First, I was telling people "2 weeks, Since I've come to Korea, it's been two weeks". Then, that went up to "4 weeks, I've been in Korea for 4 weeks". Then, somehow, that changed to "6 months, I've been in Korea for 6 months". As the time continued to go on, I realized that the people were less excited with my Korean level coordinated with the time I had been in Korea.
"Wow, your Korean is great!" they would say, "How long have you been here?"
"2 weeks!" I exclaimed.
"WOW! NO WAY!"
compared with this:
"Wow, your Korean is great! How long have you been here?"
"6 months"
"Ahhhh, I see"
What!? No! You're supposed to load me with compliments! Anyway, so starting around my 7 month mark, I started telling people that I had been in Korea for 3 months less than I actually had. That way, I received both compliments and understanding when I made language mistakes. And I worded it perfectly so I wouldn't be lying. "Yes, I have been in Korea for 5 months" does not necessarily mean that I CAME here 5 months ago, it just means that, yeah, I have in fact been in Korea for, but not limited to, 5 months. Yay for honesty!
Anyway, the reason I say this all is because I hit the big 1 year in Korea milestone this last week on May 7th. And what a celebration it was. Skinner and I woke up and started our day as normal, but all day long I was keeping my eyes out for exciting opportunities. Would I buy fireworks and light them off at night? Would I order the most delicious Korean food there is and have it delivered after midnight? I had no idea what to do, and I'm a fan of spontaneous things, so I let the day go on and figured I would find something amazing.
That night, we had a family home evening scheduled with a less active family. The lesson was planned, but we were missing one thing: Jenga. Our plan was to play the game and then at the end, explain that we needed to have a strong foundation in Christ. So, Skinner and I really quickly went to the Wal-Mart equivelant over here to snatch the game.
And that's when I saw him.
Right there by the toy section was a cage, and inside the cage was a little baby bunny. "THAT'S IT!" I thought, "I'M BUYING A BUNNY!" and instantly was drawn to the cage. My comp and I were of course on the same page and began justifying our breaking the no-pet rule because this situation obviously was an acceptable exception. Then, we saw the whole $30 price tag, realized that we were poor, and so fine, bought a fish instead.
So his name is Joo. Why? JooNyun means anniversary, or one year, in Korean. So "Joo" for short. I put him in my backpack and he spent the rest of the day inside being jostled around inside as we ran from bus stop to appointment to bus stop in order to not be late. Luckily, he lived, and when we got home, we put him in our garden (oh yeah, we have a garden by the way). We got a big sink that isn't being used, buried it in the dirt, and put him inside. Then the next day, we collected about 30 rocks throughout the day and put them in my backpack, bought 4 more flower plants, and when we got home, beautified our fish pond. Basically, we have an awesome Korean garden with a Koi (goldfish) pond in the middle. Go us, we're Asian.
So the week was great! Fun times, big celebrations, and mircales out the ying yang. Or our investigator accepted the baptismal commitement and will be dunked in the next coming weeks. We also found another guy that is super solid - things are going awesome! Who would've thought that all of these miracles are possible? Wish us luck!
Elder Graf
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