PSY vs Frozen

Fun fact from Korea: I have heard more of the Frozen soundtrack out here than I have heard PSY. I don't know if I've ever heard PSY once out here (shops play the radio all the time). I guess his popularity's as dead here as it is in Canada. "Let It Go" from Frozen is on the Korean's Olympics commercial, though. I thought it was the best thing.

Anyways. We are picking up new investigators!

I have to give them nicknames to protect their privacy. I'll start with Wise Guy, from Ethiopia.

We met him in a refugee home (we talked to a chinese guy... or tried to, anyways... and made friends with him and he took us home to the refugee home) with a bunch of other refugees. We talked for a bit, especially about the gospel, as all good missionaries should. It was an interesting conversation, and was dominated by an especially enthusiastic Christian (who's the sweetest guy), but we were interested in Wise Guy, because he asked this: "I believe in Christ and the Bible, but there are so many churches and different religions out there, how can I know which is the real one?"

... Uh... I know! I KNOW!!! Let me tell you!

So we talked to him for a bit, and we might get his Egyptian friend to talk with us, too. But so far, we've given him a Book of Mormon, and haven't done much else, because our last appointment (which was to be our second) kinda fell through. Oh well.

Second is Mr. Pear.

He's a dad, a super-stressed one at that, and a former investigator that we've met with twice and will be meeting a third time this week. We've mainly just tried to share comforting scriptures with him to help him feel the Spirit so far, but we're going to show him the Restoration video this week! I'm excited!

I don't have a good nickname for number three, but I'll call him Kim (김) good luck finding out which Kim he is. There's millions of them here. He's been a really awesome former investigator, had a baptismal interview and passed and everything, but because of his mom (fun fact: religious people in Korea are SUPER zealous. I haven't had a close encounter with one yet, but the stories of other missionaries scare me!), he hasn't been able to follow through with baptism. So here he is a few years later, hopefully not under his mom's thumb anymore, just starting college, and is really enthusiastic about the gospel. He's not so sure if he believes in God anymore, but judging by his teaching record, that won't be too hard for him. I'm so excited for him!

Our last one is another college student. His name is Yoon (there's a bunch of them too,so good luck). We tried to get him to church after a really good lesson. I'm not sure if he did, though, because we tried to get him to go to one that's not in our area (because the other one was closer to him). Oh well, we'll find out.

I'm running out of time, though. If I don't get back to you I will try to next week! thank you for all your support!

Elder Shaver

Hello everybody!

This week has been rough, I won't lie, but it's also been full of really awesome things!

So the thing that stresses me out the most, of all things, is the language block.  I'm fine with the crazy new diet, sleeping on the floor (well, I'm still adjusting to that, but it's no big deal), I'm fine with going without my old music and hobbies, I'm fine with devoting all of my time to working my butt off, but as soon as I try to talk to someone in Korean, I freak out. If someone speaks English, it's fine, but I can't handle Korean that well, apparently. I don't know why, because it's one of the things that I knew was coming and had time to brace myself for, but it still hits me. I'm working on getting around that, but the week has been hard because I had to realize that, accept it, and motivate myself to tackle it. To anybody planning on a mission; if you get called to a language speaking mission, learn that language RIGHT AWAY. Study PMG too, of course, especially in the time leading up to you getting your call, but when you get your call, and if you need to learn a language, don't waste any time not learning it. I thought I worked hard at it (and I did), but if I could've seen how much it would've helped me adjust here, I'd have worked a lot harder.

But anyways, on a much lighter note:

Korea is still super cool. Here's something that completely blindsided me about Korea: There is SO MUCH religious excitement here! There are 전도사들 (street proselyters) EVERYWHERE. There are Christian Churches EVERYWHERE. If you look up you'll see a spire with a cross on the top of it or see the word "교회" (church) almost anywhere. It's NUTS! My MTC teachers kinda talked about it, but they never said that it would be this huge! It's kind of cool, though, because people notice us missionaries a lot more as we do things differently from 전도사들. They will hand out pamphlets without saying a word to you, while we go up and talk to people. They don't expect it, and it makes them curious (or nervous. That happens sometimes), which is a advantage that we take full advantage of.

We've had a few miracles happen to us this past week. We've picked up some investigators! Yay! From none to three in a week!

