Anyunghaseo!
I apologize for the late email. I got greedy with my nap, and my companion was too nice to wake me up, so our normal p-day schedule kinda got off. This email will probably not be as long as some of the others I've typed.
It's week 4 at the MTC, which means my stay here is roughly halfway over! I'm scheduled for 9 weeks technically, but I think the first half-week counts as one week. In any case, tomorrow will be exactly one month since I've been at the MTC, which is crazy; in someways it feels like it's been much shorter; in other ways, it feel like it's been waaay too long.
So real quick about my district: I've said this before, but there's 12 people, 8 elders, 4 sisters. We've got a 5/7 split between Seoul/Busan. Everyone is really nice; there's nobody that I can't stand or anything like that, though naturally, I get along better with certain people more than others. He's a little bit about everyone, so hopefully you can kind of get a feel for what the district's like:
Elder Luke - Me! District leader, etc.
Elder Stapley - My companion! Elder Stapley is from Manhattan, Kansas, loves reading the Book of Mormon, loves taking long showers in the morning, likes studying ahead to be able to say what he wants to in Korean, generally dislikes the food here, and suffers from migranes every so often, which is too bad. Apparently, there's not much he can do about it (other than medicines when it happens). I don't know if that's why, but he tends to space out a little bit during lectures, so I've retaught a few grammer forms for him. He's really nice though; he doesn't like to mention anything when his head hurts, because he doesn't want to take me out of the classroom to go back to our residence. I've told him I'd rather he be not suffering during class, because I can always catch up, but I don't think he's entirely convinced...
Sister Pope - Quiet girl, was in my ward at BYU. I don't think I've ever spoken to her there though. She loves singing, doesn't understand why others don't, and was disappointed when I didn't join choir, and also when like 3 other elders joined me in non-participation.
Sister Jackson - From North Carolina, also loves singing. She, along with some other sisters, makes our hymn-singing sound really good. She laughs at everything.
Elder Frampton - Elder from Pennsylvania, and is proud of it. He also likes singing, and is trying to convince my teachers to sing with him for a musical number in our ward. I don't think either of them will be convinced though. Has a girlfriend waiting at home, which means he's very interested in when I get the mail and how often. I'm probably going to end up reducing the number of times I hand out mail from twice a day down to one. He will not be happy. We went on splits once, and he told me the highlight of his day was going to check mail with me. I sincerely hope he's joking.
Elder Pickard - Kind of quiet elder, but knows what we've learned. He loves baseball, saying "Good morning" and "Good night" to an elder that I'm rooming with (he made it a goal to say one of the two phrases every time they meet, I think). I'm pretty good friends with him. I think our personality is similar. When we have questions about Korean, we tend to ask each other if the other person think it sound alright. To be fair, we don't know enough Korean to know when something sounds weird though...
Elder Diede - Tall, blonde, loves giving "high form high fives" where people have to jump to slap his hand. He and Elder Pickard are the two I'm closest to. He's patient with his companion, and is generally a nice guy. He loves basketball, but has a healing knee he keep reagitating. He walks with a limp right now (messed up his knee again like two days ago...), so I hope he'll be fine, and nothing terrible will happen to him now or on his mission... Hates it when other people complain about food, which I agree with. It's not terrific food, but it's good sometimes, and okay most of the time, and complaining doesn't help the meals out any.
Elder Redd - Talkative, loud, maybe a little ADD, and loves Germany. He was a little hard to deal with at first, but he's grown on me (Elder Diede says he's starting to like him more too). Whenever I've talked to him about spiritual things, he's always got good advice, so I respect him. I think he's gotten better at focusing since he got here, so that's good.
Not much time left, so I'll kind of speed through these...
Sister Segovia - Don't know much about here. She's really nice, like everyone else. She's from Mountain Home though, so there's a fellow Idahoan in my district!
Sister Bussio - Last email, I wrote about the sister who knew a lot about grammar; this is Sister Bussio. She studied Greek at BYU for awhile, so she knows exactly what an "indirect discourse" is when nobody else does. Out of the district, she probably helps other people the most, usually with understanding new grammar forms. Doesn't like the fact that there's some things in Korean that you have to understand how it "feels" to figure out if it's appropriate. Anyways, nice like everyone else, and seems to have a pretty good grasp on Korean.
Elder Killpack - Don't know much about him. Former DL. He's pretty sarcastic (I think...), which makes him a bit difficult to understand at times. Speaking of which, apparently Koreans don't use sarcasm, and think that Americans tend to lie a lot when speaking ("Where are you from?" "China." "Oh really? Cool! Which part?").
Elder Harris - Loves basketball, hates the food here, and is scared of Korean food. Even though he's a little picky, he's still a nice guy. I'm friendly with him.
Well, that's my district. There's still a LOT that I could have said, but it's getting late (by MTC standards that is), so I think I'm done about my district.
To answer Mom's question - I went to go see the doctor, and he said that it sounded like allergies (something about mucus running in the back of my throat irritating my throat). I got to take a trip off of MTC campus (!) to get some allergy medicine and some kind of pain reliever. I've been taking it for awhile, and it's helped a ton. I haven't been noticing any coughing at all, so hopefully, problem solved. I got sick for a couple of days, probably because of the sickness going around here, but I took it easy, skipped a meal because I wasn't feeling hungry, slept, and I feel fine now.
As far as things to send goes, I got a package from home today (haven't had time to open it yet...), so I assume it's what we've talked about earlier. Earplugs are fine, but a few neckties would be cool. When you wear one every day, having like 8 gets a bit repetitive. Next time you go shopping, maybe pick out a couple of ties as a family for me? :) A bleach pen would be nice - I don't have anything to clean my white shirts with. I checked the bookstore for one, but they were either sold out or they don't have any there... Other than that, nothing really comes to mind.
To Dad - Sorry about not sending anything for the missionary plaque. I still haven't found a scripture I want to use yet, but to be honest, I haven't really been thinking about it. I'll sit down one of these days during a study time and read some scriptures to find one.
To Lisa - I've met both Elder Jones and Elder Roylance at the MTC! Both times, it was a quick "Hey, how's it going, sorry but I have to be somewhere"-type conversation, but I'll probably end up running into them sometime later. I don't know what building the Japanese speakers meet in, or what their schedule is like though, so maybe next time I see one of them, I'll ask.
To everyone - Sorry for the lack of pictures! Like the missionary scripture, I've just been so busy that it's slipped out of my mind. I'll try again this Sunday to try to get a picture of the district together, but if not, I might have to take some during class; not sure if that's even allowed...
Thank you all for your love and support!
- Luke jango
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