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