8-5-13

Okay so hello everyone! 

The area I got assigned to is 力林 or in English, Jeju. It is the Island just south of Korea, aka Korea’s version of Hawaii!!!! My trainer is Elder Yun (辣) he is Korean but he has suuuuuper good English. He is 24 years old, he already did 2 years of school and his 2 years of his military service. He is super awesome, very obedient, strong testimony, and loves missionary work. He is the best person ever!

So Thursday we found out who our trainer was (my whole group did) then pretty much everyone left by 1:30....we did not leave because we had to fly to Jeju, and there were no flights from Busan airport to Jeju so we first flew up to Seoul on Friday afternoon..We stayed one more night at the mission home until we left on Friday! I can say I was in Seoul! Elder Yun said I'm really lucky because no one usually gets to go to Seoul and especially so early on in their mission.  So after 2 plane rides and about 5 hours of travel/waiting we got there. It was so humid in Busan, but even more humid here in Jeju! 

The apartment has no air conditioning, and it has two fans. It has 3ish rooms, just a small one where I have my clothes and suitcases and the ironing board and some boxes, the kitchen, then room where we sleep and study. We unfold our Yo (just like 2 kind of thick blankets, but we are actually getting new ones today) right in front of our desk and sleep on them. I sometimes sweat more when I'm inside than outside. There is also the bathroom which is pretty small, a toilet sink then like a bathtub with a shower head. It is only really cold water and like 0 water pressure haha. But its okay since it’s always like 12342 degrees outside because of the humidity.

One of the sisters that just finished her mission here in Jeju came with her family to visit and they treated us to dinner at this little place, it was good rice and meat and kimchi. Kimchi is pretty good, the more I try it the more I like it. I’ve only had fish once so far, but it was like fish covered in egg then cooked. It had a weird texture but the taste was alright. That night I woke up with stomach pains.. And then they continued all of Saturday. I think my stomach was reacting to the food and humidity but on Sunday it was all better.

So Saturday we played soccer for two hours (because we don't exercise in the morning and because we are allowed to). I can see why we don’t exercise in the mornings, because you pretty much die if you do anything more than walking. It was 2 hours of fun but torture. 1 because of my stomach and 2 because of the heat. We play with the 辑蓖器 elders (the elders on the south part of the island) the branch presidents son and then a bunch of random people mostly young guys (nonmembers).

The missionary work is very very slow here. Maybe 1 to 2 lessons a week. Apparently there hasn’t been a baptism here in a long time. Elder Yun and I are planning to change that. We have big goals and plans. We are going to talk to everyone, because that’s the only way we will get lessons. Also we can get investigators through English classes, which we teach. It’s a good street contacting tool, tell them about and invite them to English class. At the English class they learn English and then hear an introduction to the church, and if they have interest then they tell us.

I haven’t been doing any of the talking to people so far, I just stand there and smile and laugh when Elder Yun does. I can’t really understand anything..I’ll catch a word or group of words here and there but that’s about it. EXCEPT last night (Sunday) we were proselyting for about an hour and a half and on our way home I talked to this guy (he was a student) and invited him to English class, and I got his contact! All by myself, Elder Yun just let me work. It was my first contact and a big faith promoting experience.

It’s very important that I work hard to learn the language because that is the only way I can connect with people and talk to them and invite them to Christ. I know there are people out there that the Lord has been preparing, we just have to find them. We are really working on having and exercising faith, and I do that every time I try to speak the language.

On Sunday we had church at 10, elders quorum, then gospel principles, then sacrament meeting. I probably understand maybe 3 percent of what was said. Some people spoke a little English so I could talk to them. I'm really working on conversational vocab since that is what is most helpful right now.

That’s it for this week. I love this gospel and I love serving the Lord, go do member missionary work! It is very important to our missionary work, do everything you can to help the missionaries.