Po Hang

ive been in my new area po hang (its actually po hong, hong like hong kong) for a week and i really like it here. its in the northeast corner of the mission. theres a big steel business, i think its the biggest in asia? so apparently it doesnt snow because of the pollution or something but its still freezing. we ride bikes everywhere and i feel like my face is going to fall off sometimes. the area is pretty big and really confusing. the city is just a bunch of windy roads put together and i have no idea where we are going half of the time.
the branch president here is a really cool guy. hes only been president for 2 months and hes really humble. we went to his house for dinner last friday night and he talked to us about our companionship and how important it is. my companion and i have already served together for 4 months and have a good relationship so i just kind of smiled and nodded at all of his advice but later realized that he said some really important things that i could do a lot better. as a companionship one of the most important principles to learn is trust. if you cant rely on your companion and trust the things that he does then the companionship isnt unified. if there's no unity then there is no room for the spirit to work and lead the missionaries. as missionaries we have to put our faith in the Lord but also in our companions and trust that they are working with the same purpose as we are. the 2,000 stripling warriors are an example of this because they didnt doubt the Lord and trusted the words of the their mothers. they believed the things that they were taught and applied them.
talking about trust im reminded of one of my favorite scriptures that i learned in brother andre's freshmen seminary class. its something like this: 'trust in the Lord with all thine heart and lean not to thy own understanding. in all thy ways acknowledge him and he shall direct thy paths (for good). proverbs 3:5-6. i know that if we put our trust in the Lord he will direct us and lead us the way we need to go; whether its a missionary companionship, marriage companionship, or just someone looking for direction. The Lord is always there, ready to lead us.

ElderWells

The Church is True; With Elder Jin again!

i moved out of chong won today. i was there for 5 transfers (7 months) and am ready for a new area and companion. so im in my new area called po hang but im back with one of my old companions. his name is jin mean young and i was with him for 4 months in chong one just over a month ago. i guess we messed up and needed to do things over again. i dont know. we got along great so it should be fun. i think i'll like the area and stuff. i just got here and have to do some other stuff so i have to go but i'll let you know how the first week goes next week.

the church is true.

Elder Wells

The Church is

i moved out of chong won today. i was there for 5 transfers (7 months) and am ready for a new area and companion. so im in my new area called po hang but im back with one of my old companions. his name is jin mean young and i was with him for 4 months in chong one just over a month ago. i guess we messed up and needed to do things over again. i dont know. we got along great so it should be fun. i think i'll like the area and stuff. i just got here and have to do some other stuff so i have to go but i'll let you know how the first week goes next week.

the church is true.

Elder Wells

Last week with Kern dog, broadcast

This week was a hard one. i found out last monday night that my companion elder kern is going home because he is sick. it wasnt too big of a shock for him because he has had bad stomach problems for a long time but i thought they would keep him here until the end of the transfer. he left yesterday and so now im in a three some with one of my old companions (elder boardman) and a korean elder. should be fun.

yesterday was an interesting day. we had a stake conference but it was a nationwide satellite broadcast straight from the presidency of the church. i got to hear elder Evans of the 70 (a lot of koreans think i look like him), elder holland, and president uchtdorf. Im not sure if they do broadcasts like this for every country but this one was specifically for Korea and focused on some problems members have to deal with here. the main topic was establishing zion in korea because many move to america for schooling and to live which really hurts the church here. my favorite part was elder holland's talk. he talked about the need for korean young men to serve missions. a lot of koreans dont go on missions because they have to serve two years in the military and schooling is really important to them. right now there are 114 korean missionaries around the world. he noted that he understands how hard it is for koreans but that the first presidency expects them to go and if they do they will be blessed. i dont have the exact quote but he said something like 'i promise that if you go on a mission the Lord will provide a way for you to be successful.' the power in his voice was inspirational. i know that what he said is true and that me and my family have been blessed from my service to the Lord.
thats all i have time to say. wish i could tell you more about the meeting though.

-Elder Wells

Nope No Baptism

ok so this week was kind of a crazy one. the lady i was going to baptize called off her baptism so that was kind of a bummer. she is just having a hard time emotionally right now and needs some time to think. its alright though, im confident that she'll get baptized when she thinks she's ready.
that was the main focus of the week for me. we went to her house and gave her a blessing and stuff so everything should work out. besides that we spent some time with the youth this week on saturday. they had a stake activity with a mini mtc and a street prosyliting activing. it reminded me of when i was a junior in high school and we did the mini mtc in our stake. a little different though. i remember parker speaking in the mtc and saying that he would trade places with any of us high school students just so he could go on a mission again. i couldnt understand why he would ever do that. he was a cool college student on the byu raquet ball team living a fun life and preparing to get married. why would he want to give that up for something as hard as a mission? im still not sure if i fully understand and i might have to go home to realize how much i love this work but i can see what he is talking about. its the small miracles or the new investigator or the loving members that make this work amazing. i am grateful for the opportunity to see God's hand in this work, in my life, and in the lives of the Korean people. theres nothing like it.

Love,
Elder Wells

Baptism?

I think i talked last week about some investigators that want to be baptized but havent gotten permission from their parents. well one of the kids (golden investigator) talked to his dad and his dad said that he cant get baptized or come to church at all. so that was bad. we're going to keep fasting and praying though. The next kid still hasnt talked to his mom and we havent met him because he has to study...so thats that.
i do have some good news though. the sisters have an american investigator that is getting baptized this next saturday and she asked me to baptize her. i've met her a few times and shes amazing. she has studied the gospel and is really ready to make a covenant with God. i called her on the phone to congratulate her on her decision to get baptized and she bore testimony to me on how amazing the church is. she then said that she would be honored if i baptized her. it was a cool experience to talk to her. i really feel like being able to baptize her has been an answer to my prayers. its hard to explain but this experience has strengthened my testimony of prayer and i know that Heavenly Father answers our prayers one way or another. it truly is amazing.

Love,
Elder Wells

Korean Basketball 2 baptisms?

i found out a few weeks ago that one of my old investigators from jejudo is studying at busan university so i called him up and he came to chong one yesterday to hang out. we got permission to go to a professional korean basketball game. it was way fun. right as we were about to buy tickets some guy came up and gave them to us for free. the game was pretty normal;half the players were korean and the other half were weird foreigners, probably people that didnt make it into the nba but refused to give up their dreams. so the best part was that during one of the time outs the cheerleaders grabbed huge bundles of bananas and started giving them to people in the crowd. i was expecting them to give out t shirts or something but nope, definitely bananas. one of the cheerleaders came to our section gave the bundle of like 20 bananas to my companion. it was hilarious. we also saw our faces on the big jumbo screen and stuff. good times.

This last week we saw a lot of miracles. we have two progressing investigators (miracle) and they both committed to be baptized in a week! (huge miracle). but the problem is that both of them dont think that their parents will let them get baptized. we will probably have to push the baptism date back but if everything goes well this ward will see the first baptism its seen since february. im really excited. one thing i've learned from the first week with my new companion is to not be discouraged. just as doubt is the opposer to faith, ive learned that discouragement is the opposition to hope. im trying to be positive and hope for the best in all things. it has worked so far. have a good week. be positive.
love,
Elder Wells

Stone Soup

i titled this one stone soup because i found a rock in my sea weed soup on thursday. my companion wasn't very surprised and told me that they pull seaweed from rocks and sometimes the rocks just come off with the weeds. the rocks and soup reminded me of a childrens book story called stone soup and i thought it was ironic.
this week went by fast just like the others. we had a cool experience while street contacting on wednesday. we met a student and taught him the whole restoration on a bench for about 30 minutes and gave him a book of mormon. then we found out that one of his teachers is actually the patriarch in our ward/stake so we told the patriarch about the lesson and he got the student to come to church. so we taught the student at church and now have plans to meet him twice a week. it was the miracle of my week.

