November 1, 2013 11:31:46 AM MDT
The funniest thing that's happened this week involves our teachers. I think I've mentioned before that my teacher (Christensen Hyung Jei Nim) (형제님, Brother - ie Brother Christensen) teaches us once a day. But we have so much time in the classroom wher we did nothing! We studied way too much last week... it got so boring. We talked to Christensen Hyung Jei Nim about it, he said, don't worry you'll get a second teacher next week and that the time in the evening where we study for three hours strait would be replaced with an evening teacher. So now we have two teachers, one in the afternoon and one after dinner. The second one is named Decker Hyung Jei Nim.
So we walk in the room to meet our new teacher, "Brother Decker" and sitting there in the chair is KIM HAN BIN (김한빈)!!!!! Our investigator. We teach him every day in flat out Korean. We didn't even know if he spoke english! We thought he was some kind of payed actor, and we were making jokes about maybe seeing a ctr ring or that he slipped an english word here or there, but no one ever expected that he'd become our teacher!!!!!!!
So Kim Han Bin is his alias as he pretends to be an investigator. We taught him all that week and now the second week he comes out of the closet as our teacher for Korean in the evenings. He served his mission in Seoul and he is imitating one of the investigators that he taught like 3 years ago. We still teach him, it's just way awkward now, because he is our teacher and our investigator.
Anyway. He says to us our first day of class, "along with me as your new teacher, you all are going to get a second investigator to teach". So along with two teachers we have two investigators starting last week. He pulls up the bio on the screen to introduce our new investigator. And just as surprising as seeing Kim Han Bin in the chair as our teacher, we see on the screen Christensen Hyung Jei Nim! 2 Whamo surprises!!! No one saw it coming. Christensen Hyung Jei Nim, our afternoon teacher, is our second progressing investigator. He pretends to be a man named Ee Dong Sun(이동선), whom he taught on his mission in the past as well.
2 teachers, 2 investigators, 2 people total.
Isss Crazy! :P
On a more spiritual sense... I want to admit that I've been struggling with my Companion. He came late because he had trouble with his Visa and he's been a bit discouraged because he thinks he's behind every body just because he missed like 3 days of class. He really isn't behind, everyone here speaks varying levels of Korean and he isn't the worst.
Well, I'd been praying about a chance where we could finally get on the same page with each other and have some solid love for the other. Our culture's are so different and he's not the touchy feely kinda guy, he's nothing like me, it's really hard. If the companionship doesn't work together and have love, the spirit can't teach. I have to be a team with him and I'll tell you how I learned that the hard way:
We were getting ready for our first lesson with our new investigator, "Ee Dong Sun".
-Right so we'd never met him, despite his striking resemblance with our teacher Christensen Hyung Jei Nim.
We decided that we'd stick with just, getting to know you type of stuff. Like How are you, what role has religion played in your life, do you have a copy of the Book of Mormon, have you ever been to church, and we'd simply end with a testimony of the gospel and leave it at that. That was our general plan. No script, just a general plan you know, whatever.
We walked in, and I started talking to him. I was asking him stuff but he just looked confused at me. I remembered how last week, we were very very beginner at Korean so Kim Han Bin had been really really nice and lenient. Ee Dong Sun however wasn't cutting us any breaks, he had been our teacher and he expected some semi-Korean quality to come from our lesson. Nothing I was saying was making any sense. I tried my best to pull at any Korean in my brain, I was drawing at loose straws, I couldn't think of a thing to say! Everything I muddled together sounded awful and made no sense and it just made Christensen, excuse me... Ee Dong Sun Hyung Jei Nim, more confused and it made me more discouraged. I wasn't feeling the spirit, and I was getting frustrated because I knew I had better Korean in me than I was producing at that moment. I gave up, and I just asked if I could close with a prayer. He nodded, and I said a prayer and walked out.
-Pause in the story for a second. Look through what I wrote in the above paragraph and see if you can notice anything "Elder Bishop" Contributed to the lesson? Can you see one time where Elder Bishop did anything? No. I didn't even look at him the whole lesson through. I didn't involve him at all. The rough-draft plan we made before the lesson, I just threw out the window. I took all his parts that we agreed he would say. He worked hard on his Korean and was ready to say the things we agreed he would say, but I took them first! I didn't give him a chance to teach the investigator. I greedily took it all because I was cocky and thought that only I could speak Korean.
Christensen Hyung Jei Nim, yes as our teacher and not as Ee Dong Sun, opened the door and called us back in. We sat down, and in English he says, "Elder's, that was the worst lesson I've ever experienced. Don't ever teach like that again!"
He talked to me and said, that I needed to humble myself and work as a team with Elder Bishop. He told us to screw the Senior-companionship business and just be equals. He told us to pray together, and plan better and he told us he expected more from us next time. He told us that the next time we would meet with him, he'd give us another start at the first lesson and he'd pretend this lesson never happened. He also said that by trusting the spirit and only by the spirit, would we be able to speak clear Korean. I needed to humble myself and let the spirit teach, instead of teaching by my own knowledge and skill of the language. Elder Bishop needed to trust that giving his best effort to learn the language was enough and he needed to be more confident because the spirit would give him power.
This hurt, because I didn't even realize how I'd been treating Elder Bishop until that moment. I knew he wanted to punch me, but he didn't. I hadn't realized that if I wanted love and unity in our companionship that I actually had to do something. I needed to start being loving and serving and open to my companion.
Anyway. Our second lesson went perfect. Maybe I'll continue the story later. But by planning, and prayer, and equality and charity and faith, can success come.
Honestly, I saw Elder Bishop teach by the spirit. With the tiny amount of language he actually knows... he bore testimony stronger than I ever have, and it only came because I gave him a chance to speak and because the spirit was with us. It's not Korean that we teach in. Korean, English, Swahili... it doesn't matter. God doesn't speak to his children in any of those languages. He speaks to his children by the language of the heart and by the power of the spirit. I am called to speak that language of the spirit, not Korean. If I do my best and work hard and have faith, then I will do fine in Korea because God will pick up that bit I can't do.
There will always be a bit I can't do without him.
I bear testimony of that.
I love you all.
Elder Wesley Buckwalter 장로
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