4-21-15

Hello familia,

So this week’s news is transfers. My last transfer and guess what? I have a Korean companion!  His name is Elder Lee. Doesn't speak English really so my Korean hopefully will get a lot better this last transfer and hopefully we can get a lot of good work done here. Also hopefully my brain won't explode from only Korean...

So there was the family that was a referral that I had told you about. Well we still aren't meeting them because the husband is still going through treatments and such. Well anyway they live in a faraway place in our area. We ended up going to that area this past week just to have a look around. Well we went and as we were walking, coincidentally we met the wife! She said that today she had just run to town to get pick up some stuff and what a coincidence it was that we met her. I consider that a big miracle because it was a last minute decision to go to that area. 

Oh we had interviews with President this week and they were good. We did district meeting at the same time and tried some new stuff in district meeting that was fun and helpful.

Wednesday we met a guy for the first time. Appointment. I had met him a few weeks ago and he showed English interest. We had invited him to English class but he is busy during that time so we set something up during the week and were able to meet him. We explained our English program to him but he kind of felt a little pressure. He said he wants to do it though. So this week we are going to try and meet him again.

Met one of our members that owns a Taekwondo place and got to talk with her for a little and do a cartwheel with the kids there. 

Went to visit a less active and we gave her a rock with Jesus Christ written on it. She absolutely loved it. I had gotten the idea from the April Liahona and felt we should give that to her. We don't know why she doesn't come to church because she has a huge testimony of the gospel. Since Elder Glover was leaving she invited us to her house for a meal the next day with her, her husband, and her son. We had a very good time with them eating delicious food. We sang a song for them. Elder Glover played his ukulele while I sang and I played my tin whistle as he sang. It was very fun and brought the spirit!

We met with one guy this week. Well he called us last Monday around 5 pm right before pday ended and he said he wanted to meet in 10 minutes. So we ended pday early to meet him. We read the book of Mormon with him because he was reading by himself but couldn't understand so we read and talked about it with him. He says he really wants to be a better person and follow the example of Jesus Christ. Next time I think we might be able to invite him to be baptized!

Sunday we had a fireside at the Stake Center. It was for investigators, recent converts, and less actives. The one guy I just spoke about came when the meeting ended..ate dinner there. He talked to other investigators and members and missionaries in the stake so even though he didn't attend the meeting it was a good opportunity. An English class member came which was good. Also our member that referred someone last transfer and we had only been able to meet him once brought the referral and also his mom. They both thought the meeting was really good and the member says we should contact them often. We probably will be able to teach the both of them later!

This week was great and I hope you have a good one too!

Love, Elder Frampton

3-2-15

Hello,

So the news for today is that this past Sunday we had stake conference and the stake president and his presidency were released and a new one was called. President Jo is the new stake president. He was the mission president's counselor before he was called. Elder Scott D. Whiting was there.

This week we met with Robert. It was really good because he and his mom brought his cousin along with. He is 17. Didn't become an investigator or anything but it was a really good experience for him I think because he had an opportunity to read from the Book of Mormon and feel the spirit. We were reading from the Book of Mormon together in English and the cousin was following along in Korean. Didn't really understand what we were saying really but I know he probably felt the spirit. Robert's mom translated a little as we spoke. He read along with us as we read. Maybe one day in the future he will have a desire to learn. We plan on talking to Robert's mom to work with him a little.

I went on exchanges to a different area again and we had an opportunity to help some guys move a piano down some steps. Good opportunity to serve! Also a lady from their service project bought us Krispy Kreme donuts and hot chocolate:D

Wednesday we went to the stake center and got to set up all the chairs for stake conference. It was a real work out. Us and another team of elders.

So we met this guy while proselyting. He had interest in English and we got his number. He texted us the following day and we set up an appointment for the next day.....we went to his house the next day and told him we were there. After 15 minutes of waiting for a text back we just left and started proselyting some more. He called maybe 50 minutes later and said he was out and that he will hurry back. By that time it was too late to meet him. He asked us what we would talk about when we talked about church and I talked to him for like 15 minutes about that. He said he was Buddhist but he didn't care if we talked about that stuff when we met so we set up and appointment the next day. That was the day I went on exchanges, so Elder Suttner, my companion, and the other Elder went to the appointment but he wasn't there again and didn't contact us back....so close to investigator! We had prepared super hard for the appointment just for it to fall through 2 times:/ it's okay though.

A little short thought for you all.

Another word for forgiveness is love.

Have an excellent week!

Love,

Elder Frampton

1-19-15

Hello,

So the beginning of the week was kind of busy then we slowed down later on in the week.  So on Wednesday we were pretty busy. Had interviews with President Barrow in the morning and then later in the day we had 2 appointments with member that we had set up. The first one was with a single guy and we just met him at the church. When we called to confirm that morning we realized that the number we had for him was no longer an existing number so we didn't have any way to confirm, but luckily he stilled showed up. We just talked, found out more about him, his conversion story. We then just talked about the Book of Mormon with him. 

