[ WEEK 2 IN KOREA! ]

Hello!

Well this week has definitely been interesting. Yes, we have received a TON of rain this week. A new record amount for Seoul actually. Nearly 500 mm in 2 1/2 days. My area definitely received a good amount of it. The streets were pretty flooded. They had to close some subway entrances to prevent the water from going down. There was one main street by our church that had about a good foot of water in 2 lanes. I would have taken a picture, but it was pouring at the moment. Sorry. So this week was much harder to do contacting because of the rain. People don't really want to talk to 2 people who don't know Korean very well when it is down pouring. BUT, we were still able to reach most of our goals, so that is good.

I am sorry that you guys weren't able to find the place I am serving on google maps. To be honest, I have no clue what the address of my house is, but the last picture that i attached is a view from the roof of our apartment, kinda cool. Pretty much the only thing I know about where I am is that it is somewhere within Seoul, it is more on the west side of it, so I would be in the Seoul West mission before they were combined. Other than that, I don't really know. I am still pretty lost here haha.

I ate a couple of interesting things this week that i have never had before. The first is duck. I was a little weirded out when i thought of what it was, but it didn't taste bad. I liked it i guess. Another interesting one was this like funky pasta stuff. The noodles were clear and i don't really know how to describe it. I had it at the restaurant that our ward mission leader owns. He is about 80 years old but is really nice. He says that we can eat at his restaurant for free whenever we want. When we went a couple days ago, i literally felt like i was going to pop. He would not stop bringing us meat. I can definitely say that that was the most meat I have ever had at one sitting. It was bulgogi (the meat we had at the Korean restaurant back home).

A lot of the people that meet us here are really only interested in talking to us to learn English. We love helping them and it is great, but they won't let us really teach the gospel. We do this thing called the 30-30 program where we do 30 min of English teaching then 30 minutes of gospel, but every time we say the English time is up and we will teach the gospel for 30 min, they always find a way to bring it back to English. It just gets a little frustrating.

So we have a new investigator and guess what, she is from VIETNAM, just like Thao!! Ironic, I definitely don't think so. She moved here from Vietnam 3 years ago. Her Korean is way good! Her name is Tan Tao and she is 18 years old. She has gospel interest, but it is just hard to teach her because she doesn't know any of the Gospel terms in Korean. We had a member from our ward there while we taught her though so he was able to explain what the terms meant for her. A Vietnamese Book of Mormon and pamphlets are on their way. It is funny how much she reminds me of Thao. I feel like it was such a blessing to be able to get to know Thao because i feel like it will really help me with teaching Tan Tao.

I think the hardest thing about being able to meet with people here are that they are just so busy all of the time. They are always working or in school. They never have a spare moment in the day. The kids go to school from 8 in the morning until 10 at night, no joke. The adults all work 14 and 15 hour days so it is just really difficult to find some who can listen to a lesson for 30 minutes.

On Saturday, our bishop "commanded" us to play basketball for 2 hours. Of course I was stoked! It was definitely needed to have some good old fun, but I swear Korean basketball is a different sport! haha. So start, the ceiling is way lower so i hit the top on my first 15 shots haha. Also, they just have weird little rules that just make no sense. So, I guess I got to learn to play to their style. It was definitely nice being a good 6 inches taller though haha.

Oh, something funny I did. So I was baring my testimony of how Thomas S. Monson is a prophet. However, instead of saying that, I guess I said "I know that Thomas S. Monson is blasphemy." WOOPS! I guess if you just change the word is (while speaking in testimony form) a little bit it becomes the word blasphemy. So, I won't be making that mistake again. Luckily, the person understood what i meant and it was all ok.



My testimony is stronger than ever. I have a huge smile on my face all day long as i walk along the streets of Korea sharing this happy message. I know that the only true source of happiness is through the gospel of Jesus Christ. I have a love for this work. I am doing all that I can to invite others to come unto Christ.

Well everyone, know that I am safe. There is no need to worry about me here. I am in the Lord's hands. He is watching over me. I love you all. Have a good safe week. I look forward to your question and emails next week. I love you.

Love,
Elder Messick

[ I'M IN KOREA!!! ]

Hi family and friends!!

Holy cow!!!!! This place is crazy!!!!! There are so many people here. Its nuts. So my companion's name is Elder Christensen. He is super cool. He is from Utah (of course haha). He has only been out for 51/2 months!!! We are a super young companionship so we kind of struggle through the lessons but that's alright because the spirit is the one who does the teaching. The name of my area nok beon (녹번). It is a little older, grosser, and dirtier than i was expecting, but i seriously love it so much. My companion and i stand out like a sore thumb here. Two tall white guys walking around in a white shirt and tie around millions of Asians. Its so awesome. We have so much fun with it.

It was so great to talk to all of you on the phone. Thank you for going though all the hastle with the phone cards and what not. It sure was awesome hearing all of you guys and how great all of you are.

