한국에서, "안녕하세요!" (August 25, 2013)

여러분, hello!

I think this is my 4th P-day in Korea, which means I've been here for a whole month. My "12 week program" (basically, a training program for new missionaries to get up to speed) is 1/3 done. The goal of the 12 week program is to be able to train other missionaries when I'm done, which is a bit scary (though training someone else after 3 months is something that doesn't really happen since knowing Korean is a very very important part of being a trainer...). The days are long, but weeks are short - it's weird.

I still haven't received any more mail from you guys, so that's a little disappointing. I can't answer the questions you might have, or respond to what's going on in Boise! I've got to go to the mission home for a training meeting this Thursday though, so I'll probably end up getting like 3 letters then. I'll try to ask the office missionaries about what's up with the mail, and so hopefully I can figure out what will work best.

Well, here's a bit about our English class...

English class is one of the easier ways to proselyte - once a week, we teach an English class for free. (focused mostly on everyday conversation, since that's something that's easy for us, and something that other English classes have a hard time offering). Most people have at least a passing interested in free English.

One man who attends our classes is really, really good at English. He's been attending Church-sponsored English classes for some 10 years now, and I think he visits several different areas to attend multiple classes.

Our goal for English class is to try to share about the gospel, of course. We always share a spiritual message, and try to find people interested in the Gospel. If that fails, we're still doing service for the people of Busan, and hopefully help the Church keep a good reputation. 

Anyways since we don't have any real, progressing investigators so far (although we gave a pamphlet to a guy who later said he'd be interested in talking about it, and we planned to meet him. We set a time and place, but he never showed up and we can't get in touch with him again... why!?) , our activities have been focused on finding people, whether that means just contacting people as we meet them, or trying to visit less actives, or whatever it might be.

But I know that the Lord blesses the obedient. God's promised to the obedient that He will bless them, and there's no way the God won't keep his promises. If I work hard and do my best, we'll be able to find the people who need the gospel (well that's everyone, isn't it!), and are willing to hear it. We'll keep trying!

Thanks for all you do! Hopefully, a week from now, I'll have received your letters, and will be able to answer things that you're interested in!

Love,

- Elder Luke

Notes:

The e-mail title says, as near as I can tell,

In Korean, "Hello!"

The word written in Korean in the salutation means, as near as I can tell, "you."  Maybe in this case it means "everybody," as in "hello, everybody"?  I don't know, Andrew's language skills are soon going to surpass what I can figure out with help from Google Translate.

1/8? (August 18, 2013)

Anyeonghaseo!

Just a thought: if you consider the time in the MTC, I've been on my mission for now 3 months, which means I'm about 1/8 of the way done (unless my math is off, which is possible since I haven't used it for so long...). Whoa, and here I am, not even able to understand people! But from the emails I've been getting from other people in my district, that seems to be fairly normal, so I won't worry too much. Just do what I can now, and the rest will work out.

Thanks mom for the recipes! Hopefully, we'll be able to make like real food now - we've basically just been taking whatever we have, throwing it in a frying pan, covering it in Korean hot sauce, then eating it with rice and kimchi and calling it a meal. It works.

Oh, and thanks for the picture of Brad Pitt. I can see the resemblance in the picture, it's it's a little off-putting...

As far as mail goes, 조 장로님 said to keep sending it to the mission office, and they'll forward the letter to wherever I am. I haven't been getting that many though - if there's some meeting that we have to go to the office for, they'll just hold it. I'm not sure what's going on, but I've only received a post card from South Carolina the letter you wrote on the 28th of July (which I got on the 14th of August by the way). So, uh, just keep doing what you're doing. If there's anything really important that I need to know or a question you want answered sooner rather than later, emails are going to be better.

Okay, so some stories:

I thought I met this really friendly Korean on the bus - he yelled "HELLO" from halfway across the bus when he saw me, and told me to sit next to him. I was really excited - he seemed to recognize that we were missionaries, and he seemed to speak a little English. He kept talking to me, and I understood maybe 10 words out of the probably hundreds he said. I think he told Elder Jo to take care of me, and then he said he had to get off. Right before he did, he told me that he was drunk (I understood the work "alcohol," and he mimed drinking. Oh, it was 3:30 pm on a Sunday afternoon...), so hopefully, that's why I couldn't understand him, not because, like, you know, Korean's hard. He was a nice drunk though!

Some elders in my district are teaching a Buddhist monk; "A legit monk," as they've told me. He actually lives in a Buddhist temple and does whatever monks do in temples, so that's pretty cool. We're still not currently teaching anyone at the moment, but we have a couple of contacts that if we could actually contact, seem likely. Oh, and we got a referral last night from other missionaries - one of their investigators are moving or returning, or somehow coming back to Yeoungdo, so hopefully, we can start teaching him. 