Love,
Elder Wells

General Conference and Market

the highlight of this week was definitely general conference. we watch it a week late here because they have to translate it into korean. but we watched it in english of course. one of the things that hit me was the first talk in the saturday session by Elder Scott. while i was in the car going to conference saturday morning the member we were with put on conference in english for us to listen to. i didnt know what session we were listening to but it was Elder Scott talking so passionately about following the spirit and avoiding pornography. i just assumed that it was priesthood session and was shocked to hear the woman start speaking after him. it showed to me how serious this problem is and how all members need to be aware of it.
i also was touched by a number of other talks including the one by the Korean Elder yoon hwan che. he was actually in the same ward as my companion when my companion got baptized.
this last week was a good one. we had zone conference and learned about the atonement. its amazing how many new things i can learn about the same subject. i enjoyed watching my mission president testify of the power of the Atonement and how we can use it to carry ourselves in this work. i also have felt extra strength in times when i have wanted to give up.

thats all,

Elder Wells

ps i dont think any of you will care but i bought cheese and had a quesedilla for the first time in over a year. it was amazing. i also bought these cookies called tim tam's. they are from Australia and if you eat them with hot chocolate they melt and like the best thing in the world.

Apartments, temples and ice skating

This week was awesome. we didnt get to do missionary work the whole week but i got to spend some time with ward members and expirience a little bit of what a korean holiday is like. the holiday was on saturday but people had work and school off from friday until monday. on friday we had a full pday so we got permission to get up early and hike the second highest mountain in korea called jiri san. it was really steep and because of time we had to stop about half way and come down. but we went to the highest buddhist temple in korea. thats what the picture of me sitting on the rock thing is about. on saturday, the actual holiday, we didnt get any invitations to eat with members so we ate dinner with some less actives and i learned some korean games. sunday there werent a lot of memebers at church because they all went out of town but the ones that were there had dinner together. some of the kids were wearing korean traditional clothes and stuff. it was cool.
because of the full pday we dont have a pday today, we just have time to email. but all the youth have school off so we went ice skating with them. it brought back a lot of memories of my ice hockey class at byu.

the work here is slowing down. my companion and i are trying hard to find people that will listen to our message. our investigators are doing alright, the subway guy loves reading the Book of Mormon and knows its true but says he isnt ready to come out to church and the teenager referal we got from the music fireside has been busy with school because of a test. but we are still seeing miracles in this work as we live the gospel and try to help others. i learned a lot this week about repentance and how super incredibly important it is. we really have been given this time period, this life, to repent. (alma 12:24) i was thinking recently about how we make Heavenly Father happy and what we can do to make him have joy. then i read a scripture about repentance and it just clicked. it was Doctrine and Covenants 18: 10-15. I know that Heavenly Father has joy in the penitent and im so grateful for the opportunity to help bring people to repentance.

Love,
Elder Wells

Korean Holiday

This week on saturday is a holiday called chew suck. i guess its like korean thanksgiving? i dont really know because last chew suck i was in the mtc. i think im more excited that we get an extra p day than i am about the actually holiday. so on friday we get a full pday and we can pretty much do whatever we want. we might climb a mountain or go to busan and watch a baseball game. not really sure. it should be fun though.
the picture i attached is of the pest control system they use here in chong one. a guy drives his motorcycle around and shoots out bug spray. they've been doing it a lot recently and my companion says its to prevent the swine flu. i dont really see how they're related..

we learned in a meeting this week about the future of missionary work and how we have to work with members. this involves visiting them and getting them excited about missionary work. i dont know what it's like in other countries or other missionaries but for me visiting members, especially ones that i dont really know, can be hard. unless we go over for a dinner appointment, it can be weird to just drop in and start up a conversation. i dont always know what to say to them or how to relate to them. but we tried it out a few times and it went well. the members have a lot of faith and want to do missionary work, they just dont know how to help a lot of the time. especially here in korea, a lot of members think that missionary work is done through english programs and stuff. now that we dont rely on english to find people anymore we have to work together with the members to be successful.

드림,
elder Wells

Why I'm on a Mission

for p day today we got together with other missionaries and are at a navy museum thing. so im emailing on a boat right now. its not that exciting. its actually a bummer because i have an awesome picture that i want to send but i cant. i'll just do it next week. this week we met with a recent convert that ive told you about before. he's in high school and isnt sure if he wants to go to college in japan or go on a mission or what. so we talked to him about missionary work and told him what a mission is all about. i think about how much i knew about missions when i was his age and i actually didnt know that much. i didnt know how to prepare for a mission in a lot of ways. i thought that way because i didnt know if i was going to be in texas, africa, or korea. but now that i look back on it i realize that that didnt really matter and that there are a lot more ways i could have prepared for a mission. for anyone preparing to go on a mission or even on a mission i would say that the best thing to do is decide if you have desire. decide why you are going on a mission. that is all the Lord requires. He says in D&C 4 that if you have a desire to serve God, ye are called to the work. thats it. he doesnt say if you have a knowledge of the gospel, ye are called to the work. he doesnt say if you get your seminary award and duty to God ye are called to the work. although all of those things are important, the only real requirement is desire. its the same with God's commandments. Why do we keep God's commandments? it shouldnt be because we are scared or because we are afraid of what others think of us when we break them, it should be because we love Heavenly Father and trust his words. God shows us that the we want to keep his commandments and we should have a desire to show our love for God and all that he has given us. we do this by keeping the commandments.
ok im kind of rambling but i've been thinking a lot about this and it has really helped me find out why im here and why im doing what im doing. i love it.

Love,
Elder Wells

Tranfers but no transfer...

The weeks go by so fast that its hard to remember what was going on and what has changed. today is the start of a new transfer here. it probably doesnt mean much to any of you but transfer call night is like the most exciting thing in most missionaries lives. well it is at least in mine. i found out that im staying here in chong one with my korean companion elder jean. this is my third transfer with him and means that i will have been with a korean about 8 months in the last year (3 transfers with americans, 6 with koreans) kind of crazy. the sad part is that i still cant really speak this language. thats ok though.
moving on...i dont have an update on the canada girl and our subway guy didnt come to church yesterday but i had a cool expirience on the street the other day. we were walking to subway to visit our investigator and started talking to a guy on the street. he allowed us to sit down and talk to him about the book of mormon. we explained what it was and where it came from and he seemed really interested. we gave him a copy and got his phone number. we havent been able to call him back yet but it was a cool little miracle and it made me happy to see that someone is willing to listen to our message.
welp that was probably the highlight of my week. i hope all of you are doing good.

love,
elder wells

Members make a difference

The coolest thing that happened this week is that the girl that lived in Canada has started meeting with the sisters again. totally an answer to our prayers. the sisters wanted some help so my companion and i came along and we taught her the plan of salvation. she had some questions about what happens to people that dont have a chance to receive the gospel on the earth and we of explained it to her. it was good stuff.
Another miracle was that our investigator that owns subway came to church yesterday. i was worried about him because he's a really shy, sensitive guy and i didnt know how he would react to our large ward. it went really well though and the members totally fellowshipped him. experiences like these have really opened my eyes to how important it is for members to fellowship investigators and how they really can make the difference.
i was studying today in Luke chapter 9 and i found a really good scripture about missionary work. i think its verse 62. it talks about going to work and not looking back. he that looks back is not worthy of the kingdom of God. i like it because i've been trying to work on being 100% focused on the work and not looking back on my family, old areas and other distractions. it is a lot harder than i thought it would be but i know that the Lord is guiding my path.
well thats all for today.

