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.

 

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!