There's no monkeys in Korea‏

Hey everyone,

So yes. I was in Seoul for about half of last week. We had our lovely temple day on Tuesday and then zone conference on Wednesday and so our P-day was on Tuesday and we had a pretty jam packed day so I couldn't email you guys. We found a place in Seoul but they only gave us five minutes on the computer. For three people. I barely got two lines to my mission president. So yeah. I didn't get eaten by monkeys. But we had a good trip nonetheless. Monday we met with one of our investigators who also took us out to lunch afterwards. So good! Oh a side note. We had dinner with some members last night and they had a scale at their house so I could finally see how much I weigh. I've gained about ten pounds. I just enjoy the food far too much apparently. Anyway. Then we had our awesome four hour train ride into Seoul and stayed the night with some other missionaries. Fifteen to be exact. So fun. Then after the temple we went to a way good sushi bar. Did I mention how good the food is here? So stinking good. After that we went to this big electronics store where I was going to buy a translator but they didn't have the kind I wanted. So we just ended up eye shopping while another elder was bargining. Then we went to a famous flea market place which was supposed to be pretty sweet but our zone leaders had been there for awhile and said it wasn't quite as cool and they had thought. So we decided to go to this huge tie store place. Korean ties are almost as good as the food. And they're way cheap at this place. I'll have to send Dad and Kadin some when I have more time to shop. Maybe I'll send Jesse some if I'm feeling nice. Mwahaha. Then after all this we had just a few minutes left of our P-day to find a place to email. It was crazy. Then on Wednesday we had our annual medical zone conference where the Asia North Mission doctors come and talk to us about being healthy. It wasn't the most spiritually uplifting meeting ever but it was good to hear. That was pretty much our whole day. After that I tried passing off though. We have this pass off program thing where you have to learn all this certain vocabulary and memorize scriptures and the missionary lessons and such. Anyway after you pass off to the AP's you can go senior. So I attempted that, but failed. Not horribly though. I was just off a few things and plus we ran out of time. But yeah I'm pretty close to going senior. In July there will be 126 missionaries and I think only 16 of those will have been out longer than a year. We have a really young mission right now. They're really pushing this pass off so they can have seniors and trainers. It's a little stressful right now but in six months we're going to be rocking.

As for our investigators and the work, it's still good. We've lost a couple investigators so we're running a little low on lessons but our investigators are pretty good. There's one who I think can get baptized pretty quick. She's the one who wants to go to EFY and comes to seminary. So we'll keep our fingers crossed and see. We're trying to do a lot of finding but it's still tough out here in the mountains. I feel like I'm starting to run out of ideas. It's a good challenge for me. But next week is transfers and I wouldn't be surprised if I'm out of here. But I also wouldn't be. It's tough to get out of this zone. So we'll see. As for now I'm still hoping and praying and working hard. Hopefully that was a good enough report. I'll send some pictures too. Don't have too much fun on the lake and watching tv and going on vacation and other boring things like that.

Love, Elder Dorius

 1. This was a sweet Kung Fu Panda thing we found by the electronics place. You can only imagine how much fun we had.

2,3,4. This is along the way to Seoul. I get to see this for four hours. So sweet.

5. This is Elder Park. He's in my district but he's going to London on his mission. He just had visa problems. He's way cool.

6. And this is some fried chicken I ate. It looked a little strange but I thought what the heck? After eating what little meat was on it I dissected it (of course) and figured out it was a spinal chord. Yum.

I love the mountains, I love the rolling hills...‏

Hey everyone,

Thanks for the emails. I really enjoy reading them and getting caught up with life. Thanks a lot mom for reminding me about school. (sarcasm) But really that is good to know. Is there a deadline for that signature because I don't think we're able to print at our little office place where we email? I might have to get it later. Unless you need it asap. I can't believe Helena Howard is home already. Sheesh. Time is flying. Well heck I've been out six months already. So crazy. It sounds like she gave an awesome talk though. We kind of have a similar motto in our mission. You ready for some Korean? Hal su issea-yo. I'm not sure how to spell it in Korean, but it means "you can do it." It's a good phrase to know and say. So who is all on missions or soon going on one from our ward? I was wondering that the other day and couldn't quite remember. We finally got the Liahona! but it's two copies in Korean. Typical. The pictures were nice though. Hopefully an English one finds it way over here. Actually I was reading it this morning and I can understand some of with. Oh Danielle, why did a state-side-Spanish-speaking Sister (how's that for alliteration?) bear her testimony in Korean? That's really odd, but way cool! Oh mom, one other thing before I forget. You know my SD card I have here? Well my district leader wants to buy it off me. Any idea how much it is or how much I should give it to him for?