One day while we were just out proselyting, (which is a good story, but I don't have much time to write it all down, so maybe later), and teaching street lessons, an old investigator called us back and said that he wanted to meet. I'll call him 베. If you can't read 한글 yet, it takes two minutes, so go figure it out. He's a Physics guy, and has a big degree in it (I forget that specific detail, though), and he believes in the Big Bang, but is sort of looking for something spiritual... I'm not sure what yet, because he seems pretty set on there being no God, or that God is in everything and isn't a Physical being. But his line of thinking sounds a lot like the way I think, and his story sounds a lot like the beginnings of my own conversion story. PLUS, he speaks really good English! BOOYAH! I can work with this guy!

The second fellow actually came up to us just as we were getting home. Get this: he came up to us and said "Hey, I've seen you guys around, I'd love to meet with you."

... Wha? Uh, Yeah! We'd LOVE to! What's your number? He doesn't speak English, but I'm not worried.

The third guy is Really cool, but I'm actually out of time... I sent individual mails first since I missed them last time, but it really cut out of mass email time. I'm going to have to figure out a compensation of some sort. I'll finish today's next week and try to fit in next week's as well.

Love you all! I hope that I'll be able to figure something out.

This picture is of my MTC district with our new companions before we set off for our new areas.

Without Wax,

Elder Shaver

안녕하새요 여러분!

I finally get to tell you what Korea is like!

 First of all, if anything to put my family at ease; I'm doing just fine. I love EVERYTHING about Korea! The only problems I'm having right now is talking to people ('cause I kinda can't hold a conversation for longer than 10 seconds without my companion bailing me out :P )

I got over the jet lag after the first night (miracle!) People here are super nice (miracle!) I have not tried any food that I didn't absolutely love (SUPER MIRACLE!) My trainer is super-awesome and is totally helping me get into the swing of things (miracle!) Korea is the best, I tell you!

Kimchi here is waaaaaaaaaaAAAAaAAAaAAAaaaAAAy better here than it was when we tried it in Canada. HOLY MOLY is Korean food GOOD! I swear, I'm going to learn how to make all of this stuff and just eat it for the rest of my life.

Anyways, what else... I'm starting to settle in quite well and things are already feeling normal (miracle!), so it's taking me a second. Okay, so, probably one of the first things that I noticed coming here, is, well, that it's cold in the winter. That, and heating buildings in Korea is very different than heating in North America. Every building that I've been in is heated by giant space-heaters that aren't automatic in any way. It is our job, as missionaries to turn on the space heaters in the church in the morning before people get there so that it's not freezing cold during the meetings. It's seriously colder inside than it is outside before we turn them on. So, either there's either giant space heaters, or, in the case of people's homes, the floors are the heaters. Our apartment has this (and let me tell you, that it is the most glorious feeling to walk on a cozy warm floor every morning), and so far so does everybody else's apartment. So far, there's no such thing as houses here. Everybody I know lives in an apartment, or a section of a house small enough that it may as well be an apartment. I've been in an appartment that was literally the size of my room and a bit and was just enough space for one person to live in it. It's pretty crazy, because there's just so many people here packed in so tightly.

The same goes for stores too. There are street vendors EVERYWHERE in Seoul! The street that goes up to our appartment (which is in Noryangjeen (너량진), by the way. It's close to Gangnam (강남) and encircles -Chris and Caden will get a kick out of this-  Bong Cheon Dong (봉천동). I'm going to use the Hangul for Korean words, because the romanization spelling never quite fits right) is lined on both sides with shops that can't fit inside the actual shop, so almost everything is displayed on tables on the street. Sometimes people will just set up shop at intersections or busy streets and sell their stuff right from their wagon, or whatever they have. Sometimes there's just a mat on the ground.

Which reminds me: A lot of stuff happens on the ground here. People sit at the table on the ground (and the table is also low to the ground, of course). We sleep on the ground, or on a 요, if you prefer that (which, in my case, is more like an exercise mat than anything else. It took a while to get used to sleeping on that). When you enter into  a Korean's home, you don't sit until asked to (which, really, isn't as scary as it sounds, because people will give you a warm welcome and make you comfortable right away, I'll get into that in a bit), and when you are permitted to sit, you kneel until you are told that you can make yourself comfortable, and that's when you may sit cross-legged. There's, so far, only been one sofa in each appartment that I've visited. You can't sit on that unless you're offered it (but the member families that we've so far visited offered it to us right off the bat, this is all just etiquette stuff that really impresses them when you know it and do it, and is how to be polite and show respect to them).

