Christmas in Korea

December 28, 2014

Christmas was pretty good, we visited a lot of the members, and they gave us a ton of food.  No kimchi or rice, unfortunately.  We now officially have no investigators.  There were two here left from the previous missionaries, one left to go to the US, and the other just informed us that he doesn't want to meet anymore.  So basically all we do now is visit members and less actives.

There are quite a few less actives that we visit, one super old guy who is North Korean who lives in a rest home, and a guy who lives in the middle of nowhere on the side of a mountain, as well as a couple others here and there.  

That's so cool that you got to talk to a missionary from Korea.  She has a friend in Gimcheon and you didn't find out who?  I can't believe you :)

So as far as missionary work here, there's not much at all to talk about.  It's pretty boring, very little to do.  But because of that, we have been able to visit members fairly frequently, and they seem to like us a lot.  We planned the Christmas party [we played some games, sang together, and ate dinner, basically that's it.], and they liked that a lot too.  So if we keep this up, we're never going to have to go shopping again :)

Have a great week, I love you so much!

Elder Hines

Gimcheon

December 21, 2014

My companion is great, he's super funny. He's from Oklahoma City, but unfortunately doesn't have a cool accent :)

Gimcheon is great, no complaints, except how cold it is and that the elders before us left us with only one investigator.

So yesterday we went out to eat as a branch after church. Yeah I know, pretty weird, but I guess that's just how Korea is, they don't see the Sabbath the same way that we do. The food we had was what I like to call "mystery mash." It was a ton of bean sprouts, with random stuff mixed in, mostly seafood. It had crab legs, with the shell (which was super annoying), oysters, and the spine, brain, and other organs of some unknown creature. Yeah, pretty disgusting. I just tried to think of the organs as crab meat, since they were white and a similar texture, and that help a lot, especially since the lady sitting next to me kept putting more on my plate. The brain wasn't half bad, kinda salty actually. Somehow I managed to get full and not feel too much like throwing up.

We have bikes in this area, it's one of the only areas in the mission with them. They are pieces of garbage though. The brakes don't work, the seat is terrible, the back tire has to be pumped up before every use, and they sound like they are going to fall apart any day. So we probably won't be using them too much.

I already told you about Skype, so I will call you around 8:00pm for you. Talk to you then, I can't wait!

Love, 
Elder Hines

First Transfer!

December 15, 2014  

I got transferred to the city of Gimcheon, and my new companion is Elder Payne. We are whitewashing the area, which is pretty stressful. I assume you don't know what that is, so I'll explain. Normally when people transfer, one stays in the area and the other leaves. But for various reasons, usually if the area isn't doing very well, the president will take both missionaries out of the area. So Elder Payne and I don't know the area at all. Elder Suter and I whitewashed Tongyeong, so I guess I get two whitewashes in a row...fun. My companion has been in Korea for almost a year, he came to the MTC last year in November. He is from Oklahoma. I like him a lot, he's pretty funny, and seems like a really hard worker. Elder Suter stayed in Tongyeong, and is actually training again. He's just such a good trainer :)

I've heard a ton about Tie Guy. He's in Busan though, so I haven't had a chance to visit yet.  I can't wait though, it sounds like heaven on Earth :)

I got your package yesterday, thank you so much! I'll definitely put those delicious seasoning mixes to good use :) And Elder Payne got from his parents a paper Christmas tree to put on the wall, so our new house is going to be very festive with those window clings as well :)

I love you too!

Elder Hines

Ward Conference

December 7, 2014

So I'm not sure if it was snowing this morning in the city of Tongyeong, but it was on a mountain next to it. We left at 5:00 this morning to get to the top before the sunrise, I'll send you some pictures. It was basically a blizzard for a lot of the time we were up there, it was the most snow Elder Suter has seen in Korea before. It was really fun, but I'm pretty tired now.

