Oh Dang! (as in Sindang)

10/02/16

안녕하세요, 여러분! 

This week was super awesome!  신당 (Sindang) is such an awesome area!  I have the best companion ever!  Elder 강원호 (Kang) is such an awesome missionary!  We have had a lot of fun together.  Whitewashing into the biggest area of our mission... Nice...  One of the biggest miracles I've seen since I've been here is that we haven't gotten lost yet.  Knock on wood...  Elder 강원호 (Kang) is working with the Deaf branch, which is a really big miracle.  There are new people that come every week!  This Sunday, we met with a really great family in 신당 (Sindang) ward, along with a couple extra young men. All 8 missionaries in the district were there, and we shared a message about missionary work.  At the end, our district leader asked a couple of the young men that were hanging out in the back who they could try to talk to the gospel with. They actually had legit people, and said that they would do it!  In Korea, things like that are a very rare occurrence.  It was pretty awesome!  

That being the case, finding new people to teach is surprisingly difficult here.  As I have been exiled out of Seoul for 10 months, I had forgotten a lot about what it was like to live in the big city.  People are really hard to talk to here.  They all say, "Oh, I'm busy, sorry." or just shake their heads and walk past.  It can be rather disappointing at times, but it's at those times when I remember who I can turn to, who has given me this opportunity to serve here in Korea, and then I smile, and everything works out so well!  It's a great life I live out here, in the service of our Lord, Jesus Christ.  I can't imagine anything else would be better!  

Love you all! Have a good week!

Elder Tyler Conley

 Escalator of Eternity

 Our member family (They're not actually in the picture, so this is just our district eating with a different member)

Me with Elder Kang

Transfers...

09/25/16

안녕하세요, 여러분!  

We got transfer calls this last Saturday.  I'm gone...

I'm leaving 일산 (Il-San).  Already...  I am going to 신당 (Sindang).  신당 is the area with literally everything awesome in our mission.  The mission office, the massive tie market, everything.  It's a massive area for Seoul (Three or so rather large wards were combined to make this ward), and I'm whitewashing in.  That means two people who are new to the area are in the companionship.  I will be with Elder 강원호 (kang wonho).  I get to serve with a Korean!  Yay ^^  I will serve as senior companion, so that will be a little different than this strange co-senior business I have right now with Elder Skinner.  I'm pretty excited.  

As for other things that happened this week, we found a new investigator.  His name is 오승우 (Ohseungwoo).  He is 18, and studies art in high school.  He really likes 80's rock music, like Guns n' Roses and Queen.  We got along rather nicely ^^  He is super prepared.  We asked why he wanted to meet with us, and he told us that when we gave him a call, he felt a really strong impression to meet with us.  He was extremely accepting of the Book of Mormon.  The only problem is, he lives outside the other side of Seoul.  So, we might just need to refer him to the missionaries over there.  

It's been a pretty fun week!  See you all next week!

Love,

Elder Tyler Conley 

Me with some 일산 ward young men

추석!!!

09/18/16

This week was pretty great!  It was 추석 this week, which is Korean Thanksgiving.  I was here in Korea last 

추석!  That's kind of weird.  During 추석, all Koreans are in there homes, where they most definitely do not want visitors, so missionary work does not really run very smoothly during this 3-day holiday.  So, our mission set aside Wednesday as our P-day.  Then, on Thursday, we cleaned our whole house.  Except we weren't able to finish, because our kitchen was a nightmare. The next day, we had a big 추석 conference at the mission office.  All of the missionaries from our stake and another stake were there.  The big theme of the whole meeting was remembering the Prophet Joseph Smith, so we started up in a little grove that was above the mission office.  We sang a number of hymns regarding the Restoration, and had some fun games together.  We walked up a small mountain and unfurled a banner ^^  It was pretty great.  I loved it.  We also had some fun little competition between the 2 stakes.  We got wrecked...  Whoever decided that putting me on arm wrestling definitely had no idea what they were doing ^^ ㅋㅋ  We also played some 윷놀이 (Yutnori), the Korean board game with four sticks that I think I mentioned back in January.  Then, we did some traditional Korean hackey-sack, which I took many videos of.  But, everyone who did it did pretty badly, so I don't think I will send the videos ^^  It was a pretty great day!  

That's the only really exciting thing that happened this week, so I'll talk to you all again next week!  Have an awesome week!

Love,

Elder Tyler Conley

 Tyler with Elder Littlefield

 This is a 한복 (hanbok), worn by our AP, Elder Davis

 Overview of Seoul

The spoils of war! (We found this in the 원당 church a couple of weeks ago, and everyone else was deathly afraid of bees.  So, I had to do what I had to do^^)

This Week..........

09/11/16

안녕하세요, 여러분!

This week was... decent.  This week, we got rejected!  We were outside a lot trying to find investigators with very very very little success.  That just happens sometimes, right?  The only investigator we were able to meet with was Tom.  By the way, if you look at the progress record that we discuss with the ward on Sundays, you will only see English names.  It's because we're in 일산 (Il-San), so pretty much everyone is fluent-ish at English.  On that note, talking with him was interesting.  He is an English linguistics major, so he asked us a bunch of questions about weird English stuff that totally went completely over our heads.  Then, we answered some questions of his.  He had a bit of a skeptical outlook towards it at first, but as we continued teaching him, and taught him the doctrine of the Spirit World and how it relates with God's wonderful Plan of Mercy, his countenance softened a little bit.  We'll have to keep working with him a little bit harder.

