5.20.13

Another week gone, it's crazy how fast it went.  At this rate, I feel that 2 years will go by way too fast, it's actually kind of sad.  Then again, I've only been on my mission for 2 1/2 months so who am I to talk haha.  But yes, like I was saying, this week went by so fast.  To catch you up with what my life here is like, I'll just give you a daily re-cap of everything.

 

Monday:

First we woke up, worked out, took showers, got ready, and had personal study for an hour.  That is our daily routine every day for 2 years up until 9:00am.  Then, we left home for the Church to call home because it was Mothers Day in America.  Following that, we emailed for another hour and then went to Lotte Mart to do our shopping.  Lotte Mart is Walmart on steroids.  It's a massive store in downtown Gunsan (and all over Korea) where one floor is their grocery store, the next floor is their everything else store - like everything that Walmart has and more, and then the next floor is their nice department store comparable to Macy's.  So we got all of our supplies for the week and then for the rest of the day just relaxed at our apartment. 

Then, one of our investigator families took us out to go eat at a meat buffet where you choose all the raw meat you want, then you cook it yourself on the grill that is in the middle of the table that you eat at.  Ahhh, it was the best.  AND, the family is even better because the husband is Korean, the wife is from the Philippines, they don't know each other's native languages, but they do know English.  So they speak English which means that I can understand and have normal conversations with them haha.  Following that we tried to visit a less active member at their house but they weren't home so we just talked to people on the streets for the rest of the night.  In other words, I tried to talk to them in Korean, they understood and talked back, but I didn't understand a single word. But it's okay haha, because I'll get there.

 

Tuesday:

Same morning routine as monday, but then we had to get on a bus right after that to go to Iksan for our district meeting that we have every Tuesday.  My district is awesome, there's 9 elders and 2 sisters.  We all ate lunch together, had our meeting, then my companion and I went home.  We had companionship study for an hour then we taught an investigator at the Church in Gunsan (it's where we meet all of our investigators, it's much easier than going to a house).  Following that, we had a dinner appointment with one of our members.  Then, for the rest of the night, we walked all over the city hanging up fliers for our English Class that we teach every Saturday and talked to people on the street while we did that.

 

Wednesday:

Same morning routine but then we had companionship study/training for two hours and then language study after that.  This is our basic daily routine unless we have other things like district meeting.  After lunch, we leave the house at 1:00pm and start the day.  We didn't have any appointments with investigators so we tried to visit less actives, hung up more fliers, talked to people on the streets, and tracted in some apartment buildings.

 

Thursday - Sunday

So I'm running out of time, but by now you probably understand the basics out what my days are like.  It's fun, we meet with investigators almost daily, we have lots of dinner/lunch appointments, and we walk ALL DAY.  It's fun though, I'm having a really good time.  The rest of the week was full with more appointments, teaching our english class on Saturday, meeting 3 new investigators, and going to the ward picnic that was on Friday.  Our ward is awesome, I love them all.  I'm already sad that I don't get to be with them in a couple weeks when I'm transfered out, I already want to live here for forever, they're that awesome. 

This week is going to be just as busy as well, and so is the week after that.  I love reading all of your letters and hearing what your lives are like back at home.  The only thing is, I have no time to write back! Haha, but I'll get to that, I promise.  Also, I tried to attach pictures but it was taking too long.  So next week, I'll type less and send more pictures.  That'll be nice.  And I triple promise this time.  Haha, I've been making this promise for 2 months now though so you'll just have to wait another week and find out if I'll keep it or not.  Have fun back at home! I'm having a party here!

 

Elder Graf

Korea!

Well I just talked to all of you on the phone because it's Mother's Day in America, so I'm not really sure what else to say! Haha, but as you know - I'm in Korea and it's awesome.  The area I'm in is called 군산 (pronounced Goonsahn, but it's romanized to Gunsan) and it is the best.  I know there's a lot of awesome places in Korea and all new missionaries will call their area "the best", but my area seriously is the best, not kidding.  One reason why it's super awesome is the fact that there's an American Air Force Base just outside the city and so my companion and I cover the branch that is on the base - so we have American members and investigators too, it's awesome.  Anyway, Gunsan is considered a small city in Korea, but it actually has almost 300,000 people living here so it really is a decently sized city (Salt Lake City has 180,000 in its city boundaries, for a comparable reference).  Also, everyone lives on top of each other and everything is so dense, so that makes it feel even bigger than it is.  Koreans live in apartment buildings, it's just what they do, so the streets are lined with 20-30 story apartment buildings everywhere. 

