Birthday, Investigators and YSA fun

My first birthday on the
Lord's errand

Another great week in Hangook.

The work is moving along great. We got a new investigator last week while we were proselyting. He said that he sees the missionaries all the time and they always say hi to him so he wanted to see what we were all about. He actually lives in a totally different city but says he doesn't want to meet with those Elders.

Yesterday (3/12) was my first birthday on a mission and it was awesome. It was also fast sunday since we had stake conference last week. Our bishop told us that he has been praying for some younger people for our Ward since there is very few youth and young adults. Yesterday six new members walked in who were about 18 and 19 and are in Busan for school. The Bishop was really excited and told all of the YSA to come to his house for dinner. Me and Elder Johnstun went downtown to meet up with everyone. We went to the subway station and one by one they got off the train or bus, since none of them have cars. Then we all walked to the Bishops house. It was really fun. He made a lot of really "healthy" korean food.

Our Bishop really loves to sing so he had us sing hymns for like 30-minutes. I was trying to keep my birthday a secret but somehow one of the members found out and had everyone sing happy birthday to me. After that we went to the church and had cake. It was definetly different having a birthday on a mission but still really good.

Thanks family! My birthday was great. We got to spend almost the whole day with the members. And then I spent the whole night and this morning getting calls from my friends around the mission. Tell Ramsey and Julius I said good luck [on the mission].

One of my favorite scriptures now is Mosiah 5:13. We can never know the master if we don't serve him and serve as he did.

I am grateful to be serving the Lord and the people of korea.


Love you all,
Elder Mica Matua

Celebrating with friends

More lessons from the amazing teacher Steve

Riding the train in Korea is so fun

Sharing is caring?

Transfers, Investigators and fun with friends

Another great week in Busan.

We got transfer calls on Saturday both me and my companion are staying. Which is great because I love Busan. A few elders from our district are transferring out so we had a big get together at the bathhouse this morning.

This week we got a call from an unknown number and when we answered he we could barely understand what he was saying but we picked up that he wanted to meet us at the church. When we got there, there was a little guy standing out front of the church. His name is Souerk Bonang. He is from Cambodia and doesn't know any English and very little Korean. We found out that is the little brother of a man named Annam, who is a member in the ward but hasn't been to church for years because of his job. Souerk Bonang was really fun to teach and he wants to meet us again, so we went and picked up a bunch of Cambodian pamphlets and a Cambodian Book of Mormon.

On Wednesday we got another random call from a guy wanting to meet us. We met up with him a subway station and he took us to his office building. He took us up to the 20th floor and brought us into his office room. There was two ladies and another guy sitting there waiting for us. They sat us down and we started talking. They immediately started talking about their business which was like a foreigner protecting program. Then we realized that they wanted to meet with us so that we can promote their business while we were proselyting and they tried to give us a bunch of material to hand out. We told them more about what we are doing as missionaries and how we couldn't promote for them which got us into a discussion about our church. Three of them were already Christians and one of the ladies is Buddhist. They got really interested in our church and restoration and how we are different from other missionaries. The Buddhist lady was probably the most interested and she kept asking all these questions about Joseph Smith. We gave them all Books of Mormon and they gave us all of their cell phone numbers and told us they want to meet again.

Even though we struggle to find people to teach here in Korea, the Lord keeps putting people in our path in different ways. Everything is going great here in Korea and the work is moving forward. Hope you guys all have a great week.


Elder Mica Matua

Beautiful Busan, Korea

Sushi conveyor belt

Sushi with the homies

Our Investigator and his son took us to the beach

More of Steve's inspiring (strange) lessons

Enjoying the beach

The craziness lives on

Two updates and a lil Steve for your week

We are terrible parents who get so excited to hear from our Elder, we forget to update his blog. Sorry for the delay...

UPDATE #1
It was a good week in Busan. Its been really hard lately to find anyone and also to meet our investigators but when we get the chance it always goes really good.

