Didn't quite see that coming...

{June 24, 2012}

Hey everyone,

 

First of all before I forget, we got an email about elections. They said we can just go to the US Embassy and vote there, but I don't think I'm registered. Is there a way to do that? I'm not sure what that all envolves but it might be good to vote if I can. If not, then that's ok too. But they said you'll have to start on that now. So if you can look into that that would be nice. Dad's email was interesting. It's not everyday I get emails that are pretty much all about the latest deaths. That's pretty crazy about that kid. I don't think I know him. That's sad about Sis. Crawford, but she was probably ready to go. 92 years is a long time. Why is Jesse learning French? Tell him to learn Korean so I can have someone to talk to when I get home. He doesn't need to learn French. Between his Spanish and English he can probably understand most things. Real men learn Korean. Congrats on the new calling Kadin! That's sweet. You hold the keys now. You better refresh your memory of the last Priesthood session of conference and study all the sections in D&C about the priesthood. And congrats to Kylie on the track meet. That sounds way fun. Ah I miss cinnonmon rolls. You probably shouldn't mail them though. They might not turn out too good after two weeks of sitting in a box.

 

Well transfers were good. As always, I think I know what's going to happen, but my president gets me everytime. We got our calls Monday night and my companion answered the phone and found out he was getting a new companion so I knew I was leaving. So I get on the phone and my president says I'm going to Sin Dang. My companion and I exploded. He had served there for a transfer so he knew all about it. It's right in the heart of Seoul, the ward is amazing, and there are tons of people there to teach. So I was stoked. It was pretty much my dream come true. But it was too good to be true. The next morning we got a text from someone from a different zone welcoming me to their zone. It was pretty confusing and to make a kind of long story short, there was some miscommunication and I actually got transferred to Gangneung. It's the same zone as my greenie area. So I'm really excited to go back to my greenie area and be back in this zone, but it's definately not like the area where I thought I was going. I'm a zone leader now so that's fun. I guess. I just have more responsibilities. So really it's not that fun haha. My new companion is Elder Larson. He's from Arizona. This is his last transfer so he knows how to get things done. We get along great. Oh and we are the only area in the mission that has bikes! It's way fun. But my legs and rear end are super sore. It's been so long since I've been on a bike. The weather is way nice too. I definately came to this zone at the right time. The last time I was here I was shoveling snow everyday. Hopefully we won't have that same opportunity here.

 

We've been pretty busy here so far in just there few days that I have been here. We picked up 7 new investigators. One is a family of four, one is two kids, and the other is just a kid. I haven't met him yet so I don't know much about him. But the other families are way cool. We teach them English but they also have some gospel interest. The branch here is way fun. We had about 30 people come out yesterday. I haven't been in a branch again for awhile but it wasn't a huge shock for me. There are a lot of fun little kids though so we have a good time playing with them. And they love the hair on my arms. Haha. We also have a lady from America who's teaching English here so we translate for her during sacrament meeting. It's way hard. It was another reminder that I'm really not as good at Korean as I sometimes think I am and that I need to stay humble. That's definately a good way to stay humble.

 

So that's pretty much been my week. We went on a sweet hike last week for P-day. I'll try to send some pictures. This computer is kind of annoying. I'll have to figure it out. Anyway. Have a good day/week! Talk to you later.

 

Love, Elder Dorius

1. Here's some of my last zone at the top of our hike.

2. Me on the mountain.

3. Here's part of my new area.

4. It's a good thing I fell in love with the countryside the first time I was here

 

What an eventful week

{June 17, 2012}

Hey everyone,

 

Holy smokes. Danielle should had an eventful week. Way to buy the Hyundai. That made me happy. Haha. I love trips to the ER! It's so great when you're there in the middle of the night with no one else around and you're doing all you can to not die and you still have to wait in the waiting room. Maybe you did have a kidney stone. That's kind of how I felt. It was definately rated four stars and two enthusiatic thumbs up. But I'm glad you're alive. Congratulations. Also congratulations to Kylie on her PR! Way to go! That stinks you didn't get to move on but it sounds like you still  ran a good race. Mom, I printed of that registration form yesterday at our church. I'll try to fax that sometime today or tomorrow and I'll probably through the real one in the mail just in case. Oh and thanks for the video, but I already have that one on my translater. Speaking of technology, did you get a tablet? What exactly is that? Is it like an ipad? You must be technologically advanced nowadays. Haha. Oh yeah. Happy Father's Day! I kind of completely forgot. Sorry. But I still love you and appreciate everything you do for me. Did you get some good Father's Day gifts?

