11-17-14

Hello,

The biggest thing that happened this week was on Saturday we had a stake music festival. The whole stake gathered in the stake center and we listened to different singing/music performances. It was a great time because I could really feel the Spirit's presence. 

This week we were able to try our free English board outside and a few people came up to us and showed interest and later that night one of those people called us. We are planning to move our English class to Friday in hope that more people will be able to attend. The English board is good because we can say who we are and what church we come from and help people see that we are good and just trying to do good.

At our service project this week all the little students had yo-yos. It was interesting to see that something like yo-yos will always be popular no matter what time period it is.

It is getting pretty cold now. Yesterday we turned on the heaters for the first time during church.

Although things are slow I love being a missionary! Always remembering that this is the Lord's work keeps me head up and my body going! I love our Savior and all our brothers and sisters!

Have a Good week!

Love,

Elder Frampton

11-10-14

Hello,

So this week we made a board that says 'Free English' on it and our phone number. We are hoping it will help us find either new investigators or English class attendees. We haven't been able to use it yet because our phone isn't working......so a little back story. A few months ago the number we were using wasn't very reliable because it apparently would have on and off service. That was before I got here. So when they realized it had a problem they got a different phone and number but kept that old one. Then the first day I was here in this area they fixed the old number so we started using it again and just had the other number off. Then at the beginning of this week the APs asked us to send the other phone back by mail, so we sent it. That was Tuesday. The Korean AP was going to turn that phone service off since we didn't need it anymore. But because we were using both phones he didn't really know which one to turn off exactly and he canceled the service for the one we were using, not the one we sent....so that our phone turned off Friday dinner time. We didn't know until nighttime though so when we had to call and report that we were home, we had to go out and use a payphone...So then the next day the AP told us to come to mission headquarters and he gave us the phone that we had sent back so right now we have that phone again and are using it until he turns on our actual phone again. Confusing right?? yup, it's fun.

Because of that problem we were not able to meet with the one guy that likes English and not gospel. We showed up but he did not. He probably texted to confirm but when we didn't text back he just thought that we couldn't meet this week.

When we were going to district meeting on Thursday we saw this guy in the subway station playing Ping-Pong with himself. Just hitting the ball against the wall and returning it.

Sunday at church one of our member’s younger brother that lives in America was visiting on business. He brought two people he works with, one from America Tennessee/Virginia and one from Seoul. They two people the brother brought were both nonmembers and the one from America didn't speak a lick of Korean. He just came to Korea for car stuff, he is part of a small company that is doing some hydrogen thing for car engines that saves gas and stuff and stuff I really don't know anything about. Anyhow, I just talked to him at church for a little. Also the older brother that is our branch member brought his one friend to sacrament meeting. It was the guy that he brought to the picnic but they left after sacrament meeting. Hopefully he comes again and is willing to learn about the church and gospel. It is cool that one of our members is doing missionary work!

We had somewhat of a miracle. The branch president asked us to make a copy of a key and we were trying to find a place we can copy the key. It was Saturday almost time that we had to go home. We found one place that was open but he wasn't there so we called and he said to come back in one hour. We did then called him again because he wasn't there and he said that it would take one hour and then we didn't understand him over the phone. He was kind of rude. We then were rushing to try and find a place even if most were closed and we couldn't find one. I said a silent prayer earlier in my heart that we would be able to find one but we didn't. We got home and remembered that there were a bunch of keys in our house that we didn't know what they went to really, but then there was one that matched the key we were supposed to copy. I considered that a miracle. Kind of reminded me of the principle that God won't always answer your prayers in the way that you want.

That is it for this week! Have a good one!

Love,

Elder Frampton

11-3-14

So my computer is realllllly slow today so it will probably be a really short email before it stops again......

So I am staying in my area with Elder Peck for his last transfer.

This week we met with a guy on Friday and Saturday. College guy that I might have mentioned about a few weeks back. Well we are meeting for the English Program...he has no interest at all about the gospel really. He seems to listen well but is not willing to keep the commitments that we give to him..Like Friday we invited him to read the intro of the Book of Mormon, and he immediately responded no. Same with the next day and prayer. We know he listens because we asked him what we talked about on Friday when we met Saturday and he told us everything. At least he is listening. We asked why he didn't want to do what we invited him to do and he just said he doesn't want to. At least he is honest. Usually Koreans are very not direct like that so we at least appreciate his honesty and upfrontness...He also said he wants to become a machine...just sleep and study. He likes study for school and English. He wants to cut his sleep time from 7 hours to 5 hours. Only likes the very basic Korean food. Kimchi, rice, soy sauce. We hope as we invite him and teach him he will feel the spirit testify to him that God lives and what we teach is true. I know that if we do what we are supposed to and rely on the spirit, then we will see miracles.