The other appointment was a couple for dinner. We went to their house which turned out to be super nice. They don't have any children so they had a pretty nice place. Super delicious dinner, some meat and some fried shrimp/sweet potato/squid, and kimchi and of course rice. The meat was super good! They also put some figs in with the meat sauce. Figs are super delicious, they had bought them from Iran I think. We shared a message about testimony and ways to build and share. We think it went pretty well. They also had chickens that they raised. We didn't see them but they said they were on the roof of their apartment building. They gave us each one of the eggs from the chickens and we ate them (they were hard boiled). Pretty delicious.

Later that night when we had finished planning and were getting ready for bed the lights and all electronics suddenly went off in our apartment. The whole buildings electricity had gone out. Luckily we found this little flash light in our house that worked so at least we could see. That was probably around 9:35. They eventually got whatever was broken fixed and got the power back on around 10:10.

This Sunday we started to take the sacrament to an old lady in a different hospital than the other lady that we take the sacrament to. Our Sundays are pretty full. Church, lunch at church, then 2 people to take the sacrament to. Then missionary correlation meeting and another different planning meeting, then visits with the branch president and then dinner then done. It passes by quick.

So this past week we spent a lot of time at home cleaning up old records. Organizing and calling all the old numbers of investigators. The phone numbers changed a few years back, but there was some way to call that number if I had a conversion formula. For example the old number was 019-345-5678 and the new number is 010-2334-5678.   So after thinking about how I could figure out the formula I figured that the phone stores would probably have a list for the conversions. So I went to the phone store, asked, and got the list. So now we will be able to contact past investigators that I thought we might not be able to contact because the old number "did not exist". Also going through the list of members that we have and calling all the record's phone numbers and trying to visit the houses. While doing these things we hope to be able to find old or even maybe new people to teach.

Another funny story. On the January 1st I was on exchanges in a different area but on that day we get a text to our phone from a guy saying he wanted to eat dinner with us. We didn't have the number in our phone so we had no idea who it was. So we couldn’t (my companion and other missionary) meet him because they were busy so they said maybe another time. So we texted that person this past week again (thinking that it might be some new investigator), we asked them to meet. They sent another text saying "did you mean to send this to me?" and we said 'yea'. Then right after we sent that that person calls us, after talking a little on the phone we find out that he was the Bishop of another area! He had texted us the other week because he thought we were the missionaries in his area so he was super confused why we were asking to meet. Super funny and kind of disappointing because we thought he was a new investigator!

Friday we went looking for a less active member in one part of town. While looking through records we found an old record of his with a map to his house so we took the map and nothing else to go find the house. We found the area and tried to follow the map. The map wasn't drawn very precisely (13 year old map), so we couldn't find where the house was. After looking around for about an hour or so we finally found it. (It was next to a restaurant that sold dog soup)(lots of dogs in the 'yard') well we realized that he probably doesn't live there anymore because someone else seemed to live there based on what was written on the door. So we left. Actually 30 minutes into looking for the house we asked our branch president through text if he knew if the guy had moved or something. About an hour after we left he texted us back telling us that the guy had passed away. We had no idea that he had passed away because it did not say anything in our records at all! Interesting experience.

Yea, I love missionary work! It is the best!

Well sorry it was kind ended with a kind of sad story...but I hope you have a good week!

Love,

Elder Frampton

12-29-14

Hello,

Merry Christmas!

Happy New Year!

So on Tuesday we had our mission Christmas party. It was in Geumjeong, the area I had spent 6 months in, so it was weird going back. Good party, had a spiritual meeting first and some musical performances. One of the Barrows visiting sons played the harmonica...weird because that is the second time I had heard someone play harmonica as part of a meeting in that ward building...over 9 months ago an old guy played the harmonic in a testimony meeting while I was serving there. After the meeting we had some delicious American like chicken and salads and stuff that Sister Barrow and a bunch of others helped prepare. Then we watched clips from Remember the Titans (movie) because President Barrow was relating it to stuff. Then we ate some delicious cookies and snacks that Sister Barrow made while we watched Ephraim's rescue. Great day! 

When we left, we left with our zone to go Christmas caroling back at a busy shopping place. We gave out a lot of our He is the Gift cards that we have been using. My voice was very tired by the end of the night!

Wednesday morning, we went and did some service with the sisters. We went to Kindergarten/day care centers, wearing Santa hats/dressing up as Santa and then giving gifts to the kids. There were lots of little kids that cried. We went to two different places in 2 different cities. It was cool because later that night we saw a kid and said hello and merry Christmas to him and he was like "hey aren't you Santa??' pretty cool that he recognized us and our voices.