 

Well like Danielle, my week was also pretty eventful. Not quite as eventful as buying a car and going to the ER, but as far as missionary work goes, it was pretty busy. This week we picked up four new investigators. One guy is a little older. He works for New Skin so he was in Utah and went to the temple and talked to some missionaries there and wanted to learn more. He seems like he's just more curious than actually searching for the truth, but we'll see. We finally picked up our preacher friend. He's cool. He uses the Bible like crazy but that's ok because our church believes in the Bible. He's open to reading the Book of Mormon and praying about it. He even said that's what you have to do in order to know the truth of the scriptures. So I'm excited to see how that turns out. Then our other new investigator is this guy who wants to learn English with his son. As we were talking, we found out that he plays tennis every weekend so I told him I played in high school and he wants to play with us. He goes with a pretty big group of guys and they hit all morning long. Once again, this was an experience that God does love His children and answers their prayers. I've been waiting for this my whole mission. But here's the kicker. This week is transfer calls and it's looking like I'm the one who's going to go. NO!! My golden opportunity is slipping away. But we still don't know. We'll find out tonight and I'll let you know this week.

 

We went to a wedding this week. The less active son of a lady in our ward got married and the whole ward was invited. It was cool, but kind of crazy at the same time. It seemed like they just put the bride and groom up there, said some stuff, moved them around and did other stuff, and then they were married. Maybe it was meaningful to them. I don't know. But it kind of made me not want to get married like that. I think I'll go with a temple marriage. Speaking of marriages, is Mary married? Ha. I think I heard somewhere that she was getting married on the 15th, but I never really heard for sure. If so, that'd be pretty funny because I was at this wedding at about the same time as her wedding.

 

Our mission president gave his farewell talk this week. He talked a lot about happiness, which we all saw that coming because he is seriously the happiest guy in the world. Whenever we see him, he always has a huge smile on his face, even when things are hard and when it's really easy to not smile. He also talked about his conversion and how he thought he found happiness through smoking and drinking and worldly things, but when he became converted he realized the gospel brought him true happiness. So it was a good meeting. It's going to be strange to have a new president. Especially an American. But I'm glad I got to serve under Pres. Lee for the time I did and that I was able to hear and understand his final words of advice to us in his native language.

 

You're also going to be glad that I got to perform quite a bit this week. At that meeting I played the piano for my zone leaders and a couple sisters who sang Come, Thou Fount of Every Blessing, in sacrament meeting I played the piano for my companion and one of the young men in our ward who sang Abide With Me, and then all the missionaries in our stake were asked to join this choir that will be singing at a fireside for our mission president, so we practiced for that on Sunday. Lot's of music this week. It was fun.

 

Well sorry this turned into a novel. I updated my journal this morning so everything was fresh on my mind and easy to remember. Haha. I've been texting Elder Stanley a bit today talking about rooming. I don't know if you've looked into that much or not but we decided pretty much anything will probably work. We just don't want to be on campus. But if you can find something close, that would be good. We're pretty easygoing. If there's anything we need to do or need to know just let us know I guess. I don't know how college stuff goes anymore. Haha. Anyways. Thanks for the emails. I'll send a few pictures. Talk to you next week!

