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
No comments:
Post a Comment