The members are so sweet. Since my companion and I were added to the area, we have no investigators or anything yet, so we're getting to know the members and are talking to people on the streets and the subways a lot. We went to visit two member families last night, and even though we had only said that we would be there for a few minutes to meet them and share a quick message at the door, they insisted we come in and sit for a while, and they had prepared a small snack for us, and we took the time to sing with them and pray and give our message (which, was my responsibility... ack!) So I gave my short little blurb or all the broken Korean I could muster about 1 Nephi 3:7 and how it had inspired me to serve a mission. I think they loved it. Both families told me to hang in there, and that they're impressed with how well I can speak the language. They're great people.

Anyways, I gotta wrap it up. I'm sorry that I can't get to all of you individually like I did in the MTC, there's just so much happening right now that I want to get it all down and out to everybody. Things will calm down and I'll be able write you all again, I'm sure, because that's more or less how it happened in the MTC; after everything about being in a new and exciting place wasn't new and excititng anymore I didn't have as much to write and I got more time to write to individual people. Anywho: I love you all! I can't wait to have stories to tell you! This place is just so cool!

 

Without Wax,

 

Elder Shaver

안녕하새요, 여러분!

Last Pday from the MTC!!

Alright, so a dozen of you have asked me if I'm excited that the flight is so close. Really, all the excitement and anxiety of finally going has officially come and gone from my system. I've been hyped about it for so long that at this point, it's more like I feel like it's taking so long that my brain has actually ceased to believe that I'm actually going to Korea, and I'm trying REALLY hard not to think about how looooooooooooooooooooooooooooooooooooooong that flight is going to be. Seriously, I don't know if I'll survive being stuck on the plane for however many hours it is. 

This week has been pretty good, in other news. I mean, at this point everybody is struggling to not just coast for the last few days of our stay (a few of us do MUCH better than a lot of us). We're looking at In-Field Orientation tomorrow, and tearful goodbyes to our awesome teachers and to each other. The journals have been brought out and are being passed around for each other to sign. I'm pretty sure it's going to be like the end of a great week of EFY when everyone blubbers and sobs for the last little bit. Seriously, this might be one of the hardest things we'll have to do yet on our missions. My district, as I'm sure I've said a more than a few times, is like a big happy family, and we're dead set on reuniting and having a big party when we're all back. Munk 장로님 and I, and a few others, have plans to do epic camping trips in Canada when we get back. Some of us want to start a band when we get back (because so many of us are so musically talented). It's an amazing feeling. 

I honestly don't know what else there is to talk about at this point. The MTC has run out of surprises for me (I guess that that's just what happens when you've been here for as long as I have). I've learned some pretty great things about myself and about the gospel while I was here, and I'm going to be sad to have to leave it (except for the part where you sit in a classroom for hours and hours and hours and hours on end... and the food. Andrew might like the food now; but just wait. Just wait.). 

I can't wait to get to Korea. I just feel that when I get there, the sense of adventure will come back, and I know that it will feel so good to finally go to work. Hopefully the culture shock doesn't hit me too hard. And hopefully not the ENTIRE country smells like kimchi. I got a mass email from one of the Elders who left a few weeks ago, and it sounds like the work is going really well over there. I just want to be a part of it SOOO bad! If anything to do something other than study (a bad reason, I know. It's just humour, I promise! ;) ). 

But yes; this is my last anything from the MTC. Next PDay, you'll get a message that probably has a lot of me oohing an ahhing and freaking out and maybe nerding out and me being overwhelmed by everything and most likely some food-related horror stories. Don't get me wrong, the food sounds great! But there's a few things that our teachers (all of whom went to Korea on their missions) said to absolutely, no-matter-what, stay AWAY from. They also say that dog isn't all that bad. But they went to the un-Americanized part of Korea, so hopefully I don't get to deal with eating live octopus and sea-cucumber soup. 


But, that's all for now. I love you all! Next time; you all get to laugh at my pain! ;) 


Without Wax, 


Elder Shaver 


P.S.: A lot of you have asked me about the "Without Wax" thing. It's something I write to feel clever, but I got out of a book, so I'm really not that clever... But it makes me feel clever, so I use it. That's the only hint you get! >:P Muahhahahaha! 

