Perfect Saturday; Two-Week Countdown

11 Nov 2008

Hello, all!

I am scheduled to leave on November 24--two weeks from yesterday! It snuck up on me--I was settling in to the MTC for the long haul and all of a sudden I am tying up loose ends again and getting ready to move on (something I have a feeling I will be doing often during the next few months). I am less scared and more excited to go. The cafeteria is helping with that--they do a good job, but I am anxious for Korean food.

Last Saturday was lovely. Classes in the morning, like usual. On Saturdays we have our "Teaching Appointment," where we go teach volunteers who are pretending to be investigators. I didn't feel ready at all, but we had time to practice and prepare that morning and afternoon.

When we go to the Teaching Appointment, we first have a "task," where we do something new in the language with the volunteers, like talk about food or give directions. On Saturday, we were supposed to ask for referrals--if the person knew anyone else who might be interested in meeting with us. The volunteer was a teenage girl from Korea, and when we asked her, she said, "yes, my friend."

"Where do they live?" Sister Jensen asked (though not quite so eloquently, as it was in Korean).

"In Seoul," she said.

She wrote down their names for us, and I said, "Wait, really?"

She really did have two friends in Seoul who she thought might be interested. We had her write down their addresses--and we walked out with two actual referrals! After, the lesson we taught in Korean went slowly (as we tried to find the words we needed somewhere in our heads), but very well.

Also on Saturday, I got lots of mail! My mom sent me the front page of the Deseret News from election day--which made me feel so loved (if a little guilty). And I got a big envelope from my cousin's family--April and Kevin and kids--with each of them having contributed something. It was so wonderful to read through their kind words! I also got a note from a friend who recently left the MTC and is in Montreal.

Then, that night was our district's time to go to the Referral Center, where we do outbound calls to people who have ordered free material from the church and take inbound chats and calls from people with questions. I ended up chatting with a fourteen-year-old I had chatted with before who is just excited about the Church and the Book of Mormon--ended up doing the first lesson over chat! Just a good day as a missionary.

I love you all!