Singing in the Rain

Hey everyone,

You guys are jerks! I have no sympathy for you and the rain. It's been raining here since yesterday evening. I had totally forgotten you guys are in Can Cun until you told me. The pictures were nice but I couldn't look at them too long. Except that iguana was pretty cool. I'm sure you guys had way too much fun with him. Oh Danielle tell Mary that she wrote me awhile ago and I sent her a letter like a week or so ago. So I think the ball is in her court. Haha do you talk to her much? Oh and congrats on passing your test! That's way cool. You're finally a nurse now. Yay! Is the weather supposed to turn out better in Can Cun? You didn't plan another trip during a hurricane did you? Haha.

Well this week has been good. We had combined district meeting and the zone leaders asked my district to do a special musical number. And boy did we ever. I played the piano, my district leader played the guitar and our companions sang. Well rapped actually. It was sweet. I have it on my camera so when I get that other memory card I'll send mine and you can see it. But I think my district leader is going to email his recording to us because it's a good recording. So one way or another you'll get to see/hear it. We picked up three new investigators this week. One was a former investigator who we invited to our English class and said he wanted to meet again and talk about the Book of Mormon and stuff. Another was a referral. He's pretty golden. He actually lived in Australia for a while and met the missionaries there. It turns out one of my district leaders in the MTC was one of the missionaries he met with. It was a cool connection. He's received most of the lessons and he feels like he knows them really well so he wants to study the Gospel Principles book. I have a really good feeling about him. The only problem is that he's going back to Australia in a month or two so if we want to baptize him we'll have to do it quick. The last one is a guy who randomly came to church yesterday. He said the church he goes to is too far from his house so he decided to come to ours. Boo ya. He really liked the hymns so one of our members who was next to him invited him to come to church early next week to sing the hymns. It was really cool. As far as our other investigators go, not much has changed. Unfortunately. We meet them all just once a week and we teach them all English so the gospel isn't making as big of impact as I would like. We're at least staying busy though. My companion and I wrote a song to sing to our members. My companion has a little guitar so we packed that around and performed our song for the first time this week. It's about eternal families. It's cool. That's about all that happened this week. We had interviews with the mission president. He said he can tell that I'm happy and because of that, he's happy. My mission president is great. So yeah. It wasn't exactly a trip to Can Cun but it was still a good week. Have fun with your iguana friend. Hopefully he doesn't eat you. Talk to you next week.

Love, Elder Dorius

It's the 4th of July?‏

Hey everyone,

Thanks for all the emails. Those are so fun to read. I totally forgot it was the 4th of July today until I read your guy's emails. It made me miss Soda Springs too. That place is great. You guys are going to Can Cun without me?! Not fair! I'm way jealous right now. Be sure to pack a swimming suit and a change of clothes in your carry on. It was a good thing I learned that lesson because my luggage got lost when I came to Korea too. Travel just isn't good to me I suppose. But really for Can Cun all you need is a swimming suit and shorts (preferably your own) and you're good to go. Lucky ducks. So is Kadin and Kylie both on student council? You kind of mentioned that but didn't really tell me. That will be fun. Thanks for the music mom. Except you only sent the first page of Road Trip. I think there's 8 other pages. So if you could find those and send them too that would be great. And I did think of something else you can send to me. If you can. By chance do you have any old calendars with pictures of Christ? We had a couple nice pictures from a calendar and bought a cheap frame and gave it to a member. It turned out to be a really nice gift. So if you have old calendars laying around we would like some. I think that's all I need for now.

So this week we have been pretty busy. Because of the rain, we've been making lots of phone calls. We had tons of former investigator records that we called and ended up making quite a few appointments and even picked up two new investigators. We looked through all of our stats from this transfer so far and we've picked up two new investigators every week. We have a lot on our plate right now. It's really good. I think this is the busiest I've been on my mission. Except the only problem is they aren't progressing much. Nearly all of them have English interest so we're trying to build a lot of trust and work our way in with the gospel. It payed off with one family we picked up this week. They were former investigators who actually dropped the missionaries because they asked them to pray, or something like that. So we just did English and got to know them and now they want to take us hiking and said we can teach them scriptures in English. So it's a start but I wish more of them had more gospel interest. We do some walking but we mostly ride the bus or the subway. The rain doesn't really slow down Koreans. They're machines. They just grab their umbrella and go. We still play soccer with my ward if the weather is good. But since it's been raining we play jok-ku which is like volleyball but with your feet and with a lower net. It's sweet.

Well not much more exciting stuff happened. Today we're meeting up with a bunch of other missionaries and playing ping pong and games. Did I tell you they have Catan in Korea? I've actually played it quite a bit. Doesn't get much better than that. Except my zone leaders kill me every time. Grr...Anyway I need to email my mission president and whoop someone in ping pong so I'll wrap this up. Have a good 4th of July and have fun eating your BBQ. And DON'T have fun in Can Cun. Talk to you later.

