안녕하세요?
How is everyone!? I just got your letter from when I sent you the flood pictures. I've been getting mail pretty consistently for the past couple of weeks, so it seems like things have settled down mailwise (there hopefully will be another letter waiting in the post office). I'm glad to hear about Filbet - I sometimes wondered what he was up to. Had no idea that they had moved, but glad to hear that he's doing well!
I made some banana bread this week - thanks for the recipe Mom! We gave it out to the people that helped us out with teaching 이상남, to say thanks. Hopefully, they like it!
We had one heck of a time trying to find baking soda though. I don't know the Korean name for it, and Elder Jo wasn't sure what "baking soda" was. We found a "식소다" (I think that's how you spell it; it's literally "eating-soda"), and Elder Jo ended up reading the chemical name off of the bag, and I translated it on our phone ("hydrogen, carbon, sodium"). That seemed about right, so we bought it and threw it in the bread batter. The banana bread was good, so it seems like we got it right.
We met one 이효성 this week. He's kind of weird, but I like him. As he's told me several times, he's a very honest person; very blunt. His English is really good though - I asked him whether he's lived in an English-speaking country (he hadn't), but that's how good it was. Oh, and he swears in English. I feel bad - the first time he did, I couldn't help smiling because it was funny (just out the the blue, this Korean man starts using words I haven't heard since high school). I think the other missionaries were a little shocked though, haha.
We met him as we were going to a local university (we seem to find a lot of interested people there, or at least people who have some time on their hands, so...), and started talking to him. We were giving out little leaflets for our English class, so Elder Jo talked to him in English. "Hello, we're teaching free English class." He responded in Korean with "You're Korean right? Speak Korean."
He showed up to our English class the next day, and we spent most of the time not actually covering the material (the topic was "nature"). He asked a lot of questions about missionaries and about why we're here. At the end, one of the sister missionaries pulled out a Book of Mormon to share a thought, and 이효성 immediately said, "I don't want your Bible!" She wasn't planning on giving it to him, but I guess he's learned somewhere that the Mormon missionaries like to give out Book of Mormons.
We met him again the next day, and he said he had done some research. He asked about Salt Lake City and temples, he asked about early Church history, and he also asked about polygamy (kind of a hard topic to explain and I didn't really answer it well, but my district leader later pointed me to some helpful scriptures to study), and we talked a bit more about our church. At then end of our meeting, 이효성 suddenly said "I'm ready to receive your Bible now," (whaaat!?) so we gave him a Book of Mormon, and asked him to read the introduction page, which he promised he would.
That night, he texted us (in English - he says that since Elder Jo understands English better than I understand Korean, it's more effective for him to communicate in English"). Basically it said, "I read part of your Bible and I have some questions, but I can't come to English Class next week. I can't wait two weeks to have my question answered, so can we meet sometime sooner?"
Intriguing, huh?
I still think that he's more curious about missionaries and our church than sincerely interested in investigating, but hey, that's a start. If nothing else, he'll know a little bit more about what we believe, which is okay. We'll see how things go!
I got to go to a training meeting this week, and I want to share one thing I learned. This wasn't said, but just a thought that I had. I don't know how you all can apply it, but I'll share it anyways.
I think for me, one problem I've been having is that I've been trying to change myself completely. It's easy to go to a bunch of training meetings, see other missionaries working, and think "I've got to change everything about me if I want to be a good missionary!!!!!" But I'm not here to change completely. I'm here in Korea because I'm me; the talents, the personality, the experiences that make me unique are why I'm here. Sure, I need to change some of the selfish, lazy parts of me, but (hopefully) that's not a total personality makeover. Everyone does missionary work a little differently, and I just need to find my own way to work, and not compare myself to others.
I hope all is well in Idaho! Thank you for your letters and prayers - they both help me a lot. Hope General Conference was good; I don't get to see it until this next Sunday. It seems like I'll be able to see it in English, so that's pretty cool.
Adios!
- Elder Luke
Notes:
안녕하세요: Annyeonghaseyo, the standard Korean greeting.
The letter with the flood pictures: That's the e-mail he sent us on September 2, so our letter reacting to that would have been sent September 2 or 3. It looks like the mail is a good, steady four and a half to five weeks to get from us to him.
Filbet: A friend from our ward.
이상남: I Sangnam, the boy who was baptized last week.
식소다: "sik soda." Apparently a name for baking soda; Google translate didn't quite know what to do with this, and called it "expression soda." (???) The "soda" part is just a transliteration of the English "soda," and Andrew said that the 식 part was "eating" (the 食 charcter, pronounced "shoku" in Japanese). Anyway, good thing that there was a chemical formula on the package and that Andrew apparently remembers that baking soda = sodium bicarbonate = NaHCO3.
이효성: I Hyosang, the name of the interesting college student.
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