Dear Family,
I am doing pretty well. This past
week was a lot more boring than the week before, so I don't have quite as much
to say. I'll answer your questions first though. I haven't noticed an
improvement in speaking the language yet. But I feel like I'm starting to
understand a lot more of what people say. I feel like it's especially hard
to understand people in the Busan area, because many people, especially the
older ones, have a really strong accent. Well, it's kind of like an
accent, it's called 사투리 (saturi) (yes, I can finally send things over email in
Korean because the keyboards are both English and Korean :)) and it's like a
different dialect of Korean. So really different sounding, and a lot of
different words that aren't used in other places. It's really annoying. But
my companion just recently told me that he has noticed an improvement in my
fluency, so that was really encouraging. I've actually already had two
opportunities to recite the First Vision (memorized and in Korean!!) to
investigators. It was pretty amazing, my MTC studies are already paying
off. :)
One of the opportunities was when I
went on an exchange with one of the zone leaders, Elder Flint, and we taught a
17 year old who had never been taught by the missionaries before. We
taught the Restoration, and Elder Flint invited him to be baptized. He
accepted without even hesitating. It was really amazing to see his faith and
his desire to know the truth for himself.
My interview with President Barrow
went really well, I really like him. Yes, he came to 통영
(Tongyeong). It was kind of awkward at first because I didn't know whether
to pray in Korean or English. I was thinking English because he is pretty
rusty in Korean from not using it since his mission, but I was thinking Korean
because you are supposed to use it as much as possible. So I did Korean,
but then he gave the closing prayer in English . . . whatever.
We don't sticker-board very often,
maybe once a week at the most. We usually have a lot of other stuff going
on. It's weird because it always seems like we have a ton of extra time
when we're planning the day, and then lots of things come up during the day and
we can't even do what we originally planned. Oh well, I guess that's just
life, huh? :)
I watched the priesthood session; I
watched all of conference over the weekend. It was really good, I
especially liked President Uchtdorf's talk, well, both of his talks actually,
since he spoke in Priesthood as well. Yeah, the MTC choir was pretty good,
I saw a ton of people who will be going to Korea. They were talking about
"tryouts" a little before I left. Basically they were just going
to give out a survey to anyone who wanted to do it, and then they would take
the people who were the most experienced with choir.
I'm acclimating a little bit [to the
food], I'm starting to like kimchi a little bit more, I can tolerate most
spiciness, and I don't get grossed out too often. So that's an
improvement. Earlier today, we went to the 시장 (it's like an
open-air market) and we passed by a bunch of pig heads sitting out in a
pile. It was really disgusting, but I stayed conscious. In fact, I
didn't even get light-headed or anything, so I was pretty proud of myself. :)
Oh, and I think there might actually
be a species of Bigfoot here in Korea. I haven't seen one, but I've seen signs
of its presence. It smells like old kimchi, and lives in the foothills
around rice fields. If I get a picture, I'll send it to you. Until
then, my eyes will be peeled.
So we went to the bishop's house for
lunch last week. It was really cool, because it was this old shack in the
middle of nowhere, right next to the ocean. The only other signs of human
life around it were a convenience store, some docks, and a few other houses. His house was really cramped; it reminded me
of the forts I always made with Colton out of tables and blankets. He has
a ton of electronics all over the place; apparently he finds broken things and
refurbishes them. The bishop was really nice, and he fed us really
well. It was this spicy (no surprise there) chicken and rice, with lots
of Asian pear, and a really good fruit drink that his wife made.
I have one other experience I want
to share. When I was coming back from the exchange with Elder Flint, Elder
Suter and I were getting on the bus. It was really crowded, so we had to
sit separately. I sat by an older woman, and it was really awkward at first
because I had no idea what to say. After a while, she asked if I was a
missionary, and so I told her a little bit about our church. She said she
is Christian, and that she plays piano for her church. I gave her a
pamphlet about The Gospel of Jesus Christ, with our phone number on it. It
was really cool, because that was the first time I have done anything like that
without Elder Suter's help. It was really awkward, of course, because I'm
terrible at Korean, and she knew almost no English. But everything worked
out in the end.
I guess this email ended up being a
little longer than I was thinking, you probably won't complain though, right :)
Love,
Elder Hines
No comments:
Post a Comment