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