So this week has been pretty good. We had district meeting and then went on exchanges. I love exchanges. They're way fun. But this one was a little different. We did a threesome here in Tae Baek with my district leader and the other two elders just went back to their area. Basically he just watched us to see how things are doing here and stuff. It was good. So after that we went back to his area to "drop him off," which consists of a two and a half hour train ride both ways and spending the night. Welcome to our zone. But I love our district. We have some stinking funny elders. I learned a traditional Korean game that's confusing as heck and Kylie would probably destroy us all. If I ever get any understanding of how to play maybe I'll buy it. Either way it's fun. 

We got a new investigator this week. Her name is Kim Bo Hyun. I might have told you about her last week. But she's friends with a less active girl we recently reactivated and has come out to church twice now and came to English. So solid. She's way cool and just normal. I'm pretty sure she'll get baptized. I at least hope so. She wants to go to EFY and that's basically a guaranteed baptism. So that's exciting. All of our other investigators are doing good. No news there. 

Well I'd better go. We're making the big trip to Emart today for groceries. That's as exciting as it gets here. Haha. I'll send some pictures though. The mountains are turning super green. I love it. Talk to you next week.

Love, Elder Dorius

 

 

1. This is out by our old Branch President's house. It had been raining all day so it was really cloudy. I felt like I was on the "Lost" island.

2. This is coming back from the other area in my district. It's basically like this all around my area. So sweet.

3. This is a chicken I ate. One of our investigators took us out to lunch and we had this. A little crazy but super tasty.

4. Despite all the greenery and the fact it's May, there's still Christmas decorations. I love Korea.

Enjoy!

 

 

I'm Still Here

Hey everyone,

Well it sounds like you guys had a fun week in Provo. Who wouldn't? Provo is the best. Oh and Danielle, I know that face carver guy! When I did that tour thing at UVU he did the same thing. Except I think he carved a different face. Isn't he the head of the science department or something like that? I can't remember. But I'm pretty sure he's the same guy you saw. I don't know too many people who carve faces and give speeches at the same time. Tell Jesse thanks for staying updated with youtube. I'm excited to see those. Way to go Kadin and Kylie for mowing the lawn! It's about time. Back in my day I had to mow the huge yard in Idaho. Uphill. In the snow. You should be grateful for the little four foot wide patch of grass. 

Things are still good here in Tae Baek. I did not get transfered, nor did my companion. Basically my whole zone stayed the same. Only two people changed and one was going home. So we at least don't have to overcome the whole "change" challenge. No one in my district changed which is nice because I really like my district leader. So it's good. As for the work, it's still work. Our one investigator who served a mission for his church in Australia is tough. He's been making us study a lot. I don't know how things are going to go with him. He seems really hard-hearted and not willing to change. He thinks all we need to do to be saved is believe in Jesus. So we talk a lot about sin and salvation and fun stuff like that. If you have any suggestions or insights, feel free to let me know. We have another investigator who is way cool. He's our miracle investigator I think I mentioned awhile back. Anyway. Funny story. He randomly texted me one night asking if we drink and if we do we should go out and drink sometime. I don't know why but I thought it was hilarious. I told him we don't drink but we sure can go out and eat sometime. Then he texted me last night randomly again and wants to go to lunch tomorrow. Boo ya. Meal appointments are the best. I can totally picture him in white. We'll just have to work on the whole drinking thing. Ha. 

That's about all the news I can think of now. Everything is still good. I think the rainy season is coming. It's been a little wet lately, but today is really nice. The mountains are turning really green. I like it. I'll keep my eye out for Sis. Hench's Korean friends. They would be fun to meet. Hopefully things are still good in St. George/Orem. Talk to you soon.

Love, Elder Dorius

PS Isn't Mother's Day soon? I think I get a phone call if I remember correctly. I'm not sure what time I'll be able to, but what number should I call? Cell phone? Office again? Let me know. 

