Never saw that coming...

Well, this is week is transfer week once again.  Crazy how fast it comes, huh?  But this transfer turned out to be a lot different than anyone was expecting.

 

You see, my companion, Elder Otterson, is nearing the end of his mission.  He is scheduled to end and go home in the beginning of April, so it's coming up really fast.  As every missionary towards the end of their mission does, he began to plan for the future.  You know, the usual things: job, school, when to get married (haha), etc etc.  Among his plans was the goal to return to Korea later this year as an English teacher.  The country has many governement sponsered programs where they hire english speaking foreigners to come to they country for a year contract and teach English in the public schools.  The job actually pays pretty well and because he already has Korea and Korean down, it seemed like a really appealing thing for him to do.

 

So, just 3 weeks ago during Zone Conferences, in an interview with president, he told him all of his plans.  President Shin actually approved of them all and told Otterson that he would do all he could to help Otterson find a good teacher job in Korea.  Lesson learned:  If you want something and President Shin approves of it, it's going to happen.

 

Fast forward to just this last week, Elder Otterson got a phonecall from the principal of a high-end private elementary school here in Korea.  After an interview over the phone, an interview in person, a tour of the school, a fancy dinner, and a phonecall between Otterson and his family, he accepted the job.  The catch, THE JOB STARTS NEXT WEEK!

 

Elder Otterson is now no longer ending his mission in April, but is now ending it in 4 days.  And, instead of going home to his family, he will stay here in Korea for another year and instantly start teaching at the school next Monday.  Talk about rare!  I've hear of missionaries returning to their countries to work after their missions, but I've never heard of a mission that never goes home!  Haha, anyway, so his plans instantly changed, and he is extremely excited.  We've been spending this last week saying goodbye to everyone and helping him close off his mission ties well.

 

Now, here I am typing this and just waiting for the call from the APs to tell me who my new companion will be/ if I'm staying in Dangjin or not..... I have no idea what's going to happen....  So, next week, I'll let you know!

 

Elder Graf

The Flu

Ever since I was young, I have truly hated and despised one thing in this world more than anything else:  the stomach flu.  Therefore, I take whatever precautions necessary to avoid being infected with such a disease.  Back when I was in the MTC and some elders down the hall from my dorm room started to throw up, I declared World War 3 against them.  I commanded them to be quarantined in their room, and when they didn't stay there, I quarantined myself - lysoling and hand sanatizing everything in my path.  (No, I'm not a germ freak - I'm a flu freak, thank you very much).  Anyway, I won the battle and escaped unharmed.  Victory.

 

Then I came to Korea and tasted the wonderful world that is Korean food.  Delicious, yes, but also spicier than anything I have ever had in my life.  A thought entered my mind: "if I ever get the flu and throw any of this up, it will be the worst thing that has ever happened to me".  Luckily, the time passed and I never came down with any illess that would cause me to do so.  That is, until this last week....

 

As soon as I woke up on Tuesday, I knew I was in trouble.  My stomach hurt, my body ached, and my mind knew it - I had the flu.  "Oh please no", I thought.  I needed to convince myself it wasn't true - do some sort of mindtrick on myself and make it go away.  I decided to not tell Otterson, and we ended up going to the gym first thing as we do every morning.  "You don't have the flu, you don't have the flu" I repeated, and decided that a jog on the treadmill wouldn't be too bad of an idea. 

 

Yeah. Stupid, I know.

 

By the end of my run, I just felt even more sick - but I was still in the pre-throwing-up-and-instead-just-feeling-like-you-wanted-to-curl-up-in-a-ball-and-punch-something stages, and not quite to the point of throwing up yet.  We got back to our house, and I still didn't want to tell Otterson how I was feeling.  To hide my sickness (and to still try to trick my body), I ate eggs and toast and kimchi for breakfast.  "I'll probably be seeing all this again fairly soon", I thought as I mustered up the courage to swallow.  It was now time for our morning studies - personal, companionship, and language.  I made it through the studies and we headed out the door to our first appointment of the day (with hard working mother).  Of course, as she always does, the very second we sat down in her house, we were given massive ammounts of food:  rice, fruit, tea, kimchi, etc.  I ate it all, hating myself as I did so.  But, I had no choice.