love,
elder wells

translating

i attached some common foods that we eat here. this would kind of be a fast food meal. on the left we have something called 'o dang,' its definately not my favorite. my first korean companion would call it a fish hot dog becuase thats exactly what it is. its ground up fish compacted into a solid form, kind of like how hot dogs are made. in the middle is soon-day. its made similar to a sausage but a little different. they jam rice and noodles into cleaned out pig intestines and cut them up into pieces. in the same dish is cooked pig liver. i actually like it over the fish stuff. on the right is my favorite of the three. its called duk poke-e. duk is really good, its made out of rice but its a squishy white substance. kind of like a marshmallow but a lot denser and not sweet. they cook it and dump a red spicy sauce over it. this was my dinner last monday.

this week our zone put on a music fireside for the stake we serve in. yeah our whole zone is one stake. its called the masan stake. we spent saturday proselyting with members and inviting them to come to the fireside at night. we also visited less actives and invited them. the turn out wasn't very impressive but we got a few less active families to come so it was exciting. i loved the spirit that comes from singing hymns of the Lord. very powerful.
at sacrament meeting the next day i got asked to translate for a foreign lady named ariana who is going back to the US. they asked her to give a five minute testimony a few minutes before the meeting so we had no time to prepare. i was really nervous because it is probably one of the hardest things to do. not only is speaking in front of a big ward hard but translating someone else's talk into korean without knowing what they are going to say is a lot of pressure. so of course i prayed and asked for help from Heavenly Father. the lady and i stood at the podium and alternated as she spoke english into the mic and i thought for a second and translated it into korean. the thing that i was most worried about was that a lot of the Koreans in the ward know english so it would be really easy to see how bad i am at korean. well the translation went a lot better than i thought it would and it was actually kind of fun. it has been fun to see my growth here as a missionary. not just my knowledge of the gospel but my faith in the power of prayer and gifts of the spirit. i believe the the Lord helped me deliver Ariana's testimony to the ward and im grateful for his help.

Love,
Elder Wells

the circus and a sri lankan

this week was awesome. i'll try to attach some pictures. wednesday was presidents birthday so the mission had a surprise birthday party and we all went to busan and did a combined zone conference. (except for the missionaries on jeju). its the first time i have met up with the missionaries in my mtc district since we flew here together in october. it was such a good day. then on thursday my companion and i were walking on the street and we met a guy from sri lanka. i dont know if im spelling that right, its that one island below india. he was really happy to see us and we talked for a while in broken english and korean. ive heard that there are a lot of sri lankans here to get jobs and stuff. elder anderson an elder from my mtc district actually baptized a guy from sri lanka. anyway so we made an appointment with him and met the next day. we talked a little about God but his made focus is to find a job. his dad died in a tsunami and he has to send money back to his family but he has an injured back so he cant find work. we are trying to help him but we probably dont have the resources to find him a job so we might teach him korean. i hope we can, it would be a good service project. the only service we do usually is teach english class.
oh i do have some bad news though, the girl from canada stopped meeting with the sister missionaries. she said that her parents didnt like her meeting with us. ive found that it is kind of korean culture to obey your elders and listen to your parents; even when you're 28...its alright though because the gospel is still true.
the work is moving on slowly but surely here in chong one. i love it. i almost forgot about the circus. ive been to a few circus' on my mission so it wasnt that exciting. i attached a picture of me holding up my seat and fan (a piece of carpet and cardboard). the sister missionaries brought a girl from south africa with them. her name is elsa and she is hilarious. anyway gotta go

love,
Elder Wells

A week about Hero's

I feel like i was just sitting at the computer yesterday emailing. i cant remember what has happened this past week. everything has just started to become a blur. lets see..ah yeah now i remember, this week we had zone meeting and our investigator that owns subway catered it. he is a really nice guy that lived in the phillipeans and stuff so hes good at english. his business isn't doing very good so we thought we'd help out by having him cater our meeting. it was a big hit because missionaries dont get to eat subway here very much. i think the best part about it was that brother gwan got to see our church building for the first time. he is a little shy and says he doesnt want to come to church until he is ready. he has a lot of faith though. when we watched the restoration dvd with him he said he wanted to have the same experience as Joseph so he told us he was going to go into the forest and pray.
we also met with a less active police man this week. a few weeks ago he gave us a tour of his office and all the different police departments that run the city. we went into a room with a billion tv's that control the street lights/traffic and we also went into the room where people answer 911 phone calls. it was really cool. actually made me think about becoming a cop. i dont know. anyway this week we met him at his house and i shared a message from this months liahona. i dont have the article on me so i dont know who it is by but its about role models. we talked about heros and i told them that when i was growing up, my brother and i liked batman. my brother liked batman so much that one time when my grandma called him sweetie he said dont call me sweetie, call me batman. (that was hard to translate into korean but i think they got it). eventually my brother went to college, served an honorable mission, got married in the temple, and became my hero. i feel that just as the article says, if we watch what our role models do we will know what to do when it is our turn to make decisions. im glad i made the decisions i did and that im here serving the Lord, our ultimate role model. I know that Christ set a perfect example for us and that he did it out of love. He did it because He wanted to. I know that it wasnt easy. i dont know how He did it, i just know that He did.

Love,
Elder Wells

Kim Bop

This week we went to a members house for dinner and made something called kim bop. kim means sea weed and bop means rice. its probably the most basic meal in korea and everyone eats it. if i had to compare it to anything, i'd say it looks a lot like sushi but it definitely doesnt taste like it it. when i first came to korea i really didnt like it because it was such a disappointment. i was expecting sushi and got rice and vegetables. but now i like it so its all good. one of the members we were making it with decided to make an extra huge one and challenged me to eat it. so thats what the picture is of.

its a new transfer by the way and im still with my korean companion, Elder Jin. this makes it 5 transfers with koreans and 3 transfers with americans in the country. very ironic.

the investigator from Canada canceled her appointment with the sisters this week so im not sure where she is at with everything. we are praying for her though.

we have a 14 year old investigator named no june u who is doing good. he brought his friend to one of our lessons and when the friend couldnt come to the next appointment, he brought a different friend. it was awesome. if our investigator can do missionary work, so can all of you! we have been working with him for about 2 months and he has been progressing slowly. we've taught him baptism and challenged him to think about it. it was fun to teach the principle of baptism and explain it at a level that he could understand. i have learned on my mission how basic and powerful the first principles of the gospel are.

thats all for this week.

love,
Elder Wells

1 down 1 to go

this was the best picture i could come up with for the weekly email. i wish i could have taken a picture of this guy in action but he didnt move while i was around him. he is the local pest control man here in chong one. there are a few of them and they ride their motorcycles around shooting out crazy white smoke, apparently to kill bugs. one time we were riding our bikes down an alley and one of these guys started charging us from the opposite end. as he passed we tried to ride through the smoke but it was so thick that we had to stop and let it clear. we probably shouldnt have inhailed the smoke.

