9-23-13

Hello Familia!
 
Well this week was an interesting week.....on Wednesday **Thursday** and Friday, Korea celebrated "Choo Seok" (saying Korean things in English romanization just looks and sounds weird because I can’t convey the same words and pronunciations....). Well this holiday which takes place on Thursday is like the Korean Thanksgiving where they perform rituals for their ancestors and eat a lot. Pretty much everyone had off of work and school for the 3 days though. Because of this, not many people were really on the streets and we weren’t supposed to make appointments with people. Because of this reason, we did many things as a district. On Wednesday, we had district meeting and then went to lunch, and then we went back to the church for district "study time". We studied and shared what we learned. After that we had a dinner appointment at a member’s house (they invited the whole district even though the Seogwipo Elders aren’t in our branch.) More details on the ritual that is performed by people here (at least this is how I understand it.) The week before this they go and fix up the grave site. They then like prepare lots of fruits and food and leave it out for the spirits......they first leave it out and then they like say a prayer or take a moment of silence or just chill around so the spirits can eat the prepared food....after that whatever the spirits don’t eat, they feast upon.....most members don’t really do that, and if they do, they only do it to remember their ancestors, not because they believe spirits eat food...

Thursday we went to Seogwipo and went and saw some waterfalls as a district then we went to a dinner appointment/service appointment at a member’s hotel thing....this member rents the whole hotel for a year then runs it. I helped cut grass, it was an electric mower and I just held the cord and pulled the cord around so it wouldn’t get cut or ruined. I got the most mosquito bites there than since I got here. It got really big and there was like a red ring around it....maybe I will die or something, who knows. After that the member cooked us a barbecue meal outside! I smelled like smoke afterwards and on the bus ride home. It was delicious though, we had some meat and ramen, and I didn’t each much ramen because I don’t like it. It was super delicious.

Friday we went to another member’s house and they prepared a whole bunch of food! More meat and vegetables and some cold noodles. The meats at meals usually are in spicyish sauce with vegies and such. There were potatoes, and when eaten in the sauce, they are delicious!!! I ate many of them.

Missionary work is somewhat slow. We have no one to teach, and not many people on the streets want to listen, and even less want to learn more. Elder Yun and I are going to try making more effort to talk to more people, thus giving more people the opportunity to listen, and for us to open our mouths. Opening my mouth is always an act of faith for me since I don't know the language very well. I always have to trust the Lord to help me out, and I learn more about that every day when I am able to have simple conversations with people

 

So in our branch there is a 20 year old guy that is amazing at piano. He has an audition to get into the university in Seoul this Friday and he has been preparing for it for like all his life. He literally comes to the church every day and practices all day. He used to come at like 10 in the morning and stay till like 3 in the morning the next day but he can’t do that anymore because the churches neighbors complained. Now he comes at like 8 I think and probably stays till like 12 at night. for the past 8 weeks I’ve been here I’ve just heard him play his one song so much, whenever we email I hear, whenever we have English class, etc. the point of all this is that the song is always stuck in my head! I literally feel like I hear it everywhere I go, even though he’s not playing. It’s so weird.

No today I am writing my email later than usual, at 5:00 rather than at like 12....that is because we went to the teddy bear museum!!! We found free tickets awhile back and decided to go today! It was super super cool, they had so many cool displays. Even though it is a teddy bear museum there were a lot of other kinds of stuffed animals as well. Super cool. They had a safari exhibit, fish exhibit, painting exhibit (they took famous paintings and kind of made them into ones with bears in it rather than the normal person.)

2 more things.

Today I got my first haircut in Korea! They did a good job. It took like 25 minutes though, but they washed my hair too! Pretty good deal for 10,000 won ('10 dollars') I thought I would have a weird haircut like Korean people get, but they did just fine and how I wanted it.

Last thing, Wednesday we have zone conference in Busan and we get to go to it! We fly out on Tuesday night, spend the night at the mission home, then go to it on Wednesday and fly back Wednesday night. I'm so excited! Leaving this island should be fun.

Hope your week will be good!

Love,

Elder Frampton