 

Love, Elder Dorius

Pictures:

1. Here's me and my mission president and his wife.

2. This was our p day activity last week. Way cool stuff. If we ever take a trip to Korea we'll have to come here again.

3. We did a little door knocking while we were there.

4. We found a sacrificial alter but caught the picture right before the fire came. Sorry. I promise it was cool.

  

5. This reminds me of Bled Castle. 

6. The back view and reflection. aka creative energy.

7. And here's the Korean President's house. It's called the Blue House

The Church must be true

{June 10, 2012}

Hey everyone,

 

I watched that video, Mom. Straight up that's Korea! (Link to the video:Here) I was trying to find someone I knew from it but they didn't look familiar. But it was way cool. It sounds like everyone is staying busy with good things. Haha oh Timberline...way to make it Kadin. Haha. Yeah Kylie, you're right. You will be tanner than me by the time I'm home. I'm super white. But I have been getting a little sun on my arms and face now that it's summer. One of our investigators even told me I look darker. But that was at night on a bus so maybe it was just a shadow haha. I took it as a compliment. I can't believe Malea's papers are going in today. I wrote her a couple weeks ago and told her we could use a few more blonde sisters out here. Haha. She'd probably get more stares than I do. You'll have to let me know where she's going.

 

Well this week has been pretty good. We picked up a new investigator that my companion originally talked to on a bus. He's pretty good. We had a good first lesson by explaining our purpose, promising blessings, and tying in almost all of the first lesson. I'm so glad I get to be a missionary in the era of Preach My Gospel because the memorized lessons would be way boring and not nearly as effective as teaching by the Spirit. We never heard back from our preacher friend. I think I mentioned him last week. Maybe we scared him away. I don't know. We were really looking forward to meeting him. Our ward had a BBQ party on Wednesday and two of our young men brought a few of their friends. They're cool, but they don't really show much interest in the gospel. We played basketball with a couple of them on Saturday and just had fun, so maybe later they'll have some interest. It was at least cool to see some of our members exposing their friends to the church.

 

I had the opportunity to do another baptismal interview for the zone leaders this week. Their investigator is legit. They found him on the street and I think he was smoking at the time. I can't remember. Either way, he had a bad smoking problem so the missionaries talked about the Word of Wisdom and then he just stopped. Boom. He was done. So it was a way cool baptismal interview.

 

Here's my funny experience for the week. On Sunday, about an hour before sacrament meeting starts, one of the councilors comes up to me and says "the bishop would like to speak to you in his office." That's reassuring. So in my mind I start going through all the things I could have possibly done wrong as I walked to his office. I get there, sit down, and he says to my companion, "you just gave a talk a couple weeks ago, right?" He did. Then my bishop says to me, "well I guess it's your turn then. I need you to speak today." If you think that gets your heart pumping a bit in America, try it in Korea. So of course I agreed and talked about our training we got on using the Book of Mormon in our missionary work. (Way good training by the way. Trainings on the Book of Mormon are the best!) But that's not the funny part. The funny part was after my talk and during the high councilor's talk. I was on the stand right in front of the young men who passed the sacrament and two of them were doing the classic young-men-falling-asleep-during-the-high-councilor's-talk head bob. It was super funny. They were going all over the place and I was just waiting for them to collide and wake each other up. But it never happened. But I learned that the church is the same all over the world no matter where you are!

 

That was pretty much my week. We're still in a bit of a rough spot but things should be picking up soon. It's at least time for them to. Today we're meeting up with our district and going to check out some palaces. I'm pretty excited. I'll have to take a couple pictures and send them next week. Good luck with all your activites. Remember there's good, better, and best. And I'll pass along Dad's advice too: be wise. Jacob 6:12.

Here's my "trunky" picture

No news is kind of good news

{June 3, 2012}

Hey everyone,

 

Ok. I feel like my mission has been super boring compared to Elder Anderson. We visited a member this week who served in Oakland, California on her mission and she was telling us all the crazy things that happened to her. It made me slightly jealous because I don't have any cool stories, but it also made me grateful to live in a safe place. We came to the conclusion that missionaries in Korea just work for two years. Haha Dad's playing softball? Haha. That facebook post is hilarious. I was laughing way hard. Way to go Dad! Have you found your favorite snow cone flavor yet? I'm also jealous about Danielle's new camera. I've decided that I want to get a nice camera sometime when I get home and do some photography stuff. That sounds fun. And your place looks way nice. Texas looks pretty. Or maybe it's just your camera. Ha. Oh and speaking of future, Mom. Why are you mad at me for that? I gave you an estimated release date. My actual release date is Dec. 7th. I got the paper work this week. Ugh. Which reminds me. What's the home phone number? Do you just use cell phones now? What's our stake president's name again? I forgot. Ha. And if you have his address that would be good too. I need that stuff for some paper work so if you could send that to me by next week that would be good. Oh and I talked to Elder Stanley today about rooming together and he's up for that. He'll let his parents know and then you guys can just figure it out. Good luck! Haha.

