The Rich Member
January 17, 1990 (Wednesday)
Elder Shumway was right. Just give it time, and Elder Benjamin and I would build up our list of investigators. It only took us a couple of weeks — almost like they were finding us, rather than the other way around. And we enjoyed every minute of it.
Elder Benjamin and I created a system to keep track of them all, and our calendar constantly filled up. Lots of first discussions. A few second discussions, and occasionally the higher numbered discussions. Bo-yeon had received his 4th and 5th discussions, but still no baptism commitment.
And then there was Baek Ho-sung (백호성). Today we would meet him for the first time, and he was different. He was already a member, but he had been inactive for more than a decade. At first he just wanted to talk on the phone. Both Elder Benjamin and I took turns. Every time, he would shoot the breeze, telling jokes, speaking English, and all around being chummy. And each time when we brought up meeting with him, he would try to avoid the question and then cut the phone call short.
This is, until last night … he said it was time to meet. He asked how many missionaries there were in our apartment. I said there were four of us, and he said, “Great … how about dinner tomorrow night? All four of you. I can take you all out for sut pul kalbi (숯불갈비).” That’s Korean BBQ — you’ll see what it is shortly.
I said, “What? That’s expensive.”
“Don’t worry about it, Elder Elder. I got this covered, and you are all hard-working missionaries. You deserve a break.”
So, we moved a couple of appointments around and accepted the invitation. And of course, we were all excited. We went through the day as normal—our two companionships each going our own separate ways, meeting our own investigators, and finding more.
And then when it came to be dinner time, we all converged at the restaurant. Ho-sung was already seated at the table, large enough for six people, though there were only five of us. And he had already started cooking meat. Each table came equipped with its own fire pit, fueled by gas — perhaps propane?
The smell of cooked meat permeated the whole restaurant — a distinctive combination of spices including red pepper. At each seat was a metal bowl filled with rice, and spread across the whole table were several tiny bowls filled with different condiments: lettuce, sprouts, soy sauce, egg, vegetables, different kinds of kimchi, and so on.
Ho-sung invited us to sit down, and so we sat in proper seats, a nice break from the usual sitting on the floor when we ate at member’s homes. “The meat’s not done yet,” said Ho-sung. “Are you ready for some fun?” The meat on our grill was half cooked, and half raw.
Elder Shumway extended his hand and said, “It’s great to meet you, Ho-sung. I’m Elder Shumway.”
“Good to meet you.”
Part of me wanted to remind Elder Shumway not to swipe this investigator from us. And definitely no impromptu flarmps across the table.
Ho-sung asked, “Which one of you is Elder Benjamin?”
“Here I am. So happy to finally meet you!”
“Good to meet you. You’re kind of short.” I think this was usually a compliment, because Koreans tended to be shorter, and taller foreigners tended to be somewhat intimidating. They never called me short. I was always somewhere in between. But yeah. Elder Benjamin was the shortest of all four of us, so Koreans tended to like him the most.
“And I’m Elder Elder,” I said. I should mention that this whole time we were speaking Korean, where “Elder Elder” comes out sounding as “Elder Changno.” So, my funny name was often lost on most Koreans.
But not Ho-sung. He said in English, “Elder Elder.” Then switched back to Korean. “That still makes me laugh every time I hear it.”
“Tell me about it,” I said.
“Don’t say it!” said Elder Shumway. “Or, I’ll Elder Elder Elder you!”
Little did he know, I had the perfect joke waiting for him — one day: something like “You always do things the Shum Way.” But I was still waiting for the right time to use it, which never seemed to come up. In hindsight, that was probably a good thing.
When most of the meat was done cooking, Elder Riley asked, “So how does this work?” As the greenie, this was his first experience.
Ho-sung said, “I’ll show you.” He demonstrated as he talked. “First you grab a piece of lettuce. Then you can grab a piece of meat.” He pulled one off of the grill with his chopsticks. “Add rice, some kimchi. Maybe some sprouts. Some sauce. Whatever you want to add. And you wrap it up like this and eat it. There’s no wrong way to do it. You just eat whatever you want.”
“Cool.”
And we all dived in. It was a social smorgasbord. A lot of grabbing and passing tiny bowls between ourselves. And it all tasted great. One nice thing about the experience was that if there were a particular condiment you didn’t like — such as the tiny bowl of octopus, you simply didn’t eat any of it and let others have it.
As we took most of the meat off, Ho-sung started another round. He asked us how our missionary work was doing, and how it was like living in America. He had visited a couple of times through his business.
We were having fun, getting to know each other while eating great food. But then, as always, I wondered why he had invited us. Why did he need our company? Why didn’t he ever want to talk about church?
