Sunday, February 22, 2009

Hey family. I am doing ok. Pray for me and my companion. And Pray for me to be moreChristlike. I love you all.Thank you for all the pictures! I love the pictures. Anneliese looks reallybeautiful as snow White. I wish I could've seen it! :-)Love you,Elder Shumway

Sunday, February 8, 2009

Iceskating Photo

hi family,

Well it was a pretty productive week and we actually had someone out to church. Pray for one more guy. Kim-sung-shiek. Just pray that he will continue in his desire to learn about the gospel. He is a pretty cool guy and really nice and excepting... He actually came to church which was pretty good and I think the ward is starting to consider us as hard working. which is good because we need that trust. Other than that we are just meeting a lot of cool people and talking to a lot of people on the street. We had a really productive week and really felt like we were guided to some really cool people.

Yes. time is flying by fast. I had like a midlife crisis at the beginning of this transfer. I realize that I dont have a lot of time to live as a missionary or amoung the people of Korea. Time goes by really fast and you start to really realize that your days are numbered...As far as my year mark, today I am meeting another missionary that has been out the same amount of time. I've known him since the MTC. We are just having lunch and going to a bookstore. nothing terribly exciting. Just missionary work! :-)Transfer calls are also on the 13 (my mark) I hope me and my companion stay together for a couple more. We are working really well together.I gotta go. I will write next week.

Elder shumway

Oh I still need a calender... If you can get a small one with some kind of church theme (like at Deseret Bookstore or something) I would be very grateful. Thank you!

Sunday, February 1, 2009

HAPPY BIRTHDAY CALEB!!!

Hi family And HAPPY BIRTHDAY CALEB !!!(...oh I wish you had a nickname...)Well thank you family for all of your support and your advice on working with the members. I think missionary work, like big families, has a lot of inertia ;-) Especially in member work. The Korea Busan mission has had a lot of things happen in the past that was exciting but definately not longterm. There are a lot of inactives and I think the members have kindof felt a little dissappointment in that. I think some feel that they as a ward and church in Korea are not capable of some real steady and permanant growth. If that makes any sense... They have seen most of the converts brought in by missionaries turn inactive. There were a lot of people who joined because of the wrong reasons. I dont mean to speak badly of the past, but there were some things that needed to be changed. An the mission president now is trying to change some of them. I think it is helping... a lot... Anyway, the point is I think a lot of the members and their view of the work has lost a lot of that energy. We need to get it rolling again. And it will happen slowly, over time. we're working on it.THank you for the advice. It really helped! :-) I've been thinking a lot on the work and especially about how to do it better. I think a lot and I think I get a little stressed out. I got a twitch in my eye from stress ever since I turned senior. Haha. Funny huh? Like I think its good that I keep thinking about how to do better, but sometimes I think it gets in the way and becomes a problem. If you have any advice...So how's football? I am actually a little eager to know how they do...Jordan's on tennis!? That's really sweet! I wanted to do tennis when I was a lad, but my knees were too thick and my bum waddled when I ran. Haha. That made no sense. yeah, I wanted to do it but never tried. That sounds like fun. I am actually going ice skating today. It is still cold. The rivers are thawing nicely though and it is starting to warm up. Sounds like You are all doing good down there. Even Caleb ;-) Haha Dont sweat it Bro! I wrote a letter to you and one to Tayva. I will try to send it off soon. Well thanks for your love and support. Never forget the golden rule. :-)Haha Love you all! I will probably send you some pictures soon. The work is good . We are talking to a lot of cool people. Oh... Jackie!!! One more ting!... Do you think you can pray for a member in our ward? Cheong-meen- Cheol. He is like 29, real cool guy but is getting a little disappointed because he is still single. Getting married within the church is really important but in Korea it is a lot more difficult. So just keep him in your prayers. He asked us to pray for him...Thank you! love you! And In case I dont see you, "Good Afternoon, Good Evening, and Goodnight"-Elder Shumway

Wednesday, January 28, 2009

Chinese New Year

Well, I dont have a lot of time. I didn't read any of your emails yet. I just saved them to my elecronic dictionary to read later ( kinda nice huh? ;-) )
So This week has gone by really great. Pray for Shim-Kyoo-Up so that he will have some greater desire and pray. Pray for also Kim-Dong-June so that he will have the courage to accept the gospel dispite his family. Yes, we found a couple new people. We met them both yesterday and are going to continue meeting them. We have really seen some blessings.
We worked really hard even though it would have been easy to slack off (chinese new year is really big here and it is normally less effective to do missionary work then.) But we did our best anyway and the Lord blessed us with a couple more people to teach!
Well I gotta go! My companion needs a turn. I will email on Monday. Pray for us to have more charity.
Thank you, Love you,
Bye! Elder LeGrand Shumway

