Merry Christmas again!

Hey everyone,

Merry Christmas again! I guess it's Christmas Day for you now so it's still allowed to say it. It's pretty much done and gone away here. Sad. But it was a good year. It's always interesting to spend holidays in a foreign contry. Ok who sent my recorder?! I was so surprised to see that haha. You guys did well with all the gifts this year. Thank you very much. I'm really excited to play Pass the Pigs. That was a nice little surprise too. I'm glad you guys like the socks. We got some from our ward too but their not nearly as cool as those ones. Just plain dress socks. I just sent off some pictures so hopefully you get those. As you can see, my companions and I had some fun with the Santa suit before we had to put it away. Haha. It was really funny and I think my ward loved it.

Well there's not much new to report on here. Our zone went caroling last night in the bitter cold outside a huge department store. That was fun. People probably thought we were just a bunch of crazy white people for standing out in the cold and singing in Korean. But that's nothing new. Oh I got my visa extended today. Yay! I can stay in Korea for another year. Those are pretty much the only things that have happened since I last talked to you. Hopefully you like the pictures because those will make up for the lack of words in my email. My memory card is about full again because I took quite a few videos from the Christmas conference. I'll just send all those at once on my card instead of trying to put them on an email.

So yeah. I think that's it. Hopefully you guys had a great Christmas and have a Happy New Year! Oh I did find one thing I need. Some deoderant. Is that how you spell it? If not just sound it out. I would appreciate some from America because there isn't really any here. Sorry I didn't catch that sooner and you could've thrown it in your Christmas package. But if you could do that I would greatly appreciate it. Ok. Now I think I'm done. Happy Holidays! Talk to you later.

Love, Elder Dorius

1. Here's Elder Stanley and I at the Christmas conference.

 My uke.

 The first official legit snowfall of the year.

 Here is Santa getting chased down by the missionaries.

 And then getting taught my the missionaries.

6. And then proclaiming the Book of Mormon is true. Ha.

 

 

Sooo...for you that haven't noticed the resemblance...Elder Dorius was Santa for the ward Christmas party.  The fact that Elder Dorius was chosen to be the Santa Clause was so funny to us.  We just didn't really think he had the build for it.  It sounded like he had a great time...but a lot of the little kids were scared of him.

 

 

 Santa going down the "chimney"

2. Getting ready to hand out gifts

 The ward

 And here's a picture with all my gifts. I didn't end up opening them until that night when we got home. Haha. But it was really nice. Thank you to everyone who sent something! 

 

.

That was me when I was sick. Bleh.

Pictures

Here's some pictures from the top floor (47th) of one of our member's apartment. Way legit. This is the most southern part of our area and is the newest part. The last one is some funny "grafitti" we found on a wall. I laugh everytime we walk past it.

It's Beginning to Look Like Christmas‏

Hey everyone,

 

Well it sounds like everyone has had a good week. Lots of singing and caroling and Christmas preparations. That's always fun. One thing I learned was that shops and places around here play Christmas music too! I thought that was only an American thing but I guess not. So it's been kind of fun to hear some Christmas music while we're out and about. However, some of the songs have been "Koreanorized" but it's still fun. Here's the deal with calling home. We can't use skype. Only calling. But we can call from here either on Sunday the 25th (Saturday for you) or Monday the 26th (Sunday for you). It will most likely be in the evening time for you guys. What works best for you? I'm good with whatever but we're kind of thinking about calling on Sunday just after chuch, which would most likely be around 8ish for you guys I think. Something like that. Also what number should I call? If you guys want to talk about it and decide just let me know.

 

Here's some other fun news. On the 22nd, we have a mission Christmas conference and there's a big talent show and skits and stuff like that and Elder Stanley and I are going to play Pachelbel Meets U2. We're actually going to meet up today in Seoul to practice so I don't have tons of time to write becuase it takes both of us a little while to get there. But anyway, we borrowed a way nice cello from one of our members and I have to carefully pack it into Seoul (no pressure) and we're going to have a little jam session. I'm excited. Just like the good ole days.

 

Thanks for praying for our investigators. We're going to try to give Richard a baptismal date this week. Possibly tonight. Or Wednesday. Depending on how the lesson goes and the Spirit and all that jazz. He almost came to church yesterday. He was planning on it and then all of a sudden got tired or something and fell asleep. Slightly frustrating. I'm sure Heavenly Father knows just as well as anyone how frustrating it is when people don't do what they're suppose to or what He knows is best. So hopefully if he has this desire and commitment to get baptized, that will help him put forth the little extra effort to do the right things and keep the commandments. We weren't able to meet our family this week because of some training we didn't know about so nothing new there. But hopefully they're praying about the Book of Mormon and Joseph Smith.

 

We've been getting fed like kings this week. For some reason, a lot of our members wanted to feed us this last week. I think between Wednesday and Sunday we didn't have to cook or pay for a single meal. It was awesome! And I just like getting to know the members a little more and building good relationships. Doesn't get much better than that. So that was pretty much our week. Can't complain too much. It's snowed a couple times this week but not enough to stick. It's still pretty cold but my six layers do well for me. And I bought some cool Power Rangers hand warmers. They help fight off the cold.

 

Well hopefully you have a good week. I'm glad you finally got my package. I was a little worried I accidently sent it by boat. I have a Christmas package pretty much ready to go. I just need to ship it off. Don't forget about calling. I need to know what time you want me to call and what number to call. I can take care of the rest. Talk to you later.

