Elder Weston Wells

Highlight

2010-08-02T00:38:00.000-07:00

im emailing on a train and the time is running low so as usual i have to be fast. i had an awesome week last. one of our investigators had a baptism interveiw and is scheduled to be baptized on the 7th! he's in college and is studying music here in daegu. im really excited for him. we had a good meeting with him and the bishop and he talked about how he found out the church is true. it was a cool. i have to go but that was the highlight of the week.

love,
elder wells

More Americans

2010-07-19T15:55:00.000-07:00

this week was a little better here in daegu because the rainy season started so it wasnt too hot but still really really sticky and humid. on days that it doesnt rain we sweat a lot because of the humidity. even when we are in the shade we just continue to sweat, its crazy. i think im getting better at english because this week at church i was actually able to interact with the foreigners a little. last week a girl in the foreign branch brought her two friends to church and they invited us over to there house last night to learn about the church. her friends are a husband and wife that have been married for a year and are expecting a baby. they have a christian background and are really curious about 'what makes mormons different'. my companion and i had a lot of fun getting to know them and telling them stories about korea. we were shocked to see american food at their house and they were shocked that we dont have access to american food like they do (they are in the military and get american food on the base) and offered to take us to the base to eat taco bell or subway. i got so excited because i really miss american food. i told them that i hadnt eaten american food like that in 2 years and they started packing up doritos, cake, and cereal for us to take home. so nice. we struggled a little to teach about the church in english but the spirit was strong and we were able to teach a solid first lesson. i felt like the spirit was edifying all of us and was teaching us as we taught. i am in awe of the restoration and know that it is the only possible way that God could restore the full gospel to the earth. its so amazing.

-Elder Wells

Speaking English was weird!

2010-07-12T07:23:00.000-07:00

so i think i mentioned this last week but i have officially entered my last transfer and got moved to a new area. i was kind of sad at first because there just isnt enough time to get to know people here before i go but at the same time i feel like im here for a reason and am excited to serve in the ward that im in. the city im in is called dae-gu and we are over a big korean ward and a small american military branch. i went to church in english yesterday for the first time in 2 years and it was really weird. they had me introduce myself (in english) and i had no idea what to say. i tried to tell a story about my mission but it was really hard to explain. then i went to talk to people and im not sure if it was because everyone was a big military general or because i forgot how to socialize with americans but i felt really uncomfortable. hopefully things will get better and i'll be able to practice speaking with americans before i got back to the US.

Elder wells

It's been a while...

2010-07-04T20:41:00.001-07:00

hey its been a while since ive written, sorry about that. ive just been caught up in a few things here. i got a call last week that im getting transfered so that was kind of sad. i kind of like transfers though because it allows me to sit back and look at the things that ive learned in the area. in this last area i learned a lot about patience, faith, and hope. i would have to say that the scripture of this transfer is definately ether 12:4. it talks about the hope we can have if we believe in God. i know that if we truly believe in God we can have faith that the future will be better than the past and can hope for a better world and life.

elder wells

Letter to Mak - Finals!

2010-06-22T04:27:00.001-07:00

hey MAKKK!

howwww areeee youuuuu? i heard that you have finals next week. thats a bummer. have you been studying hard? you would be shocked how much koreans study. like everyday until midnight! then they go home, sleep, and do the same thing the next day. and they all wear high school uniforms. i feel bad for them.

anyway, because education is really important in korea im always thinking about how school and church are similar. for example today i was studying the general conference talk by elder Oaks about priesthood blessings and theres a quote from brigham young that says we shouldnt ask for blessings unless we take medicine and do all that we can to get better. he said that its like praying for wheat and corn to grow without planting seeds. since we dont have farms nowadays i related it to school. . we can pray and ask for help on tests but we need to do all that we can by studying hard in order to get all of the blessings. then you can pray and ask heavenly father for help in remembering the things that you studied. i know that if you study with that attitude, Heavenly Father will help you.

mak, you're awesome. cant wait to see you in a few weeks.

love,
elder wells

New p-day Mondays

2010-06-14T04:36:00.000-07:00

Joseph Smith movie

2010-06-03T06:18:00.001-07:00

we had another pretty good week here in ulsan. we've been trying to get the ward activated in missionary work more so we planned to have a fireside and watch the Joseph Smith prophet of the Restoration movie but instead of doing a big fireside we watched it for the 3 hour of church on sunday. it was a good opportunity to go around and invite investigators and less active members to come out to church and we actually had some success. a less active family came and were immediately fellowshipped by a lot of the members.
watching the movie brought back memories of seeing it in Salt Lake and in the mtc and also reminded me of how faithful the saints were even with all of the opposition they faced. the members here really liked it and i think they can relate to it because its not very easy to be a member of the church in korea either. most of the members here are first or second generation saints just like the pioneers and struggle to give up their 'lifestyles' to obey the commandments of God. i am amazed everyday at how faith motivates us to do such challenging things.

elder wells

good week

2010-05-20T05:21:00.001-07:00

we had a good week this week. the keyboard is kind of broken so i cant type a lot but heres some things we did this week.

friday we visited the ulsan district president at his robot 'academy'. there are millions of 'academies' in korea that kids go to after school and study at. they started to help kids study more and do better in school but everyone started going to them and they've become more important than school in some places. i feel bad for the kids in korea because they go to school and then have to go to these academies all day, sometimes until midnight. it also makes it hard for us to meet with younger investigators because they have no free time.
we also had a lot of success prosyliting at a nearby college but havent been able to meet with any of the people we talked with. its easy to get phone numbers from people, especially students but they never seem to have time to meet with us. one of our goals is to show the people how important this message is to them so that they want to meet with us again.
on sunday we ate dinner with a part member family and talked about how we could help make the father an investigator. the wife and kids want the dad to be baptized really bad and they set a baptismal date for him every year on his birthday but he isnt interested yet. i was moved by the wife's faith and how she has been able to raise her children in the church without her fathers help. they're awesome family.
this keyboard isnt cooperation so i'll end it with that.
the church is true

elder wells

a week of 소개's

2010-04-30T16:55:00.000-07:00

you probably cant read the title of this email but it says a week of 'so gay's' which means refferrals. we were really blessed this week to be able to find some potential investigators through working with members. the theme for our mission this transfer is to the rescue and we are learning how to be able to work with members. the stakes here have all be informed about president Monsons 'to the rescue' program and we have been trying to work with members to find people to teach. the program just started and im sure it will take a while before it has an effect but we have already been able to see some good results. yesterday we visited a less active guy at his 'english academy' and he introduced us to his nephew. it was a cool opportunity to share the gospel. i know that the Lord is preparing people for us to teach and that the best way is through the members.

elder wells

My Mission

2010-04-30T16:54:00.001-07:00

I feel like my mission has changed a lot in the last few weeks. the reality that i'll be going home soon is starting to kick in and all of a sudden i have to prepare for change. i've loved being here in Korea and wish that i could just stay here for another six months or so but i know that change is a good thing. on my mission i've learned a lot about faith and that it is trusting that the Lord will provide for us. if we truly have faith and hope, we dont have to be afraid of the future because we know that there will always be something better up ahead. we can nourish this hope during our lives through our successes and failures. in the end we should have a hope in the resurrection of Jesus Christ and in the knowledge that we will be able to return to Heavenly Father. i know that this hope will give us the strength we need to keep on pushing even when times are hard.

