Week 23 - Tranfers again

Wow, things have been wild around here lately. Transfers are this week and I have no idea what is going to happen. We don't get the call until 9:30 tonight. So, I can't tell you if or where I’m going to be. Its’ been really crazy. Turns out that two new elders are coming into our area. So, we are moving to the sister missionaries apartment and the sisters are getting our apartment. It's a nice trade on our side. It's cleaner and bigger than where I live now. This move happens on Tuesday. My companion believes that we'll probably be split up since we know the area well. This has taken a lot of our time. We've been cleaning like crazy so when we leave it will be decent. Sorry about not writing the last couple of weeks  I didn't have cash on me to send a letter and last week I thought that I was out of money in my account. Today will be the same ,but I hope that I can send you the letter I wrote and the comics. Well more things happened this week. On Wednesday I went on exchanges with an Elder Inshino. It was great! First we street boarded in 안양 (an yang) and I talked to or contacted six people by myself also we had two street lessons. That took about 45 minutes. After that we went to a less active members home. We had a hard time finding it. We went to where we thought it should be and meet some one from another church. We shared our message and we let them share theirs. Bad idea!  They were friendly however, they talked for ever and quoted scripture after scripture. It was nuts. I didn't under stand a word and neither did Elder Inshino. After that we went to some random apartment. We were in the wrong area. The next big thing I remember is that I fooled some one. They thought that I could speak Korean. They asked me how long I studied Korean. When I told them how long they were impressed. That brightened my day. So after a while we found the location of the members home. We were three blocks over. Along the way we meet a police man. It was weird. He began to talk to us about something then he told us to follow him. I didn't understand why. I was freaked out, Oh no what did we do!!  It turned out that he wanted to buy us a drink. We got some Gatorade and sat down and chatted awhile. He's seen missionaries before but has never talked to them. He was really friendly and I enjoyed listening to the Korean words I didn't know. We shared our testimonies then left. Afterwards we found the apartment finally. No one was home. How sad. So, we went back to the church and prepared for English class. The person who normally teaches them was not there so I taught the advance class alone. It was weird, we started out with normal English, like grammar and other things. Then we had conversation time, where we just talk about a topic. I let them choose what they wanted to talk about. It was awful at first.  The first student, who was a new person, started out. He tried to make these ridiculous sentences, which ran on forever. I tried to help him speak clearer. However, it was a lost cause. He was ok at English but he really needed to be in the lower class. After he ran out of things to say others had a chance to speak.  The topic changed to missionary work. There were three students who chose to ask questions like, how you choose to become a missionary, what you need to do to go on a mission and other things like that. Also they asked about Utah and the church.  It was awesome! Later the classes combined and we shared a short message. Aso one of the three students gave us brownies at the end of the class. I later found out that one of my favorite students is a little strange.  The one who made the brownies.  It turns out that she asked before if missionaries had a vacation and if Elders Rife and Inshino could go with her and a friend to some place. Weird... after that she made jokes about the brownies, we didn't eat them... well I didn't. The next day we went to a meeting, it was long but enjoyable. Afterwards I tried to pass off again for midway and failed again. He told me that he wants me to teach more simply and that he knows that I can do better than I did.

But I don’t think he was paying attention during the test thing.  You see I started out teaching then he told me that he was lost and that I needed to start over because I was going off topic. I started over using the same exact words as the first time. And he did say anything about it.  Well I have to go love you bye.

Week ?? - Newest Email 8-23-11

Lol and Blessings!  Wow, today has been very busy, we just got back from the Temple. So what has happened this week. The week started out slow with no appointments and every less active member we went to visit wasn't home. So, we decided to work on organizing the Area books. It seems that no one has done anything here for about three years. I can't remember if I told you about the one less Active we meet awhile ago. She told us that she hasn't seen missionaries in over ten years or so. And it's like that for most all our Less actives. So we found out this week, that about a fourth of them have moved away, have no address, or their number has changed. The investigator book is like that too. There is a good amount,  I would say about half of them don't have any information about them. It's all clear now and we can focus more of our time finding people instead of cleaning up some else’s mess that they left behind. Ok, so during that time the bishop called us and asked where we were. It was a surprise for us and I was confused. It turned out that he invited us to a 식사 (meal or dinner). My companion wanted to say we were busy since, we had just eaten.  However, we couldn't lie to him and went to his house. Because we were late they had eaten already so, we enjoyed their company while we ate it was weird.  They gave us this soup of rice and a cooked chicken. I tried not to think about it too much. It was nice and their family is really friendly. The next big thing happened on Wednesday. We were street boarding by the Home Plus that is just down the road from our apartment.  We just began, when we meet this man named Christopher. He is from Sherlonca, (I don't know how to spell it.) He spoke english which was nice, and he was extremely friendly. We talked to him for about an hour or so about the Book of Mormon, Jesus Christ, and the restoration of the gospel. He was really open to us and he listened to everything we said. We noticed that when we talked about Jesus visiting the America’s he was surprised or excited in a way. He thanked us and gave us his business card. We also gave him our card and a copy of the Book of Mormon. It's sad though, we can't meet him this week or ever. He's going back home this Sunday and does not have any free time. At least we have his email. We hope to help him out that way. The next person I want to talk about is one of the students in English class. We think that he could be ready to hear the about the Gospel. To make things clear I will explain more. You see we split the English class into two different times. The first half we spend on mainly teaching English. Then we teach about our church and the gospel.  So during one of our lessons we taught about the temple and how families can be together forever. He loved the idea and wanted to know if his family could also be together after death.  We taught that people who are married in the temple could live together.  His next question was a little bit of a shock.  He asked what about his grandparents, did he have to live with them too. He then told us about how he hated them. Ahh, what to do!!  My companion came up with some vague answer then said that we were out of time and that we needed to end class. The lord has been blessing us more than I've thought.