Love, Elder Dorius

Jung-ma‏

Hey everyone,

Thanks for the email. That was shocking news. I was floored when I read that. But you are so right. Nolan was ready and prepared to move on to bigger and better things. I sent Elder Anderson a quick note and wished him the best. Tell the rest of the family that I'm sorry for the news and hope the best for them as well. Nolan was such a great example of never giving up and pushing through trials with a smile. Come what may and love it.

So Kylie made it to nationals? Shoot that's good. If she wants my oppinion I'd say go run. Girls camp will come again. And plus. It's not even camping. Haha. But it's up to her. And Kadin survived scout camp eh? Now that's real camping. Haha. He probably loved not having to shower for a whole week and playing with his friends. Those were good times.  

Well this week has been pretty good. Remember when I got my call and we reaserched Korea and saw it gets a ton of rain during the summer? Yeah. It's here. Oh my goodness. The craziest part isn't the quantity of water though, it's how suddenly it came. When I got here it was hot and sunny and then we heard that the rainy season started the next day. Boom. Just like that. It started raining and has stopped for a quick breather just a few times. It's called jung-ma. It's basically killed our contacts. Sometimes we can't even go outside it's so bad. And because our house is so awesome we have two leaks. One in our study room, and one in our kitchen right above where we dry our dishes. That's really convienent. So that was fun.

We had a baptism yesterday! Yay! That was actually the first time I met the kid so it was kind of weird, but it was ok. The missionaries before me did all the work and I recieved the blessings. Haha. Our mission president came to our ward and spoke so that was really cool. I had to give a talk at the service and then that day they asked me to play a musical number. It was rough. There's no need to elaberate more on that. But it was a really good service. Our other investigators are doing good. Nothing too exciting. Except that old lady that talks to us forever randomly called one day asking about baptism. Well it turns out she had surgery in her ear a while ago and she can't go under water. Of course. So we called our president about it and he had a similar experience. I guess they saran wrapped the person's head and then put a swimming cap on and they were good to go. Haha. It's the most ridiculous thing I've heard but whatever works. So I guess we'll see what happens. I'll definately keep you posted. Even though it's raining we're still having pretty good success.

Well since you're getting anxious I'll finish up and send this off. I'll send some pictures from yesterday too. Talk to you next week!

Love, Elder Dorius

1. Us and our investigator.

2. Us and our investigator and some of the young men.

3. Us and some of the primary kids. They're so cute.

4. Us at the temple.

Pictures

1. Here's my view outside my window. Isn't it lovely?

 

2. This is my district when we went ice skating last week. Way fun.

 

3. This was on the way to one of our member's house. I'm not in the wilderness anymore. That's for sure.

4. This is at another member's house with a missionary that who's going home. His parents came and picked him up. It was really fun to hang out with them.

 

5. This is at a sweet park we were at today. It's pretty cool. And pretty Asain.

 

6. And this is us being awesome.

Just another day in paradise‏

Hey everyone,

Marissa's going to Texas?! That's so sweet! And it's Spanish speaking. Lucky. Just kidding. Korean is way cooler. Ha. Oh man you'll have to tell her congratulations for me and tell her to send me her address. What else is going on with my friends? You need to facebook stalk them more and keep me posted. Haha. Nice job on the track meet Kylie! Those are stinking good times. That's way better than I've ever ran and probably will ever be able to run. Unless I have heaps of adrenaline surging through by body. Then I might have a chance. Oh scout camp. Good times. Is it at Mapledell again or somewhere else? Either way that should be fun.

So this was my first full week in my new area. It was awesome! My companion is great. This is only his second transfer and he's already better at missionary work than I am. We work together really well. And he teaches me cool New Zealand slang and is teaching me about Korean pop culture. Haha. It's fun. We picked up a few new investigators this week. They all want to learn English and we've only met them once or twice each so we haven't talked too much about the gospel. But one of them is this 60 year old lady who wants to learn English so she can write a letter to a friend she met who lives in Canada. It's kinda weird but that's ok. We met her on Saturday for the first time. We were going to meet her at this place but then she said to go to her house and gave us weird directions and kept calling us to make sure we were still coming. It was kinda frustrating. And because she's so old she just talks and talks. So by the time we got to her apartment we were still a bit flustered. And then it took them a good minute or so just to open their door. My companion was about to kill someone and I was just dying. So we finally get in and sit down and she gives us tomato juice, which both of us hate but slammed it down and got it out of the way. So we do our thing and then she gives us directions to go home again but lo and behold they were wrong and we ended up getting home late. This lady is crazy. But Sunday morning she called us and said she wanted to come to church. And she did. To all three meetings and our lunch thing afterwards. Our ward is the best! Seriously. They welcomed them perfectly. It was so good. Then we set up a baptismal date with one of our other investigators for next week. Boo ya. It was solid. So things are doing good. The ward rocks. We get fed at least once or twice a week. One of our members even went shopping at Costco for us. Yes there is a Costco in Korea. Our investigators are doing good and we're finding new ones to teach. Life is good. The cats aren't as bad as I excpected. They're disgusting though. They just go around the ally ways and eat rubbish (I'm basically a Kiwi haha). But it's so hot here! I'm dying. The only thing I can compare it to is after cross country practice is the morning. It's not quite to a "cross country practice in the afternoon" level, but it's close. Apparently this is nothing though. I heard it's going to get like 5 times hotter and more humid. So that's going to be fun. Today we had to pull out our ice packs and sit back with them on our faces to cool off. It was nice.