 

As for this week, I didn't get robbed, mugged, or shot at. A bunch of little high school girls stared at me and only a couple old people said I was pretty. We were sitting down on a bench waiting for an appointment when my companion started waving to a little girl who was staring at him and then I leaned forward to see what was going on and the little girl said "oh! There's another one!" Welcome to Korea.

 

Now as for missionary work, please refer to my previous statement about missionary work in Korea. We just worked. This was actually the second week in a row where we haven't been able to meet with any of our investigators. I don't really know why, but the Lord is giving us some pretty good trials right now. We kind of want to just clear off our investigator board and start fresh. Hopefully we'll be up there with Dad getting the "most improved player" award this week and for the rest of the transfer. We actually did almost pick up a new investigator. We have to meet him one more time to actually count it. But he's a...preacher? I think that's what it is in English. We usually try to avoid them because they just want to bash, but this guy seems pretty sincere. And he studied in London which is quite a bit different than studying in Korea. So we're pretty excited about him. We're going to be working hard this week and keep making miracles happen.

 

Speaking of miracles. We found out that India has its first stake now. Our bishop was there this last week and told us. That was cool. I'm sure the Tuscanos know but you'll have to share the news. Also tell Mary to send me a wedding invitation. Haha. But ease into it by telling her I say hi first. And tell everyone else hi for me while you're at it. Ha. Thanks. Anyways. That was pretty much our week. Don't forget to sqeeze in some lake time with all your activities. I know it's hard, but someone has to do it. Talk to you later.

 

Love, Elder Dorius

Pictures

1. Here's my zone.

2. Here's my creative energy or something like that.

3. Oh and here's some ancient tombstone things. It's like the ancestors in Mulan! Haha

Happy Birthday Buddha!

{May 29, 2012}

Hey everyone,

 

Sorry for the delay. No, it was not Memorial Day. It was Buddha's Birthday! Haha. It's a national holiday here so everything was closed and we had to email today. Our zone had an all day sports activity yesterday. We played soccer, basketball, volleyball, and ran some relays. It was super fun, but today I'm way sore and a bit sunburned. It's kind of embarrassing. I'm super white now. I can't even remember the last time my forearms got sunburned. But it was sweet. It looks like the Real game was fun. Who did they play? Dang it. Six Flags is way fun. We'll have to go take a trip and hit it up sometime when I get home. Oh speaking of. I got an interesting phone call from the office last week. They confirmed my release date. Weird. They were also wondering if you guys are going to come pick me up. I told them probably not, but I wasn't sure. So are you guys going to pick me up or am I just flying home?

 

Anyway. Today we had our temple trip. It's the best everytime. Today is also our P-day and we were going to go hiking as a zone, but everyone is too sore from sports yesterday so we were going to just play games and relax, but then it just turned into going to a meat buffet and eating our lives away. Haha. Nothing really new with our investigators. Actually there is nothing new. We couldn't meet with any of our investigators this week. I don't know what's going on, but everyone has gotten busy and lost time and interest in meeting. Super frustrating. But we actually saw about half of them randomly on the street. That was cool. It's experiences that those that remind me that the Lord can place people in our path or can put us in their path. So we've been working a lot on street contacting and finding new investigators. Thankfully, we've found a few potentials and picked up a couple new investigators. They're both 18 year old kids and just plain cool.

 

Oh man. Elder Anderson's letter was intense. I can't believe he almost got shot. Holy smokes. Guns are illegal in Korea so nobody owns one and even if someone got their hands on one they wouldn't know how to use it. So don't worry about me. Haha. The worst that could happen is a drunk guy who wants to fight us, and that woudn't last too long.

