Blogging in class...

I'm sitting in my technology for education class, and it's the ten minute break. At the beginning of the class, they wheeled in two carts full of MacBooks (how great is that?), and we're all sitting at our desks...learning how to set up blogs. I had to set up one using a different provider since I already had one. It's on Edublogs, which is just glorified Wordpress...trying to sell you things. www.blogformyclass.edublogs.org. It's not going to be exciting. It's going to turn into my "personal learning environment," or "PLE"...eg, where I post assignments.

I'm having a great time. Hooray for school!

Okay, back to work. I need to go update the other blog.

Photos! (Random)

I've been thinking about how I need to update things...everyone has a blog now, though. It's not quite as cool of a hobby as when I started it. I think that has been part of my delay.

I wanted to get some mission photos up. I wrote a lot about my time as a missionary in my emails that got posted, but there weren't any photos to go along with them! I finally uploaded (most of) my photos, and I pulled out a few to post here. It's a pretty random selection...
In my last area, Suwon, there was a restaurant that had the best kim bap in the world. And by that time, I had eaten a lot of kim bap for lunch or dinner when we were out and about (didn't eat it every day...but pretty close).
A member invited us to his steamed bread shop. These are made with rice flour, I think, and filled with red bean paste. A little tiny shop.
This is in my second area--Anyang stake. Gumcheon District of Seoul. I took the picture at the top floor of an apartment (that was on a hill). We had gone up to the top to start knocking on doors. Take an elevator to the top, then walk down, a floor at a time, knocking on all the doors... (I knocked on so many doors)
A threesome! Last area, I'm on the right, then Sister Choi (pronounced "chay") and Sister West. It was a holiday, and the missionaries had a sports get-together thing.
While I was in my second area, a bunch of missionaries got together on a Preparation Day and biked along the Han River. It was such a beautiful day.

Notes on Home

I'm back.

My parents and I explored Seoul for a week, then flew back home. It was a nice transition week. We visited some investigators and members who I wanted to see again. My parents were great--it was neat to see them sitting on the floor, eating with chopsticks....

When I came back, I started dusting off my Facebook account (Facebook is different!), getting a new cell phone, resurrecting internet banking.... I finally decided all of it will just take a little time. The blog, too.

I was told that when I got home, things would be the same. But things are different! The term "reverse culture shock" comes to mind--culture shock being going to a new place and not knowing how to function, how to do everything. And now I'm back and...I don't know how to do everything! Mostly with technology (wait...how do I log out of Facebook? And where did my wall go?) Also, social networking, opinions about products--the web feels more...instutionalized. It's like this social evolution is taking place, and on the internet, it is accellerated. First Facebook was for cool kids, and they started growing up and having families and weren't really kids anymore, and now everyone is on it....

And the news. Pretty much the only recurring dream I had on my mission was of turning on the radio to NPR. I missed it. Now listening to it, Mexico is going crazy, lots on healthcare, and you can comment to Talk of the Nation with Twitter. What?

I'm seeing the economy really is rough, too. Before I left, a mall in our neighborhood got leveled, and a major construction project to turn it into an outdoor mall and housing units started. I was so excited to come back and see it. But it's still a huge plot of dirt--the same as when I left. The project was halted. Not enough money.

And, well, I maybe got more done as a missionary. Even if I tell myself I'm going to sit down and read the scriptures at 8:00, I don't motivate myself to do it the same way having a companion and strict rules did. So that's another thing I'm learning--how to use time well, and get things done. Maybe we're all learning that.

Anyway, I'm speaking in church about my mission this Sunday at 1:00, and anyone is welcome over to our house from 4:30 on. Contact me and I'll give you more info.

Last Letter!

Hello! Last mission email, can you believe it?

A lot of things happening. Our area will be closing next week--the sister's will no longer be in that area. We will be packing the apartment up this week and turing investigators over to the elders, and the zone will actually become part of the Daejon Mission from March 4. We all got the announcement a few weeks ago--this will be a part of some adjustments in missions around the world. The rest of the Seoul West Mission will be combined with the Seoul Mission as of July.

It has been sad that what we're doing won't be continued with other sisters, but the same work will go on--and will go on well. And wonderful things are still happening--the most wonderful, and the most wonderful feeling when things are directed by the Spirit.

One of my two companions, Sister Choi, had to go home this week--she left on Tuesday night. The new school year is starting, so she had to leave a little early. She had been serving in Suwon for seven months, and touched a lot of people. There was an outpouring of love towards her with her leaving. A lot of people inviting us over, a lot of people wanting to see her.

One was the councilor in one of the bishopbricks of the wards we're in. They are a stalwart family--four kids, one a returned missionary, one on a mission now; his wife teaches lessons a lot with us. He asked us to stop by and say hello at his chin bang shop--sweet buns filled with black beans and steamed. We got off the bus and wandered through a market street to find his shop--it was tiny. He fed us buns as we talked and shared favorite scriptures.