My companion and I live on the eighth floor and our apartment is awesome.  It's only the two of us living in it, but there's 3 bedrooms, a family room, a full-sized bathroom, and a kitchen.  The bathroom is pretty crazy because there's no shower curtain, there's just a removeable shower head (the ones that have the hose so you can move it around) attached to the wall.  So in other words, the whole room is the shower and everything gets wet.  Because we have 3 bedrooms, we sleep in one, use the other for our closet, and use the other for random storage.  It's awesome how much space we have.  I would love to send pictures BUT I left the USB cord back at our apartment, and I'm at the church typing this right now, so I'll do that next week (I feel like I say this every week, but I really mean it this time).

Being in Korea is crazy, but it's awesome that I'm finally here.  My companion, Elder Ward, is the best - I couldn't have asked for a better trainer.  I'm super excited these next few weeks to fill you in with all the amazing stories about what I'm doing here.  I don't have a lot of time life left, so I can't tell you everything this week, but next week I'll be a little more settled in and I'll be able to use the full hour for email.  One funny thing about being here is that fact that I'm tall and American and my companion is exactly the same.  We stick out like a sore thumb, it's hilarious.  Also, every single Korean knows at least one english word, and that's "hello", and so when we're walking down the street, the kids will call out "hello!" and we'll say "hello!" back to them, and then they'll giggle and just say "hello!" again haha.  The kids here are adorable, it's ridiculous how cute they are.

Anyway, I'm going to have to say goodbye.  Next week I'll send a million pictures, I promise.

-Elder Graf


***Here's a picture that we stole from the mission blog of Christian and his new companion. Elder Ward is a cadet at the Naval Academy and is from the Sacramento area, so basically we all think he's great already.***

Arrived

Well I'm here at the mission home, everything is going great. This place is crazy - there are so many people, so many things going on, it's like New York City x 10. Tonight we went out and street contacted for an hour and a half, that was crazy as well. In the end though, this place is perfect. So different, so green, so warm, and so packed with life and activity. I don't have any more time, so you'll have to wait until Sunday, but I'm just letting you know that I already love it. The next 22 months are going to go way too fast.

Love you!

Week 8

안녕하세요!

I can't believe this day has come, it's so surreal. I've now been here for almost nine weeks in which I have started learning a language that is totally opposite to English, reviewed all aspects of the gospel and learned new insights along the way, had a blast with my district and other people in my zone, and learned what it means to be and how to be a successful missionary. Now, I'm off to South Korea!

The MTC has been such a great experience, I've really had such a good time here. I really don't understand why anyone would choose to not go on a mission, it seriously has been the best 2 months of my life (yes, that sounds cheesy, but it's true). And now that the age has been changed, literally anyone and everyone could and should go. So if you're 18 or 19 and you're a boy or a girl and you're not on a mission...... ummmm, what are you doing? Go on a mission! Haha, because really, it's the best opportunity you will ever have.

But anyway, back to my MTC experience. Like I said, it's been so great here. This week, being my last week, has been full of review and new information. As far as the language goes, it's a line-upon-line type of thing. When I think about how much Korean I know right now at this moment, I feel like I don't know anything. But then, when I compare my ability to the first week here, I've made leaps and bounds. It just makes me so excited for months from now to see how much I've progressed. I feel comfortable speaking with all of the teachers and Korean missionaries here, but I know that the second I get to Korea I'll be all like "this is defintiely not the language I learned in the MTC" haha. But it's okay, because I'll just work on it and get better and better day after day.

So funny story. Korean is interesting in the fact that it doesn't have certain sounds in their alphabet that we do like "f" or "v" sounds, for example. Therefore, whenever a Korean tries to say an english word with an "f" or a "v", they use a "b/p" sound instead. So, to make things easier for them, English words translated to Korean are just spelled with a "b/p" sound. For example, "Eve" is really pronounced "eebuh". Now, my last name is Graf. So in Korean, it's Grap. HOWEVER, usually, because the "g" sound is the start of the word, it has a harder sound to it in Korean so it really sounds more like a "k" instead. SO, my name in Korean becomes Krap, or, in other words, Crap. So, everyone in my zone just refers to me as Elder Crap hahaha, and I introduce myself as such. Isn't that just wonderful hahaha, imagine a missionary coming up to you on the street and just saying "Hi, my name is Elder CRAP and I have a message for you about Christ. What do ya say!?" Hahahaha, it's the worst (but really the best) and it's exactly what I'm going to be saying for the next two years hahaha.

Also, my travel plans make no sense. The plane we're flying on from Salt Lake to LAX is a tiny little SkyWest plane. So that'll be fun. Then, you would think we're flying from LAX to Korea, but we're not. Instead, we fly to San Francisco from there. Why? I have no idea. But hey, it gives me more time to make phone calls from the airport so that'll be nice. Then, we get on a 747 and fly to Korea. That flight will be fun, but then I saw that the missionaries going to the Seoul mission get to fly on an Airbus A380 (the new double decker plane that is even bigger than the 747) and I'm extremely jealous. Some of the Seoul missionaries were like "so?", and that made me even more jealous, hahaha. I still can't believe that this is actually happening, I'm actually going to South Korea. Am I ready? Well, probably as ready as I'll ever be haha, so it's time to go.

Anyway, the next time I email, I'll be in Korea! I would have loved to send you all my MTC pics, but I lost my memory card so I practically have none on the new one that I bought here from the bookstore. I'll make sure to take tons these next two days so I can send some next week from Korea. Ah! From Korea. Crazy.

안녕히계세요. 사랑해요!

-Elder Graf (그라프 장로) (Elder Crap)

Oh, PS, you can email me anytime at christian.graf@myldsmail.net for free. That way, it won't take 2 weeks for me to get your mail, and you won't have to pay 2 bucks for it either.

MTC MAIL DEADLINE

It's official! Christian leaves for South Korea next Monday, May 6th.

This means that if there are any final letters/packages/Dear Elder messages you want to send to him, you need to do so by this Wednesday, May 1st, or he won't get it. Any mail sent after this Wednesday should be mailed to Korea (we'll post the address in the sidebar soon). Let us know if you have any questions!

Week 7

The countdown has officially begun. In only 12 days, I will be stepping onto an airplane and flying over the Pacific Ocean, on my way to South Korea. Seriously, we can't contain our excitement. When we all first arrived here, we were greeted by all of the missionaries that had already been here for 6 weeks and after only 2 1/2 weeks, they all left. It's crazy to all of us to think that we are the old missionaries now, and that we are now the ones to be leaving.

But yes, this week has definitely been my favorite week at the MTC. Tuesday evening, Sister Benbrook, the Sister Training Leader (A new calling that they just created for all missons because of the huge number of sister missionaries now) and Elder Lee and I, as the Zone Leaders, got to all greet the new international missionaries as they arrived and usher them for the rest of the evening. There were six of them: a sister from Germany, an elder from England, two elders from New Zealand, and two elders from Australia. Simply stated, I love my calling. While all of the other Korean missionaries are studying, Sister Benbrook, Elder Lee, and myself all got to take the night off to spend the time with these fantastic international missionaries. Plus, Tuesday night was even better because as international missionaries, we all got to have reserved seating in the auditorium for the devotional that night and Richard G. Scott was the speaker. It was truly fantastic, the best devotional while here in the MTC by far.

So Tuesday was great, but Wednesday was even better. Why? Well, Wednesday is the day that all of the Americans arrive at the MTC and so we, as Zone and Sister Leaders, got to meet at of the new missionaries in the evening and give them a little orientation about the MTC. Once again, I love my calling. Then, on Thursday, it was the big "welcome to the MTC" meeting where the leaders speak to them for an hour about all of the procedures, rules, tips, ways to have fun, and other ins and outs of the MTC. Following that, we gave them an entire tour of the campus. Seriously, I love my calling. It's been so much fun to help all of the new missionaries during their first few days here. BUT, the fun doesn't end there, because yesterday, the Hanguk sarahm (Korean people) started to arrive and so this week will be a complete repeat of last week, but it will be in Korean. Oh my goodness, I love my calling.