 

Oh gosh. We just got kicked out of our emailing place. We were just at this big phone store and emailed on some computers in their service center, but apparently we couldn't use them. So now we're at the family history center by the temple. Woot! Our bishop works here so we've been here a couple times. It's awesome. They have tons of books just full of generations of family history. It's quite the sight to see.

 

Well that was pretty much the extent of our week. We got a new oven. And we got a window fixed on our deck type thing. That was exciting. I must be getting old if I get excited over new appliances and other home stuff. Haha. Hopefully you guys are having fun with whatever you do now that school is out. Don't waste too much time. Read books and do productive activities. We wouldn't want to be "slothful" now would we? ;) Talk to you next week!

 

Love, Elder Dorius

That Wasn't Part of the Plan

{May 20, 2012}

Hey everyone,

 

Yeah, Danielle, that email was kind of long. But it was funny. Congrats on the job at Noah's! I have sympathy for you and working with all those drunk people. Koreans like to drink. It's part of their culture. There's this one guy at a plaza place where we go street contacting a lot who is always drunk and getting more drunk. We're friends now. Kind of. He at least makes sure I'm always working hard and tells me to go contact people. Haha. It's funny. We keep telling him to not drink for just one day and meet with us, but so far nothing has happened. Anyway. Texas sounds cool. Except during the summer. Once again, I have sympathy for you. You guys are going to a REAL game?! That's not fair. That stadium is way cool. I see the World Cup Stadium every once in awhile. We have some members that live fairly close to it. But I'm still slightly jealous. Haha and London has a cousin now. That's...nice. I'm not quite sure how to respond to that.

 

Well this week has been ok. It was rather boring and a bit disappointing. We could only meet with one of our investigators and couldn't even get a hold of half of them. Hopefully they're still a live. But for some reason they've just kind of dropped off the radar. The investigator we did meet though was our part-member family investigator so that was good. Except I was on exchanges that day and didn't do the actual meeting of the investigator. But that's ok. She's doing good and we have a new date for her and her husband is going to work towards that as well and try to be ready to baptize her. We actually were able to meet with one other investigator last night. We picked up a family a week or so ago and we just met the husband for the second time. We sat down and he told us he has a lot of worries. Holding back tears and with fear and concern evident in his voice, he just let it all out and told us everything that was on his mind. I've never felt so much concern and love for anyone, and this was the first time I had actually met him. But as he was telling us all this I felt two main things. One: gratitude for the things I have and the life I was able to live and still living, and two: God's love for him and how much the gospel will change his life. It was so powerful. During this hour long meeting, my companion and I said maybe three lines, and that was enough. He said other churches don't listen to people. They just preach and lecture and then send people on their way. But what he needed right then was someone to listen and someone to offer help. And that's exactly what we did. It was definately not part of the plan. That was obvious. We were just going to teach the restoration and committ him to read and pray about the Book of Mormon. Elder Holland gave a beastly talk about that while I was in the MTC so I'm slightly quoting him. Ha. But anyway. We came home that night feeling like missionaries, not just young people doing missionary work.

 

That was the highlight of the week. We got fed really well. We had dinner appointments every night from Monday to Thursday. So that was nice. Monday night we got invited to do FHE and that was way fun. We did a fun lesson with the little kids and just had a good time. Our members are so good. Everytime I leave one of their houses I just think "man, our ward is the best!"

 

Well Dad's letter just came. All the cool things are happening while I'm gone. Seriously. Hopefully that Venus eclipse that makes it to Korea. It's a little farther from Kanarrawherever. I guess we'll see. Well that's about all I have. Have a good week. Talk to you later.

 

Love, Elder Dorius

Happy Mother's Day!

{May 13, 2012}

Hey everyone,

 

Long time no see, eh? It was great to talk to all of you again. Calling home is the best! I'm kind of sad that was my last one. At least it should be. Let's at least hope it's the last one. We wouldn't want any emergency phone calls now would we? And don't worry Kadin. You'll shoot up in no time. Once middle school and high school rolls around you'll be way tall.

