All things done in order

{Feb. 12, 2012}

Hey everyone,

 

Dang it. I miss St. George weather. Ugh. It's pretty cold here but no snow still. And I think it might be warming up a bit. Phil or whatever his name is must not have seen his shadow. Or at least he didn't in St. George. I have high hopes for a quick spring though. Ok so just as a heads up, we have a busy day today and so we don't have much time to email so I'm going to be quick. Some people are getting together in Seoul to play soccer for P-day so we decided to make the trip in. Maybe someday I'll live in Seoul and won't have to deal with traveling. Sigh. But I outlined what I wanted to say this morning so I wouldn't forget anything. Here we go.

 

So first I have a couple questions. One, when are your Korean girls going home? I got their letters and kind of wanted to write them back if I had time. They were all very nice. It sounded like they had a good time. It was actually almost easier to read their notes than Dad's note. That's when I really had to use the gift of tongues. I showed it to my companion and he said it wasn't English. Haha. Sorry Dad. My second question is how is Mitt Romney doing? The members here are pretty excited about it and it sounds like he's doing pretty well. Whenever they talk about it though they use words I don't understand and everything just goes over my head. So I don't know much of how the politics are doing but everyone at least hope he wins.  

 

Ok now for my week. It was good. The baptismal interview last week went great. Their investigator is awesome. He got baptized on Friday and then confimmed on Sunday. It was good. On Wednesday we had the Area President come visit our mission and had a conference. It was sweet. He's also coming to our stake conference this weekend to do some business so I will get to see him again probably. We get our transfer calls tonight and transfer day is Wednesday. I'm pretty sure I'm staying but we'll see. My companion thinks he's gone and I will train. I have no idea what will happen.  Anyway. I also conducted my first exchange as a leader. That was fun. The missionary I was with is great and we had a good time. He even said he learned a lot of stuff so that was nice to hear. We picked up a new investigator this week. She's kind of a middle aged women who is interested in learning English. She doesn't have much gospel interest, if any, right now so we'll have to see what happens. But she wants to bring her son next time and told us to focus more on him. Maybe he's the prepared investigator. We'll see. He just got out of the military and a lot of people change from that. Either way I'm just happy we have some more people to teach. We had a dinner appointment with some members last night and I had a "dang it I miss my family" moment. They asked me about my family and I told them how many brothers and sisters I have and such and then they looked around and said "hey that's just like us!" They have two boys and two girls. It was cute. Yep. I said it. Live it up. Anyway it was kind fun to watch them play and interact with each other and think about our family doing the same thing.

 

Ok now for my funny companion story of the week. Last night as we were going to sleep, he says, "I found your song," and on his mp3 player he starts playing a song. It's talking about baby Jesus being born and stuff so I thought he was calling me a baby or something and then the chorus goes "Glorious Jesus!" and my companion says "Right there! That's you!" and starts singing along, but he's saying "Dorius" instead of "Glorious." It was super funny. Then I told him what they were really saying and he said "Dang it! I'm so suck at English." It was great. Then he just kept listening to it as we fell asleep and just kept on singing "Dorius!" right along with it. I figure that's an acceptable English misunderstanding. Haha.

 

Well I think that's about it. That was intense. Maybe I should outline all my emails. But I better go. I still need to email my president and we only have a few minutes left. I'll give you the update on transfers next week. Talk to you later.

 

Love, Elder Dorius

Angels Round About

{Feb. 5, 2012}

Hey everyone,

 

Ah the Superbowl. It's just another excuse to throw a party. Did you guys do this many fun things while I was still around and I just didn't realize it? Or have you just turned a new leaf once I left and decided to do lots of cool, fun things? I'm slightly jealous. But whatever. That's cool. I guess... How did your Korean girls like Temple Square? Did they like Music and the Spoken Word? That was one of my favorite things at the MTC. We were always way stoked for Sundays because it meant we got to watch Music and the Spoken Word. Thanks for sending off that package. It will be recieved well. We have transfers next week so maybe I'll get it then.