 

Anyway, the day went on.  We visited with people, walked around the city, talked with people on the street, and I still went about they day acting as though I wasn't sick, but I was just progressively feeling worse and worse.  Finally, it was time to go to our dinner appointment out in the countryside - one where we would have to take the bus to get there.  By this time, I decided it was time to call it quits.

 

"Hey Elder Otterson", I said. "I have something to tell you"

 

"What's that?"

 

"So all day I've been feeling really sick and I'm pretty sure I have the flu"

 

"....So what's your point?"

 

A little taken back, I responded "So I don't think we can go out to our dinner appointment.  There's no way I can eat dinner tonight, let alone ride the bus to get out there"

 

"Oh I think you'll be fine", he reassured me, and that was the end of our discussion. 

 

"Whelp", I thought.  "This is going to be fun" and we boarded the bus that would take us through the twisted and bumpy roads of the Korean countryside, only to find out that there was standing room only.  Perfect.  I ended up squished between Elder Otterson and 5 other Koreans, and our bus ride began.  Of course, the bus driver was one of the crazier ones, therefore not helping my situation at all.  I could feel my breakfast and lunch churning inside of me as I just took deap breaths and tried to let the time pass.  I started to look for where I could throw up if it came to that.  The only choice I had was the bend down, lean over the seat where a 80-something year old grandma was sitting, open the window, and let it all out.  Not the best option.  So, I just instead started to tell myself "you will not throw up on this bus, you will not throw up on this bus".  Then, 5 minutes later, that turned to "okay, you might throw up on this bus...".  Then, 5 minutes after that, "If you don't get off this bus RIGHT NOW, IT'S GOING ALL OVER GRANDMA!!"

 

At the very moment, Otterson tapped my arm.  "We're getting off here", he said.  Oh thank goodness, I'm saved.  The bus came to a lurching stop and I somehow hobbled off.  For a few seconds I felt okay, but then my body decided to hate me and told me "okay, time to throw up now"

 

I hated.  My life.  I instantly started searching for options as I felt my stomach volcanoeing inside of me.  I can't just throw up in the city street - only drunks do that.  I ran inside the store right there by the bus stop and shouted "WHERE'S THE BATHROOM!?".  Luckily, there was one, and after listening to the cashier's instructions as to where it was, went down the hall, found the bathroom - mens or womens, I didn't care, went inside, and launched myself to the toilet with no time to spare.

 

Seriously, worst part of existence.  I flushed the toilet, wiped my face, and stuck a piece of gum inside my mouth to deal with the taste.  Well, no I really had the flu, right?  So it was time to go home and be sick.  Well, that's what I thought.  I left the bathroom and told Otterson that I had just thrown up.  And instead of deciding that we would cancel our appointment, somehow we decided that we would still continue on with the day.  How in the world did that happpen???  Haha, I have no idea.  I really need to get my priorities straight. 

 

Anyway, I'm running out of e-mail time, but to really quickly conclude - we ended up going to the dinner appointment with the family and I was treated by the mother with old Asian healing remedies.  She fed me a ton of the weirdest things I have ever tasted (literally, fed me.  Like opened my mouth with her hands and shoved it inside) and miraculously, I was cured.  Well, no, not cured, but I didn't thow up again and we were able to still eat with the family and teach them.  Wonderful, eh?  Then, when we got home for the night, I allowed myself to be sick and the bathroom was by best friend throughout the night.

 

The mission sure provides some funny experiences, no?  Can't wait to see what this next week brings!