-Elder Wells

More Changes

2010-04-30T16:52:00.001-07:00

well i've been in the city of ulsan for a little over a month now and just when i was getting used to things, my companion, elder matsuura, got transfered. he is going to another big city and my new companion is once again korean. ive known him since the beginning of my mission and we get along really well so im excited. it was sad to see elder mastuura go though. we had a good transfer together and did a lot of fun things like eat raw whale meat and stuff. i'll try to attach a picture.

we dont have many investigators but the ones we have are doing good. one of them, named yang sun oak, is really awesome. she reads the book of mormon a lot and has really good questions. last week she asked us about the gold plates and why God doesnt just let us have them as proof of the book of mormon. we taught her about faith and how we have to believe without needing to see and if we do we'll recieve a witness from the holy ghost, which is a stronger witness than seeing the plates, she understood well and has a desire to believe. her question made me think about Heavenly Father and the proof he has given us about the book of mormon. it reminds me of a conversation i had with elder procuniar in the mtc because he was saying how perfect the book of mormon is. man can't prove it to be true or false. its impossible. the only way to know if the book of mormon is true or not is to read and pray about it. it really is amazing how no matter what people do to prove the book of mormon to be true or false, it can't be done. i know that this is because the book is from a loving Heavenly Father that wants us to read it and pray about it. when we do we will not only find out that it is true but we'll also learn about our Father in heaven and be able to make a relationship with him.

elder wells
ps check out the meat to blubber ratio on the whale meat

2010-04-30T16:36:00.000-07:00

the guy in picture 128 is one of my favorite members in Korea. he was in my last area, po hang but i still see him because hes second councilor in the district presidency. does he look like dad to you? i think he looks exactly like dad, just korean version. he kind of acts like dad too.

Spring Cleaning

2010-03-19T14:02:00.001-07:00

Im getting used to the area im in now. i know how to get from our house to the church at least. one thing thats hard about transfering is learning names of the members in the new area. each korean name is like a vocabulary word that i have to memorize and put a face with; and when theres 80 active members it can take a lot of time. so far i have the ward mission leader and bishoprics' names down.

we had a good zone conference on monday about spring and spring cleaning. the AP's talked about how spring represents a new start or rebirth and how we can become cleaner by 'polishing' our skills as missionaries. president Jennings also gave a good talk about cleaning and how when we clean there are four things that we focus on. they are the things we throw out, the things we change, the things we keep and the things we need to buy/acquire.
he went on to say that as missionaries and children of Heavenly Father we need to throw out the things that keep us from coming closer to Him.
for things that we need to change he talked about repentance and how it is a change for the better. as we throw away our sins or bad habits, we change for the better and become clean through the atonement of Christ.
he also talked about the things to keep which includes the spiritual gifts that we've aqcuired and the desire to serve. and then he ended with things to obtain on our missions. i've had a while to reflect on the things that i've gained/learned on my mission and realized that ive learned a lot but theres still a lot more that i need to learn before i go home.

i've got to go to a whale musem. talk to you later.

elder wells

The Way to Salvation

2010-03-13T15:20:00.001-08:00

its been a while since ive had time to sit down and write out an email. i had to make a new gmail account one week and i got transfered last week. the branch im in now is a little bigger and im excited about it. if everything works out, i could be here until i go home in august. as i missionary ive learned to deal with change but i still don't like it. i miss my last area and my greenie.

the city im now in is a lot bigger. i get lost a lot and have to really rely on my companion. its called ulsan and its to the northeast of busan. i guess the only thing special about it really is that it has a huge hyundai factory and a bunch of other factories. so a good majority if the men we meet on the street work for hyundai. oh another cool thing is that theres whale restraunts here so ive made it a goal to eat whale before i leave.

the investigator situation isn't very good here so we called up some former investigators and met one of them yesterday. he was a nice older man that learned a lot from the missionaries but wouldnt give up his beliefs about buddhism or come to church. we talked a lot and explained the importance of a true religion. most buddhists in Korea are really peaceful people that think that having a belief is good, no matter what kind of belief it is. its hard to show them that religion isn't just a way to live a better life, its the process of salvation. we testified of Christ as our savior and explained how his gospel is the path that leads to salvation. our investigator took it pretty well but was still confident in his own beleifs.
i learned a lot yesterday about my purpose as a missionary and the importance of this message. im not here just to baptize people, increase the membership of the church or to show them how to live their lives; im here to teach people about the way to recieve salvation. i know its the only way to return to our Heavenly Father and i love sharing it with the people of Korea.

elder wells

transfer, new responsibilities

2010-03-13T15:18:00.000-08:00

im only on today for like 10 minutes because i got transfered...i left my greenie and probably my favorite area. im with a realy cool companion and good area so its not too bad.

im pretty positive im going home in august.

we dont get to go to the seoul temple during our mission. the only time we can go is the week we go home we take a train from busan to soul and go to the temple. im excited to go in august.

my 'kid' is doing good, he got sick last week but is doing better. im really going to miss him but im his zone leader now so i can call him whenever i want.

i have pictures to download but i dont have my camera right now so i'll do it next week.

im doing really really good. im as happy as ive been on my mission and things are starting to make sense/work out. like the language and stuff. i am really tired though. i think my face has lost a lot of color and im just not as 'spunky' as i used to be. i think its because of the work and a little because of the korean culture too. everything is about respect and humility and it has 'mellowed me out'. my new companion has a lot of energy though so it should 'wake me up'.

im not getting a new mission president but i heard the seoul west mission is getting shut down in july so there will only be 3 missions in korea. it doesnt effect our mission at all.

i dont have time to write a big email but tell everyone i said hi. thanks for asking questions, i like answering them.

love,
Elder Wells

20 Lessons

2010-03-01T05:59:00.001-08:00

this week was pretty awesome too. we have been working closely with our ward mission leader, brother olson, and he is helping us out a lot. we try to teach a lesson at his house every week and on tuesday when our investigator 'punked' us we taught a practice lesson to him and his family.
last saturday through monday was a holiday in korea called soular. im not sure but maybe its the chinese new year? anyway we had pday on monday and just have time today to email. we were busy during the holiday and had two appointments sunday night so we did splits with brother olson and our branch president. i got to go with the branch president and have dinner with a less active family. it was kind of a surprise to see how many missionary rules the branch president didnt know about. i also got a taste of how much freedom normal people have compared to missionaries. wow. it was a good learning experience for both of us. the splits was fun and i hope we are busy enough to do it again sometime.
our branch is a little behind but we are trying to put into practice the 'to the rescue' program where the ward selects families for the missionaries to teach. we dont normally teach 20 lessons in a week so our mission has included a new stat to give missionaries 20 teaching opportunities. the new stat is lessons taught to a member. this is usually done at the end of a dinner appointment or just a quick visit during the week. we have a plan to teach 20 lessons this week including lessons to a member and are a little behind but might be able to do it. if not, we plan on teaching 20 lessons next week for sure. i never thought 20 lessons in a week would be possible but we are receiving a lot of help from the ward members and the Lord.
gotta go.

elder wells

Email from my kids dad

2010-03-01T05:24:00.001-08:00

Dear Elder Wells,

I am Brother Hyun Seog Cho, who is Elder Cho's father. I heard from Sister Olson and President Jennings that you are one of the best missionaries. When I heard that you would be my son's trainer, I was very glad and happy.

As a father, I know that Elder Cho will need your many helps on almost everything he does as a new full-time missionary. However, I believe that you will be the best to help him to be improved as a successful missionary as you are.