Thursday, January 22, 2009

Some Good Hard Missionary Work

So Family,
Well so far this week is pretty cool and good. I have a question for caleb and Dad. I came out really hard in Yeoung-Cheon and we started the tranfer off really great. You work hard every day and go home exhausted. Its great. But after a while you kindof reach a point where you are really tired and it is hard to put in the same effort. Do you have any tips? Well thank you for the tips on how to establish good relationships with the members. I like them. We are planning on doing one nice thing for all the active members each week and then focusing on the inactives one at a time.
This week got off to a good start. We talked to a few really cool people and have stayed pretty busy. We had some really good meetings with people. Can you pray for Park- Jay-Whan so that he will gain the testimony that the Book of Mormon is the word of God and that he will have the desire to act. Right now he is between catholic and Our Church and LOVES the Book of Mormon. He reads it and really feels that it is making him a better person. Now he just needs to act. And also Kang-Sook-Jeen. She is a member. Just pray that she might open up to us and that we can be able to really help her.Well thank you. I love Korea and the people. The language is hard, but I am getting through it. Keep praying for us and the people of Korea especially Yeoung-Cheon and the people here.
Oh, you can stop praying for the people we had in Yeoung-Do. Well, that sounds bad. Pray for them if you desire.
Love you very much,Elder Shumway
Ps- can you send some more Got 2B Glued and Pomade. thanks!

Monday, January 19, 2009

Miracles and Blessings

Well family,
I am doing really well up here. I think this whole experience is turning out to be a real blessing and being a senior defenately feels different. We are working really hard out here and I have seen so many small miracles and blessings in these last two weeks. It has only been two weeks but we have collected a lot of things to talk about. Well the ward is very small. I really feel like we need to push towards building them up and gaining their trust. I get the feeling that the missionaries before didn't hit it off too well with them. I think there is alot of improvement there. If you have any good ideas of building the relationships with members, lay 'em on me! Its a small branch with about 10 people that come out every week. So there is a lot of room to work on a more personal level...
So anyway, it snowed here. We took pictures. My companion is a pretty big Elder as far as height goes. We have fun. We are working like mad though and it feels good to be working so hard. Tiring, but definitly rewarding in every sense of the word. So I have a cool experience that really lifted my spirits and was really a witness to me that The Lord does have a hand in this work. So we did zone procelyting on the street on wednesday. We started talking to people and by the end of the activity, I got contact information from 5 people. Since they weren't from our little city of Yeoung-Cheon, I refferred them over to the missionaries in Deagu (the city where we were procelyting). I just heard yesterday that two of those five have already met the missionaries and comitted to attend church this week. One in particular told the missionaries that he wanted to know the truth and if he gained a testimony that it is true, he said he will be baptized. Although it wasn't a direct blessing for our area, it was a strength to me to know that through some of my finding efforts, some really prepared people were able to find what I know. We're all on the same team. There are not a lot of people on the streets in Yeoung-Cheon. That is a little unfortunate. But we are working hard and are meeting some really cool people from our efforts.
Today we went hiking. I am a bit tired.
Love you all. Elder shumway

Sunday, January 11, 2009

Senior Companion

Yes I got your package! Thank you very much! I am actually wearing the long sleeve shirt right now. Yes, it's cold. I have been putting on double layers of long johns and had to bring out the big jacket. no snow though. the river is freezing pretty good though and we somethimes get a good breeze going.
I love my companion. This was my first week as senior and man was it ...humbling. I realized I dont really know korean, finding people can getfrustrating, and the Lord gives us the blessings all in one week. A good week! Right now we dont have any real good investigators and it looks like the lastfew missionaries lost some of the trust and love of some of the members here soI will try to work on that dispite my limitations in the language...Thank you for the chocolate moose recipe. we'll give it a try.
We've seen some miracles happen. One, when I left Yeoung-Do. I'll tell you some later. time is almost up.We are going to Costco today :-) I promise I'll tell you of them in the next one...

Love you all,
Elder Shumway