I love you mom and I hope that the house is coming around. It sounds like it is just about finished. That’s great. I love you so much and I still miss you. I'll continue to pray for you and I hope the girls are helping out as much as possible. Tell Stephen that I love him. Oh, I’m low on vitamins and the other things. So I don't know what you would like me to do about that. Just letting you know. Oh, and what is my PIN number?  I forgot what it was. Well it's not a problem yet. It turns out that Home Plus doesn't really have an account thing, or so I'm told. My companion suggested that I use my debit card. I don't know about that, if that sounds good to you it's good to me. I wish I knew Korean well enough to know. Well love you, bye.

week 18 - Doing Better email

It was one crazy week. Things are slow and we aren't teaching anyone so far. Ya we are starting over and working our way up. So Monday we contacted all day to find more people. No luck, only a few people took the time to listen to us. I don't remember much of what happened this week except the drunk man. We decided an hour before hand to pass out English fliers at Homeplus. It's a place just like WalMart,  only better. The service there is so great in Korea that all the Walmarts died here. Korean's are proud that Homeplus beat that big box monster. Any way, we had just finished and were about to go home when... bam, this drunk man walks up to me telling me that I'm handsome, and asking if I was from America. Fun, he gave us his number and his Friends number as well.

The next day we went to a baptism for a members little Girl in our ward. It was a fun experience. I enjoyed the program that they had planned, but I didn't expect what came next, Oh this was at the church. They have a fount. Ya Korea is very modern, everywhere you go someone is on the phone. Any way. They asked us to sing, Ahhh. I can't read that fast in Korean and My companion says he's not a singer. We sang Um..? I know My Father Lives? Well, the members loved it. The baptizm was short. Plop, Swoosh... And it was over.  The smaller childern all laugh at what happened.

We also visited 김청봉,Gimcheongbong,  He is an elderly man. Every Tuesday we bring him food as a service. He's such a great man. He can't see well or hear well, but he loves to talk. He told us of how during the Korean war he left North Korean and made his way to Seoul. I'm not sure of what happened, it was in Korenglish, but it was a good story. And before we left he said a prayer thanking God for the American Missionaries who came to his house. He loves to pray and in English too.

That night it rained and it rained hard. We got home before it got to bad. It finally stopped the next day. No big deal until we went to district meeting at our church. Ah, too much mud, the street was covered in it. Trash was everywhere and broken pipes. What happened here?  It looked like a war went on over night. We then spent 3 hours cleaning with the Sister missionaries,(they are in 금천일 or first ward), and a member family. After that we decided to meet a member, 안억. Aneok,  he is a sweet old man who joined the church, 5 five years ago. He has lost his wife and his family hardly visit him, and so he is lonely.  He told us what he had done that day. His tooth is bothering him so he went to the Dentist, but he was out.   I think it was because the 역's ( train station) flooded.   He wanted us to stay but, we had no time, it was almost 9 pm.

   Sunday We went to 박성삽's Bakseongsap's home. We ate with them, and also it was the first time I rode in a taxi.  It was a waste of money. Cost  me 4 bucks, when we could've rode the bus for 90 cents. Normally we only ride the bus, but that day we were really late.   They are my favorite family. The Father teaches me new things when ever we meet. And the mom likes me too, at the baptism she gave to me a load of baked goods.   It was a lot!!!   So after dinner with them it began to rain. So, since we were by 안억's Aneok's apartment we decided to visit him. He was so greatful that we came to his home. He shared stories about his days in the Army and the Academy. We were going to leave when he order food for us and told us that it would be there in thirty minutes. Clever old man, since it would be very disrespectful to him to refuse his offer and that he had order it already. We shared dinner with him.   Not to waste too much time waiting we went home dropped the things we didn't need and picked up what we needed to prepare for the next activity. Wow, I was stuffed from all the food.  He is such a nice man.

I hope you love this letter, Mom. I love you enough to Do My Best.

 

Hanna,

Hey, that was my week.  It's not much like yours, but it was good. Sorry to hear that you fell asleep while drving. I laughed when I heard that you crashed the car. I'm praying for you though. It seems to me that you want to leave home. Not yet, wait and see how the real world is. I'm in missionary land and it's tough. Oh, by the way thank you for giving that message to Jacob for me. He hasn't written. Well Hanna it's not a lot but I hope you love this letter. Stay safe. Lov u...

 

Rhylie,

Sorry I made Mom mad since I was lazy and did write last week. I was mad at her for being mad at me, until I got home and read the Liahona, Ensign, and A blessing I was given. Share with your family. Blow after blow. Please forgive me, you can by writing me two Emails or even one. I don't know what to say because of no Email from you. I've heard you are sleeping in the new house at night. Nice! I live in the same kind of place as the trailer. The bathroom stinks, no sink, that works that is. We tries fixing it on Thursday with duct tape. HA, Ah, it leaks like crazy, but we have a sink now. Oh, there is this Hobo community under a bridge. Every time I go past it  I think "oh, look it's Rhylies people."  LOL, Well love you Rhylie. Miss you...

No explanation came with this cartoon so I'm a little lost, maybe he will tell me in his next letter.