Letter from 2 April 2009

Hello!

Another good week--I hope for all of you, too.

On Saturday, we had a marathon lesson with Shin Dong oon and her neice and nephew. We've been meeting them for maybe two months now, but had a good chunk of material to cover in one night so that they could be interviewed for baptism on Sunday. Sunday we went to their house with two of the elders, and waited as Shin Dong oon and her nephew were interviewed (her neice will be later this week).

I worry a bit about how much they understand about what we taught. I worry that maybe they don't understand with baptism, they're making a promise about how they are going to live...that it's not just an action that happens once and is over. I have been learning a lot about baptism over the past few years and especially past few months, and I guess...realizing I understand it a bit better I'm also realizing there's a lot I don't understand. And that not understanding is okay as long as we keep learning.

We had a similar lesson on Friday with Song Bo mi (not Song Bom ee like we thought), who is going with this group to Fiji, and also anxious to get baptized. We met along with a church member, Kim Hyon jin. She's two years younger than I am and thinking about going on a mission. She is beautiful, studies law at university, always brings bread or a treat when she comes and teaches with us. She wants to serve at Temple Square in Salt Lake if she goes--but if she goes or not, she's a missionary.

A wonderful one. Sunday we had an activity with the ward and some members came and talked to people on the street with us. I grabbed her and got her to come with me. Her enthusiasm was a lot of fun--handing pamphlet after pamphlet to people who would stand still long enough for her to talk to them. And on Friday after that lesson, Sister Bang and I were walking back to the subway, Kim Hyon Jin to the bus. Chatting--mostly her and Sister Bang. And when we were parting ways, she grabbed my arm and said something about getting some dok to eat. We had to get back to our apartment by 9:30.

But I would have liked to.

Letter from 25 March 2009

Hello!

It was a good week. Things are picking up again in our area. We have been meeting with an aunt (Shin Dong oon) and her neice (Hyun jong) and nephew (Soo hyun) who will be going to Fiji soon for the neice and nephew to study there (they can go to an English language school). While there, they will live with friends--members of the Church. The friends told them about the missionaries--they could learn about the Chruch and also do some English practice. So we have been meeting with them for maybe a couple of months, and they want to get baptized. We meet with them in their big, new apartment. We sit on the floor, and Shin Dong oon gives us oranges or milk. During English time, Hyun jong tells me about her boyfriend who lives in Incheon and taking pictures with her friends. A couple weeks ago she gave me a book about learning Korean.

Also, Sing Dong oon gave us the name of another student who will be going with them--Bom ee. The whole group of them--all four--came to church on Sunday, and meeting with Bom ee is really neat. She's in middle school, and her mom sews church choir robes from home. She asks good questions, and reads the Book of Mormon, and has prayed. And there is just such a neat feeling when we meet with her.

We always teach about the church in Korean, so I can't always understand investigators well, or talk to them a lot. But we do English practice with her, too, and in Korean and English, she is just bright and smiley. I enjoy our visits.

And Korean is getting better. I feel like I am starting to be able to connect with people some through Korean. And that is making missionary work a lot more exciting--when people have feelings and personailites and names and concerns and ideas and things they love. I'm really grateful for every bit I can understand--though it's still very little.

I "passed off" this week with one of the zone leaders--I had to learn a ton of vocabulary, learn all of the lessons in Korean (we only did the first two at the MTC), learn scripture references. I wasn't excited about passing it all off, but the zone leader used it as a teaching experience, and I went away encouraged about things. And after, Sister Bang and I stopped at a mart to get a treat to celebrate. I got a snack, from the picture it looked like it was chocolate with a nut in the middle, little balls. I opened the bag and as a fish smell came out, I asked her what it was.

"It's squid flavor," she said.

"How do you say 'squid' in Korean?" I asked.

She pointed to the huge writing on the bag.

Squid and peanut. It was actually pretty good.

Outside the sky is light with stars

12 March 2009

Hello!

Sunday Sister Bang and I split and went to two different wards--I went to Seongnam church by our house, and she went to Songpa church. Between the two, we had six new people at church! The most I've had in one week! It was great.

We don't have many investigators lately, but we have some really good ones. After church, Pak Yong mi, my companion church, went with me to Songpa. At Songpa, three investigators stayed after sacrament meeting to see a baptisimal service. And one, Min Un bi, stayed after that for the kim bap lunch they had.

