed because usually multiple people in one lesson is hard and it doesn't end up being a lesson, but it turned out to be one of the best lessons we have had together. They all went to the Catholic church to go and study the scriptures and learn about God, but they said they didn't like it because the people there just wanted to hang out and play around. They said right in front of us that they don't think that it is true.  We shared the first lesson with them and then answered a lot of their questions. They seemed to like our church a lot, so they will  be great investigators.

My study today was a lot in Mosiah.  I read and ponder alot about the conversion story of Alma the Younger.  thinking about that brought me back a little bit to repentance. I found some cool stuff on it. I have also been studying the Christlike Attributes more and focusing on applying them to my life. My attribute this week was humility and I saw some blessings come from striving to be more and more humble this week.

My miracle this week was that an investigator that we have been trying to meet with since I got here came to church on Sunday. He slipped in late and left right after so we didn't have a huge amount of time to talk to him, but it was good to finally meet with him. We should be meeting with him this week. I hope we do!

I got a calling in our ward this week.......I am the new ward pianist...it was pretty awful this last sunday...but i will be practicing really hard this week. good news is it gave me more of a desire to play piano and practice again!

Love you lots!!!

Elder Miles Diede the Younger

pic. walking on a frozen river

 

 

Sportn Korean Glasses

Like to the Look

Contest winner- Elder Diede

Making Dumplings

Pork Intestine soup-  Favorite

Funny English

It was kind of another week where the wheels are turning but your not going anywhere. Those kind of weeks are definitely bound to come. It was slow with investigators this week, our investigator with the baptismal date went into the hospital again and the hospital didn't allow us to visit him on the weekend so we will try and visit again this week. We have been keeping in contact with him talking through the phone but haven't seen him in person this next week.  All of the rest of our investigators either couldn't meet or punked their appointments. We did pick up a new investigator, but im not sure how much interest he really has in the church. I'm getting the vibe that he just likes us and because we remind him of his sons he wants to meet with us.

so because it is new years we make 떡만두국(dumpling soup) with the ward. I ate TONS!!! also cool fact: If you make pretty dumplings later done the road you will have pretty daughters....im pretty sure your gonna have some pretty granddaughters. not being prideful or anything....;) also after I ate a ton of that we had an appointment and he didnt listen to us and took us to a resturaunt and bought us 순대국밥(pig intestine soup) Super good but I was SOOO full!! I was keeping the food down with my chin. But I did throw up this week once..on purpose. Elder Bodan and I did a food challenge. the challenge is drinking 30 of these yogurt things. I surpassed the mark...see picture.....

This week for study I was in the Book of Mormon, I read from Jacob and started a little bit in Mosiah. Well, it is a lot easier to understand the Allegory in Jacob 5 now. It took a little bit of hard studying, but i got most of it down I think. Also something cool this week was I was reading an older Liahona an there was a guy who asked pretty close to the same question that I asked you last week about repentance. It answered more of my question, but lets definitely talk about that more later! That was a cool "mini" miracle this week.

So Trasfer calls also came. I am staying with Elder Bodan...no surprise. The kid that replace me in my last here is coming to be Elder Batschi's comp so I will talk to him tons!!!

One of my other miracles this week was that I get to stay with Elder Bodan again for another transfer. Elder Bodan is a blast to be with and he teaches me alot. I am also super excited to have Elder West come here so he can tell me how my old area, recent convert and investigators are doing. I am excited to see the miracles this next transfer!!

Love you lots!!!!!

Elder Miles Diede

December 28,2014

Hey!

First off im jealous of the Fiesta Bowl. 

This week was a week for me. but not because of the visible success we had this week, actually there wasn't a huge amount of that.  We met with our investigator who is the walking hospital. He is having some struggles with life even more lately. When we met him this week he told us multiple times how he has had thoughts of suicide this week. We talked to him a little bit about that and then Elder Bodan and I decided to share the He is the gift video. He really liked that and it really set the tone for the rest of the lesson. It set the tone so much that we gave him a baptismal date and he accepted the day. The only problem with that is because he is really sick, he cannot come to church easily and to null the pain he turns to smoking and drinking. We will be continuing to try and prepare him for baptism over the next coming week so he can get baptized in January. 