This week, we had Zone Training.  This month's focus is on the Book of Mormon.  I have wanted this to happen since I was a young greenie in 화양 (Huayang).  I love the Book of Mormon and the power that it contains.  It has the most wonderful testimony of our Lord, Jesus Christ.  I know that it is true, and that it has come forth in these latter days by the power of God.  It is truly a miracle ^^

See y'all next week!  Bu-bye, now!

Love,

Elder Tyler Conley

What a Week!

09/04/16

안녕하세요, 여러분!

This week has been a pretty great week.  We spent a couple days of the week exploring the far regions of 일산 (Il-San), but to no avail.  The first area we went to, we didn't even see a single person on the street the whole time.  I was actually quite impressed that Korea had a place like that.  This week wasn't actually very interesting, I just didn't actually know what to put for the title.  Just your average week in the Korea Seoul mission, I guess.  

This week, we taught a lesson to 김정호 (Kim), who is a less active.  He actually found us.  Back in the days when 일산 (Il-San) had four Elders (about 4 weeks ago), the other team got a call from him and he said that he wanted to go to church.  He's been actively attending church and English Class ever since.  His focus abilities are extremely low, so teaching him is always a fun time.  He's learning a lot though.  When we found him, he had forgotten everything he had learned when he got converted, so right now, we are working on teaching him all of the missionary lessons.  He came up to us after English Class on Saturday, and told us that he would read all of the pamphlets before we met again this Tuesday.  I was very happy with his desire to learn everything about the gospel, and I think he will be an awesome member.  

We also taught a lesson with Michael 윤, a long time English Class member.  It is more of reading the Book of Mormon in English and teaching principles found therein.  He really enjoys it, and understands it well.  He reads the Book of Mormon on his own in preparation for each meeting, so he also shows a great desire to learn.  We will keep working with him to help bring him closer unto Christ. 

That's honestly about all of the interesting stuff that happened this week.  See you all next week!

Love,

Elder Tyler Conley

Hello, Everybodyyyyyyyyyyyyyyyyyyyyyyy!!!!‏

08/28/16

안녕하세요, 여러분 (Good morning, everyone)!

Wow, it's been quite a week.  Definitely an awesome one at that^^

This week, we had a lot of great things happen, the first of which is Eliot.  We were able to meet with him again yesterday!  YAY!  He's doing really well, actually.  He is following through with the plan that we helped him make to keep the Word of Wisdom.  He also read a little bit of the Book of Mormon this week!  It was pretty great.  We had an awesome lesson with him yesterday.  Other cool things that happened this week is that we were able to meet with Tom.  He is Korean, but lived in New Zealand for 10 years or something like that, so he's fluent in English.  He also has a really cool accent^^  He met with missionaries a little while ago before he went into the military (Korean military is mandatory in Korea, for 2 years).  We met up with him again, and he shared with us a near death experience that he had in the military, which somewhat turned his heart to God.  Just the miracle we can work with^^  

This week, we also went on exchanges with our zone leaders.  A little attachment of doing that is that we were also able to go Music 전도ing in 원당 (Wondang)!  I love 원당!  That was pretty great.  I stayed here in 일산 (Il-San) with Elder Ridge, who is our new Zone Leader here.  We got together, and in our plans for Saturday, we decided, as per tradition for exchanges, that we would wreck a buffet.  And, we rekked that buffet^^  I learned a lot from that exchange.  Elder Ridge is a great missionary, and taught me a lot of things I need to work on throughout the rest of the transfer.  

It's been a great week!  사랑해요 (I love you)!

Love,

Elder Tyler Conley

Definition of Music 전도ing: "Remember Elder Bradshaw?  Him and Elder Pelina (a super good pianist) bring their violin and a keyboard and play music on the street while the other missionaries talk to people about the music and have it lead to talking about the Restoration."

Combining Area is Fun to Do, Fun to Do to Do to Do

08/21/16

안녕하세요, 여러분! 

This week was... interesting.  We were scheduled to be really busy this week, due to our area getting combined with the other 일산 (Il-San) area since the other 2 Elders just left.  But, Heavenly Father definitely loves to test our faith sometimes.  We had many appointments scheduled at the beginning of the week, but  we ended up being able to meet with 20% of them...  That's okay though.  We met with a man named Afari this week.  He is from India, and is spending 2-3 years in Korea for studies.  He is Muslim, but believes that Jesus Christ still lives.  That is definitely really great.  He's really busy with school, though, so meeting him might be a little hard in the future.  That was the most exciting part of the week.  

We also had an opportunity to go to 가좌 (Gajwa) in our area.  It's a little bit of civilization in the middle of nowhere.  It's not quite as in the middle of nowhere as the place I went with Elder Paulsen in... January or something (Wow, I've been out here forever...).  It was really fun.  We met a guy that said he would like to come to church!  That was really cool! 

Love you all!

Elder Tyler Conley