In my personal and family prayers, praying for your success is included, please know. I love you as much as I do my son, because you are my son's Companion.

Best Regards,

Hyun Seog Cho

Miracle after miracle

2010-03-01T05:22:00.000-08:00

This last week was one of the most amazing weeks i've had on my mission. everything we planned worked out and we are starting to see results. on sunday we had 2 investigators come to church along with friends of other members. We spent the majority of the day in the church teaching lessons to potential investigators, investigators, new members, and less actives. then we went straight from the church to a dinner appointment where we taught another investigator and watched the restoration dvd. since then we have been using every resource we can to teach these people during the week. most of our investigators are in school and because of the schooling here they study until 10pm so they have no time to meet during the week but they found a time to meet with us on monday. amazing. we also found an old investigator and had an awesome lesson with her and 2 sister from the relief society. the investigator was really open and told us that her family dropped the missionaries because she felt that if she joined our church she would lose friendships and be treated differently by people in her appartment complex. one of the members with us (a convert) said that she felt the exact same pressure and was able to overcome it by joining the church with her husband and family. she said that no other relationship was more important than her family and testified that as a family they could overcome those fears and come to church. the investigators husband has interest too so we hope that this family will continue to meet with us and have the courage to come unto Christ. They seem really prepared to here this message.
the next miracle happened last night when we went to go teach two boys the new member lessons. the kids' father is less active and the mom isnt a member so we've only been able to meet the boys at church. we decided to visit them without making an appointment and when we got there the non member mother welcomed us in, talked for a while and listened to our lesson on Heavenly Father and families. she told us to come back next week and is now a new investigator. it couldn't have been more perfect. i really have seen the Lord's hand in this work and can testify that he prepares people to receive this message. i love the Lord, the work, and the people of Korea.

Elder Wells

General Conference

2010-02-10T04:34:00.000-08:00

I was thinking about what to write in my email today and the only thing i could think about was the november liahona/ensign about general conference. there was a shortage of the english version in our mission so i didnt get a copy. i tried my hardest to study the words of the prophets by reading the korean version with a dictionary next to me but it was really really hard. i started in November and made it through the priesthood session a few weeks ago. i finally decided to order the 1$ english version and have been studying it recently. im grateful for the opportunity to read the prophet's council in my own language and i know that they speak the words of our loving Heavenly Father.

Elder Wells

Broken Rice Cooker

2010-02-03T20:12:00.001-08:00

Bcc: weston Wells
Date: 01/28/10 03:20 am
Subject: broken rice cooker
Attachments:

ive officially been with my greenie for a week and things are going great. we're having fun and working hard. i try to set a good example for him but its hard because i still feel like a greenie in his culture. he shows me how to live like a korean and im grateful for his patience. he has to deal with my weaknesses and sometimes i feel bad for him. for example, i felt bad the other day because i broke our rice cooker. what happened was i wanted to bake a cake and since our little appartment doesnt have an oven, the only way to accomplish the task was to test out the rice cooker. i had heard of other missionaries doing it so it seemed like a fool proof method. i prepared the batter and started the rice cooker but it stopped about 10 minutes after it started. the cake wasnt even close to being done and i couldnt get the button to stay down so i jammed a spoon into the side to keep the button down. about 20 minutes later i checked the cake and it was totally burned. like the whole thing was black. i guess the rice cooker got too hot in the process and broke...oops.
um besides that, we had a lot of sucess this week on the street talking to people. we gave out a lot of book of mormons and taught a few quick lessons. it is awesome to share the message of the restoration and watch the different responses people have to it. i know the Lord is preparing them to hear this message and im grateful that i can be the one to share it.

Elder Wells

a new change

2010-01-26T19:51:00.000-08:00

it was another good but crazy week here in pohang. we got transfer phone calls last friday and my korean companion that i've served with for 6 months got transfered to busan. it was sad to see him go. after he got the call i waited for about a half hour to find out who my new companion would be. i was really nervous about my new companion because life was good with elder jin and change isn't always easy. i expected my new companion to call me but instead i got a call from president jennings saying that im training. so yesterday i went down to busan and picked up my new greenie! oh and of course, like most of my companions, he's korean. his name is jo one tay and he's from seoul. its hard to explain but just looking at him makes me laugh. he has no idea whats going on most of the time and has to ask me questions about everything. training him will be really fun.
as for the rest of my week, it was really good. we had a lesson with the daughter of our part member family and it went well. she is reading the book of mormon and said she'd come to church. very exciting.
welp, i have to go. this work is amazing, i know its true and im grateful i can do it.

elder wells

the blessings begin

2010-01-26T19:49:00.000-08:00

the new year blessings are already starting to come here in po hong. this week we found a new investigator! its actually the daughter of one of the member families in our branch. the daughters didnt get baptized when she was young because she heard bad things about the church from her flute teacher. she's now 22 and has had no desire to come to church or learn about the gospel even though the rest of the family is active. im not sure whats changed but she has accepted to take the lessons from the missionaries so we started teaching her on saturday. even though her parents are members, she knows little about the church and hasn't shown a lot of desire to learn. her parents said that the fact that she accepted to meet the missionaries is a success in itself. so we taught a lesson about the restoration and stressed the importance of our message. i have faith that this girl will grow as she accepts our commitments and continues to learn.

i also ate lobster this week. its not so good with kimchi..
elder wells

Receive many New Years Blessings

2010-01-07T08:40:00.001-08:00

its been a while since i emailed last because my p day changed to thursday. i kind of liked the monday p day schedule but we'll see how thursday goes.
i hope everyone had a good and safe new year. i remember as a teenager going to dances and counting down the seconds until the new year. i thought about waiting up until midnight but i would have had to have done it alone because my companion is korean and they dont do that here. instead they wake up early in the morning and watch the sun rise (its called the welcoming of the sun). the area im in right now is the best place to do it in korea because its the eastern tip and the first to see the sun come up. so we woke up early on new years day and 'welcomed the sun' with the youth in our branch. it was a really cool expirience. koreans look forward to the new year and welcome it with the concept that it will bring blessings to their lives. instead of saying happy new year they say 'receive many new years blessings' to each other. in testimony meeting as well, many members expressed their excitement for the new year by saying that they wonder what kind of blessings heavenly Father will bless their family with this year. i really like the idea of welcoming the new year and seeing it as an opportunity to receive blessings and think positively about the future. it helped me think about my goals for 2010 and ask for Heavenly Fathers help in achieving them. as i reflect on 2009 i can see countless blessings and know that the gospel with bring even more blessings in the year 2010. it is my prayer that as we live the gospel, we'll receive all the blessings Heavenly Father has in store for us.

