Letter from 1 July 2009

Hello!

This morning, I was doing crunches in the park, and an "aunt," as thery're called here--an woman in maybe her 60's or 70's--came up to me and said I was doing it wrong. She held my knees and counted loudly to ten (in case everyone wasn't staring at the foreigner already) as I did full situps. She said something about *that's* the way you loose weight on your stomach, and walked away.

This week, we met with Yoon Dong-hee, who talked about the "aunts." She said sometimes they're called the "third gender." They have opinions, do what they want to do, have strong wills. Strong. Not male or female, Yoon Dong-hee said. The third gender.

We've been meeting Yoon Dong-hee for maybe four weeks now. We go out on the bus on Monday mornings and meet her at a community center near the girls dorm where she lives. She's a graduate student, wants to practice English. She always gives us something to eat or drink when we see her--last time, she brought a plate of mandu wrapped up in newspaper and two sets of chopsticks that she had prepared at her apartment. Her mother is a preacher, and she said she believed in religion, but nothing specific. She kind of has the same view a lot of people do, it seems--Christ, Buddha, others were good teachers. The mountain analogy: there are many paths, but they all lead to the top.

But she's progressing, which is amazing. She reads the Book of Mormon, asks questions about it. She prays. She wants to attend church. And now...we're passing her off to another set of missionaries. She's technically in our area, but the church building that's closer is in another area.

We also met with Byun Shin-jeong again this week. We talked more about baptism. She lost her job, and she's planning on taking an exam the next two weeks on Sunday (Koreans are often taking tests, and more often studying for them). She knows she can attend church one of the two, but isn't sure about the other week. She said she wants to wait a little longer before she's baptized--because you have to keep going to church after you're baptized, right? That's how she asked it. She gets it.

I also got letters this week--and was so, so grateful for them. They were filled with kind words, testimonies of the Savior and the atonement. They helped me when I was feeling a little down. So thank you, thank you, thank you.

Much love,

Carrie