Hello there!
First, to answer your....statement, yeah. It's very different from
Sokcho, but it's still great. There's a ton of people, and resources
everywhere, not to mention the church is 20 feet away from our house.
It's SUPER hot. Like I said last week, you get used to being wet all of
the time. Our house is miserably hot, no AC, so we're going to ask the
mission president if we can sleep in the church. Past missionaries did,
because the church has AC. But it's not that bad, it's nice being in
Seoul. It's a weird feeling, I still feel like we're on a vacation, and
I'll go back to my home soon. But that home is Sokcho. I can't wait to
go back with you guys at the end of my mission. I walk past the small
fish market and the smells really take me back to the good ole Sokcho
days.
Just nostalgia, not homesickness.
There's no real 'dialect', Seoul is determined to be the standard
speech. Sokcho where I was, has some dialect, but our mission doesn't
really have any. It's Busan and Daejon that really have strange accents.
It's raining a lot here. We walked to the church to watch a video during study, and only a few minutes later, we go to walk back and it's raining sideways. It's pouring. It's on and off, but when it turns on, it's on full blast.
Yes, I got my shirts, probably a month or two ago. I can't
remember, time is a strange thing on your mission. But those short
sleeved shirts you sent are saving my life. I definitely needed more.
Thank you! There's nothing I really need right now, except more Hawaiian
punch. But don't send just those. You can wait for a month or two until
there's more things I need. Just don't send the lemonade ones, I like
the berry flavored Hawaiian punches.
Anyway......
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| Three missionaries helping Brad pour cement at the Franchina house! |
That's great the missionaries helped with the cement, I would
love to help with things like that. We don't really get those kinds of
opportunities here. No one really has lawns or yards, and even if they
need help with something, they refuse it, almost rudely. But there's
something in the culture about it not being good for an older person to
receive help from a younger person. But there was a guy laying on the
ground last week kind of by our house, and he asked for food, so we went
back home and gave him some fruit. He was super grateful, and it left
us feeling really good. We may not be able to help lay cement, but we
can help out in other ways.
Now for the week's activities:
We've met with some investigators, we have our friend xxxxxx, who is
fluent at English. He lived in the Philippines for a few years, but his
roommates were British, so he doesn't speak English, he speaks British English.
Kind of pidgeon English too. It's weird. It's awesome, but if you don't
focus, it's hard to understand him. Mostly because you don't expect a
Korean to bust out that kind of accent. He and his friend are good,
they're really curious about our church, and they're really nice. We're
really good friends.
We've picked up some old investigators, and,
unfortunately, had to drop some that have been meeting for a while but
haven't progressed. It's so hard to drop an investigator. As a sister
missionary told me once, it's like breaking up. I laughed at it, but
when I really experienced it, I realized she was right. You know how
break ups go, when you plan on doing it, her dog died that morning, so
you can't do it. Then the next time you plan to break up, turns out it's
her birthday. And it goes on...and on. So we were going to drop our
investigator, and he says, 'first, I brought you some bread.' How nice!
He requested 'fresh water', so we went to our house to grab some water
our of the fridge and a knife to cut the bread. We wanted to talk about
the gospel quickly so we could talk about his progression in the gospel,
but he said, 'well you must eat all of the bread first.' He's so
nice, but I felt bad snarfing down his gift while planning our breakup.
Also, there was a miscommunication between him and the missionaries he
first met, because they didn't establish expectations with him. That's a
crucial step, letting them know that we're not English teachers and our
main purpose is to teach the gospel of Jesus Christ. There's a few
reasons we needed to drop him, but it wasn't easy. And it's hard to
have everyone part ways still friends. It's just like breaking up. I
thought I'd get away from relationships while on my mission!
This Sunday at church was insane. We
had investigators show up, so we had to do splits and teach with
members. I got our 13 year old investigator. Her other friend usually
comes too, but she didn't come yesterday. So we taught her with her
member friend, named xxxxx, and a return missionary. It's really
different teaching kids. But it's really fun! I love it. It's hard to
come up with creative ways to simply explain deep doctrine, but with the
help of an experienced missionary and visuals, it was really fun. Our
other investigator that showed up is interesting. My last companion met
him in his last area a few months ago. He's met with missionaries all
over Seoul for a few months, having them translate, line by line,
slowly, a drivers license test manual from Guam. I don't know why. Maybe
he plans on moving to Guam and driving. But a lot of missionaries know
him and his little red driving book. He's nice though, and said he likes
coming to church.
I really like Elder Gardner. We really teach well together. My
other companions have been great, don't get me wrong, but he's the first
companion I've had that hasn't been out on his mission longer than me.
But that doesn't mean I'm better. He's just as good at Korean, and
really willing to learn. He's a great teacher and we work really well
together.
Today isn't our pday, so we're just emailing, then going out to work. The reason is tomorrow
is temple day, so we get to go to the temple, then pday until 6! Fun!
After the temple we'll go to the president's house and make cookies. I'm
really excited!
I love Dongdaemoon, the ward is huge, and it's great to work with
them. There's people everywhere, so you never run out of people to talk
to, even though it's always really hot.
Love you all and hope you have a good week!
Elder Franchina
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