 

Love, Elder Dorius

Christmas Pictures‏

1. Look how big our tree is!

 

 

 

2. That's our threesome. And our huge tree.

 

 

3. It has a big Christmas spirit.  :)

 

 

Here are your answers‏

12/04/11

Hey everyone,

Ok first off, before I forget, I called the bank this week and got my cards figured out. My debit card is all good and the bank is going to mail me a new pin number but it's going to be sent to you guys. So once you get that, just mail it to me or just email it to me. Whatever works. Here's some answers to your questions, Dad: 1. Man Su is in Incheon. I'm not sure exactly where, but I think we're fairly close to the ocean. I think we have a little inlet thing at the southern most part of our area. I'm sure if you just googled "Man Su" it'd find it. 2. One transfer is six weeks, not four. 3. Richard is doing really good. I'll talk about him more in my email. 4. I'll also talk about our other family in the email. 5. No I'm not getting tired of rice. It's just that Koreans don't eat potatoes very often and it's never mashed potatoes. The only times I've had carpet under my feet is at the temple and at the senior couple's house. But even then it was a big rug. Nearly every house in Korea just has wood floors because of the heating system. And it keeps the houses cleaner. I don't know if carpet is more expensive, or if it's just a culture thing. And no I still can't really understand everything people say. Not even close. That's why it was fun to understand everything the kids said. They say funny things. 6. As for Christmas music, I think Elder Stanley and I have it figured out. We might try Pachebel Meets U2. I have the piano music and we're going to try to figure out the cello part. But if you can get the cello part for us that would be really helpful. If not, we're just going to play something from that music you sent awhile back. So I wouldn't worry about going out and buying more music. We'll work something out. Umm as for other requests for your package, I would like some more dried mangoes. Those are yummy. And maybe some recipies. Either real dinner food or desserts. Maybe both. Those are kind of the only things I've thought about. I'm good on everything else.

This week was pretty good. Richard is the man. He's pretty funny. We've got him down to just drinking one cup of coffee a day now. It's awesome because he used to be so dependent on his coffee but now he realizes he doesn't need it and we can probably get him to completely quit this week. He's gotten pretty busy lately though. He signed up for this English academy thing in Seoul and is there Monday through Friday to study more English. But he still makes time to meet us a couple days a week in the evenings, and he texts us about everyday just to say hi or see how we're doing. We talked about the Plan of Salvation last time and gave him a pamphlet to read. He said he grandma told him about all this when he was younger so he already believes everything. That's nice. We're meeting him tonight and are going to teach him about tithing. That was pretty much his only other question about the church. Then we also want to give him a baptismal invitation. We'll see how it works. The only problem is that investigators have to come to church at least three times before they can get baptized, and he works every weeked to save money to go to America, so we're not quite sure how to make that work. We might need a miracle and some faith. So right now that's kind of the only hurdle. Our other family is doing good too. Pretty much the only way they can keep progressing is if they come to church. Each time we've met, though, they ask a few questions about church and seem to have a little more interest. They might just need a little more time. But last time we met, we talked about the Book of Mormon and Joseph Smith and committed both of them to pray to know if it's true. I feel like we're close with helping all of our investigators baptized, except for these little problems we need to overcome.

Oh hey Danielle. Now that my train of thought is broken I'll answer your questons too. 1. I don't know what the temperature is. We don't see it very often but there's some at bus stops occasionally. I'll have to check. 2. We asked a member if it snows a lot here and they said it actually doesn't as much because we're closer to the ocean. But we do get wicked bad wind that just goes right through to your bones. Not fun. 3. You bet we have a microwave. But there's no hotpockets so there really isn't a purpose for them. Ha. 4. Yeah we do quite a bit of cooking. Hence the reason I need more recipies. I've been learning how to cook some Korean food too. 5. People celebrate Christmas here, but I don't think it's as big as it is in America. A lot of the other churches around here have put up Christmas lights to match their giant neon crosses though. So that's nice.

Ok. Well nothing too much more exciting happened this week. We did meet a less active/part member family we've been trying to meet for like the past two transfers. They're from North Korea. They're really nice. They even let us come back to visit them. So that was a pretty good find. I had a pretty funny experience knocking doors. This super old lady opened the door and the first thing she asked was "where are you from?" When I said "America" she just looked at me and said something along the lines of "why in the world are you here?" By the time I only got a few words out she says "I am 90 years old. I can't hear anything you're saying." and then continued to ramble on about something else. Then a really nice guy came and took my card and just took her back inside. I thought it was funny. Old Korean women are the best. They either love you or hate you. Either way they're bound to do something funny. Anyway. This is turning into a book now so I better wrap it up. Talk to you later.

Love, Elder Dorius

P.S. Shout out to Jesse and Dad for their birthdays! Happy almost birthday! 

Small and simple things‏

11/27/11

 

Hey everyone,

 

It sounds like you all had a really good weekend. Good weather and good food all around, on top of soccer games all weekend. Can't get much better than that. And you  had a homecoming. That's exciting. I bet Sister Bishop was pretty happy. That's not good that mom isn't feeling well. She needs to eat more kim chi. I'm pretty sure that kills any germs that are creeping around your body because I haven't really been too sick the whole time I've been here. Knock on wood. But it's kim jang right now, which is the time everyone prepares kim chi, so some of our members just gave us a bunch of kim chi in the past couple days. We should be good for awhile. I actually haven't tried calling the bank yet. I need to make some time for that. I've used my credit card a couple times so I'm not completely helpless. I'll try to make some time for that this week and I'll look into my debit card. 

 

This last week was really good. We had transfers on Wednesday. I always think I have those figured out but President gets me every time. My greenie and I stayed together but we went back to being a three man area. The other two missionaries that were with us left and a missionary from my MTC district came in with us. So it's been pretty fun so far. I don't know if we'll stay a threesome very long or if we'll get emergency transfered or what. But that's what's going on here now. This is my 4th transfer in Man Su so it's starting to turn into a long time. All the places that I remember being green and "summery" are all dead and getting ready for winter. But it's ok. I like this area. I'm not complaining.