 

So you pretty much know everything that's going on now, but I'll give you a quick update on what happened this week. We found a few more investigators. We took a little shortcut home one day and saw a couple punk kids smoking so of course we went over and talked to them. One kid had his whole arm covered in tattooes, which is rare in Korea, so I wasn't too sure how far we would get with them. But as we kept talking they turned out to be way cool and we met them a few days later and played basketball with them and three of their friends. The kid with the tattoo is sweet. He has an interesting background and has grown up in a rough house it sounds like, so the gospel is going to be a huge change for him and also his family. We're excited. The Sis. Park we've been teaching is doing great. She's reading the Book of Mormon, but having a hard time understanding it. Her less active husband wants to baptize her and our ward leaders want him to baptize her, but he has some problems with the Word or Wisdom that he needs to fix so we are thinking about moving that date back a little bit to help him be more prepared.

 

That's pretty much the highlights of this week. There were some slow, hard days, and there were a couple really good, productive days. I wouldn't mind a little more consistancy, but whatever works. The hard days just make the good days that much more good.

 

One thing I just remembered. We were talking with one of our investigators about prayer and how God is on our team and has our back and stuff. He's way good at English so he understands things like that when we say them. But at the end of the lesson he said the prayer in English and he said something along the lines of "Dear God, please watch our backs." It was funny. I've gotten better at holding in laughs during prayers since I've been on my mission.

 

The only other thing I wanted to tell you guys about was that jazz combo I already told you about. There was a rock band after them and they sang "Come Together" which was sweet. And there was a crazy drunk guy dancing at the front of the stage. I got a video of it. Haha. It's too big to send in an email so the next time I send my card home you can check it out. It's pretty funny. I just love all the funny random stuff we get to see everyday. Especially when they're mixed in with miracles. That's nice. Well once again, it was nice to talk to you. Have a happy Mother's Day! Talk to you next week!

 

Love, Elder Dorius

Life is Good

{May 6, 2012}

Hey everyone,

 

All the respect I've ever had for Aunt Jen just multiplied by a hundred. Holy smokes. I can't believe she did a legit ironman. I think I'm going to have to do a whole lot more than just eat my vegitables to be like her now. But way to go Aunt Jen! Sounds like Danielle and Jesse made a nice transition to the Texan life. It doesn't sound too bad over there. How hot does it get? It kind of sounds like Korea's weather. Hot and humid. Actually lately it's been about perfect. The afternoons are a little hot but it cools off in the evenings. That's the benefit to living out in the middle of the rice fields with the farmers and not in the middle of the buildings with the business people.  

 

The baptism was awesome. And she got confirmed yesterday so it's all set. Oh and I found out how to spell her name in English. It's Park Sol Moe. Kind of a different name but it's cool. All the members have been really friendly with her and have welcomed her nicely. I think she'll make the transition from investigator to member really smoothly. Yesterday we also met with our other Sis. Park, the wife of the less active member. We talked about baptism again and told her everything we still need to do and some things she'll have to do before she gets baptized and we decided May 20th would be a good date to shoot for. So she's back on track and doing well. Our other investigators are doing so good. One kid, Im Joo Won, has been reading the Book of Mormon on his own and has been asking questions about it and trying to understand everything that's going on. He'll hopefully get baptized this month too. He's just a super busy college kid so it's hard for him to come to church, but we're working on that. One of our other investigators, Han Joon Suk, is also reading the Book of Mormon a bit. He's way fun to teach because it's more of a discussion type lesson. He asks us questions like how we came to know something was true or how we felt when we did something. Those are my more favorite investigators right now. We have a couple others but they aren't quite as favorite. If they don't have grape, then it's ok because cherry is favorite anyway. (Just trying to pump you guys up for Brian Regan.)

 

Ah dang it. I just remembered I missed Danielle's birthday. Fail. Happy late Birthday! May 5th has a lot of things to keep track of. It's Children's Day in Korea, Cinco de Mayo in Mexico (and America pretty much) and it's Danielle's Birthday. Do you want anything cool for your birthday? Oh and I found some fan holders for your fans, Mom. It cost four times more to ship them than it did to actually buy them. They better make it in one piece. Hopefully they work. Does anyone want anything? I feel like I have't been very good at sending stuff home. Any requests?

