Dongdaemun!

Dongdaemun is awesome! It's SO hot. But awesome. I miss Sokcho, but I feel like it was time for me to move on to a new place. First off - The ward is huge. We had 85 people yesterday. Guess I won't have to be first councilor anymore! The people are super awesome. They're all really nice and friendly. There's 3 meetings, like usual, instead of the 2 we have in Sokcho, so church is longer than I'm used to now. But I love it. More time to listen to Korean and feel the spirit! We live in a 4 man house with two Koreans, and they serve in the area next to ours, in a different ward. But we have a lot of fun together. It's so nice having your house on church grounds, because you can go play ping pong with the Koreans for your morning exercise^^

Elder Gardner is great, he's in his 3rd transfer, and I'm in my 5th (not including the MTC). He's REALLY good at Korean, and even a better teacher. It's wonderful. We really work well together, and we really get along. We have a lot of similar interests and such. He's from Oregon, and will turn 20 right before my year mark on the mission, so I'm almost a whole year older than him. We haven't taken many pictures, we've been too busy working! But we hurried and took one picture this morning for you guys.

Being new in a HUGE ward has some benefits - they all want to meet you so they invite you over for dinner, and they want to help teach! Lessons with a member make a HUGE difference. One being that they can actually speak Korean.

Our investigators are doing well, we have one guy from Nepal that we teach in English, and he's really prepared. I'm excited for him. The others are doing well, some progressing faster than others. The ward has really high expectations for the missionaries here, so we'll work super hard, like always! We're also trying to work with a few less-actives; they're all really nice.

I love it here! There's still one street that has fish, so I can get that good ole' whiff of Sokcho sometimes, and there's a few universities, including a foreign university, so there's a TON of foreigners. But since foreigners aren't rare, they're not too excited to see another white person. But oh well. There's PLENTY of people to talk to!!

I love my new area, even though it's SUPER hot, and I know we'll do some good work here.

Well, that's about all I have for the week.

Until next Monday,

Elder Franchina

Father's Day & A Transfer!

Father's Day Package!

By the way, Happy Father's day. I'm sorry I can't be there to say it in person, but I know you'd rather me be out here than home. You know how valuable this experience is. I know you miss Grandpa, and I'm not sure why I wrote those words, but now I do. Never worry, Dad, this is only a brief blip in the span of eternities. And Christ, according to the scriptures, suffered not only for our sins, but also for our sicknesses, sorrows, infirmities, etc. This is why the pain was too much to bear. Every sorrow you and I feel, along with the rest of the world, was felt before we experienced it. That's why we can receive so much help through Christ. He knows us, our sorrows, etc, because he experienced them already. Because he knows how we feel, he knows what kind of help and comfort we need, so he can run to 'succor us'. In any time of discomfort - sickness, sadness, grief - turn to Christ. He knows how you feel. 

The Korean word for grandpa is 'haraboji- 할아버지', but that's not what I wrote (on the piece of wood pictured) I wrote '영원' which means 'eternity, or eternal'. This word has been echoing in my mind for a while. Even though our most loved people will pass from our sight for a time, keep an eternal perspective. We'll see them again soon.

WHY in the world were you specifically looking for a bobble-head on the internet? You're too weird. I guess that's where I get it from, as soon as I saw that, in a game machine, I might add, I had to win it. You know me. Super pro at claw games and such, I soon had that bobble head in my hands. And I knew this would go well on your desk :) (Gangnam style bobblehead on gray horse in picture)

So, on to transfers. I will transfer to 동대문, Dong Dae Moon (you'll actually be able to pronounce this right^^), tomorrow. Tuesday night we'll go sleep in Seoul and meet with all of the missionaries for transfers Wednesday morning. Giving my parting words in sacrament yesterday was hard. I love the ward so much. But I know that DongDaeMoon is a really good place, and there are people waiting there for me. It's right in the middle of Seoul. I'm not sure exactly where, we don't have a map, I just know it's right by the subway stop 제기동 Jaegidong. It's a 4 man house, and the other two missionaries are Koreans. My new companion will be Elder Gardner, he's just finishing up training in DongDaeMoon, so he's a little younger than me. It should be really fun! When I come back (when, not if), I need to go back to Sokcho. These people here are wonderful.

Oh, by the way, since I'm in DongDaeMoon, I'll stay in the North Mission, with President Christensen. I'm happy about that. That means I won't ever be able to visit Gangnam or SeoCho, the rich cities right below the river until after my mission, but that's okay, I like it up here. I am pretty excited to experience the city life though.

Not much happened this week, just a bunch of travel to our Zone leader's area and back, just for meetings and such. 

 

I love you all and hope you have a wonderful week!

P.S. dad- you look pretty good in Korean Ties  :)

Now for the week's events:

We moved P day to Wednesday and went to Seoul in the morning. We went to the biggest bookstore in Korea and I bought two books that teach Korean. While shopping, a Korean guy came up to us and in perfect English starting asking us where we're from. He served a mission in Australia, so he got along well with elder Ghergori. He liked us so much he wanted to grab some dinner with us. He was really nice.

We were running a little late for the temple so we ran back to the subway station, got to the temple to find that we missed our session by a few seconds. But they held one 15 minutes later, so that was fine. We slept at the temple, and the next day went to 화양, to a huge park with a church nearby for a big mission conference. There's so many missionaries here now! But I don't know any of them because I've been stuck in the boonies my whole mission. When I get transferred they'll all think I'm a greenie (brand new missionary) because no one knows who I am! But that's okay. I like Sokcho. (pronounced soak-cho, not sock-cho ;)  )

They talked about the mission split, and two transfers after the split, they're going to have 55 greenies coming in. And since the mission is splitting, there will only be 64 missionaries available to train, the others will be zone leaders, APs, ect. So basically everybody in the Seoul North mission will be training in 2 transfers' time. CRAZY!

Jordan, Eric and Friend

We played some games and went to the public zoo next door, and we saw Eric Boothe there! It was so good to see him. Also, he knew a few of the missionaries there! One Korean in my district in the MTC who's my good friend knows Eric well. He lived across the street from the missionaries in DaeJeon, and Eric served there for 10 months. They played basketball together a lot. COOL!

We then went to Costco, but it was pretty disappointing. I got delicious chocolate muffins and sharp cheddar CHEESE!! But I was also looking for cheap sunscreen and American toothpaste. But I can just get sunscreen here at the medicine stores. As for toothpaste? Korean toothpaste is grossly sweet. Ew.

Anyway. We had to go to WonJu, my MTC comp's area that night, because the next day they had a baptismal interview, and since it takes 3 hours to travel there from our city, we slept the night. Elder Ghergori is District Leader so he has to do the interviews. It went well! While we were waiting for the bus back to Sokcho, we were talking to people, and this guy comes up to us and speaks REALLY good English, and asks where our church is! Woah. He lived in the UK for 2 years and found Christianity, and wants to come to our church, because other churches in Korea seem like there's something missing. So we got his name and number and referred him to the WonJu elders! (He lives in WonJu). SWEET!

Saturday was just a normal day, and yesterday was a good fast Sunday at church.

Anyway, that's about it! Today we're going to the bath houses to relax for P day, that should be fun.

I love you all!

Elder Franchina