We have another college student who we met with, but he was just really sad that his dog was in the hospital so he didnt listen to us much.He was just really sad. Finally we also picked up a new investigator who, as Elder Bodan tells me is golden. I have not met him before because I was on exchanges when we had an appointment with him.  

So this week was a good study/pondering week for me and i have a couple questions for you. I am reading in the Book of Mormon in 2 Nephi and I have noticed that one of the patterns in the Isaiah chapter is Repentance. I really felt this week that I need to understand the role of repentance and how we use it better. not because I have some huge sin in my life, but i feel like I will have to explain it and use it better. Maybe I will just have to talk to you in person to make more sense, but I will say it briefly. So.. we all repent and have to keep repenting because we are human and make the same mistakes over and over again. One part of repentance is feeling Godly sorrow,forsaking the sin and asking for forgiveness through Prayer and maybe talking to your bishop. so my first question would be when does the sin become something you have to confess? I know you confess the big sins, but If i feel Godly sorrow for commiting the sin and ask for forgiveness is that full repentence or must there be more? Also because we are human we will almost always make the same mistakes, therefore commiting the same sin we just felt sorry for and promised not to do anymore. That is where the infinite atonement comes in, because He suffered we get unlimited second chance. We just have to STRIVE to be perfect. Because we always are making the mistake over and over, we are never really forsaking the sin. Sometimes after I make the same mistake again i get frustrated because I question if I truly repented in the first place. so How do we truly hate the sin and leave it behind us? As you can tell I had alot to think about this week.

So the reason I will remember this week is because it was a great time to embrace the Spirit of Christ, not Christmas. I dont know if I will ever have a really good chance to do that again but I want to make it a part of my Christmas every year and life every day. I Love this Gospel so much! It makes me be a better person, man, missionary and future husband and father every day! Transfer Calls is this week so we will see what happens. im pretty sure im staying with Elder Bodan!

Love ya Lots!!

Miles

Merry Christmas

Merry Christmas!!

Kind of another slow week. Not really the kind of week you want before Christmas, but i firmly believe when people are rejecting you and you are trying your hardest to get your goals but they are not coming is the point where you are the closest to finding that prepared person that you need to find. I hope that happens soon. 

We did pick up a new investigator this week who is a teacher at a middle school. He does not believe in any religion, but he does think that the christian churches here in Korea are completely money orientated. Which is true.  We talked to him about how our church is not that way, but he got caught up some little things. He knows about our Temples and General Conference. The thing he couldn't get is why we have to spend so much money making the temples big and beautiful and why do the people need to sit in big expensive looking chairs in General Conference. He said it was a waste because God would accept anything and you could give that money to help the poor. We tried to explain that we want to give our best to God and because it is the house of God we want to make it Beautiful for Him, but he didn't really seem to get it. He is a really nice guy, He just wants everything to be completely logical, but he is not confrontational at all so it is good to talk to him.

Our other investigator we met with is a literal walking hospital.. He is a pretty solid and wants to get baptized he just cant because he is always in the hospital and cant quit drinking. (two things that really shouldn't go together) We went to his house and he lives in real bad conditions. He eats really crappy, his house is NOT clean and he has no money to pay for floor heat so it is freezing. He told us he would come to Church, but he did not come.

Alot of our investigators promised to come to our Christmas Party but they did not show up...

I decided to read the Book of Mormon one more time cover to cover with the remaining chunk of my mission and I am using a Study manual along with it so i am getting new insights that I have never really thought of before. I am also planning on focusing on a Christlike attribute every week and study about that as well. I have my studying pretty well planned out for the rest of my time and hopefully carry on after.

So this week we had the Christmas party and I had the great pleasure of dressing up as Jolly old Saint Nick and distribute candy and presents to the kids. It was alot different than me doing it last year because i can speak WAY more Korean than I could last year. My miracle comes from seeing the kids. For one Korean kids are one of the cutest, but seeing them as they received the presents I gave out. Their eyes were SO bright. Makes me think and desire more to share the greatest gift of all with everyone. I want to see more people's eyes that wide when they receive the Gospel.