Elder Wells

a "white Christmas"

2010-01-07T08:37:00.000-08:00

This last week was a week full of gratitude, love, and service. we were really busy helping people, especially members, during the christmas season. we also had the opportunity to spend christmas eve with an american family in our branch and thus the title white christmas. no it didnt snow...we ate dinner at their house and then acted out the birth of the Savior while reading Luke 2. it didnt compare with the follow the star performance that our ward does every year but it got me into the christmas spirit. the next day, christmas, i got to talk to the family which was great. we then spent the whole day setting up for a branch christmas party. the branch asked me weeks in advance to be santa claus and of course i accepted. the strange thing was that people continued to ask me and confirm that i would be santa for the party. i was a little confused because i didnt think it was a big deal but i soon figured out why they kept asking me and preventing me from backing out of it.
as santa i made my entrance into the party and was immediately trampled by a stampede of kids. they tried to take me down and steal my beard. luckily with the help of my companion we fought them off and i was able to call out the kids names and give them presents. the kids knew that i was one of the missionaries so it kind of ruined the fun. if i would have known all of this was going to happen i might have turned down the opportunity to be santa...

another highlight of the week was a referral we got from this same american family. they speak korean and actually have quite a few korean friends outside of the church. they invited a family they know over for dinner and had us come to. after introducing us as missionaries of the church we were able to talk to them while eating dinner and actually taught them most of the restoration. it was one of the most solid referrals i have ever gotten. i imagine that this is the most effective way to introduce neighbors and close friends to the church.
the father has a lot of interest in the church so we invited him to come to church next week and he said he would. we are praying that everything will work out and have faith that the Lord will prepare this family for baptism.

Po Hang

2009-12-16T09:28:00.000-08:00

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!

2009-12-12T11:47:00.002-08:00

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

2009-12-12T11:47:00.001-08:00

Last week with Kern dog, broadcast

2009-11-29T13:31:00.000-08:00

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

2009-11-29T13:30:00.001-08:00

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?

2009-11-09T07:22:00.000-08:00

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?

2009-11-09T07:19:00.000-08:00

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

2009-10-25T09:02:00.000-07:00

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

2009-10-13T11:26:00.000-07:00

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

2009-10-13T11:24:00.001-07:00

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

2009-09-29T08:44:00.000-07:00

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

2009-09-29T08:33:00.000-07:00

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...

2009-09-15T15:16:00.000-07:00

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

2009-09-08T14:30:00.001-07:00

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

2009-08-31T19:53:00.000-07:00

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

2009-08-31T19:50:00.001-07:00

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

2009-08-17T06:46:00.001-07:00

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

2009-08-10T14:37:00.000-07:00

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

2009-08-03T07:58:00.000-07:00

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.

2009-08-03T07:50:00.000-07:00

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

2009-07-20T14:18:00.000-07:00

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..

2009-07-14T09:57:00.000-07:00

Don't try this at home!

2009-07-14T09:54:00.000-07:00

Elder Jin meen young Robert Harley

2009-07-14T09:48:00.000-07:00

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

2009-07-14T09:45:00.000-07:00

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

2009-06-29T08:35:00.000-07:00

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!

2009-06-22T13:52:00.000-07:00

New Comp! Octopus

2009-06-22T13:48:00.000-07:00

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

2009-06-15T06:29:00.000-07:00

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

2009-06-15T06:26:00.000-07:00

Another Good Week

2009-06-15T06:22:00.000-07:00

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

2009-06-15T06:17:00.000-07:00

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

2009-05-29T03:32:00.000-07:00

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

2009-05-25T07:36:00.000-07:00

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.

2009-05-25T07:33:00.000-07:00

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

2009-05-25T07:21:00.000-07:00

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

2009-05-25T07:06:00.000-07:00

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!

2009-04-28T13:28:00.000-07:00

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!!!

2009-04-28T13:27:00.001-07:00

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!

2009-04-28T13:24:00.000-07:00

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

2009-04-28T13:20:00.000-07:00

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!

2009-03-30T05:50:00.000-07:00

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

2009-03-23T11:26:00.001-07:00

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

2009-03-17T06:30:00.000-07:00

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

2009-03-09T11:15:00.000-07:00

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

2009-03-04T15:15:00.000-08:00

2009-03-02T16:28:00.000-08:00

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

God loves us

2009-02-11T06:04:00.000-08:00

February 8, 2009

my 경험

Well its been a while since i have been able to actually sit down and write an email because the past few weeks have been crazy. im going to be honest, these past 3 weeks have been really hard. ive been having problems with my companion and i have learned a lot from it. its really made me step back and think about why i am here on a mission. a little over a week ago i had an experience that changed my prospective a lot and really helped me. i am hesitant to share this experience because it is very personal and spiritual. but ive decided that its alright to share.
so i was on splits with the elder from New Zealand and we were street proselyting when a lady walked straight up to us.she was about 40 and was dressed fairly nicely. as she was walking she kept repeating something really fast. it took me about 10 seconds to break down what she was saying and comprehend it. she was saying 'i want to die, i want to die, i want to die'. it caught me really off gaurd and neither of us knew what to do. i began praying in my heart, begging for the influence of the spirit to tell me how to help this woman. well an answer didnt come right away. i tried to calm her down and asked her what the problem was. she spoke really fast and i only understood one word from her whole story. the word was hawna neem. 하나님. it means God. i was instantly filled with the Holy Ghost. it was as if someone was hugging my whole body. i cant explain the feeling i felt. i felt God's love for this woman and i told her that He loves her. i told her that He has a plan for her and that she doesn't want to die. this life is hard but it is so worth it to live.
I learned about the Love of God that day. i learned that God loves all of His children equally and individually. this has really helped me to love my companion more. even though we are different, God loves us the same. I know that God lives. i know that we are his children and He created an incomprehensible plan for us to return to Him. How amazing it is to know of this plan and have the opportunity to share it with others.

obedience is the price
love is the motive
faith is the power
the Spirit is the key
Jesus Christ is the reason.

Elder Wells

2009-01-27T10:35:00.000-08:00

My district

2009-01-27T10:33:00.000-08:00

2009-01-27T10:29:00.000-08:00

Hardest week of my life

2009-01-27T10:19:00.000-08:00

January 22, 2009
Because of the Chinese New Year I have to email early and not on Monday as usual. well i dont really have an uplifting email to send this week so i am not sure if you want to send it out to everyone. this week was the hardest week of my life. my companion cracked and verbally abused me for about 20 minutes. it wasn't very fun. there has always been a little bit of tention between us because he sucks at english and i suck at korean. i try to talk to him but i can only ask random questions and mostly dont understand what he says back. anyways hes also been under a lot of pressure, i dont really know why.
we were planning one night for the next day and he told me to call a less active (the philipino lady) to meet with her. well we take a bus 20 minutes just to meet with her everyweek and cant even go in the door and he cant even speak english so i dont like going everyweek. i hesitated to call her and tried to figure out how i could explain how i feel in korean. he started commanding me to call her (in korean there are a ton of different levels of speach from king form all the way down to low form and the last one is yup, command form.which of course missionaries arent allowed to use, especially to other missionaries) so i did but she didnt answer. well thats when he pretty much exploded. he asked why i was questioning him and told me to obey him. i really couldnt tell if he was serious becuase it was such a little thing so i started to quietly laugh. he didnt like that much either and just went off. the two other missionaries came in to stop us from arguing but he just told them it was none of their business and to leave. so that lasted for about 20 minutes (i surprisingly understood everything he said) and then he kinda just stopped talking. thats when i went into the other bedroom and just started crying. i couldnt understand why he got so mad. luckily i just sat there and took it because if i would have argued back, things would have been really bad. the next day he slept through personal study and wouldnt let us have companion study. but then we had a companionship meeting and cleared everything up. he first asked if i had any problems with him and i said no, i dont. because i dont have any problems with him, he obviously has a problem with me. so he told me that the problem was that first hes under a lot of stress and the reason he got mad is because of me wanting to change the plans at the last second. he didnt care whether we go to the ladies house or not, the whole point was that we plan everything out a week in advance and because i wanted to change it the night before he got mad. i apologized and he appologized and everything has been fine since then. i am trying so hard to forgive him for what he did but it hurts. he really hurt me. i do forgive him and i am fine with him but i am still hurt. i dont know how to get over my pain.
Love,
Elder Wells

One more week

2009-01-22T05:44:00.001-08:00

January 18, 2009

One more week…

This week nothing really special happened and i dont have much time so i will keep it short.
we met with our older investigator twice this week. he took us to a museum of Jeju on tuesday. that was kind of cool. then he came to church on Sunday. we have taught him the restoration but he always tells stories and stuff so its hard to focus on the lesson and teach him.
besides that we visited a few less active members and did a lot of proselyting.
umm...ya thats about it for missionary work. i have been studying a lot about faith this week though. another missionary pointed out that in Moroni 10 under all of the gifts of the spirit, faith is one of them. and in order to recieve these gifts, we have to ask for them. i have been trying to increase my faith through prayer and action. i have faith that i will learn this language and be able to find people who will accept the gospel.