The weather here is superrr hot and humid here. I am sweating like 5 minutes after my shower is over haha. By the end of the day i am soo tired, i just pass out. My body has pretty much adjusted now to the time change, I'm just so tired from all the walking. We walk a good 8 miles a day for sure. I will definitely be losing some weight haha.

We have only eaten at one members house since we have been here and that was the bishop's house. She didn't really have time to prepare the food so i guess when that is the case they just serve curry. So i lucked out and haven't eaten anything too extreme yet. But i made a total fool of myself at the bishops house because i was SO bad with the chopsticks!! It was the first meal i ate with them so i didn't get any time to get used to them haha. It was kind of embarrassing because i kept dropping the kim chee, but i think i got the hang of them now. I think the most extreme things i have eaten have been this like root soup and just some kim chee.

My ward is really small. There were about 45 people there yesterday and guess what!? I had to give a talk already! I was soo nervous i was shaking so bad up there. It was basically just an introduction of who i am and a simple testimony about Christ, Joseph Smith, and the Book of Mormon. I definitely felt the Spirit up there though because i knew that my message, although simple, was true.

So before i forget i wanted to give you my address, to make sure it's the same. I only get to pick up mail about every two weeks because it goes to the mission home. Well, here's the address:
Korea Seoul Mission
Gwanghwamun Po Box 210
Jongno-Gu
Seoul-si 110-602
South Korea

Moving on. Gosh there is just so much too tell I just don't know where to begin. There is so much that happens every day here i feel like. Right now we have 3 progressing investigators and one has a baptismal date for the middle of august, but none of them are too strong faith wise it seems like. Koreans kind of flake out on there appointments a lot. I think we had about 11 lessons scheduled this week and taught 4. So, we spend a ton of time just doing street contacting. It is kind of fun, but at times it gets frustrating because people don't give me the time of day to listen since my Korean is so poor. I feel like i look at my companion after every sentence the say to me to know that the said. Oh well, I know that it takes time and through my diligence the Lord will bless me. :) We aren't allowed to contact girls here unless they approach us. I guess its just a culture thing. It's a bummer because you see all these people around that i want to share this happy message with, but I'm not allowed too. I guess if the Lord has prepared them, they will approach us.

The amount of time for P-Day here is very slim. I have a total of 7 hours to do everything, including errands and eating. So, I won't get much letter writing time. My letters may be shorter now than they were in the MTC, but i do get 1 hour of email time so that's good.

My mission president is so awesome. He is really nice and i feel like he and i will definitely be getting along, which is good since he will kind of be like my second dad for his last year of service.

For our service hours each week, we teach English classes (not counting unplanned service of course). But we basically just teach them to read and stuff through reading gospel books, like the book Gospel Principles. Its good because they can learn of our beliefs while being able to learn English too. It is weird having to speak English so slowly and really pronouncing my words. It kind of worries me when i hear them speak English because i know that my Korean is nowhere near as good as their English and they still sound funny speaking English. That means i must sound pretty dumb. haha. One day I'll get it!!! You watch!

Our apartment is kind of old but its pretty big. It used to be a small 4 person apartment, but now its just us so its pretty sweet. I sleep on the top bunk. Ya that's right, we got lucky and have beds!!! Pretty sweet.

haha. The streets are super narrow and always crowded. People are always walking and ya it's just crowded. that's good for missionary work though because we always have people to try to contact.

We went door to door contacting in a big apartment complex on Sunday. Started on the 15th floor and worked our way down. We were only able to place one book of Mormon to this 19 year old girl. We will be contacting her tonight to see if she read any of it. Well, later during that door to door session, we actually got kicked out by the security guard. My companion asked why and he couldn't give us a good reason. After that, my companion was like, well since we have to leave we want to share a message with you. He totally contacted the security guard who was kicking us out. It was pretty funny. Anyways nothing really happened, we just had to leave.

Well, I'm not sure what else to really say so ask a ton of questions please. I love questions because it helps me know what you want to hear.

I just want to end with a little prompting i had this week. We had just left our apartment and we went to buy some tape to tape up some fliers for our English class. For some reason, i felt like i should just keep the plastic bag that they gave us when we bought the tape. 15 minutes later in the subway, there was a guy who was looking for a plastic bag. He was actually an English teacher. I was able to give him the bag and contact him for 15 minutes and get his phone number. I know it's super simple and not anything special, but it was just nice to know that God can still work though me even though my Korean is shaky. This is just one of the many spiritual experiences I have had in just 5 days.

I want you all to know that I love this work. I am having so much fun out here knowing that I am in the service of our God. I love him very much and there is nothing i would rather be doing right now than dedicating these 2 years of my life for him. Not only these 2 years, but the rest of my life. This mission has already changed me so much for the better. God has blessed each of us so much and i am so grateful for that. I know that this work is true. I love you all so much. I pray for each of you. Have a great week and I hope to hear from you soon!!! :)

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Love,
Elder Messick