 

We also celebrated Thanksgiving this week. Because of all the army bases and other American families, all the missionaries get are assigned to a family that signs up to have us over and feed us. It's probably through the church because I'm pretty sure they're all members. So that was really fun. It felt like I was in America. I've learned that I'm grateful for three things: mashed potatoes, carpet, and being able to understand every word little kids say. Those were probably my favorite things from Thanksgiving this year. It was a good experience. I'm actually kind of glad I'll have another one in Korea. 

 

So here's another cool experience we had this week. One of our investigators, his English name is Richard, drinks coffee everyday. He said 5 cups a day. Well one day while we were meeting with him, he was saying how tired he was and that he needed coffee. So we explained to him that coffee is bad and showed him how it was almost controlling him. We told him to cut back to just one cup a day, and because he thinks we're the greatest thing to walk the streets of Korea, he said he'd do it. The next day he texted us and said that he only drank 2 cups that day and that he was still feeling fresh. He said he can feel power when he talks with us. Even on the phone. Haha. He's really funny. But he understands that his desires effect his actions and that if he has strong enough desires, he can do anything. It's really cool. He really wants to go to BYU so we talked about the tuition and being a member and all that and he seemed really interested. So I think we can get him baptized by the end of this year. That's kind of our goal. We'll see. I'm pretty excited about it though.  

 

Well that was pretty much our week. We're actually getting haircuts right now and it looks like my companion is about done, so I better go. Oh but I was talking to Elder Stanley a little while ago and he wants to do a musical number for our Christmas conference. By chance do we have any good Christmas music laying around? Either piano and cello or piano and vocals. Elder Stanley is good with whatever he said and I'll probably just stick with piano. So if you find anything please send it. Maybe by email. The sooner we get it the better. If not we'll just have to be creative. Anyway. That's my only request. Hopefully you have a good rest of your Sunday night and a good week. Talk to you later.

 

Love, Elder Dorius

Full view||Back to messagesHappy Birthday Mom!

11/20/11

I know it's a little early but I figured it's better to be earlier than later. Sorry it's not much. I spent a whole 5 minutes on it this morning haha. I'm still looking for a good gift so that might not come until Christmas. But hopefully you have a good day! Love you!

 

Elder Dorius

 

P.S. Also Happy Thanksgiving in a few days!

 

 

Six layers and still cold!‏

11/20/11

 

Hey everyone,

 

So grandpa and grandma are going to Kentucky?! That's exciting. I don't know anything about Kentucky but that should be fun. And that's cool Jill Christensen is going on a mission, but a little strange she's going to Temple Square. I didn't know they sent people from Utah there. But sweet! By the way, in the latest General Conference Ensign, there's a picture of a couple sister missionaries at Temple Square and one is Korean. Win! Man everyone is going on missions. Have you heard of any other calls recently? Or any wedding announcements? Those seem to be pretty popular things but they've kind of slowed down lately.

 

What's the weather like in Utah right now? Because it suddenly got way cold here. We went out contacting last night and I literally wore six layers of clothes and was still freezing. We tried walking around to find good places but it seemed like the wind would just follow us everywhere we went. Good ole Siberian winds. I think it even made my brain cold because I kind of had a weird headache when we were on the bus ride home. It wasn't very fun. But whatever. That's just how it is sometimes.

 

This week has been pretty good. We had Stake Conference yesterday and it was a satilite broadcast from Salt Lake. So we heard from Julie Beck, Elder Perry, and President Monson. It was good. And they played a video they made at the MTC to show Koreans what goes on there and kind of what it's about. They interviewed a girl that was in my last area so it was cool to see her and to see some of the Korean districts. Our family is doing pretty good. We're still trying to get them to church. That's kind of our main focus right now. We've taught them quite a few things so instead of just keep teaching lessons, we decided to step back a bit, and let them talk so we could answer any questions they had and help resolve their concerns. It was pretty cool. We figured out that they had some questions about going to church with their kids. So we talked about primary and all the little classes and I think it made them feel a little better. The mom even said it sounds fun. So I felt like it was a good lesson, but they're still not quite committed to coming. We'll see. We pray for them a lot.  Our English class is starting to really take off. We had 10 people, including a couple members, come and we were able to divide it into three seperate groups according to the people's language abilities and interests. It was awesome. This is the best it's been for as long as I have been here. So that's really exciting. Some of the people even said they're going to bring a friend next time. Hopefully that will bring in a few more investigators.

 

That's pretty much the extent of this week. Transfer calls are tonight, but I already know I'll be staying with my companion. We're on this 12-week program thing for new missionaries and traniers so we'll have at least one more together. So that's not too exciting for me. We could have some changes in our house though so it's still a little exciting. I'll let you know what happens. Talk to you next week.

 

Love, Elder Dorius

Reply to volleyball question

NNNNOOOOO!!!! Curse you Morgan High School and your great outside hitter!! But that's sweet Parker's going to play for BYU. I guess that's kind of my school now so I shouldn't be so distraught about Snow Canyon.

O Babylon, O Babylon‏

11/13/11

 

Hey everyone,

 

Wow. You guys would ditch out on going to the temple with your friends to go see Phantom of the Opera. I'm not even surprised considering all the "good times" you've had since I've been gone. Well here's a cheery little tune for you guys: "O Babylon, O Babylon, we bid thee farewell. We're going to the mountain of Ephraim to dwell."

