A week after I received the truth, my dad too was blessed with a new life. To raise his three children all alone, my dad, who just farmed in the countryside, moved to a city and did all sorts of hard work like shipyard work and construction work. So when my dad received a new life, I felt great I thought that I gave him a precious gift. However, he didn’t come to worship God fully. He had to take care of household chores due to the absence of my mom, and he didn’t miss any of the fifteen Confucian events held at our house, as the firstborn son like his father and his grandfather.
Time passed, and my dad soon became a grey-haired man in his mid seventies. The past ten years of my dad’s life were a series of suffering. He underwent an emergency appendectomy, and got a broken hip as he fell in his house. One good thing was that the number of family events decreased greatly as my dad, who had managed all of the big and small family events, got injured.
Meanwhile, I invited him to “Our Mother” Writing and Photo Exhibition held in Busan. Hearing that there was an exhibition, he came the very next day. After he looked around the exhibition, one member recommended that he start his life of faith in earnest, while talking over a cup of tea. My dad said, “Well, I’m a kind of person who has to think a lot before doing something . . . ,” and he stopped talking. I didn’t think much about it, but a few days later something amazing happened; my dad traveled for two hours by subway to attend worship services on the Sabbath day. Two years have passed since my dad suddenly started keeping worship services like that, and he has been doing it until now.
At first, he came to Zion in casual clothes, but one day he started wearing a suit in worship. In his hand was his worship bag which he said was the best one at the store. As his faith grew more and more, he made more of an effort to receive blessings from God, and started removing idols from his house one after another.
During Chuseok (a traditional Korean holiday), my dad surprised me once again. On the Sabbath day, he said to my sister, who found it hard to keep worship services, “Let’s go together. I’m going to Zion in the evening, too.” He looked so lovely to me when he tried to lead his daughter to Zion, and it brought a smile to my face. I felt so happy on the way to Zion to keep the Sabbath with my family during the Chuseok holiday when everyone’s busy.
When we arrived in Zion with thankful hearts toward God and were about to enter the temple, my dad who was walking ahead of me turned around and hurriedly said, “Fix my button, please.”
I was moved almost to tears while fixing his button.
He might look like just a weak old man in other people’s eyes, but to me he is the most beautiful fruit that God has given me. I truly give thanks to Heavenly Father and Mother for opening all doors for me to go back to Heaven with my beloved family.