Wednesday night we had our branch Christmas party. It was super good, lots of food and little performances. The missionaries just did a little dumb singing act thing. I played my little tin whistle thingy. haha. Really good because lots of less actives showed up!

Thursday, Christmas. Just another normal day, sort of. 7:30am calling you family! It was not working out very well...then the phone call ended suddenly right at when I ran out of time to talk, didn't even get to say goodbye! Love you! Then we went to the Branch President's house where the others were skyping and we just played a card game with the kids. It was a miracle because usually the bus to branch president's house comes once every 35ish minutes and in order to make it on time we had to catch the bus quick! and it did come quick! It was awesome!!! So we had lunch at the Branch president's house and then left. We went caroling again with our zone in the same place as before. Place called Nampo. Then later that night we met an investigator that Elder Suttner had taught in his first area and is on school break so he came home to our area.

Saturday we were finally able to meet a former investigator that we had been trying to meet. He is willing to keep meeting but he goes to military service starting January 11. Ate with him then went to the church and played Ping-Pong and shared a lesson.

So one thing we started praying for this week was that somewhat would contact us because of the Christmas card thingies that we had been giving out. Our prayers were answered with 3 people texting. Nothing really more came from it, but it was a prayer answered because we hadn't got any texts until then...and we had given out lots of cards before then.

That was my week! Hope you all had a great Christmas and have a great new years!!!!

Love,

Elder Frampton

12-7-14

Hello, 

Not too much happened this week but enough for me to write about.

I ate pomegranate fruit for the first time ever yesterday!  I have had juice before but never the fruit, super sour but very delicious.

Last Sunday the Branch President invited us over for a meal on Tuesday...we went on Tuesday and called him and he forgot...he was out with his wife somewhere but he said they were coming home....so we were walking around in the cold for a while waiting. Elder Peck had to go to the bathroom and we ended up going to a police station...I was sitting awkwardly in a small little police station while he went to the bathroom One guy talked to me though and said he knew  Mormons so I got to talk a little bit about us as missionaries and the church. Couldn't really say much though. Then cops started to sit down on the couches I was sitting on and right there and then they had like a 1 minute long brief/meeting....superrr awkward! Also this lady cop was just like polishing her gun. There were like 10 people in that small little place....interesting experience.

Saturday we got to help our member move! They literally live like 3 minute walk away from their previous place. In Korea when you move you just hire moving people and they do like everything. Since people usually don't live in big places they don't have lots of stuff like people in America. So the moving people come, throw everything into boxes, move all the furniture, and then unload at the new house. Took 4.5 hours for them to pack, move, and unpack. We just helped with moving boxes and some furniture. The hardest part was moving their piano. Their new house was up a flight of stairs so it was super hard to get it up there. Luckily nothing was broken. It was good that we could help though, a lot faster and our member was grateful!

After that we went to the church because we had activity that night and we had to prepare. The activity went okay, at first we had an open house thing for nonmembers...but none came so we went out with the members and proselyted. It was a good thing for the members to experience I think. 2 members got this guy to come and the sister missionaries did a little introduction to the church and then he left. It was good that he came through for just that. After we had a fun activity/dinner. Well the branch president put together a 'skit' that was us just 'acting.' It was odd, it was a wedding skit and we were in the dark and we just talked and made our own echoes by starting loud then going quiet. Kind of funny. Then after we did a relay race. Dinner was spaghetti and tacos, super delicious! The one sister missionary here from America is a really good cook. We made so much and there were left overs. Plus I ate a lot. Good activity! 2 less actives came so that was good!

That was the week! Have a good one!

Love,

Elder Frampton

10-20-14

Hello familia

So this week went by pretty quick.

So Tuesday a funny thing happened while we were walking. Elder Peck and I tripped at the same exact time on the same exact thing.

On Friday we did carpet cleaning in the church. The guy that cleans the church always has the missionaries help when he does it. He had already poured soap water and scrubbed the floor, we just had to use a big vacuum thing to suck up the water and soap and dirt. Took a few hours. It is not just pushing around a little vacuum. We had to pull it and frequently empty out the dirty water that it was sucking up. He took us out to lunch at this octopus restaurant. It was stir fried octopus. I have had it before. It is pretty good, octopus doesn't have much taste. Just a little bit chewy. It was very spicy.

Sunday was pretty good. One of the members from my old area, Geumjeong, is in the stake presidency and he was visiting our branch today. It was weird to see him, he remembered me though. There is a kid in our branch that is super cool and he came this day. He is Korean but can only speak English. He understands a little Korean. He talks to his mom in English and she speaks back in Korean. They had lived in New Zealand for like 7 years (he is like 9 years old or something like that). Super cool kid, doesn't really like coming to church because it is boring but we are trying to get him to come more often. If he does we will need to translate to English for him because he can't really understand anyone other than his mom. He had a quarter for some reason and asked us who he was and then he showed us an Australian coin and Canadian coin too. His name is Robert. Doesn’t go by his Korean name.

