July 6, 2015 (Week 29)

July 6, 2015

Alrighty, another swell week down... This week was a lot of patience and walking around.

Transfer day with Elder Hansen and others

P-Day we couldn't find a non-sketchy bath house, so we just got some Bing Su instead. It was ice flakes, and the guy pulled a Buddy the Elf move and threw in ice cream, Fruit Loops, Coco Puffs, chocolate sauce, Oreo.... super good. He is like Lani's Shave Ice. Super cheap, big and popular.

 After P-Day we were jundoing and got stalked by a beggar lady who kept asking for two dollars... Funny thing is, is that she pulled out like 24 bucks and was asking for two dollars... kinda weird... she followed us into the subway station, and for a couple minutes.

Tuesday we had a Visitor Center shift... the bishop wants a missionary team at the church everyday (minus P-Day and Sunday) just in case someone is curious...so we did jundo in the morning, (pretty refreshing to go in the morning). Then at the church we did studies. I listened to a great talk by Elder Holland called the Inconvenient Messiah. I recommend looking that one up.  Not much else happened,  except we got stalked again by a Christian lady this time. She saw us at a crosswalk and started yelling and crossing herself and glaring at us... later while we were talking with someone, she came up and starting to pray and cross herself, then walked away... kinda interesting.

Wednesday was a lot of jundo..... we had like 6 straight hours of walking around... met a couple cool people, but for the most part still nothing.  This place is weird... either it is super busy with people shopping, or the street is dead with nobody. There is no happy balance of people, and not super busy. That night we had dinner with the Zone Leaders.  We ran into them and decided to eat together.  We went to a meat buffet... so good... They have this thick bacon called 삼겹살 Sam gyup Sar, that you cook, put with rice and hot sauce in a lettuce leaf, and just shove it all into your mouth... So good, that is the best thing in Korea as far as food goes... Turns out Elder Carpenter (former Elder Yetter companion) used to be sponsored by Red Bull for parkour before the mission.  For uneducated people, Red Bull is the top of the line is crazy stuff like that... So he is pretty good. He wants to come back and start a gym here in Korea. (probably one of the best Korean speaking missionaries, too) Elder Bean talked a lot about his mission, and how he started out in Tebek.  That is in the middle of nowhere, the middle of the mountains... I really want to go there, it sounds awesome...  But he talked a lot about how he has grown on the mission.  Super cool guy. I love talking with him.

Thursday we met the new president. He is an interesting guy, served here in 1973 I think...  I doubt he will change up much for now, not sure about later. He didn't really talk much, his wife rambled on about their kids and grandkids.  He just talked about how he loves this place, and loves us all.  At the meeting all the missionaries, besides the ones out in the coast, came in.  So I got to see everybody from Nokbeon again.  Turns out not much is still happening there.  Our senior kid didn't understand what baptism is (thought it was dangerous) so he didn't get parent permission.  The other super cool kid (21 year old), his mom told them to never call back... so a lot has dropped off there since I left. Still the same old Nokbeon. I'm glad I didn't stay.  Looking now, I realize I would still be frustrated out there.  After the meeting, we went with some other missionaries to Pizza Hut, since they were having a buffet.  That was pretty fun. I talked with Elders Bean and Pelina (lived with Elder Yetter before) and had a great time there.   That night we had our first sit down actual lesson with somebody.  That went alright.  Elder Roskelley likes to talk super slow and quiet, so I couldn't really hear him.  He got better over the time of the lesson. I did pretty good though, I was happy with how well I did. the lesson was good, but he is just checking out churches, so didn't really commit to anything...

Purple Chips and Salsa

Friday was long.  We did our weekly planning, trying to call some people Elder Roskelley met with, trying to think of how to find people better, etc.  Later we ran into Sister Lee, who was with us in the MTC.  She went home last transfer, so it was really weird to see her just walking around. We talked for a little bit, then she gave us a snack, purple sweet potato chips, different taste, but hey, it was a gift. Later used them to eat some salsa I found in the fridge, haha.  Saturday after dinner we were walking around where people were even worse to talk to than usual, and I about died.  All we do is walk around and get rejected.

Saturday to celebrate the Fourth we walked around some more!  It was wonderful. I'm so done with walking around.  Everybody else seems to find people, but I can't seem to find that.  I'm trying to find new ways to change it up, make things more effective, but yeah, still rough. We also ate at McDonalds, because it's American!

Sunday was pretty good for me.  Church was a bunch of testimonies, and I could at least pick up the topic of each one, maybe a little bit more.  That was cool.  The rest was kinda boring for me. Still can't pick things up in class. After church, me and Elder Bean were talking about the ward. Things are starting to change around here.  The neighboring area is starting to shake its bad reputation and is getting baptisms.  The ward is getting better, and they got a couple baptisms, and people are changing.  I expressed my frustrations at not being a part of that... I don't have anybody to sit down and teach, and to help with.  Everybody else seems to have people, and I'm just like, "Hey, how's it going, you guys have fun, I'll just walk around".  So we talked a lot about how God has plans in store for me, and all the stuff.  He is a great guy to talk to.  I could talk with him for days.   After that, during jundo, I got a couple cool people to talk with and some appointments set up! Things are starting to look up around here it seems. Should be a better week this week

Love you all,
-Elder Mortensen