well i can't believe its been a year. wow. to say the least it has gone by way too fast. my mission, something i have waited for my whole life, is halfway done. kind of scary. after studying this language for a year i would have expected to be somewhat fluent but lets just say..im not. does it bother me? no, not really. i believe that i have done all that i can and that the Lord has made me as sufficient as he wants me to be. it doesnt make it easy but i have grown to accept it. i know that i have been blessed in many ways here in Korea. it was cool to reflect on the past year and see how much i have grown. to see how much i have learned about the gospel and life in general. i feel like i have learned how to treat people and to love/respect them regardless of what they do or say. it took a few months and a hard companion but i really learned a lot about what it takes to truly be charitable.
I got to talk to my mtc companion, Elder Bennett, on the phone the other day and he asked me out of this last year, what the best part of my mission has been. i thought about it and i couldnt answer him. i didnt know. but i figured out yesterday what the best part of my mission has been. i was sitting in sacrament meeting next to a less active teenager named ho dong ho. i love this kid. he got baptized last year and knows the church is true but struggles with coming to church and stuff. yesterday he got up and bore his testimony, probably for the first time. i imagine the feeling i felt was similar to that of a parent watching their child bear their testimony for the first time. i was so proud of him.
that, ive decided, has been the best part of my mission. not this one experience alone but all of the times i have been able to see people make good choices and come closer to the Savior. unfortunately since im not in the highest baptizing mission in the world i dont see this happen very much but i think that since i am where i am, it makes it all the more rewarding.
love Korea
love the work
love the Lord

Elder Wells

ps to update you on the girl from Canada, the sister missionaries are teaching her so i dont know exactly how she is doing but it sounds like she is good.

well this story is related to the one i told last week about how the girl found us at subway but starts earlier. about a month ago my companion and i were knocking appartment doors and we ran into a girl that talked to us for a little while. she said she wasnt interested but had met some missionaries like us on the street in canada a while back. we asked her how it was and if we could introduce the Book of Mormon to her. we weren't able to teach her much but we gave her a Book of Mormon and wrote down the address. we gave the address to the sister missionaries and they tried to visit her but she was never home.
ok so now back to the girl we set up with the sister missionaries last week that got taught in canada. we went to the appointment too so there were 4 missionaries there and while we were all introducing ourselves i told her my name and she started to quietly laugh. i asked if my name was funny or something and she said "no, it's just that your name is on a book at my house." i was really confused for a while but eventually we figured out that the book of Mormon we gave to the girl a month ago is the sister of this new investigator. so we had already met the sister of this girl and introduced her to the gospel. i dont know if this story makes sense because i dont remember how much i told you last week but there have just been a lot of crazy connections and it seems like this girl is meant to have the gospel in her life. it is pretty much following her around. we are also trying to get her sister to learn. i have faith that it will all work out.
besides that investigators are doing ok. we still meet the teenager that has a lot of problems in his life and isnt attracted to girls. we stopped meeting with him for a while and he changed a lot. he isn't the same around us which is a good thing. but at the same time he says that he has no faith and doesn't believe anything we teach him. we are working on trying to build his faith but he just wants a sign or something that proves God lives. it is tough because he rejects our testimony of Heavenly Father and wants to see for himself. as for me i know that God lives and that there is proof of it all around us.

Love,
Elder Wells
ps this is a picture of a few families in the ward that got together to have dinner

Subway

I have to email kind of quick today because there are 5 little kids looking over my shoulder waiting for me to finish using the computer. they just started summer vacation and are using all of the computers to play games like star craft and stuff.
anyway my week went by really fast. i went on splits with a missionary i knew from the mtc named elder loveless which was fun. nothing special happened there. on wednesday we met our investigator at his work and taught him a lesson. he works at subway (yeah we have subway here, and quiznos, its great but expensive) while we were teaching him a lady walked by the window, stopped and stared at us. after a while she came in and asked us if we were missionaries and where the church was. she said she lived in canada for a few years and went to our church there a few times. we gave her our number and she called us to make an appointment. it was crazy becuase we called the sister missionaries (sister hill) to give them the referall and they said that it was a lady that they were trying to find. they got a referral from the mission office but it didnt have a phone number so they were going to try to find her house. we saved them a big step and told them that they have an appointment with her on wednesday at 7. it was cool to see a little miracle like that speed up the work a lot. i was also amazed that the lady had the courage to talk to us and call to make an appointment. that was a first.
things are good here in chong one. the church is still true.

love,
Elder Wells

the picture of the cake sign says wells..

Don't try this at home!

Elder Jin meen young Robert Harley

Hello!
well i realized that i have been with my new companion elder jin meen young 진민용 for three weeks and i havent even told you about him. he is an awesome convert that wasn't planning on going on a mission but the opportunity arose so he is here. he was baptized 5 years ago because his aunt introduced him to the church. after he was baptized he went to college and was planning on doing the rotc instead of the two year military service that all korean young men have to do. because of that he didnt have the time to take a two year brake and serve a mission. but somehow a new program came out for people in the rotc to be able to take two years off so he saw it as a sign and came out. he is a great elder and i really like working with him.
i dont have much time because i am emailing from a train and i have to get off soon but i'll update you on our investigators.
'Denmark' isnt doing so good because his dad said we cant meet with him. he has a big test to take in october and he has to study for it. koreans study a lot...we just got the book of mormon in danish, mormons bog, and are praying that we can at least give that to him.
our 'gay' investigator was sick for most of last week so we couldnt meet with him. his main problem is that he doesnt have any faith or any desire to believe what we teach him. so we are working on getting him to find a motive and trying to give him hope.
welp gotta go.
love elder wells

---------- Forwarded message ----------
From: weston Wells
Date: Mon, Jul 13, 2009 at 12:40 AM
Subject: off the train
To: annellewells@gmail.com


i got off the train and my comp still has to do some emailin so im back on. maybe you can attach this to my last email and send them all together or something.

the highlight of the week this week was definitely saturday night. there was a fireside in busan in my greenie ward. a guy named robert harley came and spoke and i got permission to go. he is an american that is famous in korean because he is good at korean and teaches english. he also served in this mission a long time ago. it was so cool to go and see all of the people in the ward that i havent seen since november and be able to actually kind of speak to them. the best part was seeing a guy named barry there. barry is a chinese guy that we taught when i was a greenie but he couldnt come to church because of school so we were thinking about dropping him. since we met him at the church next to the mission office we decided to give him to the office couple and they have been meeting him every since. he doesnt speak korean, but he is pretty good at english. he came to the fireside and remembered me even though we only met like 3 times and it was 8 months ago. i was really happy that he remembered me and that he is still investigating the church. he is done with school in september and will be able to come to church then. this is the first time i have been able to see a direct result of something i have done on my mission. i dont know how to explain it but it is really really rewarding.

My Spiritual Message

July 5
this week i was asked by the mission office to write up my testimony and send it in to be put in the mission newspaper. i've decided to send the article to all of you instead of writing a long email and trying to think of all of the things i did this week because its a lot easier. obviously my article is focused towards missionaries but i hopefully all of you can find something in it to help your study of the gospel as well.

here it is..

Makin' a good personal study.