 

But really. I'm super jealous. One of my companions loves musicals and everyday we sing songs from Phantom and Les Mis and Wicked. I would have much rather heard all about the nice warm weather of St. George. I think I would've been less jealous of that. It suddenly got really cold here. We all had to pull out our sweaters last night and I'm wishing I put mine on again today. We've had awesome weather lately and the fall has been beautiful so I'm mad that winter had to come so suddenly. That's fun you guys got to hang out with Eva. Did you learn any more Korean? Haha. I had some time this week to sit down with some of the piano music you guys sent me. Holy cow. It's awesome. I had forgotten how fun it was to just sit down and play some new music. I wish I had more free time to do that. The other missionary that likes musicals is really good at the piano too and had some music he's picked up here so we made some copies for each other. It was way fun. I've also learned a few new card games since being in a four man house. To say the least, we have had some fun. Most of us have pretty similar interests so we all get along together well and like doing things together. It's been pretty good.

 

This week hasn't been too bad. Our investigator family wasn't able to meet this week. We usually meet them on the weekends but it was their anniversary on Saturday and they had something else going on Sunday. So that was a bummer. We've been planning on inviting them to be baptized too so I really wanted to meet them and try to get them committed to being baptized. We've been doing quite a bit of advertising for our English class and actually had a couple new people come out. They don't seem to have tons of gospel interest right now but it's at least a couple new faces. We had zone conference this week. That was good. As usual. Every zone conference they celebrate all the missionaries' birthdays since the last conference. That was me. And 44 other people. It's always good to know you're just another drop in the bucket. But our president's wife made a little cake for all the missionaries who had a birthday, so that was nice. We've still been searching out for less actives. That's a pretty popular activity since we're a little low in the teaching pool. Luckily our bishop has been giving us some people to focus on and help. In fact just last night he called us and asked us to visit a sister in the hospital who had asked for a blessing. The bishop was out of town so he told us to visit this morning and give her a blessing. It was a good experience. It's super tough to give blessings in Korean but it seemed like that was what she needed. So even though we're not raking in the baptisms, I feel like we're still fulfilling our purpose by helping our members and less actives follow Jesus Christ.

 

Oh and Danielle was so kind to remind me of my one year mark. Thanks! It's pretty exciting. Our group is getting together next week to have a party. Pretty soon I'll be on the downhill. It's hard to think about that. So maybe I'll try not to for now. Well I think that's all I have. Between this and our other back and forth conversation I think I'm good. Oh wait. I just remembered one other thing. How did Snow Canyon's volleyball team do this year? Did you guys follow that at all? I was kind of curious to hear how they did. Ok. That should be it. I'll talk to you guys next week.

 

Love, Elder Dorius

Pictures

1. Here's a picture from our ward party. That's the inside of our church, by the way.

2. Here's our ward out cooking the meat.

3. Another angle of our ward out cooking the meat.

 3. This is our family we're teaching. The little boys are way cute.

5. This is one of the cutest little babies in our ward. We have a few. :)

Card Games

Hey everyone,

Sounds like you guys have had a lovely week with the doctors. I can honestly say I'm not jealous of that. Haha. Hopefully things get better and you guys can figure out what's going on with Kylie's knee. That's strange. So is Eva coming just to see you guys or is there some event going on? If she's going all the way to America just to see you guys, she must really like you. That flight is not fun. You'll have to tell her hi for me. Maybe she can teach you a few new words too. To answer your questions Dad: 1. being is a foursome is really fun. We bought a deck of cards and have been playing games every night when we're done with planning and everything. It's a lot different than just you and your companion. But it's good. 2. Training is really fun too. I've been lucky to have the greenie I have. We get along great and he's teachable. It's helped be stay on my toes and try to be a good example. 3. The language is coming along but it's still hard. The characters are easy, no problem there. Just understanding is tough. I'm picking up a few Chinese characters here and there though becuase Korean is based off of Chinese. So that's nice. In a way. It's definatley not Latin though. 4. I actually haven't used the music you sent yet. I haven't had much time to practice. Hopefully sooner than later. 5. I haven't even thought about Christmas yet. I guess that's next month huh? Shoot. What do you guys want? I don't need too much. I might get some new garments the next time we go to the temple. There's a distribution center there. That's kind of the only thing I can think of at the moment. 6. That family is doing good. We love meeting with them. We have been trying to get them out to church but they're a little apprehensive. They've given us some kind of weak excuses but seem open to going when they're ready. We're planning a time to have dinner with them and a couple other families in our ward so they can meet some people. I think that will help them come out to church. We did find one problem last night though. They like to drink coffee. The husband said his wife needs coffee more than she needs him. It was pretty funny. But also not. So either this could be a really cool coffee-quiting miracle story or just another empty cup. We'll see. Our ward has a goal to baptize two people by the end of the year and I would really love to seem them fulfill that goal.

Wow. Hopefully that answered your questions. Haha. That's been most of the week. Saturday night we had a "couples party" at the bishop's house. They must count companions as couples. But it was really fun. I like this ward. There's some awesome people. We did a little door knocking this week and put some flyers up for our English class. One lady came out so that was good. I think we're actually going to do that again tonight. When we were about to leave today, though, we got door knocked by this crazy church in Korea. From that experience I learned that when we knock on doors we shouldn't tell people that God doesn't love them or know them because they aren't a member of the church and that they're going to a bad place. People don't like that. And they probably won't come to English class. So that was good.

Well that was pretty much our week. Nothing too exciting I guess. Except I shot the moon in Hearts and won the game. That was exciting. We're going to play more games today and make sheet cake. Yum. You should send that for Christmas. That would be amazing. Well I'll talk to you guys next week. Get better soon!

Love, Elder Dorius

Questions...

OK….mom wants answers to her questions.   And Kylie wants you to know that she loves you!  (in case she dies!)

