Well its been a BIG Week. Minus Monday and Tuesday of course. I didn’t get one of them… 😛 So I flew in a plane to a far away land on Monday morning of the 13th of January. I landed in Korea on Tuesday at 7:42. I flew over 8600 miles! Landing in Korea was great! Their airport is weird because you land and go to a tram that takes you to the baggage and the rest of the main airport area… We were confused. We got our luggage, went through customs and searched/waited an hour before you were able to find the AP’s. Three of them. It was comforting to hear English, but at the same time I just want ed to talk to EVERYONE! So we waited for a bus. Then we took a 3 hour drive to Daejeon city. It was too dark/foggy to see outside so I have no pictures. There’s not TONS to take pictures of here in my area… well I’ll get to that later.
Calling home was fun. Eating non cafeteria food was nice in the airport. We got to the mission home at midnight about. I think I adjusted to Korea time pretty well! I didn’t sleep on the long flight. It was hard, but I did it! And now I’m definitely on Korean time. We only had time that night to meet Sister Shin and have her tell us where the bathroom was and to get in Pj’s. We slept on mats. They are like a REALLY cushy couch seat. They fold up so put them away in the morning. I took a shower in the mission home which is as americanized as you can imagine. They even installed American plugs! So I could straighten my hair!
The next morning we had new missionary meetings and such. one of the things our mission follows is BRT -baptisms -referrals -teaching. And our goal is to have -1 -2 -2 respective. I’m still learning what it means 🙂 After a meeting we went 전도ing. (jundoing) it means street contacting. It was hard because I’m not used to just talking to everyone. but I’ll get better.
I met my trainer! Or my “mom”. Her name is 이지선 Lee Ji-sun. She is great teacher and I have fun learning from her. Her English is fabulous, so We don’t struggle to communicate. My area is 서산 Seosan. Its country up here so it’s not always busy. I like it here. I’ve been told that people are nicer than they are in Daejeon Area.
A cool analogy we learned was the Kite and the Balloon. Both have a string. Some may thing the string is holding them down. The balloon type of missionary uses the string only a little and thinks the string is holding them back. But once we cut the string, the balloon soars up. A balloon type of missionary might have temporary success, but eventually it will lose its altitude and fall back to the ground and wither away. A kite missionary uses the string in everything is does. Without the string it will fall to the ground. So a kit missionary uses the string always. AKA PMG, scriptures, members, ect. We all want to be a Kite missionary.
OH by the way, I met Sister Rouche! She is amazing and I love her even more in person. She went home today but at least I got to meet her! She is the Sister that I modeled my blog after! And I heard a story about how her shower broke and the four sisters had to go to the bath house for a while. Well… one of those sisters was MY TRAINER!! Funny coincidence right?
So random things… In public bathooms you have to get toilet paper BEFORE you enter the bathroom stalls… And there’s no shower curtain on my bath tub/shower. Its okay, the water doesn’t get everywhere if you’re careful. There’s a smell. Everyone told me about it. It’s there, but not always there. Nothing like what they made it sound like. There are lots of random things but I can’t think of more. Though a cool thing is that foreigners stand out like no other here. So I’m popular. Two men around my age ran up to us one time while we were tracting and said “Hello” and asked me where I was from in English and asked me how to say something. I couldn’t understand him at all! But its interesting. I’m a 왜국인 (waegugkin) = foreigner. Its fun to be one.
As for Korea it’s self, I’ll say this.
It’s what I pictured, but my reaction is not what I expected.
Spiritual experience of the week… There was a baptism in my ward on Sunday. She is 17. Her family has been inactive for 10 years. They all had been baptized at one point, but she hadn’t. The dad was interviewed and he can still use his priesthood. So he baptized her. It was fun. We had food after. I enjoyed it. They were the Seosan Elder’s baptism so I didn’t really get to meet her personally. I don’t know their names either, but the mom is really nice. I met 김혜화 자매님. She is a member who teaches calligraphy to one of our investigators who is 14. She is super cute and young and not interested but I will get her to be excited!!!
Well that’s it for this week! Have a nice life!
– Sister Jenson 젠슨자매 (jen-seun ja-mae)
Draper to Daejeon 