 

Elder Graf

We save souls (and puppies, too)

A few weeks ago, a member from Seoul came down to our branch on Sunday because he was visiting some friends in the city.  He talked to us after church and informed us that his dad actually lives out in the countryside in Dangjin and he wanted us to give him a visit.  His dad isn't a member, but we, as missionaries, could change that ;)

So, the next day, we headed out into the country and took with us the makeshift map that the member drew for us.  The map turned out to be more confusing and helpful, and we weren't able to locate the man's house.  We ended up talking to several farmers asking if they knew the man we were looking for and where his house was, but no luck.  So, we called it a day and decided we would try again later.

Last week, we decided we would give it another shot.  It was a warm day and we gave ourselves lots of time to find him, so we were both feeling pretty fortunate about the situation.  We followed the map the best we could and were lead to an old shack in the midst of a bamboo forest.  The house looked vacant and there was junk and garbage all over the area surrounding the home, but the house matched the description perfectly, so we decided to give it a shot.  We knocked at the door - no answer.  We called out to see if someone would hear us - nothing.  "Maybe there's a backdoor?", we thought, and we walked around the house.

That's when we saw them.

Behind the house tucked up in a corner was a cage of six adorable puppies.  Once they saw us, they all became scared and huddled up together in the corner.  We looked at their cage and noticed their living conditions - no food, no water no nothing.  The food pan and the floor was covered in poop from the puppies, the puppies themselves were pretty dirty, and there were 3 now-flattened dead puppies on the ground in the cage as well.  It was clear that nobody had been taking care of them for weeks and it was literally killing them - it wouldn't be long before the left over puppies died as well.

At first we just felt bad for them, but it wasn't after long when we started feeling that it was our responsibility to take care of them.  "We can't just leave them here like this!" we both said to each other, and so we took the matter into our own hands.

While I carefully moved the cage to a clean area, Otterson went about looking for food.  He broke into the vacant house and found a large bag of dog food - I guess whoever lived here at least had the intention to take care of them at one time.  We then found a bowl for water, gave them their food, removed the dead puppies, and improved their living conditions.  I then wrapped a blanket we found around the cage in order to protect them from the winter wind - they were all shivering from the cold.

Haha, so that's what we did.  We tried to find an old man to teach him, but we ended up saving the puppies instead.  Still effective, right?  When we finished, we said goodbye to our newly adopted pets and promised to return in a few days to check up on them.

Maybe I'll get to keep one of them.

Other than that, this week as a week off.  It was the Lunar New Year (Korea's biggest holiday), so missionary work was impossible.  Instead, we just got together as a district during the 3 day holiday and had trainings, did practice teaching, and *cough played games *cough.  Tons of fun!  But now it's over and missionary work can resume - wish us luck this next week!

Non-related picture from a couple weeks ago:

Who we meet with

Again, another week has come and gone - it's crazy how fast time is flying!  And because we are so busy all day, every day, the time is flying even faster.  Before we know it, it'll be summer.

But until then, we are doing all we can to help this area grow.  As I told you a few weeks back, our city does not have a church and we are given the privilege to be the first missionaries here to teach the gospel and help establish a branch in this city.  Right now, the plan is to start the branch here next month.  But, in order to do that, we need enough people to attend.  Therefore, we need to do one thing:  Baptize.

Easy enough, right?  So I thought I could spend this week's email informing you about all of our investigators that we are meeting with on a weekly basis.  My entire mission, I haven't really written home about any of our investigators.  Why?  Well, if you were an investigator, would you want a missionary to be telling everyone about your situations and posting all about your situation online?  Haha, probably not.  So I've chosen to respect my investigators instead of blabber all about them this whole time.  However, this decision has also been a source of complaint for my family - they want to hear all the details.  So fine, I will give them, but I won't include names - deal, mother?

Hilarious Genius:  This is one of my favorite investigators and we meet with him every week two or three times.  He is 45 years old, works at Hyundai Steel, has a wonderful family, is perfect at English, and knows so many random facts about the entire world.  He LOVES to talk to us about anything and everything and LOVES to load us with facts and information about the world (he's like my spirit twin).  His intention to meet with us started off as English interest only, but his desires have begun to change and he is becoming very interested in the gospel.  The cool thing is this - 25 years ago, he attended Dixie State College in St George, UT, so he has a really cool (and random) connection with Utah and the church.  Hopefully we can continue to help his desire in the gospel grow over these next coming weeks!

