Sup!

Hello everyone!

K so im not even gonna waste any time getting into the nitty gritty! We've got 6.. count em SIX baptismal daters! Fluke passed his interview so hes getting baptized THIS SUNDAY! Woot woot.. he got his divorced parents to commit to go to.. and Tawid got him excited about serving a mission as well. Awesome. Hes a sweet kid and this sunday is gonna be huge! He gave us his friend as a referral who is also baptist.. did i tel lyou about him yet? His name is Top. We committed him for the 2nd of January 2011! He accepted.. its gonna be troublesome with him cause his grandmother literally forbid him from going to church yesterday to help his mother sell crap.. but he had the desire.. just gotta work harder. So then we have Gade.. she is ALSO christian already.. the one i told you is like Joseph Smith? Confused as to why there are so many christian churches? Anyway, we had her committed for the 26th of December, but after meeting with her this past week, and yesterday, we told her we felt we could move it a week earlier to the 19th of December.. she is so sweet. She "wais" (the little bow thing) everytime we testify or do anything that she lieks.. which is a lot. She is determined to do as much as she can on her own without people asking her.. like going to Stake conference yesterday.. kinda far! But she said she would get a taxi and be there by herself. And hey.. she did. And she loved it too. Ill talk more about stake conference later. So after Gade... brace yourselves... AU, BON, NAT! All three in one appointment! BEEEYAAAAHHH!!! Just to put it simply.. Au accepted it like CANDY! Im going to write her words exactly after stake conference.. she said this to Komgrid while i was talking to Tawid about what we were about to teach them for yesterday: "When you missionaries first contacted us i didnt think the things you were teaching us were THAT important.. i thought they could definitetly help my kids.. but now its more than that. Today i saw and felt things that made me want to start reading from the Book of Mormon every day, pray every day, and have family home evening. I saw kids my sons age and families like ive never seen before. I want that. If im going to know these things are true, i need to do these things." Snap. Crackle. and Pop. She said this before we even got in the lesson so we both knew we were gonna get that committment out there.. so shared more feelings and we just got it right out there.. all three of them for the 2nd of January 2011! Bon took a little more effort but not much.. he followed his mothers example and is willing to sacrifice time for us, and Nat kinda followed Bons example too. We will see where it goes.. but we are very excited cause they should all have the opportunity to go see Flukes baptism this sunday.. including Flukes parents and little brother. Should be a good week. All in all, we are teaching more in unity and things are just awesome.

By the way, in case you didnt figure it out yet, i didnt move. Neither did Komgrid. But, we did get to participate in the Dan Jones activity that i did the first day i was in country.. did i tell you about that? Well, its where the office calls in elders to take these new greenies out on the streets for an hour and get them inviting.. was really fun AGAIN except this time i wasnt the greenie :) Got me fired up again seeing newbies come in and how far ive grown.

So.. thanksgiving.. ah it was so great! First off, we had a little dinner thing at the Church with out branch.. yeah, but not thanksgiving.. noodles? Cmon. It was really awesome though cause Wisan invited people to come up and share testimonies of thankfulness and what not.. and he picked (on) me to speak too. So.. after i was done speaking things of no interest whatsoever, and sat down, Elder Komgrid told me Wisans son cried.. uhhnyuh. This kids been having some problems lately and his parents have told us that they dont think he will serve a mission.. little bit of a turn around eh? Then, and heard this from Tawid, their son Win, spoke in stake conference.. i heard maybe 5 times from different members that everyone in the room was just astonished at how different he was.. that he wants to serve a mission and will prepare to serve it next year.. BEEYAH! Was a sweet day for him.
So we did have a sweet AMERICAN thanksgiving dinner.. so.. awesome! Oh yeah... they know you too hahaha. Yeah, they are Koreans.. they told me i looked asian as well... told em that i was half korean, but we didnt speak more than that because they were about to bless the food. After, i asked them where they were both born. She said something that i dont remember and the father said Taegu.. "oh no way, my Moms from there." "Really? Whats her name maybe i know her?" "Boon---" Both of their faces lit up brither than the Christmas tree behind them.. he stopped me before i even finished your name mom and they just freaked out.. "No way! Your Mom is Song Boonseon..." and then whatever your whole surname is.. its long (ish)! Anyway, i ate so much i wanted to die.. thats how it should be right?! Right. Elder Komgrid ate so much too.. loved American Thanksgiving. It really felt awesome that they were willing to open their house to us missionaries and feed us an amazing meal.. even more than that was the fact that i am so far away from California (and Korea for that matter) and i some how meet a family that we know?! Yeah huh... coincidence right? This is the first time theyve had Thanksgiving at their house in a while cause last year they were way busy.. but he made the decision months ago to make sure he would be home for the missionaries this year.. then even more than that, he barred 4 other missionaires from coming cause they had 12 on the list, but cut it down to 8.. lucky we didnt get cut right? Right. I dont actually know their first names hahah.. but they are brother and sister Kim. Really nice family. Hes got 3 daughters and 1 son who is planning on serving a mission next year.

Hey so other than this, i dont have anything haha.. but i just want to leave you with something Tawid said at conference (yeah he spoke): he talked about 3 important things - Daily scripture study, daily prayer, and family home evening... DO THEM. Those werent his words, but pretty much. They are so easy! Go open Alma 37: 6.. or is it 7? I dunno.. whatever, its good. Small and simple things people. K well i love you all. thanks for your supoort. I will talk to you next week!

Elder Gudmundsen