 

Anyways. The rest of the week was pretty good. Nothing really new. I got to do a baptismal interview for our zone leaders' investigator. That was fun. I like seeing how people change as they've come to accept the gospel. Like this week we texted Park Sol Moe to see how she's been and she said she was happy everyday. That's what the gospel does. It makes people happy when they accept it and choose to live according to it. I just wish everyone knew that.

 

Well this transfer is already over. We get our transfer calls tonight and start a new transfer this week. I'm not sure what's going to happen. I'm kind of feeling like I'm gone, but I'm not sure. We'll see. I hope I can stay because there's some awesome stuff going on in our whole district. Right now we have 5 baptismal dates in our district. It's super exciting and I'm not quite ready to leave. But we'll see. I'll get a phone card this week. The plan is sounding like I'll call here on Monday after study so around 11 or 12. That will be Sunday evening for you guys. I'm excited. Talk to you then.

 

Love, Elder Dorius

Baptism!

{April 29, 2012}

Hey everyone,

 

Well it sounds like there's been quite the partying and celebrating going on this week. That's fun. Congrats Danielle on graduation! I liked your graduation pictures. Those are so cool. Maybe someday I'll get to graduate too. Haha. It seems pretty far still for me. Yes Dad I do get grandpa and grandma's emails. They're fun to read. They make me want to serve a senior couples mission. They do really fun stuff. And their few rejections don't sound nearly as bad as our countless rejections. It must be harder to say no to a nice, older couple than to a couple of young kids. Oh and thanks for sending off that package. Hopefully I get it fairly soon.

 

So this week was pretty good. Last week for P-day, me and my companion and another companionship in our district went to a meat buffet. We spent 2 and a half hours there. It was really good, but I thought I was going to die. I felt kind of bad for the poor owner lady. She had no idea what was coming and I thought we were going to eat all her food. But it worked out. We had a couple pretty good rainstorms this week and ended up finding a new investigator while we were out in the rain looking for less actives. He even lives in our same apartment. He's really smart and thinks about a lot of stuff and asks a lot of good questions. We've only met him a couple times, but he's interesting to teach because I haven't had an investigator quite like him. So that was a pretty cool miracle. On Saturday, we were completely slammed. We were able to meet with three of our investigators, have dinner with one of our members, and do a baptismal interview for our investigator. We literally ran everywhere to get to everything on time. I felt like a real missionary. Except my legs are super sore because I haven't ran for so long. Haha. I forgot what it felt like to have sore legs.

 

The best part of our week was on Sunday. Once again, we had to run to a couple places to pick up some investigators and take them to church. We had ward conference so we had the stake leaders there and heard really good talks. Then after the meeting, our ward had a buffet style lunch. It was a good spiritual and physical feast. Then after that we had our baptismal service. It was so good. We got asked that morning to do a musical number, but we managed to at least maintain the spirit that was there. When our investigator, Sis. Park, gave her little testimony, she talked about how she had met with the missionaries for a long time (since about last October-ish) and kind of how she didn't really know much about the church, but through reading the Book of Mormon and praying and through the help of the members and missionaries, she was able to gain a solid testimony and be baptized. I don't think it could have been better. There was lots of support, the Spirit was there, and the water was a perfect temperature. Definately a very good day.

 

We also found out that it was our city's birthday that day. It's 600 years old. We usually go streetboarding with our district at this plaza place in our area, but when we got there, there was this big fesival thing going on. It was sweet. Unfortunately, we weren't able to get much streetboarding in, but it was fun to kind of see and celebrate the culture. It was one of those moments where I was really glad to serve in a foreign country, especially one like Korea. I'll send a couple pictures, but when you get my card, you'll be able to watch some videos. So that was cool.

 

Well that was pretty much our week. It was probably one of the best ones of my mission so I can't complain too much. I figure sore legs are a good indication of hard work. Thanks for praying for our investigators and for the Korean people. It works. So is Mother's Day this coming Sunday? I haven't heard yet. Hopefully I'll find out sooner than later. Whenever it is, probably plan on a phone call that Sunday evening. Or maybe Saturday evening. I'm not sure if we'll call when it's Mother's Day here or there. Hmm...well we'll see. Talk to you later.

