Email #12

We have to smile as we know the reason Jordan took this picture.

A little over four years ago, when Jordan was 16 years old, he traveled to China with his dad and Grandpa Dave.  While they were waiting in the airport, Jordan's dad took this picture:

Little did we all know that four years later, Jordan would be serving his mission in Korea!

Dec. 2008 - Jan. 2013

Here's what Jordan has to say:

I'M ALIVE!!!!!! 

So basically, Korea is amazing. We got to the airport, met our mission president, they slapped new Korean name tags on us and sent us on the subway to go talk to people (전도 mission work).  Me and my companion from the MTC were a bit nervous but we talked to a few people while we traveled to Seoul. We got to the stop, took a bus, then walked to the mission president's house. 

We had a nice meal waiting for us there, some clam chowder and biscuits. That was basically the entire day, we spent so long traveling. So on Wednesday, we got dressed, had a Kimchi breakfast, and went to the church next door to have an orientation. We learned about finances here, how much money we get every two weeks, and things like that. 

Elder Witt & Jordan

We then met our new companions, and taught brief lessons with them. I got a guy who has been here for 3 transfers. I am his 4th transfer. A transfer is 6 weeks, so he's been here for 18! His name is Elder Witt and he is a red head! He's from Fresno California, and spent a year at BYU. I'm a little older than him, but he's much better at Korean. His dad went to Korea on his mission. In my branch, 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. We haven't had a lot of time to take pictures, because we are always talking to people!

We are in 속초 (Sokcho), a place in the northeastern part of Korea. The Boonies, basically. Everybody took a deep breath and said, 'good luck' when I told them that's where I'm going but it's not too bad. It has about 80,000 people here, not much of a large city area, about a 10 minute walk to the ocean, and about 30 miles south of the DMZ. We'll go there sometime soon. 

34° and 93% humidity.  Baby, it's cold outside!

We don't have any investigators right now, we don't get many here. We talk to so many people though, all we do is 전도 (mission work) on the streets. We meet with a wonderful member once a week on Thursdays, 은실 차매님 (in the car), she's so nice and loved seeing the pictures of my family. We also had dinner with the Sorensens on Saturday, they're an American family from California and the dad is teaching English here. They have an adorable 1 year old ginger son named Hyrum. They can't speak Korean, but they made a wonderful pasta meal for us. 

 

Speaking of food, I MISS YOUR COOKING. The food here is.........very different. It'll take a while to get used to. Milk is about 4 dollars for a half gallon, cereal is 7 dollars a box, butter is 8 dollars a stick, and peanut butter is 10 dollars for a small jar. Food here is extremely expensive. So for breakfast, lunch, and dinner, we usually eat rice and 김치 (kimchi). We have a little oatmeal, but it's expensive, and some pasta, but pasta sauce is so expensive. There's no Costco out here, but if we travel anywhere and see one, I'll be sure to stock up on everything.

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.

*GASP* $8 for a stick of butter?? That is unbelievable! Makes me wonder if it will be cheaper to mail food out to Korea....

**I don't have an address in SokCho, but you are supposed to send letters to the mission home, and about once a month, I'll pick up the mail.** I don't know if the mission home address is right, so maybe look it up on the internet or I'll ask my mission president and email it to you next week. 

The flight to Korea wasn't bad, a little long, but I'm just happy to be here in Korea. Korea is awesome. The people are so nice. They're always busy though. Or, at least that's what they say when we mention Jesus Christ. But the main way we get them to stop is say, 'May I shake your hand?' Or the literal translation is 'Even though I shake your hand, does it become?' Sounds SO weird in English, but they think it's normal. It gets them to stop, look at our name tags, and then we can introduce who we are and what we do. We've set up a few appointments, but none have showed up yet, but we have three promising ones this week. Last week we met a group of high school students and we started talking about ping pong (타구) and we set up a game next week at the church. We said we'd play a few games with them, since I'm the 타구 King, and then teach them about our message. They seemed a little interested in both. Our branch president is awesome, he's really nice, and REALLY good at ping pong. I made him work a little hard though, and he wanted to play an extra game because he liked playing with me. I lost both games, but not by much. My companion isn't bad either, he beat me the first time. I was just a little rusty though. 

So on Saturdays we teach an English class where we talk about a specific topic, like hobbies or something, for an hour, and at the end, share a short spiritual message. We also do a 30/30 class, where 30 minutes is english, 30 is gospel. Then we play ping pong after. But no one has come to the 30/30 in a while, and only 3 people usually show up to the english class. But eventually our efforts will bear fruit! There's a reason they paired two redheads up and sent them to the boonies where not much happens. I'm sure after my Korean gets a little better we'll see some results. 

Speaking of which, I can tell my Korean has grown a bit, but not much. It's more like a sunrise, where you can't tell the difference from one minute to the next, but over time it does get lighter. But yesterday I was teaching someone about our message on the street and after he goes 'WOW. You sound just like a native Korean!!' Then we laughed and I said, 'Well, I've only been here for 5 days.' (This was all in Korean, of course.) and he was just surprised. It was funny. Also, when I was talking to the Branch president and another member yesterday after sacrament, they knew I didn't understand much, but then the branch president, in Korean, tells me I'm handsome. I replied, no, you're much more handsome than me. They all laughed with surprise because I recognized what 'handsome' was, and I knew how to reply. They got a good laugh out of me. We built some 정 (spirit?) that day. 

All in all, Korea is awesome, and the language is too. It's hard, but I'll improve. 

한국어/조선말

(Korea) 

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. 

"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.

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

Love you!

Jordan