For lunch today we went to a meat buffet. Meat buffets are really cool because they have a ton of meat set out like a normal buffet, then you go and get what you want. In the middle of the table is a grill and you just cook the meat yourself. They are actually pretty popular in Korea, which is funny because Koreans always think Americans eat a ton of meat, but there are no meat buffets in the US. Koreans stereotypes of Americans are pretty funny. We were eating at a place called Mom's Touch for lunch (chicken sandwiches) and a guy sitting next to us leaned over and asked, "Is that small for an American burger?" It was about the same size, but made me really self-conscious of how much I was eating for the rest of the meal. 

I ate a whole octopus for the first time at the meat buffet, when I had it before it was just the legs. It wasn't too bad as far as flavor goes, just really chewy and hard to eat.

Ward conference was really good, we had almost double our usual church attendance, there were 44 people there! The musical number was pretty good. The people singing were pretty off-tune, but I thought the piano part sounded okay :) It was nice to finally be appreciated in this ward, since almost no one else has musical knowledge.

Have you seen the "He is the Gift" video yet? If not, you should watch it, it's pretty amazing.

There are two senior couples in this mission, one in the office, and one at the military base in Daegu. There are three districts in my zone, and six zones in the mission. There used to be five, but Jeju was just made it's own zone last transfer (Jeju is the island south of Korea). We have a gospel art book in our apartment, but we haven't used it for teaching before.  

Have a great week, I love you!

Elder Hines

Elder Hines and Brother EYH

Tongyeong at night

Elder Suter & Elder Hines

Early morning hike

Pretty sure this was staged to gross us out. Ew.

Thanksgiving in Korea

November 30, 2014

Thanksgiving was actually really good, I wasn't homesick at all. We had a "Fall Party" for English class, which happened to be on Thursday night, so that worked out well. We introduced them to American traditions, I think they liked it a lot. The sisters even obtained a pumpkin pie through means that can't be discussed over email since it could possibly have been illegal. Just kidding, it just felt that way since they are so hard to come by.

Okay, here's updates on the investigators:

EYH comes to church every week, and he meets with us once a week, but he doesn't feel ready for baptism so we're just waiting on that. Which is fine, I'm happy just being friends with him, I'm confident that he will be baptized eventually.

EM got busy and stopped meeting us, but he said he can start again this week, so we'll see how that goes.

KS is as awesome as ever, but we're just waiting for him to start his senior year of high school so he can try asking his parents about baptism with a chance of success.

We starting teaching a new investigator recently, KS. He is 16, and just showed up at English class two weeks ago. We have been teaching him twice a week, and in the last lesson we had with him he accepted a baptismal date for December 21! There's a good chance it might not work out, since we have to get permission from his parents, but it's awesome he accepted it. He has literally no Christian background, so we have to go really slowly when we teach him. He doesn't even know words that seem simple to members of the church, like "prophet," "apostle," or "holy ghost." And he has hearing aids, so he's hard to understand, which makes it even harder. But that's okay, it's good practice for me :)

Lately I've been trying to focus less on the language and more on teaching and the gospel. And the lesson when we gave a baptismal date to KS, I was able to say almost everything I wanted to, without having to struggle to find the words. The more I realize that my ability to speak doesn't matter, the less frustrated I am, and I'm more satisfied with the lessons I teach.

Want to hear about something disgusting I ate recently? A lady from English class gave us some oysters. Apparently Koreans think that they taste best when you eat them raw, so we tried some raw. It was probably one of the most disgusting things I've ever eaten, worse that raw beef and pig intestine. Yeah, we're only cooking those from now on :)

Ward conference is this upcoming Sunday, and the missionaries [Elder Suter, Sister Johnson & Sister Hill], along with the 4 primary children in our ward, are doing a musical number. It's the first verse of "I am a Child of God," and then all three verses of "Teach me to Walk in the Light." I'm playing the piano, and they had me make a transition between the two songs. Once again, the things I learned in AP Music Theory came in handy. I'm pretty sure I've used my knowledge from that class more than anything from any other class I took in High School.

They only wait to give us letters if we will be going to the mission home sometime soon, I actually got your letter on Thanksgiving, they just forwarded to me by mail. Of course I still want you to write me letters, why would you think I don't? I haven't heard anything about another 5K, hopefully not, it's too cold for that.

I hope you have a great week, I love you!

Elder Hines