(Sorry this email kind of jumps around. I've got so many things to say and I'm not sure how or when, so I just kind of threw it together. Ah well.)
It's been almost 6 days since I've been here in Korea, and maybe 4 since I've been in my area.
I've been assigned to serve in 영도, which is maybe, oh 45 minutes from the mission HQ (which is kind of sort of far in Korea I guess). It's an island, but it's close enough to the mainland that there's bridges to and from it. Because it's so close to the ocean, it's pretty cool - still humid and hot when the sun's out, but there's usually a refreshing ocean breeze coming in.
My companion's name is Elder Jo, and as you can probably guess from the name, he's a native Korean! His English is actually pretty good (although sometimes, it's a bit confusing. He told me once that "water-things and ice-things are good." I guess he's basically just saying that it was hot and that we should buy something cold, but I don't know. I suspect my Korean sound the exact same to him), but he always tries to speak to me in Korean first, which I'm thankful for. I think if I had an American companion, I'd be tempted to only speak English, but that's not going to help me here in Korea. Elder Jo's been in 영도 for 3 months now, so he's a seasoned veteran - he takes good care of me :). We get on buses and I have no idea where we're going or where we're at - that's something I'll hopefully pick up sooner rather than later.
Anyways, he's really nice, and knows all the rules by heart. It seems to me like he's got no fears talking to people (well, he DOES speak Korean...), which is yet another thing I need to learn. It's hard for me to want to talk to people when I'm lost after "Hello" and "Where are you going?", but I've been praying a lot to get over being scared. Worst case, I guess I can just say, "Sorry, I'm American, so I can't understand Korean well." I will very likely be making a lot of awkward conversation in the future...
Anyways, back to area assignments...
Some other people in my district got some pretty crazy first areas - one elder got sent to Jeju (no idea how to spell it in Korean correctly), which the mission president called the "Korean Hawaii." It's also an hour away from the mission home, but by plane instead of bus and subway. I hear it's very beautiful - kind of a touristy area - but also wicked hot. Our teacher was telling us that they have a really thick accent down there. Most Koreans don't even understand it, so I hope the elder will be alright down in Jeju.
A sister from my district is opening up a new area. I forget what it's called because we started getting ready to go as soon as we got our assignments, but that's pretty exciting.
I forgot to take pictures, but my apartment's actually a lot bigger than I thought it would be, so that was a relief. It's still a bit cramped, but there's enough room for everything. I will try to remember to take pictures sometime, but we'll see I guess.
Church was interesting - our branch is pretty small; I think maybe 30 people attended this week, and 10-15 of them showed up late, and just to Sacrament meeting. Since the branch is so small, and there's very few men, the elders have a big responsibility to help out. We showed up early to clean the church and prepare the sacrament, and we also taught Sunday School and Aaronic (spelling...?) Priesthood. My companion told be about this like 9:30 the night before, so the Aaronic Priesthood lesson was suuuuuper short (there was only one member there though...), but my companion was kind enough to take over when I was done, so things worked out okay. He also taught Sunday School though, and he's in charge of giving assignments for talks and things. I don't know it it's just 영도 or just Korea, but missionaries seem really busy at church!
The members were really nice though. I can't remember anyone's names, but they all tried their best to speak to me in English and I tried my best to speak my Korean. Basically, I told them that I have 6 people in my family and that I'm from Idaho. Surprisingly, even Koreans (at least some of them) know that Idaho grows potatoes. Some things never change...
We had lunch afterwards as a branch - not sure if that's every week or just Fast Sundays - so I got to eat some real Korean food (we usually eat really simply as a companionship - frozen gyozas, eggs and pork, and for some reason, bananas and toast at every meal). I have no idea what I ate, but most of it was red vegetables and a lot of rice. It was okay - still don't love kimichi and kimichi's many many red-vegetable cousins, but I was hungry so I ate everything.
Oh, and since it was fast and testimony meeting, I was planning on (trying) bearing my testimony, but the Branch President actually announced it/invited me up to specifically. I don't think I spoke my best Korean - I was a little nervous :) - but I hope the members appreciated my efforts if nothing else. Oh, and the person assigned for opening prayer didn't show up, so I did that too. It was kind of a stressful Sunday, but it was fun!
I've learned a lot about "real" missionary work, and how it works in Korea. At the MTC, all I learned was how to teach, but that hasn't really been something we've done yet. At the moment, we have no real investigators - Elder Jo was teaching a man, and he said that the man was pretty receptive, but the man hasn't been answering phone calls or texts for a couple of weeks now. Staying in touch with investigators is something I hadn't thought about, or even worried that there would be problems about. We do a lot of vising less actives, trying to keep up on people who might be interested ("I'm busy right now" is a reeeeaaally common response, but we don't really learn much from that - it's basically a maybe that we have to call later).
Oh, and I have pictures, but we're using free computers at a Lotte department store (it's huge, and really nice) so I don't have access to a USB drive. We probably won't get around to being able to finding a place to send pictures, so it might have to be next week. I'll hopefully have a lot to send over.
Anyways, Korea is cool - it reminds me a lot of Japan, except less crowded (maybe because Tokyo is worse than where I'm at). It's fun, and as 미국인, and especially as a new missionary, I'm not expected to understand that much. My poor, poor companion has to carry me until I can stand on my own :).
Thanks for all you do, and thank you for all your love and prayers! Korean is a little bit impossible for me right now, but I'll do what I can. Hopefully, in my next email I'll be able to say that I understand a little bit more.
Until next week -
Love,
Elder Luke
Notes:
The first word written in Korean (and repeated twice later) is "Yeongdo." Yeongdo is a part of Busan city, a "gu" (which is about the same as a "ku" in Tokyo and other large Japanese cities; kind of like a borough in New York City). Busan is the second-largest city in Korea, with a population of about 4.3 million. It looks like the island is a bit less than two miles by four miles, with about half the area taken up by fairly large hills. It looks like maybe four square miles of buildings, so kind of like McMillan to Fairview, Maple Grove to Cloverdale. But with a much higher population density (Yeongdo's population is about 140,000), and almost infinitely more kimchi per square mile. See it on the map here: http://goo.gl/maps/Ew9QE.
The branch he is in is part of the Busan Stake, which has six wards and five branches.
The Korean word in his second to last paragraph is "Miguk-in", which would be probably 美国人 or 美国員 for you kanji/hanja fans, and means "American." Looks like he's learning to type hangul. :)
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