Every week after church we go and visit a member that lives in the hospital and we take her the sacrament. She is a great member. Always reads the Book of Mormon, she has a gigantic Book of Mormon. We took her the sacrament and she also asked us for a blessing because her back was in bad pain. So that was the first time I have got to take part in a blessing in Korean just my companion and I.

Then later that day we had 2 choir practices. We are preparing for zone conference and both districts in the zone have to do a special musical number and Elder Peck is playing the piano for both.

Went to the dentist for my tooth and all they could really do was smooth out the edges. He said it wasn't big enough to be able to fix easily or something. He said it in really broken English so I wasn't completely sure. He told me that if I just felt that it was too ugly later then I could go back and they could try something. Pretty much he said if I don't feel ugly then it is fine the way it is....I don't feel ugly so it is no problem.

That is it for this week. Have a good one!

Love,

Elder Frampton

9-15-14

Hello!

So this past week was a pretty good week.

Last Tuesday, we took our investigator Brother Kim to family home evening in a members.  It was good. We just played a Korean traditional game and ate some delicious food. So brother Kim, because of the holiday was unable to keep to the schedule that we had made for him to quit smoking. We will work with him more closely to help him! So this week we taught about priesthood. When we taught that it was by the priesthood all the apostles in the scriptures performed miracles and that we had the priesthood too, he asked us to perform a miracle right there and then. To explain how it works we showed a Mormon message about a football kid getting struck by lightning and a new priesthood holder giving a blessing and that he turned out alright. Anyways media is such a good way to teach...luckily we had a computer in the church we could show it on. He also came to stake conference on Sunday and liked it. After there was a baptismal service that we took him too! It was a really good experience that we got really lucky with.

On Wednesday we got together with our missionary district and did a proselyting activity and a riverside park. Some people could play the ukulele and guitar so they played primary songs together and we talked to people. I talked to a lot of people, especially to old guys. I love talking to old guys. A lot easier than younger people...

On Friday Elder Aoyagi of the area presidency came to our Zone as part of mission tour. His wife gave her talk all in English, mainly just reading from her paper that maybe someone else translated to English for her. I don't know but it was fun, she said the purpose of her speaking was to keep us awake. She even had us do a little dance to put your shoulder to the wheel. So odd but so fun! For lunch they had some sandwiches that were egg sandwiches and jelly put together...sounds weird but super delicious!

Saturday's session of stake conference I tried translating to English for Elder Fairhurst, the elder of the couple that works with the military branch, the one that took us to go bowling. Anyways I didn't do a very good job. First of all it is super hard to understand Korean over loudspeaker because everything slurs together, two because they speak really fast/read really fast, three Korea is hard. But it was fun, he was only there to see how the translator (that would translate his talk the next day) how well he would do. That night the translator was translating President Barrows talk. 

Today we are going to "E-world" an amusement park place, it should be fun!

That is it! Have a good week!

Love,

Elder Frampton

7-6-14

Hello

This week was pretty interesting. Lots of things happened.

Tuesday we met our new mission president. He seems pretty good, just talked for like 20ish minutes and we also heard from his wife and son. He is very different from president Gilbert, more quiet, strong testimony and knowledge of the scriptures and seems like he is ready to lead this mission to do great.

Thursday was an interesting day. We went to Namhae again but since we were going from our home we first took and inner city bus for 40 minutes then we had to hitch-hike to the town square/city place. The hitch-hiking took 2 people to get where we were going. We actually got to teach about the Book of Mormon and stuff with the first guy that picked us up. We got in the car and he was like 'what is the difference between Christians and Mormons?' good ride, next person just did some small talk with them. Fun experience. In Namhae we went and visited less actives with our branch president. One was an old guy that couldn't really hear very well and pretty much couldn't speak, he would just mumble too hard to understand because it wasn't really actually words. Sometimes branch president knew what he was saying and sometimes he just put words in his mouth pretty much. Branch president also took us to this nice restaurant out in the middle of nowhere next to the coast, pretty cool, delicious.

Brother Choi took us to dinner on Thursday. He took us to a really good meat place and pretty much spent 100 dollars on us. We had two different types of meat in two rounds. After this first round I was already full, after that I was just so full it was super enjoyable anymore, oh; and then after the second round he bought some of the first meat again, just a little, so we could eat it with cold noodles...but was already so full I couldn't really eat any of it. It was all super delicious though. Bad thing is he got a little drunk...Then he was supposed to come to church and he was going to come a little late because he had a shipment that was supposed to come at 930 but it came super late so he ended up not coming:/

Another drunk person story. We were talking to this old guy that still knew some English and after talking to him for a little he wanted to shake my hand and he kind of pulled me in closer to talk to me and then a few moments later he ended up kissing my cheek. He kind of just put his lips on my cheek and didn't kiss, but pretty much I consider it a kiss....super weird.

