So I'm in 화양 (hua yang) area, my church is right next to sejong
dehakyo maybe you can google earth it. My companion's name is Elder
Luker and he has 2 transfers left on his mission.
It's weird, but when they call people up to do anything,
first they have to answer some kind of riddle if they're going to be the
one picked for the activity or if they get a treat. Everytime anyone is
called to do something, they go up and try to answer the riddle and
then they either sit down or do Kai Bai Bo (rock paper scissors) or
something.
Some things that might be weird to some Americans:
-We sleep on Mats
-Our floor is heated, that's how we keep the house warm
-The
shower is the bathroom. There's just a drain in the middle of the floor
and you can take the shower head off and spray yourself off, hang it
back up and turn it off. It's just hanging there right next to the
toiliet
-It's the law to sort trash from foody trash and just trashy trash.
If you put too much crumbs or stuff in the just trashy trash, you could
get a fine.
-There's a costco here, so I actually still eat
like half american food and half Korean food. But we eat plenty of
Kimchi and rice and noodles and pepper paste! I love it, I even tried
pigs-feet :P.... okay so I didn't like that
-It's like New York, tons and tons of people (all Koreans haha)
just walking fast to the subway or in packs towards a bus or across the
street. Sky scrapers and cars.
-The cars can just park and go
wherever they can fit, they try to drive on the sidewalk alot. There's
really no rules to driving, except watch out for people. It's kinda
scary
-Everybody likes to try to speak the english they know to me. I
proselyte to every single Korean man I can. We are careful with the Yoja
(women) because we don't want to have a flirting image of our church.
So any man anywhere, I might start a conversation like, "hello, merry
Christmas" and they look a little surprised, grab my arm or something
and try to say, "yes yes, merry christmas, wh-e-re are you fuh-rom?"
then I start speaking Korean with them and they flip out even more,
"you-re Korean is Very-well" they might say. Then I try to testify if
they don't run away, and hand them a mormon card with my phone number,
(the senior companion keeps the cell phone... we always pray they'll
call us and ask to meet again).
My voice this past week has been sorta gone.
So
pray that it will get back, cause I really miss my crisp tenor tone.
Every morning I wake up and grab my pitch-pipe to see if it's getting
any higher and back to normal. I was a bass five days ago, and now I'm
back to baritone where I am sounding nearly normal. I wish for my tenor
tone back, but to be honest I will miss the full bass sound I've been
using. They asked the missionaries at church to sing a carol (musical
number) and I got put on bass and I rocked it! :D haha. The lowest I was
able to hit one morning was a low c with ledger lines below the bass
cleff. It felt awesome, I am going to miss the low sound as I recover. I
remember on the plane over, I was whispering to everybody, but the Lord
is blessing me and now I can talk with substance, I'm glad he gave it
back cause come on! I need to do the work you know.
Ya, even when it's cold, all day everyday we just got to keep smiling and keep saying "Anyanghasayo, merry christmas"
My
companion is incredible. He is on top of the schedule, wakes up on
time, studies on time... what a guy. He always has faith when he talks
to people, it helps that we're both Utah, Americans. Honestly, they'd
probably not talk to me if I was Korean... They adore Americans. If I
send you a picture of Elder Luker, you ladies better be careful. He's a
little taller than me, buff, blonde and skinny. He's kind of got a tiny
lisp.... but he can speak everything clear and perfect. He is always
positive and he's actually our district leader so when I pass off the
first lesson I will do it with him. I'm blessed to be put with him, he
gets me to work and makes me feel confident. I just need to have faith
in my Korean ability and not let him talk the whole time when we
proselyte. Sometimes I have to but in to get my testimony in because
he's so good at Korean, I've set a goal with him for us to try to get me
to talk more. I try so hard, but it's nice to have him when I don't
understand and he can say it quick to me in English.
Other than him, there is Elder Demordaunt and Elder
Waite who are our room-mates. We also have a set of sisters in our ward
so our district is 6 missionaries big and we all go to one ward: the
huayang ward. If we could get more baptisms and set up another ward, we
could spread the missionaries out, but we only have enough for one ward
in this huge area.
Oh, so I know Chinese right? And I was pretty
surprised to find, but once a day I always run into a chinese person.
Without fail, (except yesterday
cause of church and we didn't proselyte very much) so every day I find a
chinese man in Korea. And I speak to him a little in English and a
little in Korean and he's cool and whatever.... but then I find out that
he's from China! and I lay on him a quick Chinese line and he seriously
flips out, his eyes are so big! :D
Usually they will always give us their phone number saying that
they want to meet us again if I can lay that one chinese line on them.
It rocks. Although I think when I tried to meet one of these said
Chinese men that I've done this too (I think I've done this like 3
times) but one of them didn't show up when we agreed to meet so that
made me a little sad.
We also have officially taught a lesson (potential investigator) to a man named Najam and another man named Doba
Now
you're right, they don't sound Korean, because they're not. Funny
enough these two men are actually from Pakistan and Japan consecutively.
We taught Najam (muslim) in English, and he's super hard because he
doesn't really believe in Christ as our savior and won't pray... so we
don't know what to do with him. Doba we taught in Korean.... and I
understood a lot. It's funny how two foreigners speaking Korean, one
from America, one from Japan, actually make Korean sound audible and
understandable. I have an easier time hearing my companion's Korean than
hearing a native Korean. My companion and Doba just sound clearer to
me. Umm... we had a real spiritual lesson with Doba and he said we
couldn't meet him again. He knows that we will want to bring him into
our church and he says that he knows he won't do that so he would not
want to meet with us again. I was really sad, because I really liked him
and felt the spirit with him and could understand him! But I guess he
wasn't ready for this gospel.... man seriously it bummed me out. I tried
my best.... but I just have to get better at Korean and have faith that
the Lord will testify strong through me. We'll get the next one.
We've also taught a brother Pak. I don't remember
his first two names, Pak Hyung Suk my companion just said to me as I
asked him now. He actually brought a friend which was awesome! we didn't
expect that. So we taught him and his friend who's Surname is Lee
(something something, again don't remember, Korean names are hard they
all are so similar to me and all three syllables).
Anyway, we found out that he actually lives in the Daejon
boundaries, so we gave him a book of mormon and referred him over there.
He was nice, I hope he progresses with the other missionaries down
there. :D
So ya, other than the occasional appointment here or
there, it's all proselyting. Something we call 전도 (zhun do) - it means
proselyte or just go out on the street without a said direction or
whatever and just talk to everybody. Everybody. Everybody. "hello, merry
Christmas, have you heard of our church" (jesu crisido huki seongdo
kyohwey is our church in Korean)
We do that for hours and hours in the cold, thank you mom so much
for the thermals... they without a doubt saved my life out here. We hand
out cards with our number, sometimes we hand out a book of mormon. We
try to get their phone number and we call them the next night and ask if
we can meet them. They usually say no and then we just go out and do it
again the next day.
That's my mission life. :D