Hard Working Mom:  She has two loud kids, a one room house (kitchen, bedroom, everything - one room), a husband that works all day, and lots of stress.  She loves meeting with us and really finds peace in our messages but accepting them as truth has been really difficult for her.  She has lots of other religion's missionaries coming to her too (Asian Bible Belt, remember?) and so she is just mostly confused with what to do.  However, we KNOW that this church would help her and her family's situation, so we're trying to do all we can to help her see that.

The Newlywed:  He saw us one day on the street and was blown away that there are fluent Korean speaking missionaries in this little town that teach free English.  He immediately expressed his desire to meet with us and has since introduced us to his wife and all of his friends.  He loves meeting with us, but more importantly, loves his wife that he married just a few months ago.  The two of them are expecting a baby right now as well.  Elder Otterson and I see this as a perfect time for them as a newly married couple to find the gospel and raise their future family in it - we're super excited for them as they continue to learn about our message.

The Prince William Lover:  Oh, this one is a riot - we meet with her about once a week.  She loves the church and everything and would love to be baptized, but her dad won't let her because the church he attends says our church is a cult.  Yet, we still continue to meet with her to strengthen her faith until the day comes when she can make her own decision to join or not.  And meeting with her is hilarious because she has an OBSESSION with Prince William - she wants to marry him.  "But Prince William is marries to Kate!", I say.  "And Kate is wonderful!" To which she protests that she is far better than Kate Middleton.... haha, it's really funny.

The Applicant:  Getting into universities is really hard here in Korea - especially the big ones.  Students literally are at school until 3 in the morning in order to study - I'm not kidding.  This investigator is 18 years old and is currently awaiting to see if he got into Seoul University, Korea's most prestigious establishment.  During his application and testing period, he had no time to meet with us, but now that he is just awaiting, we have begun to teach him.  He is very smart and lots of fun and really looks up to us for guidance.  He loves our message and expresses his desire to join our church, but says that he can't make any decisions until he knows if he got into Seoul University or not.  So until then, we're waiting.

Well, that's only a third of our investigators - but I'm out of time!  Now at least you have a little bit of a better idea who we are meeting with and what type of situations we are dealing with.  Pray for all of them if you want - haha, use their code names.

Until next week!

Elder Graf

A Baptism

Before my mission, I had no idea what the religious scene was like over here in Korea.  When I first landed at the airport in Incheon and was on the 2 hour bus ride to the Mission Home in Daejeon, I noticed a few things while I looked at the window.  Lots of apartment buildings, lots of trees, and lots of crosses.  Even now as I look out the window from the cafe where I am typing this, I can see 5 different crosses sticking out above the buildings on the horizon.

Korea is the Asian Bible Belt.  There are more church buildings in the cities here than there are in Utah - I'm not kidding.  There is not a single place in Korea that you can go without a church in sight.  The only difference is, they are all for different churches.  Some are Catholic, some are Methodist, some are Presbyterian, and some are Korean-exclusive Christian churches.  Long story short, mainstream Christianity is huge here - Mormonism is not.  Therefore, missionary work is hard.  Some missionaries get four, five, or even six baptisms in their whole mission here in Korea.  But, at the same time, many missionaries go home with none.  As far as my mission goes, I have had none.  We've taught plenty of people and had wonderful experiences doing so, but joining the church has just been too hard of a thing for all of my investigators to do.  That is, until yesterday.

