We save souls (and puppies, too)

A few weeks ago, a member from Seoul came down to our branch on Sunday because he was visiting some friends in the city.  He talked to us after church and informed us that his dad actually lives out in the countryside in Dangjin and he wanted us to give him a visit.  His dad isn't a member, but we, as missionaries, could change that ;)

So, the next day, we headed out into the country and took with us the makeshift map that the member drew for us.  The map turned out to be more confusing and helpful, and we weren't able to locate the man's house.  We ended up talking to several farmers asking if they knew the man we were looking for and where his house was, but no luck.  So, we called it a day and decided we would try again later.

Last week, we decided we would give it another shot.  It was a warm day and we gave ourselves lots of time to find him, so we were both feeling pretty fortunate about the situation.  We followed the map the best we could and were lead to an old shack in the midst of a bamboo forest.  The house looked vacant and there was junk and garbage all over the area surrounding the home, but the house matched the description perfectly, so we decided to give it a shot.  We knocked at the door - no answer.  We called out to see if someone would hear us - nothing.  "Maybe there's a backdoor?", we thought, and we walked around the house.

That's when we saw them.

Behind the house tucked up in a corner was a cage of six adorable puppies.  Once they saw us, they all became scared and huddled up together in the corner.  We looked at their cage and noticed their living conditions - no food, no water no nothing.  The food pan and the floor was covered in poop from the puppies, the puppies themselves were pretty dirty, and there were 3 now-flattened dead puppies on the ground in the cage as well.  It was clear that nobody had been taking care of them for weeks and it was literally killing them - it wouldn't be long before the left over puppies died as well.

At first we just felt bad for them, but it wasn't after long when we started feeling that it was our responsibility to take care of them.  "We can't just leave them here like this!" we both said to each other, and so we took the matter into our own hands.

While I carefully moved the cage to a clean area, Otterson went about looking for food.  He broke into the vacant house and found a large bag of dog food - I guess whoever lived here at least had the intention to take care of them at one time.  We then found a bowl for water, gave them their food, removed the dead puppies, and improved their living conditions.  I then wrapped a blanket we found around the cage in order to protect them from the winter wind - they were all shivering from the cold.

Haha, so that's what we did.  We tried to find an old man to teach him, but we ended up saving the puppies instead.  Still effective, right?  When we finished, we said goodbye to our newly adopted pets and promised to return in a few days to check up on them.

Maybe I'll get to keep one of them.

Other than that, this week as a week off.  It was the Lunar New Year (Korea's biggest holiday), so missionary work was impossible.  Instead, we just got together as a district during the 3 day holiday and had trainings, did practice teaching, and *cough played games *cough.  Tons of fun!  But now it's over and missionary work can resume - wish us luck this next week!

Non-related picture from a couple weeks ago: