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.