Yesterday, Elder Otterson and I had the wonderful experience to see Diane (Her Korean name is pronounced Dah Een) be baptized and confirmed a member of the church by her father.  Diane's brother, Dom (Korean name: Dah Oom), also received the Aaronic Priesthood yesterday as well.  When we first met the family a little over a month ago, they wanted nothing to do with the church.  But then, after we visited them a few more times and they started to come out, we could see their hearts start to change.  The father became enthusiastic about the gospel again, the mom felt the love from the members, their son, Dom, started to have faith in god and a desire to serve a mission, and Diane expressed her desire to be baptized.  We started to teach them as a family and yesterday it all came together with smiles, tears, and a wonderful experience for all.  We are so happy for their family and their new-found love for the church and the gospel!

So there's my update this week.  Maybe missionary work in Korea is hard.  Maybe I won't be getting the 20+ baptisms that other missionaries are getting in other places in the world.  But at least I am seeing the blessing that the church can be in people's lives.  I know that Diane and her family will be happier and stronger with the gospel in their lives and I am so happy that I was able to help them in the process.

That's all!  Until Next week!

Elder Graf

PS - I PROMISE they are happy.  It's just Korean culture to not smile in pictures.  The second the picture ended, they were hugging and smiling and all.  

What Korea is Like

This whole time, I've just week-after-week written funny stories and experiences that I've had.  It wasn't until during the skype conversation at Christmas that I realized that my family really has no idea what Korea is like because, well, I haven't really described it that well.  My bad.  So this week, I will try to give you a glimpse of what Korea is really like and what I do and see on a day to day basis.

First off, Korean cities are exactly that - cities.  Each and every city, no matter how small it is, functions as if it is a large urban center.  There is a downtown area with big name stores (Nike, H&M, K2, etc), a large public transportation system (buses, taxis, trains) with hookups to high speed trains that can take you anywhere in Korea, hundreds of 15-20 story apartment buildings scattered all over the city, and a large city market with street vendors selling anything and everything you would ever need (clothes, food, etc).  Unless they work, go to school, or have friends or family outside of the city, there is no reason for Koreans to leave the town.  Anything and everything they need is here within a small 2-3 mile radius.  Of course there are cars, but they use cars much less than we do in America.  Simply walking or using public transportation is much more convenient and accessible for most Koreans.  Even the smallest of cities function this way.  Right now, I'm in a countryside town - and it's complete countryside once you step outside of the urban center, but within the city portion, it's a stronger urban core than Salt Lake City.  Density is Korea's best friend.  There is no such thing as the suburbs over here.

The coolest thing about it is that even though it's a modern city, it still feels ancient and old.  The streets are narrow and wind up and down the hills.  There are tanks of fish and cages of live animals along the sidewalks, waiting for people to buy them and take them home.  In the middle of the busy streets, there are old grandmas and grandpas with giant carts that they pull around, either selling items (food, clothes, etc) or collecting cardboard or other recyclable materials in order to sell them and make money.  Inside restaurants, they bring raw meat out to you and you cook it yourself on the stove in the middle of the table.  There are old Buddhist temples and other ancient style buildings that the Koreans have preserved and just built their city around.  All in all, it's an ancient society that they have not replaced, but instead integrated into the new westernized culture.

So that's what the city is like.  Large, big, loud, and full of shops, restaurants, stores, and excitement.  However, the very second you leave the city, everything changes.

The countryside is beautiful.  There are tree covered mountains everywhere.  Where there aren't mountains, there are farming fields.  Where there aren't farming fields, there are old farming houses.  I guess my point is, even though it's the countryside, there still isn't an inch wasted.  Everywhere you look, there is something to look at.  In the mountains, you can see clearings in the trees where there are shrines and ancient burial plots (think Mulan and her ancestor's tomb).  Where the land is flat, there are countless amounts of rice fields.  Every now and then, there's the occasional other crop, but it's mostly all just rice.  The farming houses are ancient and look as if they come right out of any Asian movie you can think of.  All of the homes and other buildings are connected by narrow, twisty roads that weave in and out of the farming fields.  Whenever we go out into the countryside, I love trying to catch the chickens or stray cats for fun, but then I get barked at by the massive dogs and fear my life when they break out of their chains and start chasing after me with their rabies infested mouths (don't worry, I'm good at killing dogs).  The best part about the country side is the people.  They are the hardest workers I have ever seen.  There are old 70-80 year old ladies walking up and down the farming roads balancing rice bags on their heads and old men working out in the fields for hours on end all day long.  In America, these people would be in rest homes.  But out here in Korea, they are still hard at work all day long.

