Elder Garrison Lott

Mom note: We had a wonderful time with our video call from Elder Lott. He looks and sounds so happy, healthy and excited to be serving. What a blessing for us to have the opportunity to talk to him.    Because of the phone call, he didn't have much time for emails, but he did answer the question of the week and send pictures.  Enjoy! A Christmas Message from Mormon.org - watch video here  Question of the Week: Are there traditional Christmas foods in Korea, or is too much of a Western holiday for that? Answer: Yeah there's not really any for Christmas.. they have tons of other food though that's special for their holidays of 추석 [ Thanksgiving ] and 설날 [ New Year ]!! and that's really good! (: Me and Elder Kellis! Me and Elder Campbell on exchanges! We found the most American area I've seen in Korea! It had houses and yards, and there was even a grill in one yard! Ahhh, so great! Zone Chris

Ahh! I cannot describe how awesome missionary work, 이전, and this gospel are!! It was another great week!! So this week I would just like to talk about one of my best Korean friends that I met a little bit ago! He is amazing and I honestly love him as much as a bro can love another bro and I have to thank God for the miracle that he gave us to allow us to meet. Anyways, on Saturday I got to spend a lot of time with him at stake party for investigators and new converts and that was super fun! I honestly cannot speak Korean very well (especially when it's not on a gospel topic, if it's about the church I can usually do pretty good) and he doesn't speak English, so we struggle to communicate sometimes, but he's the best! He just smiles and we laugh together as I struggle to communicate and often mess up, but he's honestly so nice about it! Well on the car ride home, the topic of the conversation turned to missionary work and is was so cool to see him getting so in

This week was so amazing!! So many miracles I want to tell you about but I could literally go on for days about the miracles of this week, so all of them will have to wait until I'm home and you have a lot of time to listen (and probably fall asleep because I go for so long) but one of them really quickly is about a member visit this Sunday! First off, he's one that has been really important to missionary work here forever! He was one of the first members in this area, and is the boss of about half the ward and refers people all the time to the missionaries. Until some made him mad a while back... but to put it simply he's a very important member to be on good terms with. Oh! and he has the cutest little girls on the planet!! They're 4 and 5, and absolutely adorable and love the missionaries. But back to the point! We went to his house for a dinner appointment and things went so well! He actually referred someone to us while we where there too! And did so much more!

Question of the Week: I've read that it's considered impolite to smile at strangers in Korea. Is this true? Answer: hmm, not that I've noticed but I am a foreigner, and people react way differently to us than other Koreans. It is way out of their culture to talk with or start conversations with people randomly in public, but we have to ignore that and just do it as missionaries. But yet again, because we're foreigners, they react differently than they normally would so it works (: Also something about their street culture that I have a story to share about this week is that they never accept help. Ever. I can't tell you the number of times I've offered to help someone carry something or clean up something and they've been like no, I'm good, or something like that, and then if you try to help they very strongly protest. Well this week we had a zone 전도 [proselyting] activity on Friday, so we all ate dinner together and then just blizted this one area an