Last night we got a call from our district leader telling us that he got us an appointment, for today. All he said was that it was with a less active who hasn't been to church for like ten years and that he wanted to play board games with us, then told us which stop to get off, and thats all the information he gave us. So we woke up this morning went to the bathhouse, came home and got ready, and then got on the subway. Turns out he lives an hour away in a different city, we had to take like five different trains. When we got to the station we walked out and a really nice black sports car pulled up and a guy got out of the passenger seat and said,"Elders, my friends car," then motioned for us to get in. His English name was Stacy and his friend who picked us up was a young man who's English name was brad. He took us to his house. Stacy teaches english and brad is one of his students and is a non-member. His daughter sally was also there. He brought us into a room with a white board and said."okay we will now play jeopardy." We played jeopardy for about and hour but the whole time we were playing brad was asking us questions about our church. It was really cool because it turned into sort of an investigator lesson.

After we were done playing Jeopardy and Scrabble, Stacey told Brad to take us back to the station. He ended up giving us his business card and told us to call him. It was all a really random experience but we ended up finding an investigator from it.

We do have showers in our apartment but we go to the bathhouse every Monday morning. Its like the thing you do in Korea as a missionary. The one we go to is huge. It has got like 20 different pools. Hot pools, cold pools, lap pools, indoor pools, outdoor pools, champagne pools, red pools, sauna's, back massager things. But things are goin good still struggling with the language. That's crazy Terrence got called to Samoa. I thought for sure he would be serving in the Salt Lake Visitors Center LOL.

연 산 is really an amazing area. Even though its hard to see at times the work is moving forward. I'm so thankful to be in Korea serving the Lord right now. I hope everyone's doing well back home.

Miss you guys a lot. Love you.

UPDATE #2
This week was really hard to meet any investigators or even people in the street because was the biggest holiday in Korea, called 설날, like Lunar New Years or something. But we did have dinner at the bishops house which was really fun. He invited us and the sisters over on Saturday night. After we finished eating the Bishop found out my companion plays the piano, so he had us sing hymns for like an hour.

Yesterday, since it was Sunday and our apartment is really far away we had to cook dinner at our church. Is was 6 o'clock at night and we were the only ones in the chapel. Then this random guy walks past the kitchen, waves and goes and sits down in the dark chapel. We had no clue who he was. He started talking on the phone and after about 20-minutes he came up to us and said (in Korean), I have some friends who are interested in English and they will be here in about 30-minutes, can you talk with them? We said yes and he just went and sat back down. Then we went over and talked to him to see who he was. He was about 50 or 60 and we have no idea why he showed up. He didn't seem to know anything about our church or missionaries so we taught him about ourselves. then two ladies walked in (his friends) and we talked to them for a few minutes. They randomly started singing and playing the piano. Then they scheduled to meet with us every Thursday and Friday, gave us their names and numbers and then got up and left.

A few minutes after they left the Stake President walked upstairs to talk to us. He asked us who those people were and we just replied, we don't really know. Then he told us that that man is a member in the Soonjung Ward but no one has seen or heard of him in a long time. But somehow he showed up with his non-member friends and is going to meet with us weekly. We find investigators in the weirdest ways.

We also had mission broadcast and got a new schedule which is exciting. Besides that everything is going smooth here in Busan. The church is true.

Love you guys
Elder Mica Matua

This is a vending machine just on the street we always go to.
You put in coins and press one of the buttons and a
random drink comes out. Its different every time.

This is Steve. He is sooo funny. He loves talking to the missionaries and he takes us out to eat every week at McDonalds. Whenever he finds us at the church studying or something, he comes in and says,"I want to share spiritual message with you guys." Its not really a spiritual message but they are always so funny to listen to because they make no sense.

Steve and a "spiritual" message

The Plan of Steve-ation

New home, new comp, new experiences

Soccer with my new Ward and homies

I just got transferred to Busan. The mission home is right down the street from my apartment. My companion is named Elder Johnston, from Arizona. I am so happy for a change and it has already been so good. But it was pretty sad saying goodbye to everyone in 도겨.

Our investigator that we have been teaching is getting baptized next week so I'm pretty sad I won't be there for that. But he just texted me on my new phone and asked how I was. Maybe I'll still get to go to his baptism. He came to church yesterday even though he went to bed at 4am because he said he wanted to hear me speak.

Other than that I am just excited to get to work in Busan. Elder Johnston is a really good missionary.

Hope everyone is doing well back home.


Love ya'll!
Elder Mica Matua