We met this kid (I don't know what to call him) while we were going to drop off some stuff at the church. Since we were going there anyways, Elder Jo invited him to take a quick tour of the chapel. Surprisingly, he said he had time and, sure, he'd do it. We walked in, and Elder Jo pointed out a picture of Christ on the wall. They talked a little bit about that, and we both felt the Spirit (and hopefully he did too). We took a look at the baptismal font, explained a little bit about the importance of baptism, and concluded with prayer. It was really good - we'd never met him before, and he was willing to take a look at our church with us. Hopefully, he had a spiritual experience too. We've been trying to get a hold of him again to see if he can meet again, but no luck so far... We'll see!

Thanks for everything! Korean and Korea is still tough, but I'm learning a lot every day!

- Elder Luke

Note:

The Korean word is "Jo-jangnonim," or "Elder Jo."

Hello~! (August 11, 2013)

안녕하세요!

How is everyone? Good, I hope!

I don't have a ton of time today (I spent a lot of email time writing to people in my district...), but I'll do what I can.

---

First, a few questions...

How do you want me to send pictuers? Elder Jo says that while the computer at the church can do pictures, it's really slow and kind of on the other side of the island. I was thinking I might just send them physically. It's pretty cheap to print them off, and so whenever I have enough pictures that it's worth sending, I'll do so. Other people won't be able to see them though, but I guess we'll see. I haven't had a ton of chances to take pictures...

Oh, and Mom, can you send me some recipes? Cooking is harder than I thought without the internet. I don't even know if I can print stuff off, but maybe some ideas? I don't know. Pork and eggs are pretty cheap in Korea, and then chicken is a little more expensive, and beef seems to be a no-no.

Along with that, what's something that we could cook or bake that Koreans would like? We've had a few times where we would visit a less active, and they didn't want to see us. Maybe if we brought like some pumpkin bread or something to them, we could tempt them to at least open the door and talk to us a little... I don't know, what would be good? There's a Costo here, so we can buy most ingredients if we have to I think.

And Dad - I might need the bishop and stake president's email. I'm not 100% sure, but I figure I might as well ask so if I need it later, I'll have it on hand.

Thanks!

---

Back to a little about missionary work...

For some reason, I think my testimony's grown a lot just being in Korea. Maybe it's being away from home makes me think more about families and God and things like that. My studying's really been good here. It makes me a little sad to think that my scripture study before wasn't as good as it is now. The Book of Mormon just seems to make more sense. I can't explain it very well, but study diligently, and you'll learn a lot!

It's kind of weird - we haven't been super successful in 영도, but I'm still happy. I get to see little miracles every day, and so even if the day doesn't turn out exactly how we wanted it to (like we go to visit people, and everyone's away from home or something like that), I still feel satisfied. Now, there's still a lot more that I need to work on, but the work isn't as hard as I had feared it might be.

I still don't know what people are saying when they talk, but I've met some really nice people. There was this one man that we met on the bus - he was taking a look a Elder Jo's nametag, and so he started talking to him. The man was really kind - he kept interrupting himself to tell me that I was handsome (which is kind of weird, but I'll take a compliment any day. Oh, and as a side note, I've had 2-3 people tell me I look like Brad Pitt. I forget what he looks like, but I'm pretty sure he's blonde, and no, I don't look like him...). Anyways, no idea what they talked about, but the man offered to shake my hand before he got off the bus, which I happily accepted. It's little experiences like that that make me want to find others like him and I don't know, just be friends with them and talk to them about the Gospel.

So I'm still working on talking to people, and I'm improving bit by tiny bit. We were on the bus, and things worked out so that I was standing in a place where to talk to this guy, I had to be the one to say hello. I did (it was scary!), and talked a tiny bit. Elder Jo continued talking to him, and managed to give him a Book of Mormon, and get his number. We texted him later that night, and he said he read a little bit! I don't know if we've heard back from him since, but that makes me realize that simply put, if I don't say anything, people can't hear the Gospel.

Thanks for all your prayers. I know it's because of your faith that I get to experience these tiny blessings! I'll keep trying to improve!

- Elder Luke

Notes:

The first Korean word is "anyeonghaseyo," the standard Korean greeting.  The second is "Yeongdo," which of course is the name of the area he's in.

Hello from Korea!!! (August 4, 2013)

Anyunghaseo!

(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. :)

Hello from Korea! (July 30, 2013)

Anyunghaseo!

 

We've made it to the mission home in Busan! It's 9:00am over here, I'm in the mission home, and the mission president's given us 5 minutes to email home to say that we made it here safely.

 

There were a few scary moments, but everything worked out fine, and we got to Busan on time. Our flight from San Fransisco to Salt Lake was supposed to be delayed 3.5 hours (not sure what the problem was, weather maybe), which was really scary. That got reduced to 1 hour, but we only had an hour layover in San Fransisco. Luckily, there were enough missionaries that they held to plane to Tokyo for us, for which I'm really grateful - I don't know what we'd do if we missed the flight!

 

After that, everything went pretty smoothly, really nothing to to mention.

 

We have some introduction-type stuff today; double-checking our information, interview, setting up bank accounts. It seems that we get our areas and trainers tomorrow, so that'll be when I get started!

 

Love,

Luke jangno

Safely in Korea

Here is Andrew and his travel group, newly arrived at the airport outside Busan.

Bonus: photos

Here are a few bonus photos of Andrew taken by other people while at the MTC.