No News is Good News

Hey everyone,

Well it sounds like not much is new in St. George. Kadin is broken. Kylie is exercising. The ward/stake is changing. And they're building another church that's a stone's throw away from a pre-existing church. Literally. I love Utah.

As for Korea, the weather has been different every day. It was sunny on Monday, snowed on Tuesday, rained on Wednesday, foggy on Thursday, cloudy on Friday, and windy for the weekend. It was crazy. It also makes the street contacting tough. When the umbrellas go up, the numbers go down. At least there wasn't any radiation, as far as I know. 

We get transfer calls tonight. That's pretty exciting. This transfer went by so fast. It feels like it never happened. I have no idea if I'll stay in Tae Baek again, or if I'll get transfered. We're pretty certain my companion will be here for a while since he's the branch president. Luckily he likes it here and doesn't mind staying here a long time. That is why he is my companion. I'll be honest, I'm a little nervous for transfers. Tae Baek is great and things are looking really good, but I also wouldn't mind a change. So we'll see. Heavenly Father knows where I need to be and so does my mission president. If I've learned anything from this transfer, it's two things: trust and communication. They are so important in any companionship. Because of the lack of communication, I had to trust my companion that much more. I didn't always know what was going on or what we needed to do, but my companion did. The road to success begins at the companionship and that companionship needs to have a unified purpose and goal. All of that depends on communication. If we're not on the same page, we're less effective. The whole communicating thing is something we're still working on, but it's been a good learning experience. I was slightly apostate this week and read President Hinckley's new book. I figured it fell under the "words of modern prophets" category of the missionary library. One of our members wanted it and I read it really quickly before we gave it to him. President Hinckley is so awesome. Not even death can keep him from giving the world much needed advice. Me ranting just reminded me of that. I suggest reading it. It's chuck full of great quotes and one liners. And who doesn't need advice every once in a while?

Well that's about it here. Perhaps next week I'll have a little more to report on. Oh I just remembered something else. We picked up another new investigator this week. She asked some really good questions and seems interested. I like her questions a lot more than our former-missionary, Bible-loving investigator. She asked me if Jesus has a girlfriend. That was fun. We're meeting her tonight and teaching her the plan of salvation. It should be good.

Talk to you next week! 

Love, Elder Dorius

Pictures

1. Our baptismal recipient. Way cool.

2. Our branch. Somewhat. Actually most of these people aren't the actual members. I think some of them are from another area in my zone but their church collapsed from all the snow. So the members have to go to different wards for now. And some others are from Seoul but they're moving out to our zone for work. Or something like that. All I know is that we have a few extra people coming to church now.

Enjoy!

PS sorry they aren't the best. A little girl was taking these pictures. My companion had a little better ones but he forgot he had his camera when he went into the baptismal font. So it's kind of fried. But you get the idea. Loves loves.

Baptizing in Tae Baek!‏

Hey everyone,

Thanks for all of the emails. It's the best when I get on the computer and see a few emails. Sounds like the piano recital was good. Hopefully Allyson didn't say anything embarrassing about me. You should tell her I'm getting really good at the hymns now. She'd be proud. Why are you always sick, Kadin? Maybe you should eat more kim chi. The spiceyness will kill all the bad germs growing inside you haha. Let's see I think Dad asked a question regarding the food and being sick. I had a little cold a while back and there was another day I wasn't feeling too good, but other than that I've been quite healthy and the food hasn't bothered me. In response to your other questions, no we didn't feel anything from the earthquake but there have been a little concern with the radiation. It was rainy a while ago after the quake and we heard to not let it touch you because it was radiated. Or something like that. So that was exciting. But other than that, nothing much happened. The Korean is getting a little better. I suppose. My companion is getting really good at English and he said my Korean is coming along too. So that was nice. Happy anniversary/graduation Danielle! That's super exciting. I'm glad you'll have a little extra time to fix up my room at your house haha. And also find me a wife. That would be nice too haha. I'm also glad everyone is feeling better this week. I'm telling you. Eat kim chi. For one thing, it's delicious and also it keeps you healthy.

