Week 85: A Year in Review

On the way to Gangneung on Sunday we took a break

Discover 강원도

Vast and Vacant

Countryside but Olympic Center

Stop the Problem

How? 

Fasten your seat belt

The proof is Democracy

강원도

It's a couple days early, but this week we're celebrating a year of Elder Newton being in the Korea Seoul Mission 시골 † for one whole year. *shoot off the fireworks, confetti and what have you* It's been a good year. It's pretty crazy that last year I went out to Wonju with a flip phone and an hour and a half to think about all the pressures of being a senior companion. I thought it was the end of the world and the longest bus ride of my life. Now it's a year later and the bus rides are a little longer, the phones are a little nicer, and on Sunday we had me sent away to Gangneung on member splits to attend a branch presidency training meeting. A lot has changed I guess. 

When I went to Gangneung for the first time (we had to wake up at 4:30 or 5 o'clock to make a meeting that started at 9), I saw my first 수호랑 statue outside city hall. At the time I thought they were the only statues of them I'd see in the whole province. Boy was I wrong about that. 

Around that time, the area presidency set Olympic preparations underway. For about eight months of that time, nothing happened on that front. From the aforementioned branch presidency meeting, it sounds like they just designed the pins that we might give out during the Games and decided on most of the activities that ended up being incorporated in the Helping Hands Center. 

Then, with about two months until the Olympics, the 관리 본부 (I'm sorry I cannot translate this word. It's too hard. I tried) started to step up the game. They had Gangneung members start looking for land to put some booth of sorts. It was a kind of impossible task, but one day when they were about to give up , they drove out by the station and saw a little piece of land for rent. When they called about it, they found out that a lot of people were asking to borrow the land for the Olympics, but the owner didn't really like any of the buyers. The owner asked what a church was doing inquiring about the land. When he heard we wanted to set up a service center and we were thinking of not even putting the church name on it, he agreed to give it to us right away. 

Side view from the side street I like to take to the center

And the story is a lot longer, but we have little time. The point is we had a lot of miracles going on. We managed to get 10 missionaries into one house in Gangneung, set up some container boxes and loan some extra land to the city for a food court. General Authorities and Olympians visited the center, and at the center members and missionaries were able to serve a likely uncountable number of people. 

Among all this big and public service, I've felt very fulfilled and happy. It's an amazing feeling, and there's no way to forget the way a big group of foreigners and a flustered taxi driver say "thank you" after you translate for them. The month or two (or I guess a year or so) of Olympic Fever was great. But alongside the visible service of that, I will also always be grateful for the smaller-scale acts of service we do out in the 강원도. Playing clarinet in a Christmas-themed cafe, doing a Facebook call with a Korean member to a Filipino less-active member, spending a Sunday in Gangneung to keep the Taebaek branch president company, and the list goes on. This week we spent most of our Friday shoveling snow for our neighbors and the local shops. Yesterday on the way back from Gangneung we rode the bus with a group of Russians all the way out to Taebaek and helped them find their hotel. I'd go on, but we're out of time.

So yeah, after a year a lot has changed, but we're still out here doing our best. The Paralympics are about over, and now we have to get ready for Easter and General Conference and keep the Lord's work going in Taebaek. It's pretty exciting. We'll let you know how it goes.

Best Wishes,
Elder Newton

† Countryside

It's the East Sea