 

Well this week has been pretty good. My companion and I both got sick. My companion was sick on Tuesday and was pretty much down and out the whole day. Then I got a cold, so I was healthy enough to still do stuff, but sick enough to be miserable. Colds are really good at optimizing like that. But I'm feeling better now. Because we were both sick I thought we weren't going to have a very good week, but we actually had one of the best weeks of the transfer. I think it was because of the angels round about us bearing us up. I would have a horrible night's sleep and just feel dead in the morning, but when we went out, I felt more energized and was able to get stuff done. And there have been a couple times where I've slipped on some ice and probably should have ended up on the ground, but somehow stayed up. We met with that part-member family that came to church last week and picked up the wife as an investigator. They're super nice. I really like them and we think she has good potential to be baptized. One of our other investigators came to church yesterday too. That was actually the first time I had met her. She's been gone a lot because of the holidays, but she came to church and we were able to teach her and answer some of her questions about the church. I've been pretty busy in the kitchen lately, too. I've been making banana bread for all of our members' birthdays. There were three of them this week. So we were out and about quite a bit visiting members. They really like that banana bread reciepe you gave me. That was a good choice. So thanks for that.

 

Are you ready to hear one of the best highlights of this week? Buckle up. We went to Costco! It was amazing. I have bagels and cream cheese and my companion and I went in on a cheese cake together. Holy smokes. It's awesome. I might get a membership card because it's only like a 10 minute bus ride from our area. I don't know why I didn't take advatage of this a month ago. That place is heavenly.

 

I went on exchanges with my zone leader this week. I went to his area, which is called Shin Chon. The temple is there. So if you look up the temple on Google earth, you can check out where I spent a day. It's a lot more exciting than my area. That's for sure. And I got super lucky. We met a potential investigator who wanted to take us out to dinner. He took us to a pretty nice meat place and had the most delicious meat I've had in my whole mission. It was awesome. I wish he was my investigator.

 

So that was our week in a nutshell. I get to do a baptismal interview tonight for some missionaries in my district. That should be fun. Hopefully. My biggest fear is he says he's committed a serious crime and is on probation. But I learned those words so I should be good. And he's an innocent student so I'm not too worried about that. It will be good. Well I'll talk to you later. Enjoy the Superbowl. I'm cheering for the underdog. Woot.

 

Love, Elder Dorius

Traditional Korean Dinner

{Jan. 29, 2012}

Hey everyone,

You guys are taking your Korean girls to a Dorius Super Bowl party? Oh
gosh. I hope they like it. They don't have football in Korea so I'm
kind of interested in how they'll like it. And just being around crazy
people screaming at a TV could weird them out a bit. Don't give us
Americans a bad rep. Haha. I'm glad you guys celebrated the new year
with them. I'm kind of bummed I missed it. You guys should do this
again next year so I'll be around for all of it. I'm excited to get
their letters. Hopefully I'll be able to read them. How long are they
staying with you guys? I should try to write them back if I have time.
Thanks for the little taste of the Best of EFY. Brad Wilcox is the
man. That sounded like a good talk.

Well this week was ok. I'm glad to have the holidays over with. It's
hard to do missionary work. Especially since my companion wanted to
enjoy it a little more than I did. Things were a little slow, but we
still tried to get stuff done. My district is doing awesome. One area
has an investigator with a baptismal date for next month, and another
companionship has been going to town. They're having tons of miracles.
They want to have four baptismal dates by the end of this week. So
that's exciting. We did have a pretty good miracle yesterday. Two less
actives that we wanted to visit this week came to church and one of
them also brought his non-member wife. They seem really nice and said
they'll come to church again next week. So now the ball is in our
court and we just have to run with it.

Last night we had a dinner appointment with one of our members, and it
was probably one of my favorites throughout my whole mission. I wish I
took a picture of it because the imagery was awesome and I've lost too
much English to give it any justice. But I'll try. So we're sitting on
the floor of a very humble, but cozy room, warming ourselves up from
just being out in the freezing cold, and the dad sets up a beautiful,
traditional Korean table. It's a nice dark maroonish color with shiny
stones imprinted on it forming cool birds and other designs. They pull
out the chopsticks and little bowls while the food is finishing up and
it just smells awesome. The mom comes in and sets a frying pan right
in the middle of the table. And it's full of spaghetti. Oh man. I
could've died and gone to Heaven. It was overflowing with meat and
sauces and it was just sitting there begging to be eaten. So we dish
it all up and then clear off the pan to make room for the next part of
the meal. The son walks in and sets down two huge boxes of pizza on
the table. That's when I knew Heavenly Father really does love His
children. Especially His missionaries. Haha. I haven't had too much
American food being with my Korean companion. We've had lots of rice
and kim chi so the sight of spaghetti and pizza was so nice. The mom
asked me what my favorite food was and I managed to say "pizza and
spaghetti" between chews. Then she said she must have received some
type of revelation to know to have that for dinner. It was funny. And
so delicious.

