i love this place

Today, Saturday, we had our college age life group at Kyungwon University. In the girls group, there were 6 of us. We talked about Jesus - a prophecy from Isaiah and then two or three scriptures that show how that was fulfilled in the New Testament. It was slow going at first, because unfortunately I forgot to bring more copies of the scriptures and no one brought their Bibles. But, we had some really good talk time. One girl had a question - is it really true that no matter how big our sin is, it's really that simple to ask for Jesus' forgiveness and He makes it okay? We talked a bit about consequences of sin and repentance, and then told her that it really is a simple thing if you trust in Him to change you. It's so cool to talk with people who are so eager and open to Christianity! One of the girls who comes every week was close to tears for most of the time we were talking. I'm not sure why she had the tears other than that I know God was working in her. She joined in prayer with us at the end and then told us: "I just feel so happy today! These tears are good." For some lighter discussion, I brought up the question..."what do you think of when you think of Jesus?" We had the standard answers of faithful friend, loving, peaceful, etc. One girl said she thinks of how handsome He must have been..."not in a Tom Cruise sort of way, but just a really classic way." :)

Five of us got to go to an amusement park after life group because one girl had free tickets. We were there about four hours and got to ride two rides (the crowds were amazing!) and see one parade that was pretty cool. They seem to be much more imaginative in their characters and decorations. Maybe it just seems that way because it's different. We didn't take part in the full Korean experience by buying a bag of fresh roasted and shredded squid, but we did have a good time.

I went to Lotte Mart on the way home to pick up some stuff to contribute to our lunch tomorrow after church. I'm gonna make dduk bokki, one of my favorite (easy to make) Korean foods. I asked a lady for help in finding something, and she was very helpful even though I got the syllables switched in the word I was trying to say. After she helped me, I went on to find the rest of my stuff. The same lady came over to look in my basket a few minutes later, all the way across the store. She told me (in Korean, so I only understood a little bit) something like, oh, you need to change this for something better, hurry over here! She showed me that I needed to change what I had for a better deal. In big stores here, they sometimes have free stuff taped on to certain products to get you to buy them. So, she showed me the bucket of red pepper paste that had more free stuff taped to it. I told her thank you and she said, "oh, I want to thank you, too!" When I was checking out, she appeared again and told me "this is so fun!" It really was cute that she was having so much fun helping me.