Anyway, besides my Zone Leader duties, things have been going really well. I know so much more Korean now, it's really exciting. When I "teach" my "investigators", it's like I forget all of my Korean knowledge just because of the pressure of the situation. I've never really been good at role plays anyway. But the cool thing is, when I just talk to a Korean here at the MTC, I do so much better and I can understand and have simple conversations with them. So basically, I do bad in the fake situations but then I do good when it's real, so that's a good thing haha. The language is so different, for example, a few weeks ago when I showed an example of a sentence (which was slightly wrong, by they way. But it's fine, I was still learning) I kept putting "verb sentence ending" at the end of my sentences. That wasn't me explaining that there is simply a verb at the end of the sentence, but it actually is a thing. They have many different forms to end a sentence with and in whatever situation you might be speaking in, you have the end the verb a certain way. For example: kahdah means "to go". But if you were using it in a sentence, it would either be kahmneedah, kahyo, or karkahyo, or kahyahdwaymneedah, or kahyahhayo, or blah blah bah, the list goes on and on. It will never be just kahdah, that's incomplete. It always will need that "verb sentence ending". Yay for Korean. The cool thing is, I understand all of that now and am just to the point where concepts make sense so I just need to learn them all as fast as I can. Korean is way fun, I'm being serious. I'm so excited to be able to understand and speak it with ease in the future.

So I'm including are a little tour of the MTC, not everything is included. Pictures I'm sending include my dorm hallway, the bathroom where I get ready every day, the room where I sleep (and the messiness of my roommates), the cleanliness of my corner around my bed, the laundry room where I do my laundry, obviously, and some other pictures of the native Koreans, my companions Elder Hafen and Elder Ruff (Elder Hafen is on the right, Elder Ruff on the left. Elder Ruff, by the way, left for Vancouver a week and a half ago), and some other pictures of missionaries in my Zone. Also, I've been sick this week with a terrible cough and one day, I found these cough drops left on my desk. They're from my teaching telling me to get better. It was so nice, I seriously have the best teachers here at the MTC. You'll get more next week, there's a million to send.

Anyway, I've got to go, I'll write again next Friday because our P-day is changing, so don't freak out Mom when you don't get a letter on Tuesday haha.

Elder Graf

Week 6

Annyeonghasehyo!

So much is happening, but when I sit down to write these emails every week, It's hard to remember anything haha. One thing to note though, is that fact that it is FREEZING. What's up with March being warmer than April? Seriously, this weather is a joke. Want to know what makes it even better? The fact that I brought zero coats or jackets other than my suit jacket. So P-days, service hours, or other times that I'm in normal clothes, I just wear a t-shirt. But it's okay, I'll soon be in 100% humidity and I won't want to own a single jacket.

Korean is coming along well, all the grammar forms are just making sense now. While I don't know nearly enough of them, the concept of the language structure is easy to grasp now each time I learn a new grammar form. Also, there's been a lot of Hanguk Sah r(lightly roll the "r")ahm (Korean people) arriving this week and a lot of them don't speak english. The awesome part is that I've been able to talk to them AND understand them about simple things like where they're from, their family, what they like to do, and where they're going on their mission, so that's been really cool. All the new missionaries going to Korea arrive tomorrow and the rest of the Hanguk sahrahm arrive next Monday. So these next few days are going to be so exciting. But do you know what that means? That means I've been out here for an entire transfer, that sure went by fast. My departure date to Korea is going to come up even faster, It's kind of crazy. So basically, what that means is, I have 2 1/2 weeks to become fluent in the Korean Language.

Going to the Temple every week has been so great, it's going to be weird to go two years without it. The Provo Temple, also, is surprisingly a lot more beautiful than it looks from the outside. Not that it's not beautiful on the outside, but I was definitely expecting a different interior. Also, someone told me that there were escalators inside the temple, just like the Jordan River, but there aren't. So I'm guessing that they've done some remodeling and it's since been updated to its more beautified state, removing the escalators and all. This morning, my district woke up early and we all went to the 6:40 session at the temple. Usually, the place is flooded with missionaries, but our walk over was peaceful, quiet, accompianied by a soft rain drizzle, and completely to ourselves. We're definitely going to do that every P-day now. Afterwards, we had breakfast at the temple cafeteria, and it was a fantastic way to break away from the repetitive meals at the MTC. Which by the way, aren't bad, but they definitely get old after a while.

Anyway, I said I would reveal the wonderful number haha, and as awkward as this is, I've lost 22 pounds. What? How does that even happen? Did I even have 22 pounds to lose? I guess so haha, but I'm definitely not in the norm here. All of the other Elders in my zone have gained anywhere from 5-15 pounds, and here I am getting "fit" instead of "fat". As I told you all before, I definitely wasn't going to be getting a missionary addition - and in Korea, that won't happen either. Three cheers for being athletic and not lazy like many of the other missionaries here.

But it's looking like my time is up, so I have to be going. I'll be getting on the computers most likely later today to send pictures, so you'll get those soon. Thanks again for all of you that send me letters/DearElders/packages!

Kaysayoh! Saranghayo!
Elder Graf