Story Time!

So this week, we did EXCHANGES! Woot. Usually they only last for a day, but for our area, it's so far away it'd cost too much to do it just for a day, so we met up for district meeting on Wednesday like we usually do, then I went with elder Annen, our district leader, to WonJu (원주), and his comp went with mine back to SokCho. It was great! I worked on passing off some lessons and vocab that new missionaries have to do, and we worked on his English flyer, and passed some of those out. We spent a lot of time just talking about ideas of how to talk to people, designs for English class flyers, and stuff like that.

We cut out hearts in 5 colors and taped them all over his branch president's door with a little note. Usually they leave treats but our cookies weren't that good. We call that a 'heart attack', and people here love it. So we'll be doing that in SokCho soon ^_^ It's a good way to let the member know you're thinking of them, build some 정, and have some fun while you're out on your mission!

We then had a kind of 'stake conference', which was 5 branches meeting in Kangnan for two days. So on Saturday we all went there for our first meeting, I got my comp. back, and it was fun! We had two meetings that day, we slept in TongHae that night, then went back to Kangnan for the Sunday meeting.

Sleeping in TongHae was... unusual. The AP's were there, as well as me and my comp, and the threesome in TongHae. So we lined up the yohs (futon for you Japanese speakers) edge to edge and had a spare mattress all in one room to sleep in, but there was a small area of floor, about 2 and a half feet wide and 6 feet long where it was just bare floor. So I slept there. No blanket, mattress, nothing. It wasn't bad though, the floors are kind of heated. But it was pretty uncomfortable. But I slept good on the hour long bus ride back to SokCho Sunday night. ^_^

Today is our branch president's birthday, the Senior missionary here, Elder An (안). He's super nice, and SO funny! Holy cow. Love this guy. So we're going out to celebrate in a few minutes, we're going back to ASHLEYS!!  ^_^  I'll take some pics for y'all.

Missions are awesome, Korea is super cool, and Korean is the best language evah.

Love you all and talk to you in a week!

Motivation & Perfection

I know I'm motivated, and I strive for perfection, but that's not always a good thing. I hope to accept what I can do as my best soon. I've been really stressed out with the language and teaching, as most missionaries do, but I just keep thinking, 'I can always do better.' which is true, but I shouldn't push myself too hard and stress myself out too much over it.

Yes, you (Mom) are SO stubborn. But guess what? I am a lot more like you than I previously thought. Not in a bad way, but I'm learning that most people don't mind a mess, and for me, 'everything has a place!!' I'm a hybrid between you and dad, so looks like I have the best of both worlds ^_^

JAREN GOT HIS CALL?!?@#!?@?!?$!@#$ㅣㅏㄴ밍ㄻ니아ㅜㄻ내ㅑ둚니ㅏ어 (that's just gibberish)

I'm so excited to see where he goes!!

Jordan's cousin, Jaren

And btw, it'll take about 2-4 weeks for packages to arrive, but I may not pick it up for 1-3 more months, just depending on when I go to Seoul next. So don't send...perishables, like dairy, veggies, obvious things like that. I don't think cookies would work either, they may just sit in the package for a while. BUT THANK YOU!!^^

I found a WONDERFUL store by our apartment that sells condensed milk, dried fruit, beans, spices, things like that, so I don't know what I really need from home, but I will appreciate anything you send.  ^_^

Speaking of which, tell the Calls thank you so much for their package. They sent me a box of Starburst and a letter for Valentines day. It cost $13 to send a $2 box of Starburst, but it really means a lot to me. It was so nice to get a card with their words of support and to know they're thinking of me, and the Starbursts were DELICIOUS!! ^_^

Love you!! ^_^

Don't Freak Out....

Alright, don't freak out. I forgot to tell the story.

On Wednesday, our chapel finally got a real upright piano! Before, it was just a small electronic keyboard. So when we were moving it out of the truck, it smashed my finger between the bottom of the piano and the van.

It took out a huge chunk of skin, but I'm actually doing a lot better right now. I just slapped a band-aid on it, and right now it doesn't look too bad!

But one missionary asked how my finger wasn't broken, and then I realized how lucky I actually was. I just thought, "man, this sucks. My finger hurts." But I should have looked at it as, "wow, I got off lucky." I really did; my finger/hand should have been broken. But then I wouldn't be able to shake everyone's hands and teach them the gospel, so the Lord preserved my hand.  ^_^

I really am so glad this is the worst that happened. And I'm astounded at how fast it's healing. Today, it's almost all better. Maybe the humidity or something. Anyway, you don't have to put these pictures up, they were just for your enjoyment! And I just thought I'd give you a little scare. ^_^    

But remember, the Lord protects his missionaries and their families!!

Loves!!

Picture Time!

So one night we decided to go knock on doors, which we usually don't do here, but we did anyway. We actually got into 2 houses, which is incredible!!