Love,
Elder Wells

YO

2009-01-15T17:28:00.000-08:00

January 11, 2009

yo
so to answer your questions, my new companion is great, his name is jung jean (not jing) sung and he is from a place called kong one dough or something. i dont really know where it is, just somewhere near seoul. he is not very good at english so it makes things interesting. outside the appartment we only speak korean..if we speak at all. its hard to make a good relationship because of the language barrier. but i am learning a lot from him and my language skills are improving. he is super nice and a really good missionary. for the most part i can say what i want to say but understanding what other people say back to me is a lot harder. it takes a lot of focusing. and even when i uderstand most of it, theres always words i dont understand so i have to guess what the person is trying to say. its fun. i will definately be on the island for the next 2 transfers if not the next 3.its expensive to fly people out here so the missionaries stay a while. it really is a priviledge to be here and especially with a korean companion. i have decided that its probably the most ideal situation a new missionary could be in. its the best place in the mission with a very experienced companion that obviously knows the language. i truly am blessed and being prepared to become an instrument in the lords hands.
i forgot to mention last week that i am the only american living in our 4 man house. there are 2 koreans and the other elder is from new zealand. hes not mauri though. hes pretty normal, just has a funny accent, especially when he speaks korean. its definately weird to be the only american though, i can't fully relate to anyone really. theres two more missionaries on the south side of the island and one of them is american so i have one lifeline.
this week wasn't very busy. we spent a lot of time street proselyting and knocking doors. it hasn't been too effective but we got a few contacts so hopefully we get something out of it. we did meet a dropped investigator family and talked to them for a while. the father is really nice and has a lot of good questions. he really likes how our church teaches. how there isnt a pastor or preacher that speaks the whole time but instead how the members all speak and teach each other. he also likes how important family is to the church. the only concern is that he has read a lot of bad things about the church on the internet. we havent gotten into any of those concerns but it could be a problem. about that old guy,named gong gyung oak, we met with him and showed him the restoration video. he had a lot of questions which was good but we kinda got distracted.
we also went out and visited the philipino lady named cher-anne. she has been having a hard time lately and said it was a blessing that we came to visit her. we couldnt go in but stood at the door and shared a message with her. my companion doesnt speak english so itwas only me talking to her. i dont have time to go into details but i bore testimony to her about Heavenly Father's love for all of His children. the spirit was definately there and it felt so good to be able to express myself in english.

love
Elder Wells

A New Year, A New Korean Companion

2009-01-15T17:23:00.000-08:00

Jan 4, 2009

Another Korean Companion

so this week was transfer week. i thought that everything would stay pretty normal because i have only been with elder Boardman for 1 transfer but nope. im still in the same area but i got a new companion. he is flying here tonight at 6 so i havent met him yet. his name is Elder jung jing (like jingle bells without the le..or the bells) sung. 정징성. another korean elder next to me just said that the last part of his name (sung) "is means castle." so ya thats him. i have heard a lot of good things about him, he used to be a zone leader in busan and he is 'dying' in 2 transfers. so it looks like i will be with him for his last 2. its crazy, i have had 5 companions (including the mtc) and ive only been on a mish for 5 transfers.
anyways, what else. ah, ya i had a pretty interesting appointment this week. we got a phone call around 7:30 pm and this lady who we found wanted to take us out to dinner. so we met her at a restaraunt and started eating (the main dish was eel, not bad but a little chewy). well she says that she has to drink alcohol and asks us if its ok. my companion was like umm yeah...so anyway, long story short, she gets drunk and starts going off about night clubs and 'abominable things' according to our korean elder/translator and how she wants to go with us to one (i had no idea what she was saying and neither did my comp). we tried to get out of there as fast as we could and by the time we did it was about 9:45. it was probably the craziest night i have had so far. so ya that was the highlight of my week. not very spiritual but i learned never to let your investigator get drunk during an appointment, it just isnt good.
as far as real, sober investigators go, we have started working with this old guy, about 70, who served in the korean war; he showed us a crazy scar on his head to prove it. his main interest is english. our mission used to do this thing called the 30/30 program where missionaries would teach english 30 min and then the lessons for 30. we stopped it but if people ask, we can teach them. we also teach english classes at the church on wed and sat. so he started out wanting to learn english but his interest is slowly changing. he doesnt have any religion but thinks there could be a God and wants to learn more about him. we have committed him to pray but he hasn't yet, he said he would before we meet again. it is really exciting to watch first hand his spiritual knowledge and desire grow. he is a good investigator for me because he needs to hear simple truths explained simply. all i can say are the most basic, simple sentences but even though they are simple, they are so true. i know that i am teaching the truth and that Heavenly Father has put this man in my path to help both him and me grow.

Love,
Elder Wells

Christmas

2008-12-29T07:15:00.000-08:00

December 28, 2008

hey everyone,
i hope you all had a good Christmas. i had a small but peaceful Christmas here. it was really good to talk to everyone on the phone and now i feel like i don’t have much to say. but some things i forgot to mention were:
we got cell phones. that was weird. i was just getting used to not having a cell phone and now i have one again. the cell phones here are really cool. they have a camera on the front next to the screen and you can actually video chat with the cell phone. its pretty cool.

on Christmas eve all of the 6 missionaries here got together and we set up a table and pictures in front of the city hall and sang Christmas songs. we were hoping for people to stop by and look at the church pictures and ask questions but no one did. so we grabbed a bunch of Book of Mormons (copies of the Book of Mormon if you want to be correct) and proselyted there in front of the city hall for a few hours. it was really effective. i loved telling people merry Christmas and explaining to them what Christmas actually is. it is always sad to talk to people that have no idea who Christ is or what He did for all of us. but at the same time it makes me want to work even harder so that i can bring as many souls unto Christ as i can. i have gained a lot of understanding this Christmas season about the countless sacrifices that Christ made for us. i am grateful for His sacrifices and the ability i have to give such a small sacrifice of 2 years back to Him.