Oh yeah. We mostly contact on the street but we knock on doors too. They're both ok activities. Knocking on doors isn't my favorite thing and sometimes we get kicked out of appartments or can't even get in in the first place. Most of the newer appartments have passwords to get inside so sometimes we have to sneak in. That part and running away from security makes it interesting. Haha.

Oh and we only have a washing machine. No dryers. So we have to hang everything up to dry. It's not too bad. Except during the summer when it's hot and humid, it's hard to dry things, and in the winter it's freezing cold. Any other questions?

Mom says she just uses a dryer and that works really well for her.  And she lives in St. George.  Helpful for you….I know.  Maybe a fan?  Hair dryer?  We’ll ponder.   Well thanks for the answers and nice visiting with you.  Kylie kind of hopes you love her too.   Have a great day!   Dad

Haha oh yeah I love Kylie too. Hopefully she doesn't die. We use a fan. It's really not that bad. But I do miss having a dryer sometimes. Those are handy machines.

Happy Halloween

Hey everyone,

 

Happy Halloween! I'm glad someone is celebrating it because no one in Korea knows what Halloween is. The only Halloween stuff is on American stores, like Baskin Robbins. So it's not too big here. I'm wearing my brown and orange tie and fake glasses as my costume. Woot. Sounds like a few of you had a busy week. Magnifying Danielle and Jesse's calling is right up there with pulling teeth. That must have been divine inspiration to give them that calling haha. I liked the pictures. It made me miss giving blood. And since I got half a dozen shots for Korea and who knows what surging through my blood now, I probably can't donate for a while. Dang. Oh well. What do you do?

 

This week was pretty good. We've been trying to visit quite a few members and less actives this week. We got a list of people to work on from our bishop so we've been busy with that. We met with our family yesterday. They're so cool. Last time we talked about the Plan of Salvation and gave them 2 Nephi 2 as a reading assignment, and last night the mom pulled out her Book of Mormon and seemed really excited to tell us that she had read but couldn't understand it very well. She had to read through it three times before she could understand a little bit. So we went through that and tried explaining it a little more. That chapter is a little hard to explain, especially in Korean. Then we taught lesson three, which is pretty much just the gospel: faith, repentance, baptism, gift of the Holy Ghost, and endure to the end. It's probably one of my favorite lessons to teach. All four of us were there so we each took a principle and explained it. We invited them to church next Sunday, but they said they go visit the husband's brother at that time because he's sick. They said they don't have friends here becuase they just moved here so we want to introduce them to some members and have them making new friends. So hopefuly that works out. We've talked to our ward mission leader and have a plan going.

 

On Saturday our ward had a meat party. I know that sounds like we're fat, disgusting people, but it was really good. Don't judge. Plus it sounds better in Korean. Anyway. We tried doing a couple "Halloween" activities. We did that donught on a string thing where you have to bite it off and not use your hands. It was pretty entertaining. Then we were going to do an apple bob but the members ended up eating our apples. Lame. That would've been hilarious. So we're thinking about having our own little party with the youth and doing that. We'll see. It was still fun though.

 

That was pretty much our week. My last companion got surgery on an ingrown toe nail. That was exciting. Our house is still having fun. Which reminds me. Do you guys still have Scrabble Slam? We have it at our house for some reason but we don't have the instructions and I can't remember how to play. If you could email me those I'd really like that. Well may your Halloween be merry and bright. Or something like that. Talk to you next week.

 

Love, Elder Dorius 

Pictures

Due to Danielle's request, here's some pictures of our house:

 

1. This is the front room. We also sleep in there now that there's four of us.

 

2. This is the other main part of the house and the kitchen.

3. This is my study room and there's another one just like it. And then we have another room that has all our clothes and stuff. And then the bathroom. So pretty good.

4. This was my last district at transfers. Way fun. I love them.

 

If you thought three was a crowd...‏

Hey everyone,

 

Holy cow I've never gotten so many emails in my life. It took a while to read all of them. Thanks. Except why do Kadin and Kylie have ipods? That is not fair. There are poor, starving children in Africa who would love those. At least they email me now though. I guess that's good. By the way Kadin, I will destroy you at wakeboarding when I get home. And at ping pong. So buckle up. I'm still slightly jealous of St. George weather and I'm starting to miss it. The weather here is getting a little chilly. It's about perfect with suits on, but pretty soon it's going to get cold and time for the big winter coat. All the leaves are changing, though, so I'm enjoying that.

 

Well this week was pretty exciting. As you know, we were in a threesome this transfer, which put us on the top of the list for an emergency transfer. We got a call from our mission president during the week and one of my companions answered the phone so I didn't really know what was going on. I figured it was some sort of emergency transfer and when our president asked to speak with me I thought I was getting transfered somewhere. However, he told me we were turning into a four man area because a new missionary came in late for military stuff and then he told me I was going to be his trainer. So I'm training now. My greenie's name is Elder Lee. He was born in Korea and then his family moved to America when he was about two. So he's American but speaks Korean. Those are the best. He's way cool and we get along really well. Our whole house is fun. I like being in a four man area. Our ward is super excited too. Our bishop spoke in sacrament meeting yesterday and pretty much told the ward to give us referals so we can stay busy and baptize lots of people. It should be good. Hopefully. I think we're going to be able to get a lot more done, especially with visiting less actives. There's a new program with trainers and greenies where they are together for two transfers and follow this study program. We also have an extra hour of companionship study. I wasn't too excited about all that but it's really good. I think this will really help new missionaries be more ready and prepared for the rest of their mission. So I'm excited. It's fun to have a new little missionary.

