Merry Christmas (in a few days)!
I hope all is well over in the States. Has it snown yet? It snowed the other day in 서귀포, but it was really light and didn't stick. :( Mostly, it's just been kind of drizzly off and on.
I got packages by the way! One from Keiko-obachan, and one from you all! It's kind of funny; Keiko-obachan's package has what's in it written on the front - it says like "rice crackers, candy, etc... for Christmas gift." It's fine, I'll have fun opening it anyways. Tell her thanks for me!
So this week's been pretty crazy. Our branch president asked us to plan a Christmas party (I guess he asked a looong time ago already, but I wasn't here...), with like a week before the party, with nothing planned. That, combined with us leaving for a Christmas meeting in 부산 made us very, very busy. Our stats suffered quite a bit, but the party turned out pretty well. We ran into a lot of problems, but they got resolved one way or another. If I have to plan another Christmas party next year, I will be sure to do it like 2 months in advance. -_-
So we had like a talent show by the people in the branch, something that was supposed to be like a "secret Santa" but just turned out to be giving presents to the little kids, singing Christmas carols together (which I had to play since the branch pianist was in Seoul. I played from the hymns made easy book, and even though I didn't have much time to practice, it went okaaaaayish), and then a few talks about Christmas (which were given by the missionaries, of course). After all that, we had dinner together (which was curry and fried chicken, fruits and ice cream. Not really Christmasy, but it was delicious).
Oh, and on top of that, the branch president asked me to conduct the meeting/party, which isn't particularly hard, but something more to stress about. Luckily, all the members came through for what we asked them to do - a few extra people even pitched in with the talent show, the food was beyond what I thought it would be, a couple of members said nice things about the decorations, so I think it was a success. Turnout was good; we had a few less activeish people show up, a part-member family showed up, things like that. I think it's because of all the prayers we said - we needed a lot of help to make the party come together! But it's over now!
Last Sunday we had a primary program, with maybe 6 kids in it. I was forced to play the piano for this too, and I had even less time to practice than with the Christmas party, so it didn't go so well. Oh, and I was not given at all clear instructions on what to play when, so that was kiiind of a disaster... but, hey, that's over too now. The kids were cute, and that's what really matters.
Quick update on investigators - I talked to Elder Platero at our Christmas meeting, and he says that 지영수 hasn't been picking up his phone, so that's kind of a bad sign. They've only been able to meet with him once during the past 3 weeks of this transfer. But they met 박동채, and he said he would come to church (yesterday, hopefully) with his wife. Apparently, he also wanted to talk to me, so he might randomly call me sometime, which would be fun.
As far as 서귀포 investigators, we've got two that we're working with. One guy is what the missionaries affectionately call and "English spaz" - for some reason, there's a ton of people in Korea who are absolutely obsessed with learning English. We met him on the street nearish our house; his name is 전준식, he's from Seoul, he used to go to our English classes up there, but the time doesn't work out for him in Jejudo. His hobby is to study English; he buys English newspapers, and studies the headlines, so he knows a lot of words, but he really wants to talk to people. We're not really sure how much interest he has in our church, but we've only met him a couple of times, so we'll figure out whether we can keep meeting with him or not.
Also, we're meeting with a kid named "Mike." I don't know what his Korean name is, but his English is really, really good. He's like 14ish, and his family's met with the missionaries some 4 years ago. They still keep in touch with one missionary; I guess they really like the missionaries, but not really sure about religion. I've only met with him once so far, but we've got things set up to meet with him weekly. Again, with them, we need to figure out how interested they are, what they remember about what the other missionaries taught them, things like that.
With both of these investigators, we're doing what we call a 30/30 with them - basically, we visit a house, teach some English, and then introduce our church/teach our missionary lessons with them.
Alrighty, that's all I have time for for this week. Have a merry Christmas, and remember what Christmas is about! I know even as a missionary, it's hard to always stay focused, with parties, and packages, and the fun things that come with Christmas. But remember that Christmas is about God's greatest gift to us - His Son. We can thank our Heavenly Father by appreciating this gift; by loving, thinking about it, and living it. I'm a missionary, and I don't understand even close to everything about the Atonement, but that doesn't mean that I can't use and apply it. To me, the Atonement really simply something that lets us become better people.
Thank you for all you do for me! Merry Christmas!
- Elder Luke
Notes:
서귀포: Seogwipo, his area.
부산: Busan. The missionary Christmas meeting was in Busan, presumably at the mission office or a church nearby, so I'm guessing they got to fly again to get there (and again to get home).
지영수: Ji Yeongsu, the plastics guy / fishing lure maker that they were meeting with when he was in Yeongdo. Mentioned in Andrew's letters from November 11, 18, and 25.
박동채: Pak Dongchae, friendly restaurant owner that also speaks Japanese (see November 11 letter).
spaz: This appears to be Korean-missionary-specific slang to mean "someone that is really good at something," and perhaps specific to language learning. My brother used to say this all the time when he got back from Korea, both as a noun ("He's a real hanja spaz") and as a verb ("I totally spazzed you!"). It seems that 25 years later, the slang still lives on.
전준식: Jeon Junsik, the "English spaz" from Seoul they met.
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