Hello Everybody!
I am in Korea, so that is
exciting. I am in 영등포
(young doung poe). It is like the center of Seoul. So we have the embassy/congress
building,
My companion is Elder Grossgebauer. The Koreans think it is such a hard name because it is a bunch of hard consonants in a row, so that is funny. Anyway, he is really nice. He is the District leader and we live with the zone leaders. Elder Grossgebauer served in the area before just after being trained. So he knows some people which is nice. These two transfers with me will be the last of his mission, so we will hopefully work hard and be successful for him. He has helped several people get close to baptism, but has always been transferred before they were actually baptized. So we are going to get him a baptism! Actually our goal is 2. The problem with that is we have no investigators. So, it will be pretty miraculous if that happens, but God can do all things. The people of Korea are super nice, especially because we are American and missionaries. However, nobody actually wants to listen to us. A lot of people will just say they are busy. Or some will just ignore us and look the other way and walk away. But a lot of people will talk to us, and accept what we have to give them and even say they will call, but nobody does. Nobody is mean though, so that is nice.
Another cool thing about Korea
is that it is super high tech, fashionable, and polite. So when I get on the
subway, it is clean, silent, there are six seats for elderly, or disabled on
the end and those are empty, unless old people are sitting there. Every other
seat is filled with super classy people and nobody talks much. If they do it is
quiet. And EVERYBODY is on their smartphone, including the grandmas and
grandpas. So it is a little funny trying to talk to people. They are pretty
nice since we are foreigners but they think us trying to talk with them is
weird.
Pretty much how it works
here is that your district are the missionaries in your ward, so we have 6
missionaries in our district, the four of us in the apartment and two sisters.
Plus we are blessed since we got this little castle church (it looks like a red
brick castle) to have an English branch as well, which is actually bigger than the
Korean ward. So I could actually understand what was being said there! haha.
Church was pretty exhausting. I catch words and sentence patterns and stuff,
but really have very little idea what is really being said. I can figure out
general topics. So just focusing and trying to figure out what they are saying
is exhausting. Pretty much everybody speaks better English than I speak Korean,
so I still end up talking quite a bit of English. Our bishop is fluent in
English so that is nice. They took us out to eat and bought me some none spicy
Korean food. Then after church the bishop’s wife and a bunch of the ladies from
the ward made a little dinner/lunch for us and the bishop, it is really cute.
They definitely have specific roles for men and women.
One of my favorite parts of my
week is teaching English class. It is kind of fun being on the other said of
language learning and having to talk really slowly for them to understand me.
English is a crazy language. Plus in one of these classes there was a lady who
is inactive I think. She just talked about her work and stuff. Anyway it led to
a discussion of what rich really is. And how important family is and stuff.
Everybody seemed interested and I guess it was some good English practice
too.
The food is good. I haven't had
too much Korean food yet, but what I have had is good. The soup thing the
sisters in the ward made had a bunch of muscles in them. I don't love the fishy
taste still but I ate them all. So no crazy food stories yet. Anyway I don't really know how
to street contact well since I can't communicate super well. Any suggestions?
Here is my letter to the mission president.
Hey President,
This week was good! I love my
area. Right in the middle of the big city. We don't have any investigators, so
I don't feel like a super effective missionary currently. I can't really
hold conversation with people well, and most of the time we just go and talk
with people, so my companion does most of the talking. The rest of the time we
do ward activities and stuff. So I have enjoyed it. It is a little funny doing
the 12 week program with no investigators since it asks us to apply all of the
principles to our investigators. However, I am still learning a lot. My
companion is great. He really cares about people. And I will be his last
companion, so we are going to try to work hard to the end. I don't feel like he
is an amazingly hard worker, but we do talk and our relationship is also
important so I don't know what the right balance is.
Cool story from the week. We
were going to go and visit some people Elder Grossgebauer knew when he was
previously here who all weren't there. However while we were walking there was
a kid around our age who was carrying this big mettle case, so I asked
"what is that thing?" And he said it a camera. After that I couldn't
converse much, but my companion took over. It turns out he was just really nice
and a good kid. We walked with him and helped him find the subway. He gave us
his phone number and said he would like to eat with us today, so hopefully we
will get him to come to the family night at the church tonight. Anyway, who
knows if anything will happen with him but opening your mouth does bring
opportunities and blessings.
Elder Sabey
P.S. I get an hour and a half to
email so I should have enough time. Oh plus I am going to a bath house today,
which is a big Korean thing. So I will report on that next week. Haha :) And
another thought Mom, you could maybe sometimes change the name of the post on
my Facebook if you want just to mix things up if you want to. Thanks for all
the letters!
Also,
so fun facts. They don't have beds here. Just mats you use on the floor.
Showers also aren't a thing. hey just have the shower head coming out of the sink and there is a drain in the floor so the whole bathroom is your shower. Plus a lot of places of bodet? The thing that squirts water in the toilet... I have no idea how French spelling works. Though I think most apartments don't have them. Also I didn't say too much about my first little bit. My mission president and his wife are nice. I don't know them super well yet.  We spent the first day or say with them and that was nice. We had some delicious food. Love you all again! |
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