The women at Songpa were putting together a dance for a Relief Society get-together that will be this Saturday, and after some cajoling (sp?), the investigator--Un bi--and Sister Bang and I were all of a sudden all learning the dances to "Beautiful Girl" and "Nobody but You"--two pop songs that are popular right now. It was a lot of fun, and it was good to see Un bi has fun at the church. I think we will be performing the dances with the ward on Saturday night.

During the week we had one really long walking day. We had just one appointment that night, so we went all over Songpa trying to visit some members who don't come out to church as often. We visited six different houses (another record for one day), only one person was home. Then our appointment cancelled. Church members are so, so kind to us, feeding us dinner, etc--I figured it was a day of earning their kindness.

Yesterday we met with Yoo Jung and her daughters. She lives with her four daughters, husband, and parents in a great big apartment. She's the only member of the church among them, but hasn't come to church in a long time. We do some English with three of the daughters then teach a gospel lesson once or twice a week. The daughters love singing church songs, and last night we brought a new one to sing with them (in English, "Families Can Be Together Forever"). Sister Bang and I told them we'd sing it once so they could start to learn it. As we were singing, Yoo Jung started singing, too. She knew all the words.

It was really neat.

I hope you all have a wonderful week!

Much love,

Carrie

Letter from 4 March 2009

Hello!

A quick one:)

This Sunday we had a baptism--the mother of the members of the ward. I got asked to give a talk on baptism and the Holy Ghost, which took a bit of preparation, but went all right. The service was after sacrament meeting. When sacrament meeting ended, all at the same time I was trying to say hello to one member and follow Sister Bong who was hurrying me to get Kim Jae rae dressed and ready and then Jae rae's daughter in law handed me a set of scriptures I was supposed to write a nice note and sign it (I don't actually really do that well in Korean)...but it all came together and she got baptized and it was wonderful.

A lot of investigators have dropped us lately, so we've spent a lot of time looking up addresses in the stake directory and walking and looking for their houses to try to visit them. Slow going. And Sister Bong has a hole in her shoe so her feet get wet when it rains.

This week we met again with a woman who wants to do the English program--but turns out isn't too interested in the gospel message. We met her with a member from the ward. The member bore her testimony of why she knows this gospel is true, why she lives this way...and, as Sister Bong explained to me after, the investigator just told her she was wrong to think that way. This went on for a half hour.

The member was absolutely wonderful, though, and she bought us ho dok--all of us, including the investigator--as we waited for the bus. She has a huge smile and likes red, and I don't think I will forget how as we waited, her smiling at me, waiving me over to the ho dok stand--"you must be hungry!"

With love,

Carrie

Feb 26 Letter to Family

Hello!

We went to the temple this morning. It's about a hour and a half on the subway. We left about 8:00 and hit some rush-hour people traffic. A man in a nice uniform put his hand on my back and pushed me hard into one of the subways, but maybe not enough--the umbrella in my bag got caught in the door and he said something in his walkie-talkie to get the conductor to open it again.

It was a good week. A longer one. I get to help plan our schedule now--yay!--but there's a little more stress involved. We've had lots of people cancel and people who don't want to meet anymore (they say very politely: we've been so busy lately, and tonight we have plans...we'll call you when we have time again). Tuesday we ended up walking around a lot trying to visit members, but they had all moved or weren't home. We did have one appointment that night, and Sister Bang showed me new Korean food (she was sad when she found out I had eaten so much kim bap--"but there are so many good Korean foods!"). That evening it was a soup with huge backbones with meat on them. It comes out boiling (they head the bowl strait over a gas burner) and you pick off the meat and eat it with rice and kim chee. Yum.

Lots of love!!

--Carrie

Sweet memories: Why was a humming as if I know

2-18-09

Hello!

A big week! An investigator had a baptisimal interview, someone taught us to make kim chee stew, and I have a new companion! Exciting things.

Sunday was stake conference, so we went to church at a different chapel. It's a new building, four stories, big! I was surprized when I saw it. In the elevator there's an "F" button instead of a "4," since four is a bad-luck number in this part of the world (like how some buildings in the US don't have a 13th floor...right? Or am I making that up?). After the meeting, kim bap (like sushi) and tangerines and dak (glutenous rice dumplings...sort of...) were passed around and Sister Romney made small talk with people while we waited for Kim Jae rae in her baptisimal interview. She passed.