Best news this week is that the girl with the baptism date is supposed to be baptized this coming Sunday 13th and the sisters taught her everything that was left to teach yesterday. And the only problem that was left was getting permission from her parents and Branch president had gone and was able to get verbal permission so she just has her interview on Wednesday and then she will be getting baptized! From what the sisters told us about the lesson yesterday, she really wants to be baptized but it’s hard that her family doesn't really support her much. Like the gospel is making a big change in her life, so many blessings she is seeing, but the fact that she can’t be partaking of them with her family makes her pretty sad. She is so great!

That's it for this week!

Love,

Elder Frampton

6-9-14

Hello,

This week was quite the fast week. Not super a lot happened this week.

Lately we have been going to dinner with a recent convert less active named Mu Hyon. Ever since the church moved locations he doesn't come to church, but he comes to English class every week because his dad gives him a ride. He is 16 and every week on Tuesday lately we have been meeting after school is done and taking him to a burger place buying a chicken burger and just sharing a message. He is pretty stubborn sometimes but the exciting thing this week was that he really wanted to sleep but he was willing to come out with us even though he was tired. Woo

Wednesday was Election Day for like city representatives and the person that had their headquarters right next to our church (same building floor) lost, so they are slowly moving out little by little. Now our town is a little less exciting without all the political campaigning going on.

This Wednesday was Zone Conference. Sister Gilbert and President Gilbert gave their last training sessions. It was a lot of fun and a real spiritual boost because they pretty much just taught straight out of the scriptures and also things they learned from President Cook at the last meeting thing they had with him.

Our one kid that we taught last week ended up having another plan suddenly so he couldn't meet...we really hope to meet him again.

Lately we just have had no luck with talking to people. We talk to a lot of people but not really anyone that has any interest in what we say or meeting again to just talk more. They love just talking about normal things and then when we bring up religion in any way shape or form they kind of just become uninterested! Darn anyways the joy of this gospel and the spirit that I feel still keeps me going with my head held high!

I love this work and I love the people!

Sorry not much this week:/

Miss you all

Love Elder Frampton

5-5-14

Hello everyone,

So this week was a little more eventful than last week. On Wednesday we went to another area in our district, Jinju, for our district meeting. Afterwards the bishop there took us to where he works at a college and just showed us a bunch of his fancy machines including a 3D printer. We didn't get to see it work but it was super cool and he gave us this little trinket as a souvenir that the 3D printer made. After that we started exchanges, and I was with one of the Jinju Elders in Jinju and the district leader went with Elder Brown to my area. The person I was with wasn't very good with directions and we got a little lost while walking around that day....but it was still a good experience.

On Friday we did home teaching. We went to the couple's house with our home teaching companion and she has made us delicious lasagna with homemade ricotta cheese, tofu, and cucumber. It was super delicious!

Yesterday was an interesting day as well. We held normal sacrament meeting as well as a smaller one later. 

There is one lady in the branch that cannot attend church normally because she has to work because she lost her husband a few years back and has to support her and her family. The branch president said for her to come to church, but she said she couldn't until 3....He asked us to prepare and give her the sacrament, so we waited around and us the sister missionaries, and her had a mini sacrament. I think she expected someone else to be there, but we just think it was miscommunication between her and the branch president. It was a good experience and she seemed very grateful for the experience.  I got to play the piano 3 different hymns and give a short testimony and one of the sisters gave her testimony. Even though it was a small meeting with only 5 people, I really felt the spirit's presence.

That's it for this week!

Love,

Elder Frampton

4-21-14

Hello Family!

This has been a good week! Right now I am actually talking on the phone with Roger from my last area on the phone so it is hard to type! Haha I’ve been keeping in contact with him about once a week. 

Okay just finished talking with him so it is easier to type now. Last week P-day was fun, we went and hiked the small mountain and we could see so far, Sacheon is actually right next to the ocean so we could see the ocean at the top! When we went down the other side we went to this cafe and Elder Lamb is friends with the owner so we got a bunch of free stuff.....it was crazy! Super delicious though!