I have found it hard sometimes to make my personal study as effective as i want it to be or to find the time to study all the things that i want to study. i get frustrated trying to balance a good amount of Book of Mormon study, outlines, Jesus the Christ, Preach My Gospel, and personal questions that i just want to answer while still getting a 'spiritual lift' each morning. But my testimony today is that similar to Hyrum Smith's. It is that we don't need to submerge ourselves into deeper doctrine everyday to continue to recieve spiritual insights. As we study and preach the first principles of the gospel (which can be studied through doing outlines), "new ideas and additional light concerning them will be revealed to (us)." (pmg pg 6). Following along with the first principles of the gospel, i want to share some new ideas and personal light that i have learned about gospel principles i have been studying my whole life.
Everyone knows that with faith we can perform miracles, heal the sick, and even move mountains. However, it is not commonly observed that there is a bigger, even more important miracle produced by faith. What miracle is bigger than moving a mountain? Well, I'll tell ya. It is a remission of sins and eventually salvation. As you already know, this remission of sins comes through our true faith to repent and rely on the atonement of Jesus Christ. But why repentance? Why can't God just forgive us of our sins? Of course repentance is a good thing; it causes us to humble ourselves, change, and draw closer to God but is it really necessary? I mean Christ truly did suffer an infinite atonement so why aren't we all just...saved? I am sure there are many answers to this question, some of which are found in Alma 42, and i am excited to continue my study about this basic gospel principle. As for now, I have a testimony that faith is the foundation for salvation. A principle that if truly understood and applied leads to long lasting repentance, remission of sins, and even eternal life. If we base our study time upon these principles, showing the way to our investigators, i know that the words of King Benjamin will be fulfilled and we will all grow in a knowledge of our creator. "And behold, I say unto you that if ye do this ye shall always rejoice, and be filled with the love of God, and always retain a remission of your sins; and ye shall grow in the knowledge of the glory of him that created you, or in the knowledge of that which is just and true." (Mosiah 4:12) It is my hope that we all excel in the knowledge of our Father in Heaven and his plan as we bring the gospel to his cherished sons and daughters.

Elder Wells

Elder Jin

my first week with elder jin was longer than i thought it would be. all of the students here have finals next week so this week we couldnt meet with everyone we wanted to because everyone is studying. we spent a lot of time trying to find people and no one really seemed to want to listen to us. i meet a really weird old foreigner who has lived here for 22 years and is investigating the korean government. hes american but im pretty sure he is just here on his own. he said there is a lot of secret stuff going on in the government and he is determined to "bring them to justice." i dont really know what he was talking about. i think he was kind of crazy.
we got dropped this week by the lady that lives in the really nice apartments. she said that she doesnt have interest in religion and was only meeting with us because she likes foreigners.
the spiritual highlight this week came last night in an appointment with our investigator that we call denmark. he's the one that lived in denmark for 6 years and isnt exactly fluent in korean. so we met him and watched the restoration dvd in danish subtitles. it was the first time i have seen danish and it looked crazy. there were like slashes and accent marks and words like duethcnexz. he really liked the dvd and i think he really understands the need for a restoration. i shared with him one of my favorite scriptures about the restoration and had to explain it in english to him. it went well and i am pretty sure he felt the spirit while we were teaching him.

elder wells.

Octopus!

New Comp! Octopus

this week flew by, just like all the others. it was the last week of the transfer and yup i got another companion. so this will be my 6th companion in 7 transfers. its a little rare to have this many companions and i would have liked to stay with a few of the companions i have had, including the last one, elder draper.but i guess i kind of like the change.

i havent met my new companion yet but hes korean and his name is jin meen yong or something. i have heard good things about him. another rare thing is that including this next transfer, i will have had more transfers with korean companions than with americans. oh and i dont think ive mentioned this but i have had the same elder from new zealand in my house for the past 5 transfers. we lived on jejudo together and both came here to chong won last transfer. its fun to live with him especially because he speaks a little different than americans. im trying to master all of the new zealand vocabulary he uses. i tell him to teach me new zealandish but he doesnt know what words we say differently, so i try to write down the funny ones when i hear them. i think the best word i've found so far is bisquiting. we were talking about going to the lake and how fun tubing is and he didnt know what we were talking about because they call it bisquiting.
anyway about my week. its getting a lot hotter and more humid here. i have started taking two showers a day because i sweat so much. i cant imagine what the middle of summer is going to be like. miserable probably. our investigators are doing good. we planned on giving our gay investigator to the other team here but since i'll have a korean companion we decided that our team could handle him. i'm not sure how it will all work out. we didnt get to meet with our kid from denmark because he was busy but he is still doing good. we are also meeting with that lady that lives in the richest appartment in the city. we met with her family saturday night and they took us up into the tallest building in the city. its part of the group of appartments that she lives in. it was cool to look out on the city and my companion really enjoyed seeing the whole city from above before he had to leave because this is his greenie area.
this week i accomplished one of my mission goals. in the mtc i heard about how some missionaries eat live octopus here in korea. apparently it is really dangerous because the suckers can stick to your throat and people have died from it. well i got to do it this week. the suckers felt really weird in my mouth and it tasted like rubber but im glad i did it. i tried to attach some pictures so hopefully you get them.
i studied about faith this week and learned about how powerful faith is. in the bible dictionary it talks about how we can heal people and move mountains if we have faith. but more powerful and more important than doing any of these physical miracles with faith is the power that comes from faith in bringing about remission of sins and in the end, salvation. it is through our faith that we choose to repent, through our faith that we accept Christ, and through our faith that we become cleansed from sin. it is a principle of power that is crucial for salvation. i am beginning to understand why it is the first principle of the gospel and why it is so important to help investigators gain faith.

Love,
Elder Wells

The Police and a polish woman

the police and a polish woman
June 14, 2009

ugh i just typed up a really good long email and i accidentally deleted it so this one will be a little short.
but yeah i met a polish lady this week. i talked to her about poland and told her that my friend is there. she is here because her husband is an engineer here. hes from croatia. i told her that i had a friend in croatia too.
about the police...well i have told you that we have a gay investigator. we didnt meet him this week but we called him on the phone throughout the week to see how he is doing. it is always awkward to call him because he asks weird questions and tries to make us say things that we dont mean. for example he asked me if i wanted to see him. to be honest i dont want to see him and i definately wasnt going to tell a gay person that i want to see them. but if he was a normal investigator i would have been like yeah i totally want to see you. i just told him that i want to meet and talk about the gospel. anyway he said he would come to church but he didnt and instead the police showed up during gospel principles class looking for him. they told us to call him and tell him to come to the church and to not say that the police were there. it was all really sketchy. well he doesnt have a cell phone (probably the only person in korea without one) and his grandma said he wasnt at the house. so the police left and we still dont know if they found our guy or not.
besides the police, this week was a really good week. we had the most lessons in one week that i have ever had on my mission. it was more lessons this last week than i have had in a transfer before. i love the area, work, and my companion.

