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
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