Also that night we met with a guy for the first time that wants to learn English and is very open to the gospel it seems. He says he likes the bible and it has good words and that he will study and do whatever homework we ask him to do so we are excited to teach him again. He said he can meet two times a week. He is in the air force and on Wednesday we were supposed to meet him again but we received a text talking about the ship accident and that he was not allowed to leave the airbase because of it so we couldn’t meet.....actually at the time we received the text we didn't know about the ship accident so we had no idea what his text actually meant because without knowing about the accident, the text out of context made it seem like he was saying that he was 'submersed in time' or something, which we took to understand that he was just busy with military work stuff. Super confusing. We hope to meet him this week but it will all depend if he is able to leave the base and when the whole accident situation gets completely resolved and such. (Note: the Korean ferry sank killing more than 200 students)

So before I came Elder Brown was teaching this guy English and the gospel and I met with him once the first week I was here and he actually ended our meeting because his wife from the Philippines came to Korea on the Saturday before. So when I met him for the first time I also met his wife. She doesn't speak Korean so he was learning English with us so he could communicate with her. So now we were able to set up something new after discussing it with him and the Sisters are going to meet with the Filipino wife and teach her Korean for 30 minutes and gospel in English for 30 minutes because the husband wants her to learn Korean. Confusing right? Well we will also start teaching him again 30 minutes English and 30 gospel and hopefully the wife will have gospel interest because that is the way that we are going to try to get the husband more interested.

 Yesterday we met with a guy from South Africa. Not to be racist or anything, but to specify, he is white. It was very interesting....he is somewhat of a conspiracy theory person...he actually talked about everything that is anything. He talked 2 and a half hours straight to us....not with us but to/at us! It was crazy how he could just go on and on and on. He is a hard core Christian and we pretty much found out everything we need to know about his beliefs and how we will teach him in the future. We were able to at least give him a restoration pamphlet and asked him to read it and then we will talk about it next time. He could either be really accepting because he seems like someone who would embrace truth but at the same time he seems like someone who could just be pleased with his religion and beliefs and not want to 'change. We will see.

Yesterday night in celebration for Easter we made scones! It was crazy making them, took a lot of work, our dinner time and then at night after we planned. They were messy but super delicious! Haha

That’s it for this week!

Have a good week!

Love,

Elder Frampton

3-31-14

Hello!

Wow so it was super warm a lot of the days this week. Last Monday we got an email saying that we didn't have to wear suit coats anymore since it was supposed to be hot. It was hot! It starting to feel like summer again which is a little scary because it is deathly humid! Luckily it still is a nice temperature and humidity still and probably will be this way for a month or so I hope. This week it rained for two days and wasn't very fun we got wet a lot.

This week was another good week actually! It was a little sad because our one Chinese investigator leaves on Wednesday for Japan so we saw him for the last time on Friday:( He was slowly moving on the right pathway to receiving an answer to his prayers in order to find God. He is going to give us his address in Japan so we can refer him to Japanese missionaries. He is such a good person with a true desire to know God. Hopefully when he comes back in September I will be able to see him again. Maybe he will even be baptized between now and then! He told us that when he comes to know god he would be willing to be baptized and do whatever it takes to receive true happiness.

So this week we met Roger again and found out his Korean name. Beh Sung Gyun, haha. We were really wondering. When we met he actually took us to dinner and we ate like meat leafs and kimchi at this nice restaurant. It sounds like that wouldn't be a very good meal to you probably but that is a super good meal to us here in Korea;) We then went to a coffee shop afterwards to talk and we were able to teach the whole Plan of Salvation. He said he understood all of it and that he didn't have any questions because he doesn't know very much anyways. He said it’s similar to what he already believed. He hadn't been able to read the Book of Mormon before we met though because he was too busy:( That was a little let down, so we just asked him to read and pray this time too. We will probably meet him once a week. Since he has retired and has nothing to do he actually started volunteering as a person who gives parking tickets for 4 hours a day.

Today we aren't really doing anything special for pday but that is fine with me. We are in a three some today with Elder Wunderli because his companion went up to Seoul alone because he has an interview thing that he has to do for military service which he will serve soon after his mission ends in 2 months. This week is transfer calls so next week I think I will most likely be in a different area! Haha I have been in Geumjeong for almost 6 months! It is sad because last week we told we were moving from the apartment we are in to a bigger one closer to the church, darn! Haha the sisters have to move too so they are actually going to move into the apartment we are in after we move.

That’s it for this week!

Love,

Elder Frampton

2-24-14

Hello Family,

I have more time this week to write so I am going to try to write a longer email today! 

So before I tell about last last week and this past week I will tell you new news! This past week was transfer call day and today was transfer day and no I didn't get transferred but I did get a new companion! It is my first American companion named Elder Sperle from Colorado! That's really all I know about him right now because I've only been with him for about an hour, but I am super excited to be serving with him in Geumjeong! I think the change of companions will really help us find new people and get things going here in Geumjeong. Well that's my hope. He has been in Korea for a little more than a year and he has pretty good Korean I think so I am excited! I think an American companion is just what I need to get my Korean better and working harder.

So back to 2 Saturdays ago. Our ward held a mini MTC for the youth and the ward and we were able to attend to watch and help a little. About 9 youth attended, which was pretty good. The young single adults in the ward ran the program and it was good to hear the different workshops and activities and to help a little with some of the activities. One really funny part was when they practiced simulating street contacting. They were just really funny. It was great to see the desire to serve missions in some of the youth.     -----Later that day the ward had a 'clean the church/barbecue' activity. We had English during that time but I did get to try clams for the first time! They were okay but they tasted a little funny, I didn't want to eat more than 2.