Love,
Elder Wells

Another Good Week

another good week

June 7, 2009

this week was exciting. we met with our potentially homosexual investigator (with some ward members) and taught the law of chastity. it went well and he said he didnt have any problems with what we taught him. he said it would be easy for him to live the law of chastity because he doesnt have interest in girls and doesnt want to get married. i was hoping for him to come out and say he was gay but he didnt and so we just moved on. he still says that we are attractive and acts way different when we arent with members. the weirdest thing he does is call me the word dongshin 당신. its a very complicated word in the korean language. it means 'you' but can either be very very friendly or very very offensive. people either say it to their spouse or a person they want to fight. as missionaries we only use it in prayers to talk to Heavenly Father. it makes things difficult because there really isnt a respectful word for the word you. we have to always address people by their names and titles. so anyway i told some members that he calls me dongshin and they think it is extremely weird. so i asked him straight up why he calls me it and he didnt really have a good answer. we are only going to meet with him with members from now on and hopefully it should change things. i have been trying to work on charity recently.

this week we did a lot of proselyting and met with some investigators. we have english class two nights a week and i have mixed feelings about it. i really dont like teaching english but it is fun because a lot of missionaries come and we get to hang out. i like being around other missionaries because i spent 6 months on jeju with the same 5 missionaries and its nice to see other people for a change. we also had an appointment in the richest appartment building in the city. it was the nicest appartment i have ever been in and was nothing like the rest of korea. the lady we met was really nice and we have a return appointment so hopefully everything will go well. there are also two korean boys from denmark that we are teaching. they were born in korea but lived in denmark for 6 years so they speak danish, english, and korean. its funny to talk to a korean in english that has a danish accent. i love it. they arent very good at korean and don't understand korean scriptures so we are in the process of ordering a danish book of mormon for them. next week we are going to watch the restoration in danish.
my companion elder draper and i are doing great. we get along well and are being blessed for our diligence. we are both very insufficient, especially in the language, but we know our inadequecies and try our best to rely on the Lord. i love this work and am truly finding happiness in it.

Love,
Elder Wells

ps happy birthday carl.

Interesting Investigator

May 31, 2009
i dont even know how to start this email so i will just say it. this week we found out that our investigator is gay. if you are wondering how we find out, here is the story.
we always had a suspicion that our 19 year old investigator is gay because he is really femmie and always comments on how attractive we are. so it has kind of become a joke between me and my companion that he is gay and stuff. well this week we got talking to him about our life dreams and i said how i want to graduate college, get married and support a family. since he has never had a family he told us that he doesnt want to get married or anything. so i asked him if he wanted a girlfrend or at least had interest in girls. he said no. thats when things started to get awkward and i knew i had to find out if this kid is gay or not. so very nonchalantly i said you dont have interest in guys...right? and it turns out that he does. well he thinks that guys and girls are the same and theres nothing wrong with liking guys. it kind of freaked me out so i changed the subject and we taught him the plan of salvation. i dont have anymore time but that was our expirience this week. we arent sure what to do with him becuase he still can change and become a member but we dont think we are the ones that could do it. we want to give him to the sister missionaries.

Love,
Elder Wells

ps happy birthday to
dad, grandpa, lace
happy anniversary mom and dad
and shaylee congratulations on getting baptized

May 10 Mothers Day - Leaving JeJu

So sorry this didn't get out sooner!  We were able to talk to Elder Wells' Saturday night and it was so neat for him to be so positive and feel his LOVE for Korea and the Korean people!  yeah!  He blessed our Mother's day dinner in Korean and we were able to "hear" his progress with the language.  He is now back on the mainland where he will have more interaction with his mission president, zone leaders etc.  In all the time that he has been in Korea (7 1/2 months total, 6 months on the island of JeJu) he has not been to a zone conference...so he is excited for more contact with the other missionaries in his mission.



---------- Forwarded message ----------
From: weston Wells
Date: Sun, May 10, 2009 at 5:07 PM
Subject: we just talked
To: annellewells@gmail.com


well we just talked on the phone and i have to catch a plane so this email will be short. for those of you that i didnt talk to, i got transfered and will be flying back to busan in a little over an hour. i loved the time that i got to spend here on jeju. this week we had a few good experience and picked up some new investigators. i am sad to leave because i wont be able to see these people learn the gospel and progress.
the highlight of the week was probably thursday's lunch. we went to a restaraunt and ate horse meat 3 different ways. the first way was raw, sashimi style. it was a lot more tender than i thought it would be but kind of gross. the second way was horse ribs in a stew. that was delicious and tasted like a good pot roast. and the third way was cooked on a grill and wrapped in lettuce. good stuff.

love,
elder wells

Things are good in Chong One

this week was pretty average here. my companion and i are working great together and the work is moving along. we have two investigators and one attended a baptism on saturday with us. he really liked it. his name is e jean gyoung and hes 19. hes a solid kid. he has never known his father and his mother died two years ago so he lives alone and his grandmother visits him every once in a while. he has had a pretty hard life and the gospel is really helping him. we taught him this week about baptism and finding an answer for himself. because hes never known his father he isnt familiar with someone to take care of him and struggles with the fact that God is our Heavenly Father. but he is starting to pray and we have faith that he will recieve an answer. our other investigator is what missionaries call an 'english spaz'. he started meeting wiht us because we are foreigners and wanted to learn english. but we taught him the plan of salvation this week and he asked us if we really believe what we are teaching him. it was a great opportunity for us to testify and show our faith. the spirit was there and he told us that he wants to find out for himself if these things are true. so we committed him to pray, he just needs to pray in korean, not in english...

lOve,
Elder Wells

the former president of korea committed suicide on saturday but it doesnt seem like it has affected many people. korea is divided into provinces and he died in the same province i live in, its called gyoung nawm. so i thought there would be more news about it or people talking but there hasnt been.

May 18 New Everything! New comp, new area, back on the mainland!

the first week in my new area was good. getting transfered is kind of weird because everything changes. new companion, new area, new investigators, it is all different. the city i am in is really nice. it is different from most other cities in korea because it was planned out before it was built or something. so the streets are straight and everything kind of makes sense. in other cities the streets are windy and intersections have like 6 roads breaking off of them. the city is called chong one. its west of busan but im not really sure where it is. i havent really looked it up on a map. the ward here is huge and the work is good. i like my companion and we have been really blessed this week. we have been praying for teaching opportunities and the Lord is blessing us with them. i am so grateful for prayer. it is one of the first things i like to teach investigators. i know that Heavenly Father hears our prayers and that if we ask with pure intent he will answer them. it truly is amazing.

Love,
Elder Wells

im in an area called chong one, its a really nice city and i like it a lot. my companions name is elder draper. hes from magna utah. his aunt and uncle know vince and wendy. he is a good kid and has a lot of desire. he's definately still a greenie though. um i havent met with or seen president recently. he didnt come to jeju last transfer because he couldnt buy a plane ticket so i havent seen him in a while. things are going really good.

May 3 splits in JeJu

well this week was fun. i got to go on splits back in my old area with a korean greenie. it was really good to go back and serve in jeju city. and i learned a lot from the greenie. even though he is korean he still has problems knowing what to say and how to say it. so i realized that everyone has problems with that stuff, even koreans that know the language. it also gave me time to reflect back on when i was a greenie, not long ago, and realize how much i have grown and progressed. its amazing how much i have learned and how much more comfortable i am talking to strangers about the gospel. i also got to meet up with some of the jeju church members too so it was a great splits session thing.

here in so ghe po the work is moving slowly but surely. we picked up one investigator and he says he is praying. yesterday we met with him and our branch president because they are both farmers. our branch president bore his testimony about how the Lord has blessed him and his family. he doesn't have a whole lot of income but he explained how the Lord has provided for him and gave him a side job as a milk man. it was a good appointment. we also met with the less active family i have mentioned before and have been trying to comitt them to pray. the kids are good and have been trying to pray but the mom always shuts down our comittments. but this time we shared some personal experiences and got them to pray as a family. it is so cool to see people slowly change their lives for the gospel.
Love,
Elder Wells
oh i forgot to mention last week about a highlight that happened on my birthday. we met with a 50 year old guy that speaks english with us and this time he tried to pray in english. halfway through the prayer i started laughing so hard that i didnt hear the end of the prayer but i recorded what i heard. here it is: Dear God. today is wells' birthday. please bless his birthday. we also thank God's birthday. we hope God is happy after his birthday...thats all i got. i dont know if it's funny to you. maybe you had to be there, i dont know. i wish you could meet this guy. he is great.