On Saturday we went with the family that attends our English Class. They took us and the sisters to dinner and then down by the beach and we saw a big colorful fountain. It was a great experience to be with them. We are hoping that they will become investigators soon.

Today we got a flu shot when we went to our transfer meeting. It is the first year apparently that the church is paying for all missionaries to get a flu shot. Didn't hurt! Ha

Love,

Elder Frampton

That is it week! Have a good one!

10-27-14

So this week was pretty long but also fast. Yea.

So last Monday we had family home evening here at the church. We made little cards for everyone and they were to answer the question 'what kind of missionary do I want to become?' On the card, one side was a picture of Christ and the other side was where they wrote. We took them back and are laminating them and then giving them back. That was our spiritual message and then for the activity we made sandwiches and ate them as refreshments. Might sound like a lame idea but it was fun. The Koreans loved it. We just made ham sandwiches with cheese, lettuce, and tomatoes. They kept asking if it was what we ate in America.

Tuesday it rained a lot. It was awful, luckily we pretty much had to practice for musical numbers for the following day. We got soaked walking to the church. We then had to go to a different church in a neighboring area and practice our districts musical number and then after that we had to go to another church and Elder Peck had to play the piano for the other district in our zones musical number. Lots of travel and practice....

Wednesday we had zone conference with the Barrows. We learned many good things that we can apply in our work. 

Later in the day we were trying to talk to people. At night Elder Peck used the bathroom in a subway station and I tried talking to a guy. After he came out we were able to share a Book of Mormon with the man. He doesn't really have any interest in learning from us but he said he would try to read the book.

Thursday we had our service activity which we usually do on Wednesday. We also had our English class at night.

Friday Elder Peck had to go to a neighboring area to do a baptismal interview (he is the district leader). Super cool college lady. We also went to her baptism on Sunday. It was interesting because she skyped a friend in America and one of the sisters that taught her who finished her mission last month.

Saturday we met with that guy that I told you about a long time ago. He likes English and knows lots of people. We went to his house and ate dinner with him and his wife. His grandson was also there....We prayed together over the food and then also right before we left. We invited them to try and pray together. The wife was really nice and old. She gave us a big hug right before we left. It was pretty funny and cute.

Today almost the whole mission got together at the mission headquarters and we had a 5k race. The Barrow's really enjoy running and want us to be healthy so they had this put together. We could walk, run, crawl if we wanted. I ran of course and I ran it in 22:52. Pretty decent for not running that in pretty much 1.5 years..I guess I walk more than that in a day but it was still so hard.

Well that is it for this week! Happy Halloween!

Love,

Elder Frampton

10-20-14

Hello familia

So this week went by pretty quick.

So Tuesday a funny thing happened while we were walking. Elder Peck and I tripped at the same exact time on the same exact thing.

On Friday we did carpet cleaning in the church. The guy that cleans the church always has the missionaries help when he does it. He had already poured soap water and scrubbed the floor, we just had to use a big vacuum thing to suck up the water and soap and dirt. Took a few hours. It is not just pushing around a little vacuum. We had to pull it and frequently empty out the dirty water that it was sucking up. He took us out to lunch at this octopus restaurant. It was stir fried octopus. I have had it before. It is pretty good, octopus doesn't have much taste. Just a little bit chewy. It was very spicy.

Sunday was pretty good. One of the members from my old area, Geumjeong, is in the stake presidency and he was visiting our branch today. It was weird to see him, he remembered me though. There is a kid in our branch that is super cool and he came this day. He is Korean but can only speak English. He understands a little Korean. He talks to his mom in English and she speaks back in Korean. They had lived in New Zealand for like 7 years (he is like 9 years old or something like that). Super cool kid, doesn't really like coming to church because it is boring but we are trying to get him to come more often. If he does we will need to translate to English for him because he can't really understand anyone other than his mom. He had a quarter for some reason and asked us who he was and then he showed us an Australian coin and Canadian coin too. His name is Robert. Doesn’t go by his Korean name.

