안녕하세요 (annyeonghaseyo!) -
Hello from 포항 (Pohang)! This week has gone by fast – I feel like I still don’t know anything about 포항 (Pohang) yet; and since my companion goes home by the end of this transfer, I need to learn fast! 포항 (Pohang) is an industrial city – I think a majority of people that live here work at this steel company, Posco (perhaps “Pohang Steel Company” shortened. Apparently it’s a really good company to work at), or else they work at Postco’s college, Postec. But the city seems fairly small – it definitely doesn’t have that “big city” type feel that I’ve seen in some areas. Anyhow, still trying to figure out how to get around and get to know who’s who.
Last week was pretty busy – we met with 김지원 (Jiwon Kim), a recent convert, several times, and 전성호 (Sungho Jun), an investigator, several times as well.
김지원 (Kim Jiwon) was kind of a golden investigator. He got baptized within a month of meeting the missionaries, which is really, really fast. He’s like 26, and going to college right now, but it seems like he’s got a lot of time since he’s met with us like 5 times already. That’s a good thing though!
Anyways, we’ve been reading the Book Mormon with him, studying some English, and teaching gospel lessons. He seems to understand things really well; he always asks good questions – “So what does the great and spacious building in the scriptures mean?” “How do I prepare for General Conference?”, stuff like that. He’s a good guy. :D
Brother 김지원’s got tests coming up in the next few weeks, so we won’t be seeing him much at all for the next while, which is too bad…
전성호 (Jun Sungho, or Jeon Seongho) is a little bit of an older man, but is also interested in English, so we do that alongside gospel lessons. He’s kind of an interesting case – he had a lot of interest in the Book of Mormon, and is reading it, but says that he doesn’t want to be taught gospel lessons. So we’ve been teaching out of the Book of Mormon, and he reads a little bit every day. He’s read from 1 Nephi up until Mosiah 10ish, so he’s read a lot.
We don’t really know how to move on with Brother 전성호 – he says that he believes our church is true, but when asked why, he said “Well, the missionaries wouldn’t lie to me, right?” We’re just hoping that as we meet with him, we can help him understand a bit better, and help him not just believe us, but the Book of Mormon as well.
Let’s see, other than that… I couldn’t meet with any of the members this week, since we went to General Conference in another branch (more on that in sec), so that’s too bad. Elder 이영호 (I Yeongho, his companion) says that they’re super busy, so it’s hard to meet with them. Argh, I’ll going to miss all the member dinner appointments we had back in 서귀포 (Seogwipo)… :(
Obviously, my companion and I need to see General Conference in different languages, so we went to 경주 (Kyeongju), which is the other area in our district. There, we split companions with the elders there, so that I could watch General Conference in English with an American companion, and Elder 이영호 (I Yeongho) could watch General Conference in Korean, with a Korean companion.
Speaking of General Conference, what did you think? Sister Gilbert, our mission president’s wife, said she was “amazed by the voice of warning,” and that seemed to be a big theme. Things like standing up for our beliefs, our church’s stance on certain issues, putting God’s laws before man’s laws, gaining a personal testimony, the dangers of addiction, sticking to the basics… there were a lot of talks kind of along those lines. It was very interesting; a lot of the speakers were really strong too.
So Mom asked some questions in one of her letters, and I happened to bring the letter with me to email this time, so I’ll answer them here…
“What is your favorite Korean food?”
I like 비빈밥 (bibimbap), which is the food that Mom always made for us. I don’t know what is it; I think I like the taste of the hot sauce that goes in it.
“Do you eat rice and kimchi often when nobody feeds you?”
Kimchi is more of a side dish, so we sometimes eat kimchi + rice + something else, but I’ve never had just rice and kimchi for a meal.
There’s two problems with kimchi. One, you can’t buy it. Store-bought kimchi tastes like store-bought kimchi, and so you therefore must get kimchi from members. But of course, you can’t directly ask them, so you just kind of wait until someone asks you if you have kimichi, and then you can get good kimchi. And two, kimchi goes bad pretty fast. Most Koreans have a “kimchi fridge,” which has the sole purpose of keeping kimichi from going bad (they’re huge – like the size of two schooldesks (the small ones where one person sits at)). In 서귀포 (Seogwipo), we had some nasty kimchi that was like 4 months old, gone sour, that nobody would dare eat. So it’ll probably just stay there until some responsible throws it away, haha.
“Are you getting to like kimchi now?”
Kimchi’s fine. I tend to like cooked kimchi more though (like in stir fries or soups)
“Is there any snack food from the US that you want?”
I would like the lifesaver mints – the “Wintogreen” is sooo good. Thank you!!!
“Is Korean language easier to learn than Japanese?”
I don’t really know, since I haven’t actually studied Japanese (like I don’t know any grammar). So Korean makes a lot more sense to me, and I can definitely explain Korean grammar better than Japanese or even English grammar. You have to memorize Kanji in Japanese though, which seems really hard. The Korean writing system is incredibly easy to learn, so I love that. In English, if you don’t know a word, it’s hard to pronounce, but Korean’s (thankfully!) not like that. At the MTC, they said that Korean’s the 2nd hardest language to learn for Americans (with Finnish being 1st), so there’s that. Honestly, I don’t feel like Korean’s THAT hard, but I grew up knowing Japanese, so I don’t think I can fairly judge that.
“Can you read the Book of Mormon in Korean pretty well by now?”
The Korean Book of Mormon is HARD. There's a few different forms in Korean, and apparently the Book of Mormon is written in “king form." That is a form that I will never, ever use, and don’t have any resources to study it. So it’s pretty hard to read, especially to catch the little nuances in the grammar. I understand maybe mmm 60% of the text? And that’s only because I’ve read the Book of Mormon in English. I was reading through 2 Nephi’s Isaiah chapter, and my understanding was like 10-15%, haha. Basically they use a bunch of different grammer forms that I’ve never seen in weird grammer styles in a writing style I don’t know. I know most of the vocabulary though, so I can kind of piece together what’s going on.
Oh, and lastly, my district's full of people that I know. Of the 5 other people there, I've been in the same district as 3 of them.
I think that's about it... I will write to you again next week!
Love,
- Elder Luke
Note:
경주: Kyeongju or Gyeongju, the place they went to watch General Conference. Gyoengju (that's the way it's spelled on Google Maps and in Wikipedia; I can't see any logical pattern as to when ㄱ is Romanized "g" and when it's "k"...). It's a city about 10 miles southwest of Pohang, with a population of about a quarter of a million (half the size of Pohang). Churchwise, Gyeongju has its own branch. From that I'm guessing that Andrew and his companion are the only set of missionaries in Pohang.
Here's a few older pictures; met with James Bond at the 서귀포 (Seogwipo) church, and me with Elder Baker, and Elder 허정헹 (Heo Jeongheng, his companion in Seogwipo) on a bus on my last night in 서귀포 (Seogwipo).
Note:
Nice looking church building, especially for a small branch! One of the branches I served in in Japan was about the size of the Seogwipo Branch, and we had one floor (just one large room, plus a tiny bathroom and tiny kitchen/office area) rented in a larger building. We later moving to a rented standalone building that used to be a store. Even today, years later and with three times the members as when I got there, they still haven't been able to build a dedicated church building, and are still in a rented and converted building (this time a former karaoke bar...). Maybe buildings are just a lot cheaper in Korea?
The church photo looks like it was taken in the morning, facing directly south, from in front of the house Andrew lived in.
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