Okay fine, I'll write a blog post

Am I a missionary?  Or a blogger?

 

Or something in between??

 

Haha, well recently, I've put my blogging letters off to the side and simply have just been too busy to write my weekly update for you all to read.  But, FINALLY, I found the time this week and chose to return to my old ways.  Alas, here is an update from my life here in Korea:

 

Things are going great!  The weather is warming up as spring officially begins to set in.  The fields are being planted, the blossoms on the trees are beginning to bloom, and - last and least - the bugs are returning.  But all is okay, because the beauty of Korea definitely beats the pesky little bugs any day.  That is, until the spiders get bigger....

 

Missionary work is going great.  We found another new investigator!  She was referred to us from a member's daughter and has lots of potential.  She right now is attending college, is really nice, and is truly interested in our message.  Hopefully things will keep going well!  Also, just a few weeks back, we got the approval from the Area Seventy to split off from the current branch and form our own group here in Dangjin!  Now they are just looking for a building for us to meet in each week and it will be official.

 

And finally, we saw another wonderful miracle unfold over these past few weeks.  For a very long time now, there has been a husband and wife in our branch that have been seperated.  She lives in the city, he lives in the country.  The wife has still attended church, but the husband has long since gone inactive.  Elder Otterson and I went to his farm often and tried to visit him, but his problems seemed too deep for us young missionaries to understand.  However, despite that fact, we still continued to stop in just to give him as much support as we could.  Then, 4 weeks ago, my companion and I got a phonecall from him.  He told us that he is finished with regretting things he knows he should be doing and that he was ready to change his life around. That week, he drove us the 40 minutes to church and attended all meetings.  But it doesn't end there.  The next day, he invited us over to his house for family home evening.  Then, he started asking us about our missionary work and how he can help.  Then, he started driving us all over the countryside to visit less actives that haven't been seen in years.  Then, he invited us over for family home evening again, attended church every week, and taught lessons to our investigators with us. 

 

Just a few weeks back, this man was lonely, unhappy, and lost.  His hair was unkept, his hands were worn from farm work, and his clothes were tattered.  Now, his hair is cut, his clothes are neat, and his smile is bigger than ever.  Of course, the problems with his wife are still there, but he is now doing everything he can fix the mistakes he once made.  It has been such a wonderful thing for Elder Jung and I to experience - and really - we did nothing.  The gospel, however, provided the perfect opportunity for him to change his life once again.  Elder Jung and I have just been lucky enough to help him along the way.

 

So there's my update.  Things are going great, as you can see.  Next week is transfers and I have a feeling I might be saying goodbye to Dangjin... but maybe (and hopefully) I'll stay as well.  Until I find out, have a wonderful week!

 

Elder Graf

Making things sentimental

One thing that differs GREATLY between Korea and America is Korea's lack of sentimental things.  They live such busy lives, they simply don't have the time (or mindset) for all the little special things we hold so dear in America.  For example, we have big holidays like Halloween, Christmas, Fourth of July, etc, and we take them really seriously.  Then, we also have smaller holidays like Valentines day and St Patrick's Day, and we still take them seriously.  In Korea, well, they just don't do things the same way we do.

At first, it was really hard for me... haha, I love sentimental things!  Nothing beats a good atmosphere, especially a happy one on a holiday.  Coming to Korea and all of the sudden losing all of my holidays for 2 years was one of the hardest things to give up.... One by one, all of the holidays came and went, without much fanfare, and I just got used to looking at the calendar, realizing the date, and saying something like, "Oh look, it's Christmas Eve, hmm, weird." And that was it.

But then, I have a wonderful thing back at home called a family.

Thanks to them, each and every holiday is accompanied with a package that brings the holiday straight to Korea from good old Utah.  So, today was St Patrick's Day, and I of course made a green breakfast with the pancake mix and green food dye my family sent, all decorated with gold chocolate coins.  My companion, who is a Korean, saw the food and was first freaked out, then just confused.  He had never heard of St Patrick's Day and he had never seen food dye before.  I told him, "Don't worry, it's natural" as I held up the green food dye (because he doesn't eat anything with chemicals, haha, and he believed me) and then I pinched him after I noticed he wasn't wearing any green.  "You're not wearing any green!," I said, "so I get to pinch you!"  He was just beyond confused, haha.  I explained the holiday to him, or at least tried, but he didn't seem to understand.  Like I said, it's just not in their culture to celebrate things like this, so even after I explained everything, he was still just confused and asked me something like, "....so, what's your point?"

Insert deep long sigh right about here.

Anyway, we had a nice breakfast, and I at least felt the holiday spirit as I drank my milk the leprechauns had turned green.  Happy St Patrick's Day, everybody!

Elder Grape

A few updates

TRANSFERS!!

What the- I'm in my eighth transfer??  I've passed my halfway??  Winter is ending??  I have a new companion??  Where did all the time go!?

In order to properly begin the new transfer, I figured I would give a short update of everything going on right now.  Ready, set, go:

- I am still in Dangjin - at lest six more weeks!

- I have a new companion, a Korean, named Jung Gi Hyun (just call him Elder Jung).  He is tons of fun and has been on his mission the same amount of time as me.  The two of us are co-senioring together

- Last week was freezing, snow and all, but it warmed up yesterday and today is wonderful.  Spring is finally coming.  I can't wait to see all the blossoms that Korea is famous for.

- We still have all the same investigators, but we gathered a new 60 year man last week to add to our list.  He's had a bad experience with churches in the past and is really just looking for one that is honest and true (ding ding ding, we have a winner)

- Remember our family that we reactivated just 2 months ago?  Well they share farms with their uncle and their uncle raises dogs.  This week when we visited them, they slaughtered one of the dogs and fed it to us in the same day - just pure dog meat.  Crazy, huh!?  Most missionaries that "try dog meat" on their mission eat it in a restaurant as part of a famous Korean soup called Boshingtang.  Basically, it's the simplest way to eat dog meat, it's just part of a soup.  It's like eating chicken noodle soup and saying you ate chicken - you did, but not really.  So this week, I got the real deal and yes, it tasted and smelled (oh gosh it smelled) exactly how you would imagine a dog would taste and smell like...... like a dog.

- I still love the countryside and am just blown away by the beauty of everything every day.  I can't wait for everything to start turning green

-The Koreans are hard at work and the fields are now full of grandmas and grandpa farmers planting away

- Korea is OBSESSED with Frozen and they play every single song from that movie on the streets all day, every day.  I don't even know what the movie is about, but I've sure been able to memorize all the lyrics

-  Each day is a new adventure, I literally love every minute!

So I hope that gives you a little glimpse of my now.  If that wasn't good enough, I'll send some pictures to add to it.  Hope you all have a good week!  

Elder Crap

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