Not this Sunday but the Sunday before yesterday we went to a members house for a meal and she gave us spaghetti! It was pretty much the most American meal (Italian) meal that a member has ever made for us. Super delicious!

Last p-day we went to an art museum place that one of our members worked at. Actually at the museum there was a limited time LIFE magazine photo gallery (only there for like 4 months) that we went and saw. (I think it was time or life magazine). It had a bunch of photos and captions and stories and even little audio information that you can listen to. Super awesome. 

After that we went to the church and threw a mini birthday party for two missionaries (Elder Wunderli and Sister Oh) because it had been their birthdays either that day or the day before.

This week wasn't too eventful actually, the elder’s quorum had a barbecue and we went during our meal time and ate delicious meat! It was funny to watch a bunch of Koreans try to start a barbecue fire with coals. 

This week I learned how powerful simple testimony can be. Nothing special happened, just through experience and through district meeting the Spirit bore witness to me the power that even the simplest testimonies have. I just felt the spirit say to me 'yes, I will be here and put power to your words even if it is a simple testimony.' Even if it is not much, if you have the opportunity bear testimony simply and the spirit will always put power to your words.

That's it! I hope you all have a good week!

Love,

Elder Frampton

2-10-14

Hello, 

I'm super jealous because it's snowing so much at home!!!!!! That is just not fair! It's snowing right now since maybe 6am but it is not cold enough to stick so it's lame!

So this week was an awesome week compared to the past few weeks. First off, we helped the one less activity lady that we are working with move her event shop. Her husband was there and we met him for the first time. We found out that he actually got baptized a few years back and so he is not a nonmember like we thought he was! We were with him the whole time packing and driving and unpacking at the new location for the shop. We were able to form a good relationship with him and he is a super cool guy! They also bought us lunch which was super delicious! It was a meat, kimchi, stew thing that I can't explain, but it was delicious! haha

So another awesome thing/miracle was that English class, both days, Thursday and Saturday, were super awesome/exciting/fun. We had only 4 people at Thursdays and 7 people at Saturdays but it was especially awesome. There was one new person on Thursday and 2 on Saturday (the one came to Thursday). But we had most of our usual people come and they all just loved talking so it was good! We always want them to talk and a lot of the class consisted of them talking! Also on Saturday a member and her daughter came so the Sisters did a beginners children’s class, I don’t know if it went well but maybe that will become a usual thing and more members will come.

Maybe 2 weeks ago we met this 20 year old guy and I was talking to him and he was telling me about the stuff he likes to do and he gave me his business card (with his phone number on it). Well this week I called him (he probably wondered how we had his number, unless he remembered giving the card) and we were able to meet him for lunch! He is awesome, he has gone to America to do a study/training program for someplace in Silicon Valley. He is super good at drawing and photography and animation and stuff, he started go after his dream since he was like 14 or 15. We don't know what will happen from here, but when we met we told him our purpose as missionaries and he didn’t freak out or anything and looked kind of interested, so maybe something will come from it, who knows.

Last of all we met a guy yesterday.....we were walking buy a construction site's parking lot and we heard an instrument. Elder Moon thought it was a saxophone, but I thought for sure it was a trumpet, and it was! This guy was just practicing after work apparently in this parking lot while it was snowing a little. We went over and talked to him and he let me play his trumpet! I was so terrible but he liked it! I also showed him the pictures of marching band in my picture book. It was awesome. He said he'd love to play trumpet with me sometime so I just have to track down a trumpet. I might be able to do something similar to what we do for English which is 30 minutes English/30 gospel, but instead 30 trumpet / 30 gospel. But we would need special permission, I doubt it will happen getting a trumpet and permission but it was a cool experience! I really miss playing the trumpet! 

That’s it for this week!

Love,

Elder Frampton

2-3-14

Hello family, 

Thanks dad for sending me how to make emails exciting. I will try my best since I things are still slow. 

I'll start with Friday which was one of the 2 big Korean holidays. We had a normal start schedule that day but for lunch we received a meal invitation along with the 2 other teams. The member made delicious food! So usually meals in Korea consist of 2 things. Little side dishes and then the main dish and fruit for dessert. So 3 things. Well when we got there we waited about 15 minutes before we got to start eating, there were so many little side dishes on the table that there was barely enough room for the bowl for the main dish. So the most exciting part of the meal was the fruit. We had apples and tangerines but they decided to make a contest out of peeling the apples....the contest was to see who could create the longest peel by cutting it....I lost. Everyone finished peeling the entire apple but me! I barely cut around the apple 3 times before I messed up. But it was okay because I told everyone before we started that I was using that time to 'prepare to make a mistake.' The brother that invited was like, wow you stink! But the sister covered my back and said 'oh no worries he was preparing to make a mistake so it's exactly what he meant to do!' 

