Letter from 15 April 2009

A few lessons this week.

Last week I had met with a new investigator along with a member--Sister Bang was busy helping get ready for the baptism service. We met, I introduced the 30/30 English program, we introduced ourselves in English, introduced the Book of Mormon, and set a next appointment.

Especially with the English program, I've felt like in the first meeting, we need to do what we say we're offering. We say we'll do English then teach about our church. I've felt like, when we first meet people, if we don't do English and teach about our church (what's promised), they will feel like we're wasting their time.

This investigator, though, dropped by the next week. Sister Bang was making phonecalls the day of the drop, and when she hung up, she looked at me and said, "you didn't do anything to build the relationship, did you?"

We had talked about it before--we had had a dinner appointment, and practiced a lesson for it, then practiced asking the people if they knew anyone else we could teach. At the appointment, though, there were lots of people, we weren't sure when we would leave because someone was giving us a ride...and the gospel message ended up just a card with a scripture on it Sister Bang slipped to the hostess and a "thank you."

After the two experiences--especially the "you didn't..." experience, I'm thinking my idea of meeting expectations and showing people they can trust us is maybe culturally different. I'll keep working on figuring it out. But I wish I had a Korean mind--things would be more effective, I think.

Another lesson from Sister Bang this week: eye cream. It started the day I looked in the mirror and said, "well, that one's new," looking at some of the lines around my eyes. Sister Bang found out I didn't use eye cream. She let me borrow hers (and followed up nightly to see that I used it) until the two of us could go to the store and I could get my own. Eye cream is expensive. I wondered what on earth I was doing, but then told myself the price was in won, it must not really be that much...

Have a wonderful week!

--Carrie