Hello All and Happy Easter!
Happy Easter for you and thanks to my friend, the
International Dateline, happy April 6th to me! (and Asia) I love all of you and
am so grateful for this time of year! I love the beautiful cherry blossoms that
have come and gone, for grass coming up, April showers, the works. I am liking
spring. I love Easter. I love my Savior Jesus Christ. I know that He lives!
That's the heart of Easter. That because He lives we can live. We can live with
Him again and truly because of Him we can live! And that makes me so happy. I
will continue that thought in 2.0 but I need to digress because of the awesome
Easter Miracle!
ANNA GOT BAPTIZED!!! YAY!! (enter heavenly hosts singing
Handel's Messiah) Wow! Still so shocked and happy. I think the word is
"jubilant"? Maybe? I don't know, I just feel great and I think I
better understand why there will be so much rejoicing in heaven over the one
soul who is converted. So HAPPY. But let me give you the background. I think
you saw a picture of Anna last week. I was her assistant doctor when we
performed foot surgery on Elder Wagner (it was acupuncture:). She is our
investigator who owns a burger restaurant with her sister right behind our
church building. Anna is amazing and had such an exciting life and is one of
those people who is so real that you think they must be a book character or
something. She is a bit larger than life and the light of Christ has totally
transformed her over the past several months.
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| Happy Easter. #baptism!!! #SOHAPPY |
So she is 55ish? and is Korean, but moved to America when
she was nineteen and lived in Hawaii and in California and all over. She lived
through the rock n' roll scene in the 80's and the pleasant cultural experience
that was the 90's. So she was a part of the drinking and drug life; running with rough crowds and
getting out of rough crowds. She was a successful chef and still is fabulous.
Let me tell you, she makes a mean linguine! Also made me eat raw liver.
Surprisingly slippery to eat with chopsticks, but then if you use your fingers
you get blood everywhere and you feel a bit like Tarzan. Tarzan from the
classic book series, not the awesome Disney adaptation if you were confused at
my reference. Needless to say I'm stocking up on exciting personal experiences.
Thank you mission. Back to Anna. . . She
is great and is doing great. Because she works at a burger restaurant right by
the church naturally her restaurant was regularly frequented by missionaries,
and one day Elder Wagner and my good friend Elder Garrett asked if she had any
interest in learning about the Church. She responded in the affirmative and the
rest is history. We've been meeting with Anna my entire time in CheongJu and
she progressed decently well. Her turning point happened one day when we felt
impressed to give her a baptismal commitment even though she had shrugged off
commitment in the past and hadn't been moving far at the time. We set the date
for the 19th of this month. After that she progressed amazingly well. She in
now in the book of Ether and has come to church every week for over a month.
The second turning point was a few week back at stake conference. She came just a little late, sat in the back, and
listened really well. Our Mission President and his wife as well the Area
Seventy were speakers and the spirit was so strong. Anna said that when Sister
Shin spoke something moved inside her heart and though she felt she needed to
leave to go to work, she couldn't leave. That was the second turning point and
the third was last week when she met with our ward member Sister Jo. Sister Jo
challenged Anna to be baptized on Easter, we had to leave, but when we showed
up on Monday Anna asked us what she had to do to get baptized by Sunday. It has
been a bit of a whirlwind since then, but a really exciting happy kind of
whirlwind. She has quit smoking, drinking, and coffee cold turkey and is so
excited for the change. She knows it is hard but has an amazingly strong
testimony that all will be okay. She was telling us the other day that even
though she is getting baptized she knows that life will still be really tough,
but all of that is okay because she is doing what God wants! So profound. So
spot on! I love this lady!
She was baptized on Easter Sunday right after church. Elder
Wagner baptized her. (It was a one dunk and done deal. The best way) And because next week is General conference
here in Korea (time lapse plus translation means I get a bonus week) President
Shin gave us the green-light to confirm her a member and give her the Holy
Ghost right after baptism. Bishop asked that I confirm her and because she is
just as good at English as she is at Korean bishop asked me to confirm her in
English. It was such a blessing to me to give that blessing to her. God is good
and He is there! So blessed.
Kind of just a fun note. This week I had a split with Elder
Barton who is serving in 예성 (sorry I'm not sure how to konglish that
one). He is a greenie fresh from the MTC and is really awesome. It was kind of
interesting being with a missionary who was as old as me in real life but
younger when it comes to black name tag experience. We had a blast and were so
miraculously blessed. Like unexpectedly we had three other lessons, a member
lesson, found a new investigator and got free hamburgers. Not only that but in
the morning Elder Stroud and I made breakfast in the morning and totally made
like 30 pancakes in ten minutes. That boy is good with a spatula.
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| Does life get any better? I submit that it does not! And Elder Barton is a happy fellow. |
2.0
I don't know. I just still feel so happy. I am so glad that
all of you got to watch General Conference (or the Superbowl for missionaries
as I like to think of it) I'm a tad jealous , but it's okay because I budgeted
my email time really well today :) I know that Thomas S. Monson is the Lord's
prophet. I know it! I know that this is
the Lord's church and that the Book of Mormon is true. Yesterday Elder Wagner
and I were doing a role play (Role plays are important. All of my prospective
missionary friends, remember that!) and he was asking questions because
whenever we do role plays he pretends to be a non-religious Buddhist man who
has no conception of God or any religious terms who is cynical and doesn't just
take yes for yes-kind of investigator. Makes things interesting. Especially in
a second language. Well he got me a little twisted up and confused. A little
flustered explaining why this church was wrong, why that church was wrong, and
so on. And then I broke to English and said "I don't have to prove why
that church is wrong, I just need to help people know how this church is
right!" And the awesome thing is that I don't convince anyone! It is the
Spirit. The Holy Ghost, the comforter, he is the one that brings the truth unto
their hearts and confirms my testimony. He makes conversion possible and will
amplify my ability. I love the Holy Ghost! I love my savior Jesus Christ and am
so especially happy this Easter season. I know that He Lives!
Thanks everyone! Thanks for the prayers. Thanks for the
trust. I love you and you are in my prayers too! Remember Christ and make sure
to wish him a happy birthday when it's the 6th for you!
Onward and Upward
Elder Tucker
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| So, here in Korea.... we have these awesome face masks.... |
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| Korea is obsesses with having good skin so some members gave us some. I think I look good. |
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| Plus my pores have never been so clean!! Love it! Got to love the work!! |
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| chillin after a great lesson with Elder Barton on the split |
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| With Anna. We help out sometimes around the shop. |
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| And yes, Elder Wagner is holding a knife. Long story. And yeah, someone should cut his tot'in chip. |