Other than that, I don't have too much more to report on. Still no
snow. I'm kind of surprised but I'm not complaining. Compared to last
year, I think it's been quite nice. Granted I was banished out in the
mountains and coldest place in Korea last year, so it is a little hard
to compare I guess. We just got an email from the mission telling us
to be careful of frostbite, though. Maybe winter is just beginning.
We'll see. Well talk to you later. Have a good week!

Love, Elder Dorius

Ok here's something funny I discovered. I was going through February's
Liahona when I saw this pictured and realized something was familiar
about it. I looked down and realized the kid in the picture was
wearing the same tie I was wearing that day! My companion about died
when I showed it to him. It was pretty funny.

Happy New Year! Again!

{Jan. 24, 2012}

Hey everyone,

Sorry I'm a little later than normal, and a little earlier than when I
said I would be on. We found out we had to email during study before
district meeting. But thanks for the quick update. Sounds like
everyone is busy. I can't believe Danielle and Jesse are actually
moving to Texas. That's weird. But exciting. To answer Jesse's
questions about the Chinese New Year, it's called 설날(Seol Nal) in
Korean. I'm not sure what it's called in Chinese and Japanese, but I'm
pretty sure they celebrate it too. It's a three day holiday where
families all get together and pay respects to their ancestors and
grandparents and parents. The kids do a special little bow to them and
tell them to receive lots of new year blessings, and then the
parents/grandparents give them money. It's a good holiday if your a
kid. There is a traditional meal. It's called 떡국 (ddeok guk). It's
like a soup full of rice patties and little stips of beef with egg and
a little sea weed. When you eat it, that's when you turn one year
older. I ate it 3 times in the past 4 meals. Holy cow. It was like a
bottomless bowl staring at me, taunting me. It's actually pretty good,
but it's hard to eat so much of it. Koreans also dress up in their
traditional clothing, which is awesome! All the Korean sisters wore it
at our mission conference yesterday. I want some, but it's pretty
expensive. Anyway. That's a traditional Korean Chinese New Year for
you. Not quit the same as getting together to play Wackee Six and have
Hawaiian Haystakes, but it's good. Happy Birthday to Kadin and Kylie!
You guys are finally teenagers. Holy smokes. "The babies" are growing
up. Well at least Kylie is. Haha. Kadin still has some work to do.
Haha. And grandpa and grandma are on their mission now. That's fun. Do
they have to drive all the way there? Does the church not pay for
them? I bet they're pretty excited.

Well this week has been pretty good. One thing I forgot to mention
last week is that I bought myself a new Korean suit. It's legit. There
was a random sale going on at a store in our area and it was the last
day so we quickly decided to go in and get some. So that was cool. We
picked up a new investigator last week. Also very cool. I guess he had
an interesting past with his family and it's something that only
Koreans can understand. There's even a word for it in Korean, but it
doesn't translate over to English. Boy, I just love things like that.
Luckily though, I have a Korean companion so he at least knows what's
going on. I had my first District meeting last week as a district
leader. That was kind of fun. I didn't know my mission president wrote
you guys. That's cool. Did he say anything else? I talked to Elder
Stanley at our conference yesterday and he said in his district
there's only one other American. The rest are all Korean. Haha.
Hopefully they can understand his trainings, because they're probably
really good. And funny.

Speaking of funny. I have a quote/story from my companion. So everyday
we read from the white handbook and we were on the part that says
companions should sleep in the same room, but not the same bed. Then
later that day, we saw two guys riding on one bike and my companion
asked me if that's weird in America, and I said yeah that's weird
pretty much everywhere. Then he paused for a moment and said, they
probably sleep in the same bed. I thought it was hilarious. Way to go
companion for applying the white handbook to our daily activities!
Another funny thing he says is "Le'ts go Dorius! Tackle!" He thinks
I'm a Pokemon. He also tells me to use my thunderbolt occasionally.
It's awesome.