Also this week we got phone calls about transfers. All the sisters but one pair got moved around. I am staying in the same area, and my new companion is Sister Bang Ae ra. Her name, Ae ra, means "piles of love." I was excited when the mission president told me--I couldn't ask for anything better. Everyone says she's an angel, and since meeting her this morning, she has lived up to that. And I'm so excited to be with a Korean sister! I'm grateful, too, that she doesn't speak much English. I want so, so badly to learn Korean and Korea. I am excited.

I am super nervous, though, that I'm the one who's supposed to know this area. Ahh! We spent some time looking through the record books today and I don't know many people in them. And navigation is going to be an adventure. Thankfully, Sister Romney will still live in the same house! She got transferred to the other side of the stake--she moved across the hall. I'm grateful she's there to answer questions, help Sister Bang get to know the area too, etc.

Since Sister Romney knew she was leaving, there were lots of goodbyes this week. She loves kim chee stew, so last night Lee Mi hae showed us how to make it. I made some more for everyone this afternoon, and it turned out pretty good.

I send my love!

--Carrie

Honorific Teeth

2-11-09

This morning during Korean study I found out there is an honorific word for teeth. I am starting to realize some of the things that make Korean hard. Honorific things--different words for people above you. And that it's just plain different from English. I know four ways to say "and" now--between verbs, between nouns, at the end of a list, between sentences. I still don't really know how to make things negative (which sometimes makes things interesting), or really how to say "you," since Korean doesn't use "you," it uses titles, and I don't always know what title is appropriate.

It is coming, though. Last Sunday my companion and I did an exchange--she went to Songpa ward, and I went to Songnam ward for church. We had ward members as companions during that time. My companion, Kim Young mi, just got back from a mission in Pusan, Korea. The plan was that Sister Romney would be in Songpa for two people coming to church for the first time, and in Songnam I would teach a lesson to someone preparing to be baptized--Kim Jae rae--during church and after to someone who just started meeting with us.

Kim Jae rae's baptisimal date has kind of been moving around--just because of logistics. Her son is in the bishopbrick, though, and she's been attending church regularly for the past few months. She had been taught everything but the lesson on commandments--which is long, so Sister Romney and I had planned on breaking it up over two lessons in the next couple of weeks. Sunday morning, after talking with some of the ward members, she decided she wanted to be baptized the following Sunday.

So thank heavens for Kim Yong mi--we taught together the rest of what she needed to learn, and then I talked to the elders about an interview that day. I felt triumphant figuring all of this out in Korean--and excited the baptism was being moved up. Everything was good until I asked Jae rae's son for a form for her interview (because he's in the bishoprick), and he said (I summized) what's the rush? Just get baptized a bit later. Now the plan is March 1st.

Poor Sister Romney in Songpa--neither of the new people came to church, and she was frustrated we went through it all to arrange doing an exchange when they didn't come. The next (Monday) night, too, all of our plans for Tuesday except one appointment fell through. We called everyone we could think of and no one wanted to meet, do anything. She was an absolute wreck. Tuesday we were supposed to do a special training with two elders. They are finishing their missions--going home it two weeks--and the mission president gave them the assignment of spending a day with each companionship in the mission.

Originally we had a full day planned to do with them--four appointments--and they, and backup plans, just started to fall through. Sick. Busy. Freaked out by having four missionaries come to see her. Didn't what to meet with us again, period. Didn't answer. Can't visit because kids study at home. We went to bed not really knowing what we were going to do with this special day when we were supposed to learn alot and have a lot to do.

But it worked out wonderfully. It turned out we had the day open to ask questions we needed answers for. I had been so nervous about being overwhelmed by the training--overwhelmed by them shadowing us in lessons, about them judging me, judging us. I think it would have been hard for Sister Romney, too. Instead, we got to talk about how to do things better. How to help people come to church. How to find new people to teach. How to get ward members to trust us. How to encourage people and build them up and help them do things that will help them learn and progress. Questions about things we had been wondering about. It just turned out perfectly.

Well, I'm out of time, but I hope you all have a wonderful week.

Much love,

Carrie