So the rest of the day after we went home we spent the entire day cleaning our house....it was torture! I spent 3 hours in the kitchen cleaning....I felt like I was in a little jail cell. Then because the other elder that cleaned the bathroom doesn’t quite know how to deep clean, I went to the bathroom and cleaned that for 2 hours with a toothbrush....also torture. I think I inhaled some fumes from the cleaning supplies because there is no ventilation in that bathroom...but it's okay I took a break once I realized that it wasn't good! 

Wednesday I went on companion exchanges with the district leader. His Korean isn’t too great, mine isn't either, but we did talk to a lot of people! Unfortunately we weren't able to get their contact to call and make an appointment later and a lot of the time they didn't want to keep talking to us, but we were able to talk to many people!

We were walking buy this drunk couple on the way home at the end of the day and they spoke some English to us. They were really drunk. The lady first said that her daughter was a missionary....but then after thinking and saying in Korean she went from daughter to thinking it was her father then to realizing that it was her son that wasn't a missionary but a student learning English. Super fun and we told them about English program that we do...let's just say that it probably won't lead to anything. 

Today for P-day we are going to go find a really good taco place we heard about and then later we planning on trying to make broccoli cream soup and baked potatoes at home! President Gilbert made that on Christmas when we went to headquarters and we asked for the recipe yesterday so hopefully it will turn out delicious. 

That’s it for this week! Love, Elder Frampton

1-20-14

Hello! 

Pretty much time is moving so fast! Another week gone by and this month more than halfway over already! Holy cow

So this week was pretty good. Pretty normal week. We are trying to find new people to teach because we are really lacking in those and I need more experiences to teach because my skills are really lacking there. It's pretty stressful actually, not being able to find people as well as not being able to speak. We are focusing on sharing the book of Mormon this week with as many people possible as well as trying to find a family and be able to do the family English program with them.

We dropped that guy I talked about last week, the one that owns the fruit truck. He is pretty much a member of New World church (Korean 'Shinchunji') This church focuses on the book of revelations in the bible....they also have the option to take a 6 month bible course that he is considering doing. He is too obsessed sort of with that and just fighting us with the bible and not really caring about what we have to say. We told him to read the Book of Mormon and call us in a week. It's sad because he is a good nice person that is just really confused and blinded.

This week we were able to meet with a less active member that we have been visiting over the past few months. We were able to teach some English to member's children and it seems she is starting to trust us. 

So while trying to talk to people on the street last night we met this guy that wanted to share a message about Jesus with us... a little random. He was a very calm and quiet man and we told him that we know about Jesus too and that we share a special message about Jesus. So maybe that'll go somewhere. I consider it just a little miracle this week.

I was able to get oatmeal from Costco through one of our devoted English class members! It means I will be happy when I eat breakfast for the next 52 days (assuming I can control myself and eat just one a day).

Saturday was awesome too. All week we were planning to try and make an appointment with this one member and then suddenly the member called us an invited us for lunch with the sisters! It was truly a miracle, when the member called she said 'so you are coming over for lunch today right?' and we told her that they never invited us, and then they told us to come over at 1. Good lunch!

We have a Korean holiday on the 31^st and will not be going out.  We get to clean our apartment pretty much for 6 hours on that day....super deep clean. We have a washing machine in our apartment; everything is air dry though.

That’s it for this week!

Love,

Elder Frampton

12-23-13

Dear Familia,

I just wanted to write something quick this week since I will be talking to you soon! 

So this week on Wednesday we had the mission Christmas meeting at our ward in Geumjeong! It was super awesome! There were a lot of missionaries there! So every year the Gilberts pick a movie to watch that can be related to the gospel somehow and this year we got to watch the chronicles of Narnia - the lion the witch and the wardrobe! It was fun and weird to watch a movie! I've seen that movie so many times before but I never really realized how cheesy the jokes and how not very good the acting is in that movie...haha 

This Saturday was the ward Christmas party and that was pretty fun too! We were practicing for our skit that we would perform and an unfortunate event happened. One of the sister missionaries tripped on the electric piano chord and broke it. The power chord wouldn’t plug in meaning we couldn’t turn it on. We were all really scared we would get in trouble so we spent a bunch of time trying to find a place that could fix it.....long story short is that nothing was open on Saturday we realized miraculously that the piano took batteries and the night was saved.....bad news is that we still have to spend the time to get it fixed for real and probably have to pay too. But that shouldn’t be too expensive since we will split the cost 6 ways. The skit turned out awesome at night! I was the 'main actor' and I got lots of good jobs lol. It was just a narrated story so I didn’t do any talking;)

Love Elder Frampton

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