The weather is actually really cool.  There are four very distinct seasons.  The summer is hot and humid, the fall is cool and beautiful, and the winter is freezing and dry.  One of my favorite experiences with the weather was when I was in my greenie area and a sunny day decided to become a torrential downpour.  We were in the middle of an old narrow alleyway and water was pouring off of the buildings down into the alley way like we were in a slot canyon during a flash flood.  Often times, the air quality will be really bad (from China's factories) and so the sun will appear red later in the day.  While it might because the air is dirty, it actually looks amazing and really adds to the mystic feel of the land.  The weather right now is freezing, but it's really not that different from a Utah winter - we just are outside all day as missionaries and therefore get the exposure to it.

Well, I'm out of time now - maybe another week I'll write about the food and other things I see on a daily basis.  But I think I at least helped to paint a better picture of what I see every day for now.  As far as missionary work this week goes, we're just helping our recently activated family prepare for their daughters baptism and son's ordination to the priesthood this Sunday.  We're super excited and so are they!

Until next week!

Elder Graf

Less active miracles and the Year of My Mission

For those of you who have been reading this blog, you might have noticed a common problem during my mission:  People here just simply don't care to hear about the gospel.  Of course, plenty do, but I haven't had any investigators my whole mission that have truly converted and expressed their desire to join the church.  Instead, we've been doing all we can to help our investigators change their minds and come to want the church

...yeah, sort of a hard thing to do...

Anyway, this week, that all changed - allow me to explain.  Before Christmas, Elder Otterson and I were doing everything we could to invite everyone to the Branch Christmas Party.  Among the people we visited to invite, we found a less active family that lived far out in the countryside.  Because they live so far away, they have literally gone unnoticed by missionaries, members, and anything church related for nearly 10 years of inactivity.  We decided to give them a visit, invite them to the Christmas party, and told them about our goals for not only the area, but for their family to become active again.  They expressed to us that they no longer believed in God, but they would "think about attending the party".

Well, we tried.  

Then, on the day of the party, we, from out of nowhere, got a call from them asking for the address of the church.  Cool, huh!?  The whole family made the hour plus drive and came out to the party.  The members welcomed them with open arms and it was a really good experience for everyone.  In fact, it was such a good experience that the family ended up coming to all three hours of church the very next day.

Fast forward to yesterday, Fast Sunday, the whole family attended again.  The son bore his testimony about his growing faith and belief in God.  Then, the mom bore her testimony as well.  After church, we taught the first lesson to the family, and the daughter (who still hasn't been baptized) committed to be baptized on January 19th.  Just two weeks ago, the family had no thought of church on their mind, and now they are embracing it with all of their hearts and making a 360 change.

Miracle!  How awesome is that?  Here we've been working so hard with all of our investigators, and this wonderful family just needed a simple visit out of love and support.  Now, we're in the process of reactivating the whole family and baptizing their daughter.  I can already feel that this year is going to be much better than the last as far as missionary work and success goes....

...Which brings me to my next point.  I am dubbing 2014 as the "Year of My Mission."  2013 was wonderful.  It was full of many new, growing, trying, difficult, strengthening, and learning experiences.  Through all those experiences, I came to a better understanding about who I am and the goals that I have for the rest of my time here and afterwards.  Now, as I enter 2014, I am much more prepared to go forward with those goals in mind.  I now can speak more Korean, I've become a senior companion, and I'm ready to really just transform my mission and the whole year of 2014 into something, well, incredible.  So onward to 2014 - the year of my mission!

Elder Graf