 

Our investigators are doing pretty good. The little kids we were meeting are pretty much dropped. We weren't getting to far with them. But our family is doing good. We met them the other night and taught them the Plan of Salvation and kind of focused on how baptism and other ordinances are the only way to get to the Celestial Kingdom. I think the next time we meet them we can invite them to be baptized. We invited them to a ward activity this weekend so hopefully they come and meet some of the members. I hope things work out. They're an awesome family. That was pretty much the only progress we made with investigators. We have another potential investigator we're trying to pick up. It was a member referal and she has a friend who lives in our area but goes to church in a different ward. We played Rummykub with them on Sunday after church. It was fun. Except my companion and I had the worst luck and could never lay down. So annoying. Anyway. Games are fun. Oh I got your package. It was SO good! Thank you very much. I love the mangoes. I forgot how good those are. And the music is sweet. I haven't had a chance to play though. Maybe sometime this week.

 

Well other than that, there's not much else to report on. It was a pretty eventful week though. Tell the rest of the family hi for me. I'm not really missing the hunting this year, to be honest. Maybe we'll try it again when I get back. Talk to you guys later. Have a good week.

 

Love, Elder Dorius

Three's a crowd‏

Hey everyone,

 

Oh my gosh. You went boating again?! Ahh!! Why does St. George have such nice weather? It's starting to get pretty cold here. We were out contacting last night and it was windy and cold and not too much fun. I think it kind of put everyone we were trying to talk to in a bad mood. It wasn't a trip out on the lake, that's for sure. Mom I couldn't open Grandma's letter or those pictures. I think the computers we use don't have the software or something. It was all in Korean so I'm not really sure what the problem is.  Maybe try again? or I'll try again. You might need to just mail grandma's letter. It's a bit too late to catch my birthday at this point. Maybe next year.  And how did Garrett get out of speaking? I thought that was a mandatory thing. Lucky duck. He should've taken the chance to speak in English while he still had it because giving talks in Spanish won't be much easier.

 

So here's a story about transfers: It was the night of transfer calls and my companion and I are just waiting around for the call. I always get super anxious for transfer calls so I'm trying to sit there and watch patiently when the phone started ringing and it was from our mission president. Which, by the way, the picture ID for him on our phone is a picture of Elder Stanley holding a cello. Pretty funny. So I try to answer it in my best Korean and on the other end I just hear my zone leader say "Hey what's up?" and start laughing. Sometime that night my companion changed the name of our zone leader's number to our mission president and had them call us. It was pretty funny. After a few minutes. So then we're waiting again and still no call. We start to hear from the rest of our zone what was happening with them but we hadn't heard anything. So we finally texted the AP's to see what was going on and they told us we were both staying but were turning into a threesome. So I'm in a threesome now. The new elder that came in replaced me in Tae Baek so we've been talking a lot about that and what's going on there. My recent convert is still going to church and blessing the sacrament so that was good to hear. The members here seem pretty excited for three missionaries. I just hope this doesn't hurt our chances of being invited over for dinner. But other than that it's been fun.

 

We weren't able to meet with a couple of our investigators this last week. We got a hold of one and found out he's out of town for the next couple weeks. Which reminds me I needed to call him a couple days ago. Shoot. Oh well. Then our family couldn't meet either. So that was kind of a bummer. Our little kids that we've been meeting aren't becoming so fun. I don't think they have too much interest in the gospel. One might a little but if they're all together, there's not much hope. We changed up our English class a bit. Our ward mission leader has been helping out a lot with that and is really supportive. He's awesome. Our new companion, Elder Arvaseth, is a really good missionary so hopefully we'll see some improvement. We kind of have a less active project we started/working on, so hopefully we can get some people back out to church. That's just as good as a baptism in my eyes. Korea is full of less actives and I think sometimes we as missionaries get caught up in baptizing and look over the retaining. Either way, we have a lot of work ahead of us.

 

Well that was about it for my week. Pretty good. We have a sister in our district who cut hair before her mission so we're meeting up with them today and getting American haircuts for free. I'm pretty excited. Send some nice St. George sun over. That would be greatly appreciated. I don't think I need much more. You did send that package right? I'll let you know if I need/want anything else when I get it. Have a good week.

 

Love, Elder Dorius

Best conference ever‏

Hey everyone,

 

Thanks for all the reminiscing  (however it's spelled) and birthday wishes. Again. Yup. I'm 20 years old. It's kind of weird. I don't really feel that old, but I guess I am. It was good to hear from my friends on facebook via Danielle's email. That was nice. And thanks for the emails Aunt Linda and Amanda. I really enjoy hearing from everyone.

 

Conference was awesome! Our whole stake met together and watched it. All the members were in the cultural hall and watched it in Korean and all the missionaries were in a room and watched it in English. So I could actually understand everything this time. My favorite talk was probably Elder Waddell's in Priesthood. He talked about how the Lord has prepared a missionary experience for every missionary and how He knows our president, companions, and investigators and through those associations, we can become the type of Priesthood holder, husband, and father He wants us to become. It was really good. What's up with Elder Hales? He didn't look like himself at all. Has he been sick or something? Overall, I loved conference and the whole experience. It was fun to be with our whole zone for the weekend and just sit back and watch conference. And it was fun to see all the members. Big gatherings like this make me feel like I'm in Utah again, even though the size of the church here is almost nothing compared to there. Nevertheless, it's still true.

 

We couldn't meet with any of our investigators this week. It was a pretty rough week as far as numbers go. Two of our investigators kind of dropped off the radar and our family usually meets on Saturday so we couldn't meet because of conference. But we got a hold of one of our investigators last night and talked to him. He's been out of town and got drunk with his friends and broke his phone. Typical. So I cried repentance and told him to stop drinking and told him good things would happen. Just call me Ammon. Ha. Ok maybe not. So no new news for the investigators, and in this case no news isn't quite good news. Hopefully this week is better.