So this week has been great. Probably one of the best yet. First of all we got our boiler fixed. It needed some oil. So that was pretty easy. We even bought it while we were on exchanges so I didn't have the luxury of having a native to help. I went on exchanges with Elder Rayes, the rock star, again, but this time we were in my area. It was way fun. I also leveled up from movie star to super star. So we had to go back to Elder Rayes's area to end the exchange and because all of the areas in our zone are so far apart we usually have to spend the night when we travel. Anyway, when we pulled up to the train station coming back to Tae Baek, there were huge groups of girl students waiting at every stop. Now I've had some interesting experiences with girl students and they aren't my favorite thing in the world. They just weird me out. So I knew this was going to be very interesting. The doors opened up and some people got off in front of me and everything was normal. And then I stepped off. They went nuts. All of them started screaming and reaching out trying to just touch even the hem of my American-ness. It was crazy. There were even a couple guys with big, fancy cameras taking pictures. I don't know what they were doing there, but it added to the effect. So normally I'm not too fond of this kind of stuff, but this one was kind of cool. Haha. 

We picked up a new investigator this week. He was actually a former investigator that met the missionaries once. He served a mission in Australia for his church awhile back so he's really good at English. He's also pretty good at the Bible. He won't accept the Book of Mormon. Like he won't physically take it. He likes discussing gospel stuff but he's not quite willing to change. So hopefully we can find his real need and concern. I think he'd accept everything like that (snap) if he did. We'll see. Also we had a baptism yesterday! I don't know if I really told you how big this is. Tae Baek hasn't had a baptism in over two years. It's probably one of the smallest baptizing areas in the mission. So this is really exciting. He also brought two of his friends to his baptism that we've met a few times, so they're the next target. Hopefully we get a nice little snow ball effect going on here. That would be so good. So to say the least I'm doing really good. Thanks again for all the emails/love. I'll talk to you next week.

Love, Elder Dorius

Conference in Korea

Hey everyone,

Sounds like you've all had a busy week, as usual. How long does Kadin and Kylie's soccer season go for? It seems like every email you've sent me has a report of their games. They sound fun though. Some of the bigger wards in Seoul play soccer every week too and the missionaries go play with them. One of my buddies from the MTC bought some sweet cleats. I won't lie, I'm kind of jealous. I think it would be so fun to play soccer with your ward every week. But my ward here is good too. In response to your questions Dad there are quite a few christians in Korea. I'm not sure the percentage but I'd say your Korean girls are about right. The other main religion is probably Buddhist. We usually just start teaching the first lesson with everyone. We talk about the restoration and the Book of Mormon and sometimes talk about our purpose as missionaries and stuff like that. It's pretty good. There's a section in Preach My Gospel that basically teaches you how to begin teaching. Preach My Gospel is amazing. It has all the answers. My companion is still good. Communication is still hard but it works out for the most part. It's definately a patience builder though. And I still don't feel very confident with my Korean. English is becoming a crutch that I don't want to give up. But I think this is just one of those "line upon line" type of things and "a watched pot never boils." It takes a lot of time and practice and it's hard to see my own gradual improvement. So maybe by this time next year I'll be dreaming in Korean.

Conference was awesome. As usual. I actually got to watch a couple sessions in English. On Saturday it was just me and my companion and this super old guy in our branch. His name is Chang Lee in English. He's hilarious. Anyway, he speaks fairly good English and my companion didn't mind watching some in English so we watched the afternoon and Priesthood session. It was weird to hear talks about families and marriage. President Monson's talk isn't really the type of talk missionaries want to hear though haha. He basically told all the young men to go get married. So that was cool. It's kind of nice when the Priesthood session talks don't apply to you and you don't feel like a vile sinner. Ha. I guess that means I better get on the ball when I go home. Mom and Danielle, go ahead and just find me a nice wife and get all the plans arranged. That will save me a lot time. Haha. Anyway. Sunday we actually had our ward members come and watch and we had a meal between sessions. It was great. We've been wanting to have meals after church with our branch to try to get our members closer together. If we can't play soccer, we might as well eat. Our baptismal date investigator came to the Sunday afternoon session too, so that was good. We're still planning on baptizing him next week. Except we were just at the church and our water heater isn't working. It says the water is low. But I don't know what to do. Can Russ come over and fix it? So hopefully we'll have some warm water for him. 

Well other than that, things are still the same. Still good. Still working hard. Mom, get well soon. Talk to you all next week.

Love, Elder Dorius