 

So yeah thing are really good right now. I can't complain too much. We're still working hard and trying not to die from the heat. Hopefully you guys are staying nice and cool out on the lake. Talk to you next week.

 

Love, Elder Dorius

Sweet As...

Hey everyone,

Thanks for the pictures Danielle. Those are some of the brightest, most awesome t shirts I've ever seen. You saved one for me right? haha. Sounds like the whole aniversary party was a success. It's probably still happening since you guys emailed me about an hour ago. How was Little Mermaid? Knowing Tuachan it was probably really good. I'm slightly jealous. Do you know what the shows are for next year? I'm glad I'm still loved enough to make it in the slide show. That was nice. Way to go Aunt Linda. I'm also jealous of all the boating. Ugh. I'm so white. I've been wearing my short sleeve shirts everyday now and I'm starting to see the side effects of long sleeve shirts. At least I won't die of skin cancer. Mwhaha!

So as you know this week was transfers. My new area is sweet. I have now idea where it's at geographically so you'll have to look that up for me. But I'm definately in the city. And it's so hot here. I'm missing the nice cool weather in the mountains. But that's ok. There's tons of people here. At least compared to my last area. We can talk to more people in an hour than we could in one week in Tae Baek. Everything is way confusing too. It's going to take me forever to learn the area and the buses and everything. The ward here is awesome! Yeah. That's right. Ward. I think there's about 80 active members that come pretty consistantly. There's a bishopric, primary, teachers, leaders, and people to be taught. For once I didn't have to teach gospel doctrine, play the piano, pass the sacrament, give a talk, and give a prayer. All I had to do was introduce myself. Boo ya. And the members are way cool and are really involved in missionary work. I'm turning into Kadin and Kylie. Our ward plays soccer every Saturday. It was fun but my legs are way sore still. Don't worry Danielle, I probably couldn't keep up with mom on one of her "walks" either. Haha. So I love the ward. My companion is awesome too. This is only his second transfer so he still has his greenie fire. It's really good. We've been busy the past few days. And he helps me out a lot with my Korean. I can tell this transfer is going to be great. The one downside to our area is our house. Oh boy. It's ghetto. It's smaller than small. Our kitchen is about the width of my wingspan. And it's in this maze of a neighborhood and there's cats that like eating garbage and meow during the night. So yeah. That's fun. But besides that everything is great. I haven't met our investigators yet but I guess we're going to give one of them a baptismal date. So we'll see how that goes.

Sorry I don't have any pictures. I don't have my camera cord. We're actually with some other missionaries right now and we're going ice skating. So next week I'll send some pictures. If you have any questions or what to know anything else let me know. Maybe by next week I'll have a better grasp of things. Talk to you soon!

Love, Elder Dorius

Transfer

Hey everyone,

 

Sorry for the late letter again. Yesterday was a holiday so our little office where we email was closed. But at least this way I can tell you how transfers are going. My companion is staying here and his new companion is in the group that came in right after me. So he's a third transfer. I am moving to 길음 (Gireum) and my new companion's name is Elder Han. He is a Korean but is from New Zealand. I talked to him on the phone last night and he seems really cool. I'm excited. This is only his second transfer though so he's pretty new. We should have a good time though. I was also talking to one of my buddies who served near my new area and he said it's like downtown, old school Seoul. He said I'll see quite a few drunk guys. And apparently this ward is way good. They even have a ward mission leader! I'm pretty excited. But I've been calling members and meeting people today and saying good bye. It's been a lot harder than I thought it would be. It's a bitter sweet experience. I talked to one of our members this morning on the phone and she was pretty sad to hear I'm transfering. She was one of the first members I met when I came to this area and she's been so nice to me. She's super patient with my Korean and teaches me new stuff at church. She also thinks I eat Korean food well. Ha. But she's awesome. So yeah I'm excited to be moving and having a change but I'm also sad to leave Tae Baek.

 

That's the biggest news. This week was pretty boring. Our soccer coach investigator is thinking about praying. That's a start. He wants to quit drinking so we might have him pray about drinking. Well I guess not "we." Dang. That's not true. We're all on the same team here. We found a lady who's interested in learning English and we were going to meet her today, but now we have to go into Seoul for transfers. So I guess I won't see how that turns out. Hmm...strange. Well sorry for the lack of updates. Next week's letter should be better. Oh I was going to send some pictures but I packed up my cord. And also, I bought a translator. I just bought it with cash because it was cheaper that way. So I'll try to use my card somewhere else. It's sweet though. It has Spanish and French and Japanese and Chinese dictionaries too. I like it. That was the other highlight of the week. Have a good time at Grandpa and Grandma's Aniversary. Tell the family hi for me.