This is the true Church, True Gospel and He is the gift!! #sharethegift

Love You! 

Investigator from last area, possibly baptism soon

Coming home May 15- Five months from today!!!!

Hello Family!

 This week was one of those weeks that just feels like the tires are spinning and you're not really going anywhere. But it wasn't all bad. I always love the chance to get to go to the Temple, so that was a very needed experience this week. 

Th investigators ran kind of slow this week. When I first got here there was alot of potential and people meeting. But now alot of them fell of the face of the earth. I think maybe it was because they just liked Elder Smith, but we still have a couple of solid investigators. We met with one of our Chinese investigators this week and ate dinner with him. Being at the restaurant made it a little bit hard to teach him but we talked to him a little bit about why he believes in buddism. From the sound of it he doesnt really believe he just goes to the temple because it is culture. Also i dont see why he would not come to church. This last week he went to Seoul so he couldnt make it.

Then our investigator who had a baptismal date kind of dropped us...He is too busy with tests and will go back to his hometown for school vacation so he said that was the last time he could meet with us until March so that nixes his date. We are planning on giving his number to the missionaries in his hometown, maybe they can meet with him during vacation.

We picked up 2 friends as investigators both finished high school and with go to college here. One is really good at English and the other is not. They are both really cool kids. We went and ate with them and they were really surprised that we could eat meat. We explained to them that we could eat meat and talked bout the Book of Mormon with them. We also picked up an investigator from Rwanda. He is decent at English and learning Korean through English so it is a struggle for him. We are working with the office to see if we have church materials in his language.

For study this week one thing that I really liked was doing a PMG activity of What do you want to say, who do you want to become and what is the difference you want others to see in you after your mission is over. I want to finish off this last quarter of my mission strong and do exactly what the Lord will have me do.

My miracle this week was after the Temple we decided to go to the war museum. Through walking around in the museum more than all of the tanks, planes and guns my favorite part was learning about and loving the people I serve even more. There were parts in the museum where I felt an extreme amount of love for the Korean people. I love this country so much!

Love ya Lots!!!

also...im coming home on May 15th so 5 months from today^^.

 

Yummy Soup

 

Physically feeding the Body and Spirit

How are you doing?  This week was a fun but very cold week my fingers have almost fallen off a couple of times. We had the chance to meet with a couple of our investigators this week. 4 of them are progressing now. We have two Chinese investigators who we met with each of them individually. They both like to talk a lot, so sometimes it is difficult to stay on track with them but we successfully taught both of them.  Then we also have another kid that has a baptismal date for the 3rd of next month. The only catch is that he will go back to his hometown after all of his tests are over so it will be hard to teach him everything before then. He told us this after he accepted the baptismal date. The last investigator that is progressing of ours is a 24 year old from Mongolia. We wanted to watch the Restoration video with him in Mongolian, but that is not one of the options so we watched it in Korean with English subtitles, and I think that worked okay. He definitely didn't understand all of it, but he got everything he needed to. We also picked up a New investigator from Pakistan, who is very bold in his comments but he is a good guy that really wants to know what is true. he just asks a ton of really hard questions, that sent us bouncing around trying to explain it. 

For studies this week I read a couple of general conference talks and got some really good insights from that. I also read bits and pieces of the Bible and the Book of Mormon, nothing really too big or anything to report. I also read in PMG about extending commitments. there was a section that stood out to me. It says that with everything we do it should have some type of invitation or commitment. I have always known that but it kind of just stuck out to me more. I will definitely work on that a little bit more this week.

One of my miracles this week was at church. They members really trust me a lot.  They ask me lots of questions and call on me to say stuff in church. I guess I haven't really had that opportunity in a situation where i can understand what they are saying and say an intelligence answer, but I like it. Again I really love the members here. It is cool to be in a really small ward again where you can get to know people a lot better.

The food here is so cheap...and good....i will get fat.......

LOVE YOU!!!!!!!!!! #sharethegift

Miles

BTW: I got the xmas package. I am still figuring out when i am going home and when we are calling. LOVES!!!

Duck Meat

Spicy Crab

Ice Cream Waffle-  Oh Yeah!