안녕하세요!
So, I found out my companion's name! Last week was a closeish guess, but I think the name is really strange in Korean. Anyways, his name is 허정헹 (not that you can really tell the difference even if I type it out...).
He's a really good guy. This next transfer will be good I think. He's got a lot of ideas for finding, and has also asked members to get some basic information about the area down (for example, there's almost nobody in their 20's here, because there's no college in 서귀포. Every goes either to Jeju City, or else to the mainland to study. I didn't know that, or notice that...).
Last week was kind of bad, because it rained really hard, and we made a lot of plans, so we were kind of inside a lot. But this next week, with a lot of planning already done, we should hopefully get things to pick up a bit more. To start off with, we're going to put up a bunch of flyers for our English class - Elder 허 did that in his last area, and said that it was really, really effective, so we're hoping to see the same results here as well.
Speaking of English class, things have kind of taken a turn for the worse, haha. So we basically have 3 groups of people - one older man, a less active family, and a less active girl and a few of her friends. I guess the problem basically is, we used to have an American, Sister Wager, help us teach English, but she's busy for like the next 4 weeks, so I'll be the only one teaching. The mother of the less active family doesn't like the older man, and she demands one teacher for her entire family, which really isn't feasible (and we have a rule that we have to have a man present when we meet women, so we need to have the older man). Oh, and the group of girls speak English well, but not as good at the other two groups. So they're hard to teach together as well. Elder 허 and I need to figure out something fast... :D
Worst case, we'll move English class to another date, and invite other missionaries to help us out (or we cancel English class forever, haha). We'll see. Best case... mm, not sure what that looks like yet. Probably finding a bunch of new people to come to English class.
So, anyways... not too terribly busy this week. Next week, we get to go up to the mainland, and hear Elder Ringwood speak, so that'll be fun. I'll be the first time I've been off the island since Christmas.
For P-day, we went to 마라도 (Malado) (we went with all 7 missionaries in our district, one member from not 서귀포, and a couple investigators also from not 서귀포), which is kind of a lonely little island. My district leader told me that 마라도 is good for two things - it's the southernmost part of South Korea, and it's famous for it's (jajang - not sure how to spell it in Korean... it's some kind of soybean based sauce on like ramen noodles. Kind of like hayashi rice, but not rice) noodles. So we went there, and basically, there's nothing there. We ended up taking the boat to get there later than we thought, so we ended up only being on the island for an hour, and spending most of the time there eating noodles. My district leader was disappointed that the noodles weren't that good - basically, we paid $23 for a bowl of mediocre noodles, and a lot of pictures, haha. That's fine though. It was a good experience, though I don't really care to go back again.
But, on the bright side, here's some pictures!
I think that wraps it up... thank you all for your prayers, your letters, your "happy birthday" emails!
Love,
- Elder Luke
Notes:
안녕하세요: Anyeonghaseyo, the standard Korean greeting.
허정헹: Heo Cheongheng, Andrew's new companion. Last week he was unsure of the name, thinking it might be 호종행, or Ho Chonghaeng. Pretty close, but the vowels are a bit different.
서귀포: Seogwipo, the city Andrew currently lives in.
English class: With Elder Brower being replaced by a native Korean, and the American sister unavailable, that makes Andrew the only native English speaker available to teach their classes. That would make things a bit more difficult...
마라도: Mala-do (or Mara-do) is a pretty tiny island about five miles south of Jeju-do. It's the southernmost point in Korea, and from the Google Earth photo, looks like it's about 3000 feet long and a bit over 1000 feet wide. The population is about 90 people.
jajang: According to Wikipedia this is 자장면 (jajangmyeon) or 짜장면 (jjajangmyeon), wheat noodles with a dark bean paste sauce. I'm pretty sure I've eaten this before in Korea, and it was quite tasty, but (like everything else) way too spicy.
Sorry, as always, for not having more pictures of me. We were kind of pressed for time on the island, so we couldn't take a ton. I might be able to snag a few pictures from someone else, and if I do, I'll send them your way!
Andrew with Elder Heo. This is probably on the bus on the way to the ferry to go to Mala-do.
At a restaurant on Mala-do. The first three characters on the main sign on the building are 짜장면, the name of the noodle dish.
The jjajangmyeon. The reddish orange stuff on top looks like kimchi; the yellow food in the other dish looks like takuan, a type of pickled daikon that's popular in Japan too.
Andrew's comment on this: the water really isn't that blue, it was just really bright today.
Mara-do in the background.
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