Our mission president told us often not to have dinner with others just to be fed, but we always had to have a reason, or get something accomplished, whether it be to teach a first discussion, to get a referral from a member, to provide a Book of Mormon, or some other way of planting seeds or meeting needs.
And here we were sitting around the table having fun with a member who had already been baptized, and who was not coming to church. What what we supposed to do? He had no need of the first discussion. And we couldn’t very well ask him for a referral. Perhaps Elder Benjamin would work his magic and figure out what to do. How could we get Ho-sung past shooting the breeze and on to the good stuff?
I looked at Elder Benjamin and he looked similarly puzzled, but he seemed to signal “patience.”
Not even a minute later, Ho-sung suddenly stopped laughing and said, “You know what, Elders? I miss church. I wish I could go back.”
The rest of us stopped our socializing and looked at each other in brief silence. What we were supposed to say? Which of us should respond?
Elder Benjamin took it. “You can come with us to church.”
Ho-sung replied, “No. Not yet. I don’t know how to.”
“If we go together we can figure it out,” said Elder Benjamin.
“No, you don’t understand. I was mean to my home teachers. I said things to several members, to get them to leave me alone. I was just too busy. Everything happening so fast. Opportunities everywhere, and I grabbed them all, and it gave me happiness. When it came down to it, I didn’t need church. It was just getting in the way. I’d be tired on Sundays and needed to rest. At first I figured I was okay. You know, God was letting me enjoy success for a reason, so I could put that money to good use. Hire other people so they’d have work, and help those who bought our products. And little by little, God started taking a back seat. It’s not that I stopped believing, but that I felt I didn’t really need Him.
“And to be honest,” he said, “now I don’t know how to return.”
In the next brief silence, Elder Benjamin said, “You should have faith that it will all work out. Trust me. Come with us to church this Sunday, and you’ll see. Everything will be all right.”
Ho-sung said, “I’m not ready. Maybe it’s too late for me.”
As much as I usually enjoyed Elder Benjamin’s uber spirituality, it wasn’t working this time. We were touching on some core issue — a deep pain or fear that needed resolving. While Elder Benjamin excelled in channeling the Spirit, he wasn’t necessarily that great in reading people. Neither was I, but I felt impressed to try something different.
I said, “Why now? Why do you want to return back to church?”
“I don’t know,” said Ho-sung. “Maybe it’s because after all of this success, I’m finally starting to miss it all — going to church and reading the scriptures every day. And I just met this girl, Soo-jung (수정). She’s perfect and I think she might be the one.”
“I see,” I said. “Is she a member of the Church?”
“Oh, no. She’s not. But she might as well be. She doesn’t smoke or drink alcohol.”
“You think she might be the reason you want to come back to church?” I asked.
“Maybe. Maybe that’s it. If I’m going to ask her to marry me, what does that mean? What kind of life are we going to have? Maybe she’ll need God? Maybe I need God? And our children?”
“So, what would you like to do?” I asked.
“I need a plan. I can’t go to church yet. But I need to do something. What’s a good first step?”
Elder Benjamin said quickly, “You can start reading the scriptures again. Start with the Book of Mormon.” Yay! Elder Benjamin was back on track.
Ho-sung paused and then nodded his head. “Yes. I can do that. Book of Mormon. I’ll start tonight.”
“Great,” said Elder Benjamin. “And then we can meet again to check on your progress?”
“Sure,” he said. “As long as you elders stay hungry. Oh, and do you have any extra Books of Mormon on hand? For Soo-jung?”
“You think she would read it?” asked Elder Benjamin.
“It’s worth a shot.”
“Okay then.” Elder Benjamin took out a blue paperback Mormon Kyeong from his kabang and turned to Elder Shumway. “Hey, do you have the sisters’ phone number?”
“Sure,” said Elder Shumway. “I’ll write down their information.” He grabbed the book, and while he wrote he said to Ho-sung, “These are the sister missionaries. Sister King and Sister Anderson. If Soo-jung has any questions, she can call this number.” And he handed the book to Ho-sung.
“Thank you for this gift.”
We continued eating, and for some reason this scripture came to mind: it is easier for a camel to go through the eye of a needle, than for a rich man to enter into the kingdom of God (Mark 10:25). For me, it was a simple thing to go to church, read scriptures, and help my fellow neighbors. But for him, it was an arduous chore, a source of pain. His earthly success was great, but he had trapped himself, most of his pain self-inflicted.
As the night wore on, we went back to the light-hearted earthly discussions. We enjoyed the food. We were thankful to our host. And I wondered, was he really going to start reading the scriptures again? Would he meet with us again? Or would he rather go back to relying on his own earthly successes, marry the lady, and miss out on this wonderful opportunity to return?
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