 

Tonight is transfer calls. I swear this transfer just started. I can't believe it's almost over. Time is seriously going by too fast. One of my good buddies in my district made an interesting comment. He said to me "you're 20 years old and your mission is almost halfway over." That's just what I want to hear. Happy Birthday to the ground. Ha. So it's pretty exciting but strange at the same time. I'll let you know how that goes next week. I have know idea what's going to happen. Speaking of letting you know of things, Elder Stanley says hi. He texted me happy birthday last night and we talked a bit. He's doing good. 

 

Well that's about all the excitingness of this week. It's hard to beat conference and a birthday all on the same day. Except one of the couple missionaries called me last night and sang happy birthday to me. That made my day. So a tip to grandpa and grandma when they're on their missoin: sing happy birthday to the missionaries. It's awesome. Today our district is going bowling. It's kind of our last "hurrah" for the transfer just in case we get seperated. I'm pretty excited. Anyways I'll talk to you next week and give you the updates from transfers. Have a big piece of chocolate cake for me!

 

Love, Elder Dorius  

Only 4 more days until Conference!‏

Hey everyone,

 

Oh man I'm stoke for conference! It sounds like this was a really good one. Unlike the rest of them. Ha. And I'm glad you guys got my package. That got there pretty quick. I guess airplanes can fly pretty fast nowadays. I can't believe you guys are still taking the boat out. Is it really still that warm there? It's starting to get cold over here. I have to sleep with socks on and wear a jacket while I'm studying in the mornings. The afternoons are pretty nice. My companion and I have been wearing our suits for the past few days and that's about perfect. I am definately not looking forward to the winter. Apparently I was in the MTC during the worst part of winter last year so I'm worried I'm going to freeze. I'm just hoping that by being sent off to the coldest area in Korea as a greenie will pay off this year. Thanks for the birthday wishes. It doesn't really feel like my birthday. As a teenage Mormon boy, you don't really think about your 20th birthday. I don't think it really exists. In fact I did skip it when I came to Korea because of the difference between American age and Korean age. I've just gotten used to telling everyone I'm 21. But thanks anyway. It was Elder Stanley's birthday on the 30th so I called him up and talked to him for a little while. It was fun. It's still kind of crazy to think about us both being here. Oh and by the way, sorry for not emailing yesterday. It was a holiday so our email place was closed.

 

Well this week was pretty good. For P-day last week, we went to a pretty popular shopping place. I got a Korean soccer jersey custom made with my name on it. It's pretty sweet. I also practiced my bargining skills and got a pretty cool jacket. Then I got myself a few more ties like the ones I sent home. If you want some more just let me know. The ties are only about 2 bucks there. So that was fun. We also had our temple trip last week so that was good too. The temple is so nice. I really like the smallness of the Seoul temple. It's cozey. Yesterday for P-day we met up with my MTC companion and his companion and went onto one of the army bases since he's in the army. That was pretty cool, but strange. I felt like I was in America as I was eating my foot long from Sub Way in a cafeiteria with a bunch of other Americans. Even outside, walking around, the sidewalks and the trees looked American. It was a weird feeling. I'm pretty sure I'm going to have some culture shock again when I come home. Korea just feels normal now.

 

Our investigators are doing good. This family we're teaching is way cool. The mom owns/works at a resturant so she's an awesome cook and made us some good food. We taught them the whole first lesson and committed them to read Moroni 10 and they seemed to accept it all well. We've been taking a break from these kids that we've been meeting with. We're starting to think they might just be meeting us because we're white and play ping pong. We're meeting them tomorrow and kind of making it the last straw type of thing and see how it goes. Then our other investigator has been kind of flakey. He always says he has time to meet and loves meeting with us and then he can't meet or doesn't answer his phone. It's kind of annoying. But we're hopefully meeting him tonight and get things going again.

 

I think that's about it for this week. Nothing too much more exciting. We get transfer calls on Monday so things could be changing. We'll see. I'm just excited for conference. Thanks again for the birthday wishes. I'm sure it will be good. I'll be waiting for that package. Talk to you later.

 

Love, Elder Dorius

PICTURES

Brad sent home a disk of pictures.  Here are a few of the best ones.

This is one of my very favorities.

He is not in St. George any more!!

This is a song that they just worked up

                                                          

RAIN, RAIN, RAIN

Yes Missionaries know how to have a party.

Slow but steady‏

Hey everyone,

 

Thanks for the emails today. And the novel from Danielle. Ha. It was fun to read. You guys sure are busy as heck. It sounds like you're even busier than I am. That's cool that grandpa and grandma are serving another mission. You'll have to let me know where they go. Do they have a guessing map up? I'm going to say Florida. That'd be a nice place. They can go hit up Disney World on their P-day. I'm glad you guys changed the seat covers in the alero and gave it a good cleaning. Oh I sent a package off for you guys the other day. I'm not sure when it will get there, maybe a couple weeks, but you can at least look forward to that. Are you still working on sending that package to me?

 

Well my week was pretty good. We actually picked up three new investigators. One was a former investigator that Elder Stanley and his trainer actually originally found. We were walking to our church one day and he passed us in his car and asked us if we were the new missionaries here. He recently quit his job and has lots of time and really wants to meet with us. He's pretty cool and fly at English. We haven't been able to teach him anything yet because he's been working on this report for college but he came to church yesterday and we're planning on meeting him tonight. It's at least another person in our investigator pool. Our other two is a family who moved into our area awhile ago and was meeting with the missonaries in their last area. We met them for the first time on Saturday and just hit it off well. They have two little boys who pretty much became our best friends and the parents seem to like us as well. I really like the feeling in their home and think they have good potential. Our other little investigators are doing good. They've been doing their reading assignments in the Book of Mormon and kind of expect our little discussions before we play ping pong and expect us to pray before we eat. So that's good. We want to start giving them a little bigger commitments and getting more principles taught. We'll see how that goes. So our area is doing pretty well right now. Hopefully we can keep seeing progress and try to get some baptisms coming in.