Love,
Elder Wells

2008-12-23T13:13:00.000-08:00

2008-12-23T13:03:00.000-08:00

Christmas

2008-12-23T10:30:00.000-08:00

December 21, 2008

i tried to upload some photos so i hope that you can see them. if you cant, sorry.
so anyway, one of the pictures is of the baptism we had yesterday. it was the first baptism i have seen in Korea. his name is kim sung su. i told you a little about him before but basically his mom and brother were baptized about 8 months ago and he finally decided to get baptized. he was taught before i got here so i didnt really teach him or anything. but im glad he was baptized. his mom spoke at the baptizm and she talked about how the church has changed and blessed her life. it was really cool to see the change that the gospel can bring in such a short amount of time.
this last week our ward had a christmas party/performance night that went really well. a lot of people participated and we did a dance. my companion and i were walking on the street before the party and we met a guy and invited him. well i thought the guy was kinda sketchy but my companion thought it would be good to invite him. sure enough the guy was a bum and he showed up 2 hours early and brought a huge hiking backpack with him with all his stuff. everyone was kind of afraid of him. it was really funny.
at the end of the christmas party they showed clips of Christ's life from church videos. a lot of nonmembers came to the party so it was good for them to see. i was also glad to be able to see the video because Christmas isn't celebrated here like it is in the US. the members don't even do anything on christmas from what i have heard. so i havent been able to see things like our wards nativity and stuff. the video was a good reminder of how much the Savior has done for us and i am grateful for his sacrifice.

Love,
웰스 장로

Stuff about the mission and JeJu

2008-12-23T10:29:00.000-08:00

December 14, 2008

well i lost the email i was just typing so i have to start all over. here it goes again:
i dont have any good stories so heres some facts about korea:
everyone eats on little tables and sit on the floor (we do too). even restaraunts, if it is a nicer restaraunt you sit on the floor, the cheaper ones have you sit at tables (ironic right?)
we sleep on things called yo's. they are pretty much an inch thick blanket that we sleep on and then roll up in the morning (its way better than making a bed). i was worried that i wouldnt like them and they would be uncomfortable but i have been sleeping fine. to heat the houses they use a water boiling system that heats the floor. so sleeping and eating on the floor is nice and toasty.
they dont have dryers in korea. we hang our clothes to dry them. it takes like 3 days because it is cold outside. i dont know why they dont just get dryers.
the fruit is really good here. the pears are probably the most different and my favorite. they are big and round, almost the size of a canteloupe. and they arent mushy, they are sweet and crunchy. i heard that costco sells asian pears so you should go buy some. the oranges are also really good. we went and did that service project again for the old lady at her farm thing.
i saw a group of elementary kids performing songs and stuff the other day. they were all playing ocarinas. it was pretty funny and now i want to learn the ocarina.
another elder taught me how to read music so now im learning the piano. i can already play book of mormon stories.
the weather has been weird here. its supposed to be pretty cold and windy but its normally pretty warm. it did snow for 2 days last week though.
i live in a 4 man appartment and the other 2 missionaries here live in a city about 30 minutes away. they come to our city (jeju city) for district meetings and p days.
president jennings and his wife came down this weekend to do interviews with us. they took us to a good american restaraunt called vips and we will probably do something with them today.
president announced that every team of missionaries is getting a cell phone. i am pretty excited. it will definately be helpful. he also told me that my mtc companion, elder bennett (the one that went home because he was throwing up) has been cleared to come next transfer. i am really happy and excited to see him. i probably wont see him for a while though cuz i'll be here on this island.
we had a baptism scheduled for yesterday (sunday) but our investigator wasnt ready. he is technically my investigator but i barely know him and havent taught him at all. he was taught a few months ago with his mother and brother and they were baptized but he wasnt. so we are trying to prepare him to be baptized next week.
we dont really have any other investigators. i told you about the guy last week that we taught about Joseph Smith. he could become an investigator but i dont know because we havent met with him since then.
things are going good. my companion and i have seen little miracles here and there. we are working hard and have been patiently waiting for success. if the baptism goes through next week, it will be good. i cant wait to see my first baptism as a missionary and witness first hand the fruits of our labors.

Love,
Elder Wells

Hear no evil, speak no evil, see no evil

2008-12-07T18:56:00.000-08:00

Picking Oranges

2008-12-07T18:51:00.000-08:00

December 7, 2008

Well this week went by pretty fast. nothing really special happened but we had some cool experiences and a good service project.

our service project was on wednesday and was in another town on the island called so gee po. we spent the day out there picking orange/tangerine things in a huge orange grove/garden thing. it was actually really cool. jeju has a ton of farms that grow oranges and everyone eats them. they are really good. we have a billion oranges in are apartment and a lot of them go bad because we can't eat them fast enough. one of the missionaries said that he didnt drink water for a week because he got enough water from eating the oranges. so for the project we went out to this farm and this old lady just watched us pick her oranges (we had to cut them off the trees cuz if you pluck them, the peel comes off too and ruins them) so anyways ya this old lady just watched us and yelled at us in her crazy korean that i couldnt understand whenever we did it wrong.
last night we had a good appointment with an older man. his wife is a member but he isnt. i couldnt understand very well but i think he is buddhist but has a lot of interest in christianity. the missionaries have visited him many times before but he is a little stubborn so they havent been able to get him to sit down and listen to a lesson. we started talking to him about our church and how we are Christian but have a little different view about how God and Jesus are two different beings. my companion explained that when Jesus was baptized, Heavenly Fathers voice came from heaven and also when he was on the cross, he talked to the father. i then said that when Joseph Smith saw God, he saw God and Jesus Christ. well he hadn't heard about Joseph Smith so my companion and i gave him the first vision story. it was awesome and the spirit was there. i felt it. we then explained a little about the Book of Mormon and asked if he would read the introduction before we visit again. he popped it open right then and read the whole thing. it was a good experience.
Welp i gotta go.
the church is true. it really is.

Love,
Elder Wells

A Letter from Elder Wells' Trainer, Elder Lee

2008-12-05T13:01:00.000-08:00

You should be able to click on the letter to make it larger to read.

Jeju week 2

2008-12-01T06:23:00.000-08:00

November 30, 2008

Jeju:

This week went well. the first thing that i have learned while i have been on the island is that i am still doing missionary work. the island is just another area in the mission and a lot of work needs to be done. we worked a lot this week with a few investigors and some inactive members. we visited a philipino lady named share-anne. she is a member but is inactive, her husband isnt a member and she has a 3 year old son. we couldnt come in and talk with her because she was home alone but we shared a really good message from the door (in english luckily). she started crying during our conversation and told us how hard it has been to live in korea becuase she feels alone since she cant talk to anyone (besides her husband who speaks english). it has stopped her from coming to church too because she doesnt learn anything. we recognized her concern and i told her that i can really relate to her. it is hard to go to church and to live here becuase i honestly dont know what people are saying. the only people i can have a normal conversation with is my companion and the other american elder in our appartment. but i told her that it is important to come to sacrament to feel the spirit that is there and to renew baptisimal covenants. it was a good meeting. unfortunately she didnt come to sacrament yesterday though.

oh and we also had thanksgiving this week! it was a really good day and no, i didnt even eat kimchi. we went to an american restaraunt called young gu's pizza (sounds like an american name right?). its really good, almost american style food but its pretty expensive. so for thanksgiving i had cheese fries, onion rings, and pizza. probably the best meal i have had yet.
also this week our branch put on a music night. it was more like a talent show and a lot of people performed. it was a lot of fun. we (the 6 missionaries here) did a dance. i have it recorded on the memory card so you'll get that whenever i send it home.