Officially 20!

well i am now 20 years old and not a teenager anymore. it would be a lot weirder but it isnt because in korea i have been telling people i am 21 since new years. here they measure age differently so when you are born you are immediately 1 or something. and everyone turns one year older at the new years, not at their birthday. so according to korea i have been 21 since january and my birthday meant nothing.
i had a good birthday though. we met with a recent convert named kim gyoung bong 김경봉 and ate pizza and cake. yeah they have pizza here in korea and it really isnt bad. they do put a lot of wierd toppings on it though. like octopus and junk. but we stick with the potato pizza. do they put potatoes on pizza in america? missionaries here cant decide if they do. i dont think so. its really good, you should try it if you dont. after that we stayed at the house most of the day becuase my companion sprained his ankle and isnt supposed to walk on it a whole lot. luckily a doctor is coming to the mission this week so he can get it all figured out. he had surgery on the ankle a few months before the mission so it could be a big deal. we'll see.
because of my companion's ankle we have been inside a lot. but it isnt slowing our work down too much. we have been working with the area book and have made 2 appointments with old investigators. probably more appointments than we would get from proselyting on the street in a week. i am really excited about one of the people we met with. he is a farmer and is really open to religion. he was dropped because he was too busy but i think things have changed and he will be able to come to church. our branch president is also a farmer and he has been able to work and be a branch president for 4 years so it is possible.

Love,
Elder Wells

ps happy birthday mckay

Tons of foreigners!!!

Date: Mon, 20 Apr 2009 04:00:24 +0000
Subject: tons of foreigners!!!
first of all, if you havent heard about the weird foreigners in korea, let me tell you about them. tons of people for whatever reason come to korea to teach english and get away from their own countries. they are usually pretty wierd and the social outcasts at home so they come here where they dont have to communicate with people. they stick out in any crowd of koreans (obviously). as missionaries we try to talk to them but its usually awkward and really funny. they are just awkward to begin with and since we havent talked to other people in english for forever the conversations are rough.
this weekend there was a big ultimate frisbee contest and foreign english teachers came from all over asia to unite and play frisbee. korea, china, japan, and guam actually. we heard about it from a foreigner and came to volunteer. it was cool to meet people from all over the world and it reminded me of how different the world is. their lives are so much different than mine. they live alone and spend their lives working, smoking, and partying. i really could recognize what they dont have and it made me feel grateful for what i do have. i have the restored gospel of Jesus Christ. like one of the speakers in General Conference said, i too can say that i can't remember a time when i didnt know i was a child of God.
I love spreading this knowledge to other people. Not everyone accepts it but i know in my heart that it is true.

Love,
Elder Wells

i also dont think i have told you a lot about the island im on and ive been here for 5 months now so ive learned alot. all my information is my interpretation of what koreans have said to me in korean so its probably not all factual but maybe. i guess jeju was taken over by mongolians a long time ago and they used it to raise horses so there are a ton of horses here and stuff. there are restaraunts that cook horse meat and one of my goals is to eat it before i leave. anyway so the mongolians kind of stayed here and mixed with the koreans so people on jeju look a little different than normal koreans (according to other koreans, i cant tell the dif). also the language here is different. not everyone uses it but its a completely different dialect that is hard to understand. i heard the other day that during the korean war there was an army squad from jeju that spoke in 'jeju mar' during the war to capture a north korean camp or something. the north koreans couldnt understand what they were saying so it was easy for them to take it over. i thought it was a funny story because other koreans can't even understand this language.

Everything is good!

April 12

hey,

i love the little city of seo gwee po. it is fun down here. my companion and i are getting along great and we are working hard together. i love having a companion that actually likes doing missionary work. we dont have any investigators so the work is really slow but we approach everything with a positive attitude and we know that it will work out in the Lord's way.
i have a bike now. its my first area with a bike and i think i can say i officially feel like a real missionary. when we ride i look in front of me at the guy wearing a suit and say yeah, i'm a missionary. it is good.
one of my favorite parts about this area is that we play a lot of ping pong here. our house is a little shack next to the church and the church has a ping pong table in it so ya. i bought a paddle and everything. there is an old lady in our branch that used to play competitively so she teaches us.
the members are good. there aren't very many but they are strong. we are trying to work with them and build a relationship with all of them but it is hard when neither me or my companion are really good at the language. i think the hardest thing is that we do not know what to say or how to relate to people and that causes a lot of awkward moments...its all good though. the members understand and try to help us. one family we have been working with is a innactive family. they arent awkward because they are really good at english. i was hoping for them to come to general conference but they couldn't make it. general conference was great by the way. i learned a lot and really enjoyed the testimonies of all the general authorities. their testimonies really strengthed my faith that Thomas S. Monson is the prophet of God and that he leads this church by revelation. i am grateful for this knowledge and for the opportunity to be part of God's kingdom on earth. it is awesome.

Love,
Elder Wells

Rotten oranges

April 5, 2009
hello family and friends,
i hope everyone enjoyed conference this past weekend. on my mission i have started to enjoy conference a lot more. how amazing is it that we get to hear the council and advice of modern day prophets. it is awesome. i actually havent watched conference yet because they watch it a week late in korea but i am excited to watch it next week. my companion and i visited a less active family this week and told them about conference. the mom used to be a solid member but she went inactive and hasnt been to church in 5 years. the missionary that was here before me got them to come to church and it has really turned them around. we testified of the importance of a modern day prophet and the mom comitted to come to a session this weekend. the members here have to drive an hour to jeju city to watch conference so it is kind of a big sacrifice for her. i love watching the gospel grow in people.
as for my new area and companion, everything is going good. the work here is a little slower but nothing to complain about. we visit an old old lady, that lives alone, every once in a while and we have to bring a member with us because she speaks such a thick, nasty accent that we absolutely can not understand her. she is really nice though. my companion said that our job is basically to make sure that she is still alive. last week she gave us a bag of oranges that were absolutely rotten. she pulled out a completely green rotten one before she gave us the bag. then she made us eat them in front of her. it was probably the worst thing i have ever eaten. good experience.

the other day my companion and i were walking on the street and there was an octopus on the sidewalk. it was still alive and everything. my companion and i wanted to keep it as a pet but a guy ran up to us, picked up the octopus by the head, and threw it into a tank right there on the side of the road. it was so random. a lot of the restaraunts have tanks full of fish and stuff in front of them, especially the ones by the ocean. the city i am in has a port and stuff so we eat a good amount of sea food.

um other things about so gee po..there are a lot of mentally handicapped people here. like really a lot. they all come down here because the air is fresh and healthy or something. one of our members is handicapped and loves the missionaries. he waits outside our door and follows us around. he got the name james bond because he is really sneaky. hes pretty funny. i have a goal this transfer for him to remember my name but i dont know if it will happen. he already knows my companions name so i am pretty jealous.
This week we got to teach the restoration to a 25 girl named yu-na. it was a great experience. she really understood it and comitted to pray about it. unfortunately she is moving to australia but hopefully we can get the missionaries to meet her down there.