I don't know if he was saying anything in particular, but for some reason my thoughts were on Christ, filled with thoughts of Christ, and changed my mind on what I had planned on sharing, trying to find a verse that reflected what I was feeling. The best I could find in the moment was 2 Nephi 4: 20, from "Nephi's Psalm," from Nephi, who crossed an ocean, who's brothers hated him, who trusted God and did what he said: "My God hath been my support; he hath led me through mine afflictions in the wilderness; and he hath preserved me upon the waters of the great deep."

I had this warm feeling. I felt close to my Savior. I felt that He was with me, and I felt like He had been with me the whole time. That He had been with me through all of it. I feel guilty so often--I know I am insufficient, I know I don't make good choices sometimes, I know I don't do as much as I could or should. And I felt like He knew, and forgave me, and that it was okay.

Walking out on the street, down through that market, I felt, Christ is here, among these people. I felt connected to everyone, but not person-to-person, but because I was connected to Christ, and He knew every one of the people I was seeing on the street, on the sidewalk, on the bus. I felt love. I felt like I knew. I felt like Christ was with me.

I am grateful for my mission.

I love you all, and I'm so excited to SEE YOU SOON!

--Carrie

Letter from 17 February 2010

Hello!

This past week was the Lunar New Year, so things were a bit slower. It's one of the biggest holidays of the year. It fell on Sunday this year--the same day as Valentine's Day--which meant everyone got a short weeked for the celebration, but it actually worked better for us. That way more days to be out doing things.

A member who knows Sister Choi somehow invited us out to lunch that day. Most wards moved Sacrament meeting to three, so we went out before church. We would be attending a different ward than her ward, and the lunch went long, so we all piled in the car after we were done--the missionaries, her husband, two kids. We continued chatting as we went. She dropped of her family at their building, and then continued to drive us to where we would be attending.

I was surprized at how I felt when everyone left--"now we can really talk to her," was kind of the feeling. Coming to Korea, I was a little concerned with...well, with how women would be treated here. It's a very Confusician (sp??) society, and he wasn't too fond of women. There is a little more separation between men and women--and that has meant I have spent most of my time with women. I realized on Sunday how much I enjoy these fine women I have met with, talked with, laughed and cried with. My mission has taught me so many things.

Love You!

Carrie

Letter from 11 February 2010

Hello!

Today was temple day. I always think about family in the temple. The next time I go I will be there with my parents--I'm so excited! The last week or so I've felt a longing for my family like I've never felt on my mission--even at the beginning. It makes me think about our heavenly home, also. How after this life, we return to our Heavely Father. This last weekend, Elder Oaks of the Quorum of the Twelve visited Seoul. We went with some less active members to a fireside where he spoke. His wife spoke before him. And Sister Oaks said something I really liked. She said sometimes we feel longings for closeness, for goodness; feelings of sadness or similar feelings. She said those things help us remember that we don't belong here. They help us remember that we are celestial beings, living in a fallen world. This isn't our home.

There were more church members than I have ever seen in one place gathered at the fireside. It was a neat experience. And there were members from every area I've served in. One especially neat experience: I saw Jae hyun. She's a young woman from my first area. My...maybe third or forth month in Korea, my companion, Sister Bang, and I would meet with her. She was preparing to take the big high school graduation exam, and to take the TOFEL English test to be able to go study abroad. She's the only church member in her family. Sister Bang offered that we could do the 30-30 program with her--help her with English, and then share a gospel message.

I remember that Sister Bang and I often walked away from those appointments a little disappointed. Jae hyun had been spending her time studying comic books instead of for the exams she wanted to pass so badly. And then she got a part time job that meant she would have to work on Sunday--making going to church difficult. She talked about how she wanted her testimony of the gospel to grow. I talked about how God doesn't move--but we can get closer or farther away from Him, holding up my fingers to show the variable distance--and asked her, for one week, to pray and read the scriptures every day. The next week we met, and she hadn't done it.

That was a year ago. Then, on Sunday night, in the crowd of people, there was a familiar face. "Sister Gold! Guess what! I'm going to college!" She was so excited she could hardly stand it. She got in to a school just outside of Seoul. She'll live in the dorms. Maybe go to church twice a month there, and twice a month at her home ward in Seoul. She talked to me, gave me her address, and then held her fingers just like I had when I told her about how we can be nearer or farther from God. I had forgotten that I had done that. All of a sudden I remembered how urgently I had wanted her to understand that, how I had so little Korean to communicate it, how I wanted her to know and to make choices that would make her happy.

I had forgotten, but she remembered. It was so amazing to see her.

And always more amazing experiences ahead.

With lots of love,

Carrie

Letter from 3 February 2010

Ah, sorry--no time. I spent most of email time today registering for BYU classes. I now have two companions waiting....

All is well in Happy Suwon (that's the city motto, and it's everywhere. Happy Suwon). A wonderful transfer. I feel like I'm dying, though. A meeting with a Ward Mission Leader and the elders this week, talking about all these new ideas and things to try...and I won't be around for them....

Things are wonderful. I'm grateful for my mission.

--Carrie