Love,
Elder Wells

JEJU

2008-11-23T20:40:00.001-08:00

November 23, 2008
This week was the best week yet. i got transfered to a new area. the new area i am in is called JEJU!!!! if you look on a map, its the little island below Korea. i flew to the island (by myself) this morning. it was awesome. i am so excited to serve here. there are 6 missionaries on the island. it is an honor to serve here because they only send the most obedient missionaries here since no one can look after them. i was shocked to find out that i was coming here on my second transfer, it is a little rare. im thrilled.
some facts about the island: it is a pretty big island (2 cities) and its almost tropical. theres palm trees and stuff, it kinda reminds me of California but i have only been here for about 4 hours so i dont really know. the most famous thing about the island is called saturi, it means accent or dialect. they speak a very weird dialect here on the island and its hard for missionaries to understand. its not just an accent, they use different words that people on the mainland dont understand. its crazy.
i cant understand korean well so the dialect is going to be an even bigger challenge but im not very worried. i have faith. so thats about all i know about the island so far, it looks like the missionaries that serve here stay for at least 3 transfers because you have to take a plane to get here so i'll be here for a while.
My companion: his name is Elder Boardman, he is from Idaho Falls, Idaho. maybe the Saadehs know him? i didnt know Sister Saadeh's maiden name so he doesnt know. this transfer is his 6th transfer and its his first time being a senior companion. because its his first time going senior and im still a greenie this transfer might be interesting. i have faith in his korean abilities but we'll see how everything works out because he is still new. he seems like a very nice, diligent missionary and im excited to serve with him. we have a lot in common (track, football, BYU).
last week was nothing special compared to the past 5 hours of riding on a plane and having my whole world change in a matter of hours. the only highlights of the week were:
i ate dog. it was at a restaraunt and it was dog soup. its called bong shing tong. it was really tender and kinda tasted like beef. i couldnt really taste the meat though because there was a ton of random spices and leaves in the soup. there was also a dog bone just floating in it, kinda gross.
we also played a lot of sports last week. every week with the ward we go to this big sports park and play badminton. koreans love badminton. its in this indoor staduim with like 20 badminton courts. it was a lot of fun and im going to miss it. we also went to a multi stake soccer tournament on saturday. we brought an investigator and he really liked it. the tournament lasted all day. it was a lot of fun. i hurt my toe though.
so thats what happened this week. i still cant beleive im on Jeju. (its sometimes called Jeju doh, doh means island).its really awesome. i am excited to serve here and experience all of the cool things here. (this area is for sure the envy of the mission). i feel a little insufficient to be put in such a demanding area. im not worried about keeping the rules but with saturi and a young companion, i know that i will have to work hard to pull my weight. i know that i have been called here for a reason and i can't wait to find out what that reason is.

Love,
Elder Wells

2008-11-17T07:39:00.001-08:00

November 16, 2008

This week was pretty typical. i am finally starting to get into the groove of a missionary and how things work here in Korea. some exciting things that happened this week were: the bishop took us out to lunch on Tuesday. we went to a really nice restaurant where we ate this food called 삼겹살 (sam gyup sar) it was really good. definately the best food i have eaten yet and i have heard its a lot of missionaires favorite food. its really thick bacon but it doesnt taste like bacon. to cook it, there was this dome in the middle of the table that the waiter put it on. then we put on other things to cook too, like onions, garlic and kimchi. once it was all cooked we put it in a lettuce rap and ate it. it was really good.
I got to go on splits this week twice. the first time was with one of the AP's his name is Elder Thorley. it was nice to be with an american and i learned a lot. he taught me some good sayings to use when proselyting. then we taught the first lesson to one of his investigators. i taught about prophets, the apostasy, and the Book of Mormon. the lesson was good but the investigator didnt seem very into it.
i also went on splits with elder nash. he is one of the office secretaries. it was a little dissapointing because i had to stay in the office and do work. my companion got in trouble for sticking his 'greenie' in the office all day. we went out and proselyted for a little while so it wasnt too bad. and we also walked down this cool market street. do you remember the picture we used to have on the computer of the market with the fish and weird things laying out? it looked exactly like that.
That is about all that i did this week. i dont get a lot of opportunities to teach but when i do it is awesome. i love bareing my testimony in Korean, especially about our Heavenly Father. there are a lot of people here that dont believe in God and i feel His love when i talk about him. I know that He lives and that He loves all of us.

Love,
Elder Wells

Looking back at Salt Lake City Airport on way to Korea

2008-11-14T06:42:00.000-08:00

2008-11-14T06:13:00.001-08:00

Nov. 9, 2008

Hey everyone,
This week was a really great week. we have one progressing investigator. his name is Pawk sung peer. he is 15. we have taught him the first lesson and committed to read the book of Mormon and pray. i got to teach about God, families, prayer, and The Restoration. i recited the first vision in Korea for the first time to an investigator. it was awesome and really spiritual. but i have really bad pronunciation so my companion gave him the first vision on paper to read. (kinda embarrassing that he didn’t understand me but o well). we have to teach him at a park because he doesn’t have much time cuz he goes to school and so we meet him there. we still teach the Chinese man, Barry but he cant come to church because he has school at busan college. so we might drop him and tell him to call the missionaries when his schedule changes.
there are 3 teams of missionaries in my area and we all work together with 2 wards. we put on a Halloween party last week for them. it was so fun. we carved pumpkins, had a scary movie going on in one room (it was a full on asian horror movie, very weird and only scary to Asians. do you remember the Chinese version of the ring we watched one time called ringu? it was a lot like that). well the movie wasn’t approved so we kinda got in trouble but anyway..there was also trick or treating. the mission presidents house is attached to our church so the kids went over and trick or treated there. it was a lot of fun and the ward loved it. we also had a haunted house maze thing. so fun.

I am really starting to enjoy cooking. its fun and rewarding. ive made applesauce, mashed potatoes and hash browns. a typical meal is something like ramen noodles (they originated in Korea and Koreans love them) the ramen here is a lot better than in the US but always really spicy. the food is normally really spicy. kimchi, always a soup and some other side things. i never really know what they are. its usually pretty good. the best thing i have eaten was actually Chinese food but a lot of Koreans eat it. its sweet and sour pork.
Korea is beautiful. we went to a members house in another city and the way there was all countryside and stuff. it was really cool green and orange hills because its fall. but im mostly in the city so it gets boring and everything looks the same. there are always fun weird billboards and advertisements that have weird english words here though.
yes for the record, everyone is naked in the bathhouse (including the missionaries). therefore they are banned in most of the other korea missions.
well thats that. im studying hard and really learning a lot from the Book of Mormon. I know that the Book of Mormon is the word of God. It is such a powerful tool and i am so grateful to have it has a missionary.
Love,
Elder Wells

Nov. 1, 2008

2008-11-14T06:04:00.000-08:00

Nov. 1, 2008

Sorry about last week. i was e mailing in the mission office and they kicked me off right at 6:00 and i didnt realize that they would do that so i spent time the ten minutes i did have reading e mails instead of typing. i will try to make up for it this time.

these past two weeks were a lot similar to the first. i still cant understand what people say to me in Korean but thats alright. some cool things that have happened:
we are teaching a 25 year old chinese man that doesnt speak korean, he only speaks a little english. so i get to teach while my companion sits and tries to understand whats going on for a change. the investigator is really cool and loves learning about the gospel but we might have to drop him because he isnt progressing. he does what we ask but he has school every sunday during church (school is RIDICULOUS in Korea, high school kids go to school from 8 am to 9 pm and sometimes later) so he cant come to church at all.
well i am getting kicked off the computer again..maybe i will have time to e mail later but if not i am sorry.

