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| Garrett looking at Bible from a collector |
Monday was sending stuff off. They got to the apartment in good condition, although Koreans go crazy with the tape and zip ties... Took forever to get those suckers off. But after email we went and shopped for new pants, since Elder Yetter has ripped all of his pants, or doesn't fit into them due to a gain in his weight, haha. It was fun to give him crap about that. After that we got punked by a guy who has done that a couple times now 이현철. He was a good guy, now he just cancels on us. We met with 이용훈 for my last time, and talked about more commandments and how he keeps bailing on church (not sure if he went this week). He says he is going to keep all of them, but the problem now is getting parent permission. I guess his parents don't like church, so hopefully Elders Yetter and Hansen can work some foreigner magic and get the ok for baptism.
Tuesday was not a whole lot going on. Kinda weird to jundo, set appointments, then to realize that I wouldn't be there for that... We jundoed around for a couple hours then met up with a kid named Jason. He is from Georgia, but is chillin' in Korea for a while. His grandma is in Korea so he is visiting. He is a Seventh Day Adventist, so we talked a little bit about that. Nice guy. We didn't push too hard to convert him, although he wasn't too firm in his beliefs. Not sure if Elder Yetter will do anymore with him. I can technically call back there and check up on stuff, but for the most part, I won't hear about what goes on there unless I run into the elder from there. Maybe if they get a baptism out there I can go back, but other than that, not really. I'm on the other side of Seoul, so we aren't even in neighboring zones. Might see them on temple day.
Wednesday was transfers... Ran into some friends from the MTC, talked for a little bit, then headed off for Gireum. (that's the official spelling). 길음 is an interesting place. Right now, it is pretty much the worst zone in the mission to go to. Which is weird as they had 5 baptisms as a zone last month, but this place just kinda sucks. Going to try and turn it around out here, but it will take some work. Gireum is hills, apartments, and department stores... not much else than that. The average age is probably around 50, I'd say. The people here are a lot older, and a lot more rude that in Nokbeon. I took that place for granted. The food is pretty good, pretty much the same as everywhere else though. We have an Outback right down the street, so I'll probably end up going there soon! Weather is still amazingly hot and humid, and the worst hasn't even come yet. There is always a breeze going, which is nice. Investigators don't exist here... Elder Roskelley (my new companion) came in and opened up this companionship area (there are 3 elder teams here), so the other teams picked up all the less-actives and investigators. His previous companion and him didn't really talk to a lot of people either, so they didn't have anybody. Time to 고생 here now... There is just not a good word to describe 고생. It translates to "have a hard time", but there is just no real accurate way to describe it. The mission standard for contacts is 140 per week and they'd only been averaging about 80. The church here is built for the zombie apocalypse... It is set on a mini hill, where you have you open up a big gate and climb up steps to get there. I hear the relationship between ward and missionaries is probably the worst out of the whole mission. They just don't really care for us. The ward mission leader doesn't help. He is an old man who, unless we do exactly what he says, gets mad. So now he just called it quits and sits on the side of the room... I got suckered into the choir too, haha. That is no fun... I can read notes, but I can't sing to save my life... Elder Roskelley from West Point, Utah. He is dying this transfer, So I get another one-and-done with a companion. Trying to get used to each other. It seems we are on different pages, but still trying to work together.
Not much happened this week too exciting, so I'll kinda just summarize it. We jundoed... The end. Elder Roskelley and I have different styles of talking with people. Elder Whitlock and Elder Yetter both had similar jundo styles so I kinda picked up my style from them. It's weird how much I sound like Elder Yetter now when I jundo. But nobody here is really willing to sit down, or listen to what we say, unless they are handicapped or super old. Those seem to be Elder Roskelley's and Elder Herron's domain of expertise. Elder Herron always had weird crazy old investigators, and sounds like Elder Roskelley is similar. We saw and old man and Elder Roskelley said hi and he sat down and talked with us. Except it was just like he was reading a biography of his life. We couldn't say a word for about an hour, and never discussed religion one bit. He talked about how he did this and he did that. After an hour we left, and I felt like we just wasted an hour there. He wouldn't even take our card cause he is old and too tired to do anything.... I felt kinda frustrated.
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| View from Gireum Apartment |
Well, yesterday and today I listened to some great talks by Elder Holland, back in like 1980 and 2009 at BYU. They talked a lot about not looking back and moving forward, which I'm trying to do now, just push forward and make the best of this area.
Have fun,
-Elder Mortensen
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