Anyway, I took a picture at the top looking out of the window, then after knocking on 6 doors and going down 3 floors (after about 10 minutes), I took another picture. Here's the drastic change in light. I tried to line it up perfectly, but failed.

Anyway, here you go! It's an awesome picture! ^_^

Dad's 50th Birthday!

Missionary work here in Korea is awesome. Here in SokCho, it seems slow, but I love it. We don't teach many lessons, but we're trying to find people. We basically just talk to people on the streets for 6-7 hours a day. The people are super friendly.

There's a guy in the city that owns a small fruit stand/shop, and we were walking by last week when it was super cold and he ran outside and beckoned us in. We made our way through the fruit stands and into his little 5X5 small enclosure where he had his personal stuff and a little stove with tea on it. He basically ripped off our gloves and forced our hands over the stove, and started rubbing our hands and faces, saying, 'You're so cold! Get warm! Get warm!' 

A lot of people use the phrase, 'You've suffered a lot.' It's a compliment, and it's kind of like saying, you've worked so hard! So sometimes when we talk to people and shake their hands, they rub our hands to make them warm and say, 'you've suffered so much!' It's so funny, I love the people here.

Anyway, back to this guy. Back in the old days, when people like him were young, they didn't say things like, 'Have a good day!' and 'How has your day been?' They said, 'Work hard!' and 'Did you eat today?' (because food was so scarce). He asked us if we ate when we were warming our hands, and we said we were on our way home to eat (it was about 8:00 PM). He immediately ran outside and gave us a big bag full of tangerines. He is so nice. He made sure we were warm, saluted us, and said, 'Work hard! Suffer!'

His place is in the path we take to go home, so we saw him again two days ago, and he did the same thing. He took us in, made sure we were warm, and gave us a big bag full of peanuts and two apples.

I told him that he's super nice, like my dad, and he started calling us his 'sons.' He really cares about us, he's super nice. He doesn't want to hear our message right now, but he wants to make sure we're warm and have full bellies. He's awesome.

I love you both!

-Elder Franchina

Weekly Email Time!

We went to our District Leader's house late Thursday night, it was about a 2 hour bus ride, then, Friday morning, we took a 2 hour bus to 동대문 (Dongdemun), a place famous, around the missionaries, for ties. We explored the city for a little, then did some shopping. I love Korean ties.

After that, we went to a Kimbap/Sushi buffet, then to the Seoul Temple. I recognized the street it was on because I studied it on Google maps before I left on my mission. The temple is so beautiful! We stayed in the Temple's housing overnight.

The next day, Saturday, started the Korean New year, Solar. We had a mission-wide conference where we heard a really good speaker talk to us about how to be better missionaries and how to learn Korean better. We had a slideshow of pictures throughout the mission, and pictures from back when our mission president served here in Korea. It was so nice to see my MTC district and my friends from the older district when I was in the MTC.

We are still proselyting for about 8 hours a day, talking to everyone we see. It's good talking practice :)

Currently about $5.78 for a jar of peanut butter

Yesterday was a fantastic p-day. We went shopping for groceries. I splurged and bought a small jar of peanut butter. I also found a small jar of jelly, and even I Can't Believe It's Not Butter!

Oh man. I've missed butter. It's so expensive here. I also got cereal and milk. So worth it.

 

We went to an American family's house for dinner. They attend our ward every week. They fed us chili and cornbread. MMMM. Beans and cornbread are so hard to find here.

Annyeonghaseyo

My companion is Elder Witt, from Fresno, he knows the Thomas family in the 5th ward. The dad served in Korea and he's a family friend [of the Thomas family].  He's been here for 3 transfers, so he's new too, but his Korean is awesome. There were only 16 people, including me and my companion, and the branch president and his wife there, so it's a SMALL branch, but it's good. The people are really nice. I have my introductory speech, and bore my testimony. I think I said everything right..

Here's some funny things about Korean:

The word for "missionary" and "sexual instructor/teacher" are incredibly similar. Sometimes people smile when you introduce yourself as a missionary.

Now, "small," and"death" are all similar, so you have to be careful with those words.

In the MTC, I asked my progressing investigator if "he wanted to be stabbed like Christ was," instead of "wanting to be Christ-like," so I hope I don't make that mistake here in Korea.

We haven't taught any lessons yet, just a bunch street contacts, but we have three lessons set up this week, so hopefully they show up.

The food? hm.. I'll have to get used to the whole fish covered with chili paste. Also things like meat that doesn't look like meat, or potatoes with strange seasonings. But I'll get used to it. It's not so bad. But I have been SEVERELY ungrateful for the food you and mom cooked. I would give anything for bread, or a casserole, or basically anything you've ever cooked right now. Even the foods I didn't like before sound good. But I don't hate the food here, it'll just take some getting used to.

There's not really much of a culture shock, I don't know why. But maybe it'll hit later.

Always remember that I love you!!