 

Those are pretty much the highlights/cool things of the week. We went hiking with the Elder's quorom Saturday morning and then went out to breakfast. That was sweet. It was at Incheon Grand Park. You should look it up becuase it's actually a pretty cool place. I've been there a couple times now. It is pretty crazy to think about how long I've been out. I think today is actually my 8 month mark in Korea. Woot. Time is moving fast. I feel like by the time I'm comfortable with the language and have figured out how to really do missionary work, it will be time to come home. I guess that's why grandpa and grandma are on their 3rd mission now. They probably have it mastered. You should talk them into coming to Korea and helping me out. Haha.

 

Well that's about it for me. I can't really think of anything else I can ramble off about that's worth rambling. I'm excited for conference though. Pay good attention and give me a heads up on which ones to watch out for. I've been reading old takes every once in awhile to get pumped up. I found one from 1991. There's some good stuff. Anyway. Talk to you guys next week.

 

Love, Elder Dorius

At Least Someone Cares

Hey everyone,

 

Umm did you guys have such a boring week that you had no need to email me? That's unheard of. Surely something happened. Even if it was just work and school you can still email me. Oh I got a email! Well I'll just give you the update of my week while I wait for you guys.

 

Oh I just emailed you guys a few days ago. Haha. We've had a pretty good few days since then though. Our new investigator brought a couple friends with him when he met us and we ended up picking them up as investigators too. They all go to the same school, which is right next to our church, and are pretty good buds. We've just been meeting them after school and playing ping pong. We tried to talk about the Book of Mormon with them but because they're all 14 year old boys and have been playing ping pong, it's a little challenging for them to concentrate. So I don't know how much is really sinking in, but we gave them all a Book of Mormon and told them to read the introduction page. We'll see what happens. We might have to get a bit creative.

 

On Saturday, our district leader's ward had a little musical program thing and they invited us to perform/watch. I performed. My companion watched. It was way fun. There were a few little kids playing their little tunes on the piano and a couple other members played the guitar and then my district leader played a couple songs and his companion rapped. It was sweet. I played Dumb Song and they loved it. I don't think Koreans play much "jazz" piano so they're usually pretty excited when I play stuff like that. It's times like this that make me really grateful you guys made me stick with piano.

 

Well thanks for replying. That's about it from me. Tell Kylie to beat up Kadin for not caring and that I'll beat him up too when I get home. Glad you guys are having a good time with the Japanese kids. I can't remember any Japanese either. Hopefully you can keep up with them. Talk to you later.

 

Love, Elder Dorius

Email from London

From London:

Eat more KimChi!

Happy Chu Suk!‏

Hey everyone,

 

You guys have Japanese kids again? That sounds fun. And you're still boating. Ugh. That sounds fun (sarcasm). I understand how busy you guys are and how hard it is to send off a package. I still need to send one to you guys. I've been moving some pictures from my memory card onto my translator before I send it home so that's partly why it's taking so long as well. Maybe I'll try to get that off to you sometime this week so you can get my ipod and then if I'm not done with the rest of my pictures, I'll just send that later. That's cool you guys took the Japanese kids to the temple. It sounds like they had a pretty good experience. And that's cool one of your Korean girls is coming over for Christmas. It'd be sweet if I could say hi to her when I call home. Maybe even practice a little Korean. And Danielle, that's fun that you have your Korean teacher again and that she's having a baby. Korean babies are the cutest thing in the world. I've been emailing Jordan a bit. He's almost out of the MTC and he said he can already understand about 80% of what his teachers say. Man. What I would give for that. I'm coming up on my year mark and I still barely know what's going on. Oh well.

 

So as you know, this week was Korea's biggest national holiday, Chu Suk. It's similar to Thanksgiving. Pretty much everyone goes back to their hometowns and spends a few days with their families. Monday was a full P-day so Sunday night, we went over to our zone leader's/district leader's house and spent the night with them. It was way fun. Monday we just hung out. There wasn't really much to do because everything was closed. But it was nice to just relax and hang out for once. Tuesday we had a special zone conference. They had a few musical numbers. My district leader, who is also a rock star, asked me to play the piano for him for a musical number. He had a cool arrangement of "How Great Thou Art" on a cd so we spent a little time during our marathon P-day to figure it out and play it. It was pretty fun and it turned out pretty good. So that's my new claim to fame.

 

Last week we picked up a couple of those kids we met on the street as investigators. We've just met them a couple times so we don't know too much about them, but they're nice, innocent kids. We're meeting at least one of them tonight so hopefully it goes well. We also got a referall from some other missionaries. It's a familiy with two little boys. We haven't met them yet because of the holiday but we talked to the dad on the phone and he seems really nice. Apparently they're a really good family and really like the missionaries. So we're starting to see a few things pop up here and there. Now that the holiday is over we'll be able to meet more regularly and see more success. Oh I just remembered some other news from last week. I had dog soup. It's called bo shin tang. It actually was pretty good. A member took us out to dinner one night. So London better watch out when I get back or else I might eat her. Haha. Just kidding. They breed certain dogs for the meat. Anyway. I thought you might like to hear that. I haven't had too many new cultural experiences lately.

 

Well that's about it for now. I'll try to get this package off to you guys as soon as I can. Tell your Japanese boys hi for me. If you can. Haha. Good luck with that. Talk to you guys later.

 

Love, Elder Dorius