Love,
Elder Wells

sorry that this is a run on of the last one, i got kicked off earlier. here are some highlights:
last p day was amazing. we went down to the beach and ate lunch there. it was a really cool veiw of a big bridge and huge buildings. i took pictures and i will send the memory card home. then we went to a buddhist temple up in this mountain. it was awesome. it made me realize that im in Asia. everything was old and peaceful. i took a lot of pictures of the buddhist temples and statues so i hope you like them. it was a lot cooler in real life though. there was a huge golden buddha statue with a million man size statues surrounding it. i really liked going there. and there were people laying down mats and worshipping the buddha while we were there. it was definately an experience.
i ate silk larva. that was gross.
a singing group called new horizon came and did a concert. they were all missionaries in the busan mission like 30 yrs ago and the sang on their mission in a group. it was a good concert thing. and president Jennings was there so we got to stay for the whole thing. we didnt get back until 10:15 pm. crazy huh.
i met a man on the bus that spoke english. he had seen and talked to the missionaries before and wanted to learn more about the church. he was fascinated how we learn korean so quickly because it is such a hard language and wanted to know what techniques they teach us. i just bore testimony to him that i know that i am doing what God wants me to do and because of it, he is helping me learn korean so i can teach other people about him and his gospel. it was a good experience. i didnt have time to get the mans information because he had to get off the bus but i gave him a pamphlet.
well thats about all that i can remember.

Love,
Elder Wells

Looking back

2008-11-12T12:13:00.001-08:00

Elder Wells' first Korean BBQ after Ryan's graduation from USD Law School, May 17, 2008. Family and Uncle Paul....George Saadeh at Newport Beach Temple.
. Newport Beach Temple on May 17, 2008.

July 27, Weston's farewell
July 28, Elder Wells' Setting apart by President Vidmar Elder Wells & district & Elder Bennett The "Boys" in the MTC, Elder Brown, Elder Procuniar, Elder Vidmar and Elder Robertson.

Letter of arrival from President Jennings

2008-11-12T11:02:00.000-08:00

Dear Brother and Sister Wells :

I am emailing to confirm the safe arrival of Elder Wells in the Korea Busan Mission. We picked everyone up late Tuesday (no missing luggage!) and yesterday was a full day of preparation and training. We began with interviews, opening bank accounts, preparing “green card” documentation, and other administrative chores to get everyone set up. The Elders and Sisters made their own Korean lunch – “kimpap.”

Then they had a training exercise which combined cultural exploration and proselyting activities. While all this was going on, I was deliberating over companionship and area assignments.

Upon returning to the Mission Home we had a testimony meeting (in Korean) and a magnificent dinner the likes of which they won’t see again for some time. Then I gave a presentation about Korea and my expectations for them and announced companionship assignments. The trainers were all carefully selected and we depended on observation and, of course, inspiration to align the very best teams

Elder Wells will be trained by Elder Lee Tae Hee and his first area will be Kumjung one of our most active Wards and near the Mission Home. Elder Lee is an extremely bright and personable Korean Elder who speaks excellent English and is also the District Leader in his district. Elder Wells has already demonstrated an excellent ability to learn Korean and I believe that he is well prepared to serve with a Korean trainer. In some ways, this can be more challenging for a new missionary, but it accelerates their growth in the Mission tremendously. Here is a picture of Sister Jennings and I with Elder Wells and Elder Lee. We will also be sending some other photos to you by regular mail.

Please feel free to contact me if you have any questions.

Faithfully,
Kenneth W. Jennings, Jr.
Korea Busan Mission

Mission Address for Letters and Packages

2008-11-12T10:49:00.000-08:00

Elder Weston Wells
Korea Busan Mission
Dongnae PO Box 73 Busan-si
Busan-gwangyeoksi 607-600
South Korea

Packages:
Elder Weston Wells
Korea Busan Mission
(1/2) 1039-1 Oncheon 2-dong
Dongnae-gu
Busan-si
Pusan-jikhalsi 607-062
South Korea

There is NO pouch for this mission. A letter costs about $.94.

Elder Wells is in Korea - Crazy!

2008-11-12T09:22:00.000-08:00

Oct. 20, 2008

Holy Korea

wow this last week was the most packed, exciting, awesome, confusing, entertaining, random, awkward, and craziest week of my entire life. lets start from the beginning:

13 hour plane ride: flew over alaska and russia (or kamkatcha if you play risk.) and japan. that was awesome. i thought we were going to fly over part of china and north korea because thats what the tv showed but we veered far away from them. probably a good idea. anyways it was a very long flight. got in late at night then
Wednesday morning 5:30 am we went to the mogyoketan aka korean bath house. if you have never heard of a korea bath house, i will be blunt. its a huge hotel with a bunch of 3 foot pools where a billion koreans hang out naked. ya its wierd. but very relaxing. oh and one pool is like 4 feet deep and is for swimming so i got to go swimming on my mission. so while we were hanging out near the hot tub (we werent naked at this moment in time) an old man comes up (hes naked) and asks if we are the missionaries. so an elder got his phone number. the reason i tell this story is because the first refferal i ever saw in korea and the investigator was naked. weird. ok so next, we went proselyting at pusan college and then had a scavenger hunt where we had to take pictures of stuff and buy squid from one of the street venders, it was cool. then we had a testimony meeting that night and got our companions.
my companion: yup hes korean. his name is elder lee or just e tay wee in korean. he is awesome. we live alone in a little appartment which i was scared about because i didnt think he would know much english but he does. and he knows funny english (words like pimp and stuff, hes great). he is really funny. to be honest i dont understand a word he says in korean. i dont know korean. i would be freaking out about it but all of the older elders tell me that it was the same for them and it just takes time to be able to break up the words and define them because they speak soooo fast.
ok what else...my first minor injury: you know how doors have a push or pull sign on them to know whether to push or pull them in. well they have them in korea but they are in korean..so i tried to push a door open and ran right into it. it was funny. and it didnt hurt or anything.
my mission president and his wife are great. they are really funny. i like them a lot. my area is right next to the mission home so they were in church with us.
the food is actually really good. but i havent had enough of it to have somethign i didnt like. we eat really random stuff too. haha like saturday we had tuna sandwiches for breakfast, chinese food for lunch and spaghetti for dinner. it was weird. but i like korean food. oh except, lets just say that i had to look up the word for diarrhea already..
my area is really really tough. we are whitewashing the area which means that we are both new to it and we have no investigators..its miserable. we proselyte all day everyday. the only thing i hve done besides proselyte was a service project which was soo funny. we volunteered to serve food to a group of old people. it was put on my a buddhist chruch. so we served food to about 150 grandmas and grandpas. they are soo funny. seriously. they are all tiny and their clothes look like they got them from grandma tressie. the grandmas all walk around everywehre with little bags or the cart things in all the asian movies. its great. and sometimes they hunch over and start running. haha i love it. after teh service we ate the food we were serving wich was teh most disgusting food ive ever had. it was kimchi rice and soup. the kimchi and rice wasnt bad but the soup tasted like horse sweat, seriously.
the fashion here is hilarious. i dont have time to explain but people wear the weirdest stuff.
today pday was awwwesooommmeee. we took a bus down to the beach and played sand football with 12 other elders, it was the most fun ive had in 3 months. i also saw the most amazing fireworks on saturday night. it was some celebration. way better than american fireworks. i wish i would have had my camera..
i dotn have time to explain more.
i dont really need anything so dont worry about sending stuff. i will make a list. but when you do, send sweedish fish. my companion looves them. haha in his korean accent he says : soo delicious. its funny. i wish you could hear.

everything is going great. the work is hard but definately worth it.

Love elder Wells