December 24, 2014 (Week 1)

December 24, 2014 (first email)

Climbing the walls at the MTC

Hey, quick email, hopefully I can get to talk later. I'll send pictures later too. MTC is pretty cool. The first few days were way overwhelming trying to learn the language, while learning to teach in Korean, while trying to understand how the MTC works. I can't really remember my first day already, since so much has happened already. 

The Korean is coming along pretty well, for as well as I can for learning for a week. It's still hard trying to teach, but having a limited vocabulary.

 

Gotta go, I'll talk to later today. I'm calling from 3:15-3:45 tomorrow, by the way.

Love, Elder Mortensen

So ya... I'm back for an hour. This week went by really quickly, yet really slowly. Elder Smith was the one who picked me up. He is Mandarin speaking Alberta Canada mission or something like that. They got me all set up and to class, but I was late, so I was the last one in the class and they had already started. I hadn't even got to watch the orientation video they have. Sister Wynn is my Korean teacher, and she is pretty good. It's frustrating how little they speak of English though. That was basically my first day. 

Elder Cazier is my companion. He is from Washington and we are the only ones in our room, so its kinda quiet in there. He's pretty cool, but it's just hard getting on the same page with each other

I'm on the top floor of 14m building with the other Asian languages in the building. My class is in 7m building, so I don't know where Conner was at for either of those. Speaking of him, what are his and Riley's emails? I don't know them...

The next few days were just more Korean learning class, and teaching an investigator. That sucked. I had no idea we were supposed to teach someone in only Korean on the second day. That was a nightmare trying to speak to him when he just rambled on in Korean. I've slowly gotten better at reading Korean, but my pronunciation sucks. It's hard that they want us to learn to say things more than just easy sentences, but we don't know the vocab for that yet... 

On Sunday it was a nice break from teaching and studying Korean all day. We had a devotional with our zone, then we went for a temple walk. And of course Sunday was the only day that it was downpouring, but ya, it was a good time just walking around outside. 

Christmas around here is weird. I haven't even had time to think about Christmas with how much they've given us. Tonight we have some activity planned, but I don't know what it is. Tomorrow we have like three devotionals, with a Gen. Auth. coming to speak to us. Presiding Bishop Stevenson spoke last night. 

I know now what Conner meant by the MTC being a necessary evil. I'm so sick of the structure here, and it's just one big clique. They have the Asians in one place always together, the Americans in one place, etc. It's kinda annoying. Plus, I'm bored of just repeating the same thing over and over again. I want to get out there and go actually do something. I don't know if I'm going to be sane by 9 weeks time. It's incredible how much of the language you actually learn and stuff, but at times it just too much, and too crammed. I feel like they should give you a week to learn Korean before trying to teach, on top of giving us the assignment of writing a talk in case of getting called on for Sacrament Meeting. 

I haven't really been homesick, but I have flashes where I think that it would be easier to just stay home and go to school and whatnot. Those come and go, but I try not to dwell on it. Hope you guys are doing okay without me being there. Hopefully you aren't partying too much, haha. 

Thanks for the package by the way. Mom, where did you find those crossbows? I was not expecting that at all. They are fun though. Really quick though, can you send me sheet music of John Schmidts "I Do"? It is in the black book. Other than that I'm pretty set. Can you send me pictures of the the family, Brad, Shay and Bronson, and Dash too? Even if its just an email. I don't need much, but I'll let you know if I do.

Random Pumpkin at their door

I've seen so many people here from Bingham High School.... its weird. I've seen Hayden a couple times, and Tate Stroud (soccer) is in my zone. He is going to Pusan though...  We came to our dorms and saw this pumpkin there. I guess it's been here since Halloween, haha 

I think that's all I've done this week, so I'll end it there. See you at 3:15 tomorrow!

Let me know if you got the pictures.

Love, Elder Mortensen

December 19, 2014 (Week 1) (Mailed Letter)

December 19, 2014

Rainy Day at the Temple

Hey Family,

Quick heads up, I'm calling on Christmas sometime between 3:15-5:15.  Sorry, I don't know any more specifics that that. It will probably be 1/2 hour.

My P-Days will be on Thursdays, probably will switch to Monday out in the field.

My companion is Elder Cazier from Washington state.  Tonight we finally clicked after our lesson.  Oh yeah, we had to give our lesson in Korean to an "investigator" tonight.  Holy freak that sucked.  We sat there in awkward silence while he rambled on in Korean.  We sat there and just nodded and said yes over and over again, haha.

Korean is hard, but today I've finally begun to put the characters together. It's actually pretty simple.  They just stack different sounds to form a word

roughly translates to "josep sumisu' or Joseph Smith.  I feel like I'm close to getting it down, but it's still weird.

MTC Christmas Lights

I don't know who said the food is great here, because I don't think so.  <- random side note... I feel like I'm tired of the MTC already.  Sometimes it feels dull.  I'm just ready to leave

I'll write more on P-Day, but I gotta go.  Just know it's hard, but I'm loving it.

Love,
Elder Mortensen

Entering the MTC... December 17, 2014

December 17, 2014

Last group photo in front of the MTC

Well it's a done deal. We dropped him off at 1:30 today.  We were greeted by a missionary who took his suitcases.  We said a couple of last goodbyes and gave him a quick hug.  An older man came up and introduced himself to Garrett as a member of the new MTC missionary presidency and wanted to see how the curbside drop off and initial processing worked.   We last saw them walking toward the front doors.


We haven't heard when his P-day will be yet.  I'll post updates here when he sends us letters/emails.

Couple of fun pictures from the day!

Last "shot" with the boys. (Martinelli's Apple Cider)