Every week after church we go and visit a member that lives in the hospital and we take her the sacrament. She is a great member. Always reads the Book of Mormon, she has a gigantic Book of Mormon. We took her the sacrament and she also asked us for a blessing because her back was in bad pain. So that was the first time I have got to take part in a blessing in Korean just my companion and I.

Then later that day we had 2 choir practices. We are preparing for zone conference and both districts in the zone have to do a special musical number and Elder Peck is playing the piano for both.

Went to the dentist for my tooth and all they could really do was smooth out the edges. He said it wasn't big enough to be able to fix easily or something. He said it in really broken English so I wasn't completely sure. He told me that if I just felt that it was too ugly later then I could go back and they could try something. Pretty much he said if I don't feel ugly then it is fine the way it is....I don't feel ugly so it is no problem.

That is it for this week. Have a good one!

Love,

Elder Frampton

10-12-14

Dear everyone,

I have terrible news. I chipped my tooth this week! It was my front top left tooth! It is one I think I have chipped before in my life. I pretty much had a mental breakdown when it happened because losing a tooth is pretty much my worst fear. So I was eating a piece of soft candy and was biting it with my front teeth. Anyway I bit right through and my top and bottom teeth didn't hit right and just chipped the tooth. The moment it happened I knew and was even more sure when I chewed a piece of hard something...I accidentally swallowed it because I panicked. I look somewhat like a hill-billy now.

It didn't end up staying a bad day because we ended up meeting a guy that has English and gospel interest. It seems like he has some gospel interest and wants to meet so maybe this week we will get to meet him!

We got to watch General Conference this past weekend. It was really good, a lot of testifying about Christ. The spirit was strong the whole time. During Priesthood session President Eyring gave a talk similar to last year’s talk he gave. He shared some of the same stories so I found it very interesting.

Between conference sessions on Saturday we went on a 'hike/picnic' with our branch. Elder Peck and I realized how old the people in our branch really are. 

So this week we were walking and just suddenly we started talking with this dad that was holding a kid. We kind of stopped stared and I randomly said 'are you a family?' and we started to talk and we talked about the Book of Mormon and how it can help strengthen families. He accepted a copy and gave us his number, they looked pretty interested. It was a really good experience because we felt that we were guided to them. It was kind of disappointing when we called them and said that he wasn't interested necessarily right now. He said he was interested in Buddhism and first he had to finish a Buddhist book that was bigger than the Book of Mormon. He said once he finishes that he will read the Book of Mormon. He says he will get to that in April...Super frustrating! Maybe his wife will read it or something and then they will want to meet someday sooner or maybe when he will read it he will be touched by the Spirit.

God is a God of miracles but everyone has their agency and I accept that!

Have a great week!

Love,

Elder Frampton

10-6-14

Hello, so another super long week!

Has started to get cold lately so we are wearing long sleeve shirts every once in a while. Soon we will have to start wearing our suits!

So Tuesday we met a guy that we had met on the street my first week here. We had to ride a bus 30 minutes to the very edge of our area. He was waiting for us at the bus stop and we went to his house....the very first thing he said to us was the when we were with him we can speak only English with him, but when we talk to anyone else we can speak Korean....well he wants to do English so we explained the program to him and he agreed. Well we went to eat with him after and then he took us to his office. He works at a senior citizens college. We met the president and stuff. They gave us free umbrellas! It was kind of funny, we were just chilling there. So actually we first walked in and sat down with the president guy and he was talking to our friend then turned to us and was just like "okay say what you have to say." Then our friend was just like 'ohh no they are my friends they didn't just come looking to talk to you.' we were just somewhat confused at what was going on. We then kind of just sat and talked and drank some soy milk. As we were getting ready to leave there was this other guy that came in that worked somewhere else and just stopped by to drop something off or something. He was just listening as we were talking about whatever we were talking about then he said he wanted to do our English program. Also he had gospel questions because he has heard about the Mormons so we got the opportunity to just teach a short version of the restoration! It was a good experience! We didn't get his number though because the other guy rushed us out of there....we really hope he calls. We think that through this friend we will be able to meet other people and pretty much get referrals because he knows a lot of people.

Saturday we met this other college student at a cafe for our English program. He doesn't have much gospel interest but he really wants to learn English so hopefully he will try the things we ask and come to learn that the gospel is great!

That’s it this week!

Love,

Elder Frampton