It finally snowed this morning. We've actually been really lucky with
the weather so far this winter. It's been relatively warm. Until this
last weekend when the temperature plummitted (I can't remember how to
spell that word) and it got super cold. It finally feels like a
"Korean winter" again. I was hoping I could sneak through this winter
without it being too cold or snowy, but I didn't quite make it.
Hopefully it's not a long winter. Here's another cool thing. Today is
my one year mark in Korea. I think. There was so much time travel
going on when we got here I can't really remember what day it was, but
I think it was today. Woot. Well I better go. Sorry I wrote a novel.
Hopefully it doesn't take too much time out of your busy schedule.
Talk to you later.

Love, Elder Dorius

Nothing Too New

{Jan 15, 2012}

Hey eveyone,

 

Well I haven't gotten any emails from you guys yet so I don't have anything to respond to. Hopefully you guys are still alive. You're probably just too busy with your Korean girls again. One thing I do need to tell you though is that I will email on Wednesday next week because of the Chinese New Year. Just so you know. And speaking of, you need to do something way fun with your Korean girls. This is like the biggest holiday in Korea and they're missing it. The actual holiday day is on the 23rd. How convient. You can do something for Kadin and Kylie's birthday too. But make sure that whatever you do for Chinese New Year is way better than whatever you do for their birthday. It's more special. Mwahaha!

 

Well this week hasn't been too bad. I have still yet to meet any of our investigators, so that's kind of lame. One girl lives far away but she goes to school here, but right now it's winter break so once school starts we might be able to see her more. She almost came to our ward yesterday but ended up not. Lame. But she is going to church in the ward closer to her home. So the lack of teaching investigators was a little disappointing. We went streetboarding in our area as a district one day and, because my district is so awesome, we found some pretty good potential investigators. Or I should say everyone else found some pretty good potential investigators for us. Haha. I'm not the leader here, they're all leading me. One guy we're meeting tonight for sure and maybe another guy tonight. So we'll hopefully pick up some new investigators this next week.

 

Oh I just got Dad's email. Good stuff. Who spoke in Stake Priesthood meeting. Who was over for dinner. And birthdays. Those things are good to know. My companion is doing good. He's pretty funny. He's pretty good at English but some of the things he says are just funny. I need to write down some of the things he says and tell them to you. We get along well.

 

Ok now I just got Mom's email. Also good stuff. Science fairs. Lovely. Umm...but didn't I already do Kylie's project only with eggs? It was a good project. I went to state with that thing. Hopefully they don't remember haha. That would kind of ruin the point of doing it. But good luck. And Kadin is the shortest in the family! Haha! Sucka! On the deoderant, maybe send 4. Whatever is left I can bring home. The ward is way good. Everyone we have visited has given us food. We have so much stuff in our fridge. We have little tangerines coming out our ears. But it's good. We don't mind.

 

Unfortunately there's not too much more to report on. Hopefully next week will be more eventful. Thanks for emailing me. Have a happy Chinese New Year! Talk to you next week. Wednesday for me. Tuesday nightish for you. Have a good week!

 

Love, Elder Dorius

To the Land of the North

{Jan. 8, 2012}

Hey everyone,

 

So you have your Korean girls again eh? Sweet. What part of Seoul are they from? Are they good at English? How long will they stay with you guys? I'm second on the ward missionary list?! What the heck? That's way crazy. It is kind of weird to think that I'll be home this year, even though it's still a ways away.

 

Well I did get transfered. It wasn't too big of a surprise. My new area is called Won Dang (원당) and it's in Buk (북) Stake. Buk means "north" in Korean, which can also be translated into "cold." It's way colder than my last area in Incheon. I'm not exactly sure where it is geographically. All I know is it's north outside of Seoul. Maybe your girls know where it is. But maybe not. It feels like my mission is taking a repeat. It's cold like my first area, and it's kind of out in the woods and not too many people, so it's kind of hard to contact on the street. One difference from my first area is that there's tons of appartments here. That's pretty much all there is. Ha. But it's not bad. I like it so far. My new companion is Korean. His name is Elder Cho and he's from a little town near Busan. I'm now a district leader. That's been pretty fun. Not too bad. I'm just on the phone a lot more and I have to give trainings every week. My district is way good so that's helpful. I have 3 other areas in my district and one of them is a sisters area. It's kind of weird to be a leader in a place I hardly know and to lead people I hardly know. But so far so good. Elder Stanley is in Gireum, my second area, now and he's also a district leader. So maybe someday we'll be able to serve together. We've certainly crossed each other's paths quite a bit.

