The Pyeongtaek Korean Ward had a Valentine’s party put on by the missionaries on February 14, 2014. The Korean’s know that Americans know all about Valentine’s Day and know how to put together a fantastic party. The missionaries got their heads together and planned some wonderful things to do at this party.
They put together a grill in the parking lot of the church for the Korean membership to experience what a S’more is. They loved them. It was chilly outside but they didn’t care. They kept warm by the fire and ate melted marshmallow and chocolate on a graham cracker. This, for some of them was their first experience with a S’more.
The elders stayed about late the night before the event to make cupcakes. They used them in the cupcake walk. They did this same thing at the Halloween Party that the elders planned and put on. Korean’s love the cupcake walk. There were adults that participated in this game. They were thrilled when their number was called and they could pick out a beautiful Valentine cupcake.
The third thing was something that the sisters thought of. They thought "How about a Kissing Booth?" No, you don’t really kiss in the booth you receive a chocolate candy kiss in the booth. No, they decided that wouldn’t be good. Why not a photo booth? They, with the help of the elders put together the cutest photo booth. Sister Goines and Sister Bassett are so clever. This little booth was a tremendous hit. It was something the members would remember for a long time. After they developed the pictures they put them on the bulletin board in the hall of the church. It was so fun to see their smiling faces again on display in their church.
This activity was a great success. It was a success because everyone had such a wonderful time. It was also successful because there were three investigators that attended. Two of them were invited by the Ridings. All three of those investigators were over 50 years old, but they had a great time in spite of their age. You know how young people feel that old people are too old to have a good time.
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Missions throughout the world are participating in Thomas S. Monson’s prophetic words to "Hasten the Work." The elders and sisters see people on the streets, subways, trains and taxis every day. In our mission the Seoul South Mission the elders and sisters were told to count the conversations they have with people on a daily basis. Districts set goals for how many conversations they wanted to achieve in one week. Because they started counting conversations the work started to pick up. Now the mission president has asked the missionaries to count how many street teaching discussions they have, because that is how people turn into investigators.
We don’t hit the streets every day because we have a car and have to travel to the different Army Posts and Air Force Bases that we have been assigned to. Where we get our numbers from are the people that walk into our office at Osan Air Force Base and the people that we meet on the Base. We have met some pretty marvelous people, Korean and American. We give them our missionary card when they walk into the office. We aren’t supposed to wear our name tags on the base so we use our missionary card to introduce ourselves. We have developed some pretty fantastic friendships from that office. When a retiree’s wife passes away, he comes into our office. We’re able to talk to him about death and where she is. When Korean widows come into the office the conversation always turns to the deceased husband. We are able to talk about Heavenly Father. We are more able to talk about the Plan of Salvation or the Plan of Happiness. Most of these Korean women are Christian. They have a foundation of belief that allows them to understand what we are talking about. Even the Korean women who come in and have Buddhist beliefs, we can still have a conversation of love.
We are so thankful for the office at Osan. Through that office we have been able to provide more service to the community than we could have otherwise. We had the opportunity recently meeting the Lt. General of PCAF. We serve on a committee at Osan Air Force that has nothing but organizations that serve the military family. We are included in that committee. The people on the committee know that we are volunteers from the United States. They also know that we are missionaries that volunteer our time on the base. We were able to explain to the general what it is we do. The commander of the base was at this meeting. He understands that we are going to be leaving in September and they need to get someone to replace us. These military leaders recognize the work that is being accomplished in our office. They know that benefits are slowly being taken away from the military retiree and this is a service that needs to be provided for them.
We don’t know if the couple replacing us will have the opportunity to continue the work from the office. We do know this, the work we do in that office was what Heavenly Father wanted us to do on our mission. We have been able to serve the people in the community the way the Savior would have served. We have felt it such a blessing and privilege to help the Korean widows, who desperately need someone to look after them. We have been asked in the scriptures to serve the orphaned and the widowed. That is what our work has been all about. We love this work and we love the Savior Jesus Christ. May we all be diligent in "Hastening the Work," the work of saving souls. - Elder & Sister Riding
