Proselyting in Korea 
by Ronald K. Nielsen 

My first companion was Brian Sellers. He had bright red hair and stood 6' 6", towering over the much shorter Koreans. 

Everywhere we went we garnered the stare of curious onlookers. It was particularly bothersome when going house to house to tract. The neighborhood children would shriek out the warning, "The 'hellokays' are coming". 

"Hellokay" was their term for Americans. The gathering crowd of kids would yell their extent of English greetings to us, "Hellokay, hellokay". The clamor of the children made it difficult to hear when making a door approach, so one of us would hold the kids at bay a few houses away while the other tried to get invited into the home. 

In those days we were invited into most of the houses. This was probably due to the oddity of Americans at that time and to the genuine hospitality and humility of the people during very poor economic times.

Etiquette at that time demanded that calling quests be invited into the home. 

Another favorite proselyting activity was the street meeting. Four or more of us would sing a hymn at a busy part of town. This would attract a number of onlookers and then one missionary would talk in English while another would translate into Korean. This would keep the curiosity factor high while the rest of us would circulate around the crowd to hand out tracts and get teaching appointments. 

The curiosity of the crowd was especially piqued when my Korean companion Han, InSang would speak in English and I would translate into Korean. 

The success of the street meeting was enhanced when President Gail Carr designed a large flip chart with cloth panels of various basic gospel diagrams from which simple gospel lessons could be taught. This would get crowds of fifty or more in the plaza in front of the Seoul City Hall. 

When missionaries first went to Taegu in 1962, we hardly had time to go proselyting. The Church was new in Taegu and we were soon teaching so many discussions every day that we welcomed a break to get out and go door to door or tract on the streets. It was a big contrast when I came back thirty years later as Mission President to see our missionaries struggle to get teaching appointments. 

In 1962, we were teaching more discussions in a day than most of our missionaries in 1992 could schedule in a month. 

The economic success in Korea has the people focusing on their education and profession to the extent that it has crowded out much of the spirituality and humility that used to characterize the people of Korea. 

In the early months of my mission while going door to door I experienced an interesting culture shock. I had memorized the Joseph Smith story in Korean and my senior companion Brian Sellers would set up the teaching situation and then let me give my memorized part. 
In one house we were teaching a mother and her mother in law. Right in the middle of my story a three or four year old child came running in, plopped onto his mother's lap, reached up, pulled out a breast and started to suckle. 

It didn't bother the women at all, but I was so flustered that the Joseph Smith story completely fled my mind.