 

Love, Elder Dorius

Pictures

1. Here's us right before the baptism.

2. And with some of our ward.

3. There was this group doing a concert. They were playing traditional Korean instruments and singing traditional songs, but it was in a modern style. Way cool.

4. There were several different groups dressed up and this was one of them with the sisters in our district.

5. Some other costumes.

6. Not the best picture, but you can kind of see some of the other people and costumes.

Nothing Lost, Way More Found

 {April 22, 2012}

Hey everyone,

That sounds like a pretty good new stake presidency. I actually had a
dream about that the other night. Haha. Pretty much all my dreams now
are about church and missionary work. Is it Mitch Ottersen who's in
Korea? That's the only Ottersen kid I can think of. When did he leave?
Congratulations on graduation, Danielle! That's so cool. To answer
some of your questions, our church is really close to our house. Maybe
like a 5 minute walk. We mostly walk everywhere in our area, but
sometimes take a bus if we're running behind on time or something. We
meet most of our investigators at our church so that's really nice.
I'm still eating Korean food. Not nearly as much now though becuase I
have an American companion and a Costco card. That helps. Instant
oatmeal and bagels for breakfast is a whole lot better than rice and
kim chi. How does Dana have friends coming to Korea? Are they Korean?
I don't really need much. The only thing I can think of is food. I'm
in Goyang if that helps. It's kind of far from everything. Of course.
But if they ride the Gyeogi line on the subway out to Neunggok, that's
right in my area. I'm not sure if that's how they're all spelled in
English, but something like that.

Well my week has been pretty good. We had a pretty crazy start to the
week. Some elders in my district had a flood in their house because
some engineer fixer guy didn't put a hose on their washing machine on
all the way, so during church they got a call saying water was coming
out of their house and they had to go move everything. So we spent a
couple days helping them move out of their house and into our house.
They've been with us all week and just this morning we got them moved
back in. It's been really fun though.

I think our ward loves us. A couple weeks ago we simply asked the
bishop how we could help and how to improve our missionary work and he
gave us a couple less actives to visit. Then when we followed up on
that, he gave us a bunch of old records to visit and we got invited to
the ward council meetings. So everyone is starting to see our hard
work and is getting excited. We're hoping that we'll get a few more
dinner appointments. Haha. We found one kid from our less actives
who's about our age. He just got back from America and was baptized
about 7 years ago, but he doesn't even remember it. Super sad. But
he's way cool and we're going to try to keep working with him and try
to get in with more of these less actives.

Yesterday at church we had some awesome miracles. We were doing Gospel
Principles class with our college student Sis. Park investigator when
kind of right in the middle of the lesson, out of nowhere, she told us
she is getting baptized next week. I don't really know what made her
change her mind. During our planning meeting, my companion and I
recieved some sweet revelation on how to help her and we didn't even
have to do it. But that's ok. It's set. Then during sacrament meeting
we got a call from our other Sis. Park investigator's husband saying
they were on their way to church and were wondering if we could start
the lessons. And you bet we did! We taught a solid first lesson and
committed her to read the Book of Mormon and then next time we meet
them, we're going to set up some goals for baptism and some goals for
them to go to the temple and get sealed. I'm really excited. We also
picked up a new investigator and committed him to be baptized in our
first lesson. We'll meet him this weekend and probably set a date.

So things are looking pretty good. Can't complain too much. It must
have been because we were super careful with our phone this week. The
Lord blessed us for our responsibility. Or something like that. Haha.
Spring is here. Yesterday was the last day we had to wear suit coats,
but it's been rainy and kind of cold so we still wear them anyway.
I'll send a couple pictures to try to give the weather a little more
justice. Have a good week! Talk to you later.

Love, Elder Dorius




Pictures


1. So here's us piled in our apartment. Nice and cozy.
2. He's some sweet cherry blossoms.
3. And more. They're so cool!
4. This is the bishop's daughter. She's funny.
5. This little guy is funny too. All Korean kids are just cute. Oh
speaking of, I got to be the replacement for the primary pianist at
church yesterday. It was the best!