 

We had a baptism yesterday! My second "walk-in baptism." It was actually two, a member girl and her older sister, who is considered the "investigator." It was way cool because their dad got to baptize them. It's kind of weird because I don't know them at all, but it was still really good and I was excited. Hopefully I can get a few baptisms that I actually have to work a bit for. I think those are a little more rewarding and you progress right along with your investigator. Things are a little slow right now in our whole district, but there's tons of potential. I'm excited. It should be a good transfer. The ward here is great. There's around 70 or 80 active members, so my companion and I are busy running around trying to meet all the members.

 

So yeah. That's what's been going on here. Life is pretty good. Hopefully you guys have a good transition back to school and work. Haha. That's kind of an upside to having no vacations. You don't have to dread going back to "the real world." But I guess that will come eventually. Anyway. I'll send you a few pics. Talk to you next week!

 

Love, Elder Dorius

 

PS tell your Korean girls happy new year for me. If you can. Haha. 새해복 많이 받으세요!  (sae hae bok mani badeusaeyo!)

Pictures!

1. This was me and my last companions last week at our sledding activity.

2. A few people in our zone.

3. Our whole zone, if you can see everyone.

4. Our family investigator. So fun.

5. Our other investigator. Also fun.

6. And yesterday's baptism plus some of the ward. Way fun.

7. Oh yeah. And the sledding hill. Also way fun.

Happy New Year!

{Jan 1, 2012}

Hey everyone,

 

Thanks for all the Happy New Year wishes and birthday wishes. Haha. Yes I am one year older now making me 22 years old in Korean age. Pretty strange. It will be nice to come back to America and gain one more year in my life. In a way. Ha. Sounds like the party was fun as usual. Even though the real party animals were having a night on the town. Crazy. I can't believe everyone is growing up. Everyone is graduating, driving, and dating. And Mary is engaged?! That's pretty exciting. Although I got a letter from her not too long ago and she told me she had a boyfriend and was probably going to get married. Hmm...well maybe I'll get an invitation. It's the thought that counts. Tell her congrats for me. I LOVED hearing from the whole fam, even though it was only in an email. Those were so fun to read. I could even hear everyone's voice saying the things they wrote. So fun. It was kind of funny to be 16 hours ahead of you because I knew exactly what you all were doing. So in case you were wondering, I was at our bishop's house having a traditional New Year's Korean soup for lunch while you were celebrating New Years. Pretty cool, right?

 

Well this week was ok. I've had better. We had our fair share of appointments falling through and lots of plans changing. Our family investigators were busy this week so they couldn't meet again, and we only met with our other investigator once. And on top of all that it was super cold. So it was a little frustrating, but those things happen. We had a cool little miracle slip in at the very end of our week though. On Sunday night, we got a call from a random number who was a member in a totally different stake, but had a referal for us. They were going to talk to the referal and see how their schedule is and such and then let us know so we can meet them. All I know is they're brothers, one is 17 and one is 15. So that was pretty cool. It was a good way to finish off the week. We also got in with a less active we've been working with and had a pretty good time and built a better relationship that night. Oh man, and we did some "inspired" door knocking and ended up knocking on an inactive's door who let us in and visited with us for a little while. That was way cool. So I guess the week wasn't too bad. I was just thinking about more about the less fun stuff rather than seeing all the miracles.

 

So there wasn't any sledding this New Years? That's strange. Want to know what we're doing for P-day today? We're going sledding! Haha. At least hopefully we are. There isn't much snow on the ground, but I guess there's a sledding place in our zone so our zone is doing an activity there for our last P-day of the transfer. Yup. Another transfer is over. We're getting transfer calls tonight so I'll let you know next week what happens. I kind of have the feeling I'm leaving, considering I've been here for six months now and I've been with my same companion for two transfers. But we'll see. I think I know what's going to happen, then President gets me every time.

 

Well that's about it. I better go "hit the slopes" before we run out of time. Talk to you next week. 

 

Love, Elder Dorius