Witches and Pumpkins and Bats, oh my!

That sums up the decorations for our Halloween party so far. We've been working overtime for this party, so we're really hoping that we'll get lots of people to come!

The haunted house is really starting to shape up. There were some bumps in the road, but hopefully it'll work out alright. The ward is also starting to get really on board, which is a relief. We're going to do all the publicizing this week. We'll see how things turn out!

We also had our zone conference this week. It was cool to meet with the zone, even though there were only a few new people in it this transfer. There were a couple of elders that came that I know, though. So I got to say hi to them.

Lastly, we met with a cool guy from Cameroon. We found him on the call sheets, and he's very down to meet with us. He's sweet! We made some great conversation with him last night at a park (that turned out to be the park where I got hit in the eye all those months ago. There were some memories stirred). He's out here studying to get a business degree, but he hasn't decided what he's going to do with it when he gets it. He's stuck between a couple of options. Anyways. He would like to learn more about the church, so we're going to call him again sometime this week so that we can teach him. OH! And he spoke French as well as English! We totally talked for a bit in French. It was awesome, but I'm definitely rusty. We talked about it with the other Elders in the house later that night, and Elder Knapp brought up how he could understand everything that we were saying without really knowing any French. We all got a little exasperated about being in Korea... It was funny, though

It's kind of weird how it works out that the investigators that we have that we can depend on for gospel interest are both foreigners. None of the Koreans that we work with care about that, except for our recent convert, 정현, but he doesn't meet with us lately. No big deal, it's just kind of funny how it's working out that way.

Anyways. That's the week. Happy Birthday to Chris and Levi this month! Hope that they were fun ones!

Love you all!

Elder Shaver

All the more reason to hate calculus!

Hello from Korea!

This week has been what it's been. For how awesome this area is, it sure can be hard on missionaries.

We didn't get to meet with anybody this week, even though we had some pretty great contacts and several referrals from the office to try to meet. We couldn't set up an appointment with Samir, either. Such is the life, I suppose.

There were some little miracles that happened, though.

Let me start with what I titled this week's email (I've decided I'm going to try to do that every week now, now that I've just noticed that I haven't ever): So it's been a while since I've gone to see a dentist. This past week, after eating a good lunch, I notice randomly that there is something that feels weird on my teeth. It felt like a popcorn husk stuck in my gums, but rougher. So I go to the bathroom and try to pick it out with a flosspick, and there's definitely something there, because I can see it, but I don't know what it is. Definitely not anything from the fried rice I just ate. So I start probing with the flosspick, and the tip of it disappeared. There was a hole in my tooth!

And I HATE oral surgery! 

I was feeling pretty down. I was dreading it for a couple of days before I made it to the dentist for the appointment I promptly set up after discovering it, but it turned out that there wasn't a hole at all. There was just a lot of tartar build-up that they called a calculus, and all they did was clean it off for me. It was a relief.

Plus, on the way home, a member from a neighboring ward ran into us on the subway and decided to take us to a buffet for lunch. It was a pretty great day.

Anyways, things were pretty average aside from that. Elder Pettit almost flooded the house (but not really), and we've started planning a ward Halloween party. We'll see what happens with that. Korea doesn't really have Halloween, but they do parties every year it sounds like.

Anyways, that's the week. Love you all!

Elder Shaver

Happy Thanksgiving

Another week!

It was finally one where I feel like I have something fun to talk about (maybe it's because I wrote things down as the week went by... maybe I should do that more.)

So this week we did a number of things. I went on exchanges with Elder Fullmer, and we did some fun exploring and whatnot, including the inside of the World Cup Stadium that's nearby. 

In the world cup stadium!

While we were on that exchange, we ran into some foreigners. Foreigners are never friendly for some reason, but we decided to say hi anyways. WE asked them where they're from, and they say Canada.
Heck yes! I'm all over it! I tell them "so am I," and then they ask, "what Province?" I tell them BC.
Then the guy (they were a middle aged couple) got this funny grin growing on his face and said; "keep going." So I tell them, "well, I'm from a smaller city called Vernon, have you heard of it?" And he says; "Heck yeah, we're from Vernon!"

DAY. MADE.

We went on to find out that we both live on Mission Hill and everything. And we had a great chat about home and about what we're doing in Korea and whatnot. They didn't want to hear anything about the church, so we went our separate ways pretty quick. Oh well. It was quite the coincidence.

Aside from that, we did the usual stuff. There was a big family history event at our church that the stake had us staff. We got to catch some of the super cool festival that was going on. I discovered that cotton candy should only be eaten in smaller quantities (at least, smaller than Elder Knapp and I bought), and we got to catch the Lunar eclipse. It looked way cool.
                                         

Some paper statues from the festival.

General Conference was sweet, too! Because of the family history event, though, we watched all but one of the sessions on Sunday. We had a marathon that took pretty much the whole day. It was worth it though. And plus, we got fed so much for doing the family history event. I still have almost all of my groceries from last week, so I'm set!

Transfer calls also happened, but nobody in my area is moving at all. Some people in my MTC group are moving up, though. Elder Grossgebauer is going Zone Leader! And almost all of us are senior companions, now!

I had to save the best for last: We FINALLY got to meet Samir. It's been hard to get a hold of the guy between our schedules and missed calls, etc... But we finally sat down with him and got to know him a bit more.
This man is amazing. He listens better than anybody I've ever met out here. We gave him a book of Mormon in Urdu, (he's American, but his parents' business took him all over the world as he grew up, so Urdu is his best language apparently) and we talked about the gospel a little bit, but we haven't taught him anything in depth yet. But I feel like we will soon! He's super interested. He's known members of the church for a long time, and he's always been curious to know more, he tells us. We're so excited to meet with him in the future. And maybe jam with him sometime. I can't wait to see what a nose flute is (he makes those for money).
              

A random statue that we saw and thought was weird!

Things are starting to look better! But that's all for this week.

Love you all!

Elder Shaver

ps I did get the relief society care package. I'm appreciating the stuff that's in there. :P 

Not Super Fun

Alright, so this week wasn't so super fun. Not because anything bad happened, but nothing spectacular really happened, either.

The people that we had are all either too busy or are just dodging us (or punking, in the Korean missionary language). Seriously, it stinks. We had the worst week for stats this week that I've ever had in my mission. And there's not much a  chance of it getting better this week with how much the stake has booked us (without checking with us first... grr!) So we're going to be busy doing a family history event at our church building for five hours on four different days this week. We're not happy about it at all. That's a LOT of time. We're only going to get maybe three or four hours of proselyting time on those days, and skip appointments. Plus, there's a huge city festival happening at the same time at the palace next door, so most people are going to be preoccupied with that, we think.

We're not happy. They already took up a lot of our time this week too, because they said we had to make posters for it too. Of course, we can't just say "no, we're busy, please find someone else." That's just not how it works here when you're a missionary.

Ugh. I guess there are just those kinds of weeks. Such is the life of a missionary. 

In other news; transfer calls this coming Saturday! We've got bets on who's leaving. We're still wondering if Elder Knapp is going to stay with me one more with his track record (except for his trainer, he's only gone one transfer with each of his companions). He keeps telling me that I'm going to train this time around. I kinda hope not. It'd be fun, but not yet! :S

That's all for this week, though! Happy birthday to Mom and Grandpa P!

Elder Shaver

Oh, and this happened. We roasted marshmallows over a gas burner using chopsticks at English class. Korea life, baby!