Love
Elder Wells

New area, New comp!

this week was transfer week and i was expecting to just get a new companion because my korean companion is done with his mission and going home. however, i got a phone call on friday night saying that im getting transferred. it was really really unexpected. i am really happy about the transfer though for many reasons. first, im staying on the island. i am just moving to the south side of the island to the other branch in a city called so gee po 서귀포. it is a lot smaller branch and my companion is the second counselor in the branch presidency. im the branch clerk. ha i love it. there are about 20 members from what i have heard. i am really sad to leave jeju city but it will be a nice change and i will still be able to see the jeju city members every now and then. im also excited because my companion is a great guy. his name is elder rowley and he's from west jordan utah. he is only a few transfers ahead of me and he has been in korea for 8 months. i am excited to work with him. so that is how the transfers went down.
last week had a lot of ups and downs. we went to the mainland and had a mission conference with a member from the quorum of the 70. his name is elder Gary Stevenson. i got to shake his hand and found out that he knows president and sister Whitesides. he took there spot as mission president in japan. he talked to us about a lot of good things. the main topic of his talk was finding a vision for your mission. this includes setting goals and how we want to grow/where we want to be by the end of our missions. it was something i needed to hear because i am about a third done with my mission and i feel like it has gone by so fast that i havent had time to grow. i know i have but it is just flying by. i also saw elder bennett and my trainer. it was a great day. as for the rest of the week, my companion spent a lot of time packing and being trunky so theres not much to report there. but i was really sick yesterday with a headache/fever/really bad cold. i had a fever of 102. ya so i went to the hospital. but in korea, people go to the hospital all the time, it is kind of like going to the doctors office in america. you can go whenever you want even if you arent very sick at all. so dont worry mom. they gave me a shot and plugged me up to an IV for 2 hours to shoot me up with electrolytes and stuff. im doing a lot better today, still a little sick though.

i had the opportunity to talk yesterday in church because i am getting transferred. it is always scary because i am still not really confident with the language. but i was glad to do it. i talked about the things i learned while serving here; especially about Gods love for all of us. i have learned a lot about His love and the sacrifices He has done in order for us to progress and return to Him. im grateful for His love and have felt it in abundance here in my mission.


love,
elder wells

This week was a good week. a lot of exciting things have happened and they are still happening today. tonight all of the missionaries here on jeju are flying to the mainland to an area called tay-gu. theres a big zone conference tomorrow and we are going to here some important guy speak. i forgot his name though. im excited because it will be the first time i have seen other missionaries (besides the 5 here) in over 4 months. including my mtc companion elder Bennett. he is the one that went home in the mtc becuase he was throwing up. well he stopped throwing up and came to korea but now i heard that he started throwing up again. i havent heard much so i dont know what is going to happen to him. i will aslo get to see my trainer/father E. tay Hee. it'll be exciting.
also this week president and sister Jennings came down. there was a district conference and all the members on the island came (about 80 people). the 2 branch presidents and president jennings gave really good talks. then sister jennings gave a talk about love that i really liked. she gave it in english and someone translated for her. i think i liked it the most because i could actually understand it all. she talked about how we need to love our family, friends, and neighbors. i really thought about loving my companion and how i need to love him unconditionally. it's really a hard thing to do but i learned that charity is a gift that we cannot receive on our own. we can receive it by asking through prayer and actions. i know that if we do our best to love others and ask sincerely for help, Heavenly Father will make up the difference and bless us with charity.
this sounds weird and really missionaryish but i really want to challenge all of you to try to have more charity and love in your lives this week. after all, if ye have not charity, ye are nothing.

Love,
Elder Wells

yeah last week makes it 5 months in korea and in a week and a half i will have been on this island for 4 months. crazy huh.
well this week went by really fast. i cant believe its already pday. this week was actually a bit better. my companion kinda opened up to me and told me about some of the things that have been bothering him and why things are hard for him. a big part of the problem is that he has a lot of stress and other things he is trying to deal with and when he is frustrated and complaining i take a lot of it personally and think that its a problem with our companionship when it really isnt. so i have tried to understand his point of veiw and not take things personally and its been pretty good. he is still really trunky (lazy because he is going home in 2 weeks) but this week was pretty good.

we are still working with the 26 year old guy named gong dong uun,강동운 (i dont think it translates into english well.) we talked to him about baptism and asked him to think about it. he said he would but he still hasnt found out for himself that the book of Mormon is true so he isnt sure. we have been teaching him for about 2 months now and i understand how frustrating it is when investigators dont keep comittments. we testify of the spiritual witness that comes from reading the book of mormon and praying but he just hasnt faithfully tried it yet.
besides him, we dont have any other investigators yet. we have some potentials though.


Love,
Elder Wells

3 more weeks to go, kinda

3 more weeks to go, kinda

well this week was tough. my companion and i didnt get along very well but thats ok.
some fun things we did this week was have a bon fire for family home evening. the missionaries hold family home evening every monday night at the church for single adults and about 5 members show up. its normally a lot of fun. so we went down to the beach and roasted the closest thing to marshmallows we could find and put them on wheat chocolate crackers. one of the ladies brought potatoes, rolled them up in tin foil and just threw them in the fire. in about a half hour they were baked and tasted pretty good. so that was fun.
today for pday we hiked the big mountain here on jejudo. its called hallasan or mount halla. i heard its the biggest mountain in south korea. i dont know. at the top there is a lake but when we got up there it was frozen. anyway it was a lot of fun because there were a lot of steep snow covered trails that we slid down because they were too slippery to hike.
as far as missionary work goes, our investigator has stopped progressing. his dad threw away his book of mormon and he hasnt talked to us since his grandmother died last weekend. we've been meeting him since january and he hasn't come to church at all so it looks like we might have to drop him. hes 26.
but we did meet a potential investigator this week. hes a 53 year old guy thats really good at english. we met him on the street and when i said hello he was like 'o you are from utah' and i said no, im from california. anyways it was funny how he said it...he knows a little about our church and says that he is looking for happiness. im really excited to teach him and hopefully see his life change.

love
Elder Wells

My Korean Food

Hello!

well this week was about the same as any other. nothing really amazing happened but things are moving on. one of the highlights of the week was going to a mexican restaraunt. ha i think its probably the only mexican restaraunt in Korea. the food was...interesting. my companion got a fajita (called it a fagoero) and the waiter had to explain to him what to do with the tortilla. it was a very eye opening experience. if you would have told me a year ago that one of my companions isnt going to know what to do with a tortilla i would have laughed. its definately a different world over here. it was also the cleanest mexican restaraunt bathroom i have ever been in, so that was a plus.
i also went to a sweet buffet with some members. i ate raw beef and jellyfish. pretty good.
we got 2 new missionaries on the island last week. they are both American. its great. the one that moved into my house was in the mtc with me. his name is elder Ballam. we have a lot to talk about and its really fun to think about mtc memories.
um as far as missionary work goes, we have one investigator. he is 25and a great guy. he is learning but hasnt read or prayed yet. he also tries to relate everything with science because that is his major in college and asks hard science questions. my companion gets frustrated a lot. i am hoping for the best but i know that it is his decision to accept the gospel or not. we have testified about the Book of Mormon and showed him how he can find out. now all he has to do is try it. i like what Aron (elder Procuniar) said in one of his emails about how Moroni's promise is golden. i know it works. i have done it. i think its one of the biggest things that helps me from not getting discouraged. i know that this gospel is true and that all i can do is invite others to come unto Christ. whether they accept the invitation or not is up to them.

i hope everyone is doing good over there. Jos and tanner, congrats on bringing in extensions to the fam.

Love,
Elder Wells