OHMAHGOODNESS!!!!

IT'S GETTING REAL, PEOPLE!!! We just got our full-Korean name tags, and we're getting our flight plans tomorrow. AAAAAAAHHH!!!! So many mixed feelings in everyone in my district. We all want to be in Korea sooooo bad! But at the same time, we all know that we're going to cry for days straight when we're separated. We're like a big happy family at this point.

To epitomize this, let me tell you what happened on my birthday.

Happy birthday was sung to me at LEAST five times, four of which was pretty much just from my district. At the end of the night they took the cake from me ( which was AWESOME by the way, thanks you so much!) and took it out of the room, put candles in it and brought it back into the classroom singing happy birthday (again) and cheering and that whole thing. I LOVE my district so much! They're the best people in the world!

So I'm a little bummed about Ian getting taller than me... I don't want to think about how weird that's going to be when I get back. I've been working out everyday, though! It's on, bro!

Also! Yesterday, I got to HOST Andrew. Best birthday present ever! (and the RC car is awesome, too! Fowler 장로님 and I were having RC fights while our 덩반자들 were napping, it was lots of fun) One of the funniest parts about hosting Andrew, though, was that when I showed him to his classroom to meet his teacher, I spoke more French to her than Andrew did. I kept up a conversation with her, and we talked about where I was going, and how I learned French for years in immersion, and whatnot. It was pretty sweet. I still got it!

Thank you to everyone for sending me your best birthday wishes! I love you all so much, and I miss you!

Okay, one more thing that I really want to put up here (I don't like making these super long, because I know how hard it was for me to read long mission-blog-posts):

제 덩반자와 저는 totally had an AWESOME Friday! When we went to TRC, we totally shared a message that the volunteer really needed to hear in his real life. Consider this: we had no idea who this man was, aside that he was a volunteer for TRC, he and we were randomly assigned to the same room, we were supposed to skype with Korean volunteers, but couldn't because there weren't enough of them, 제 덩반자 had a story from his life stuck in his head ALL day that day and was prompted to share it, and an applicable scripture, that didn't really have much of anything to do with what we had planned to teach, and this man, was going through a hard time and really needed to hear it. It made him feel better, he told us in 한국말, which made us two feel like we were on top of the world.

Best.Thing. Ever.

The Lord is guiding and helping us everyday, and we're feeling more and more confident everyday. I LOVE IT HERE!!! I can't wait to get to Korea and start working with real investigators!

But anyways, that's all I have for this week. I know it doesn't seem like much, but I want to save some time to get back to those that wrote me individually. That, and the MTC, as great as it is, is just as repetitive and monotonous as ever. I don't think you'd enjoy me writing about my 9-10 hours in class per day, so, hopefully Korea will be more interesting ;)

Love you all! I'm going to eat a cinnamon roll now! (Thanks Grandpa P!)

Without Wax,

Elder Shaver

3 weeks to go

This week has been a marvelous week, for a number of reasons.

First (and perhaps the least spectacular, but still fun), we got a new group of missionaries! We got 22 more elders and 11 more sisters in K-Town! The Korean branch is now once again one of, if not THE largest branch in the MTC. We've got 60+ members. Seriously, that's big as far as MTC branches go.

I got to be a new missionary host yesterday when they all came in. It just so happened that I got to host a sister that was going to my mission! It was awesome! The new group seems like a great bunch, and I'm excited for them.

Second (and much more spectacular), Elder Bednar came back! Remember how he did that Q&A thing at Christmas? He came back saying that he received 1000+ questions that day. So since he was assigned to come back so soon, he brought some more of the questions that he didn't get to onChristmas. It was just as awesome the second time! This time, though, he bore his testimony of the Book of Mormon, and OH MAN was that intense! An Apostle's testimony is one of the most powerful things I have ever experienced, and it's that much more amazing when he's right in front of you, bearing it in a devotional setting. We got to be right near the front because we were called to Usher duty that time. People from our branch also did the prayers, and those that weren't Ushering got to be pretty close to the front. President Yost said that we have a friend in a high place of authority watching to give us opportunities like that when something big is about to happen. We were SO happy.
Two of ours got to sit right in the front row. And they actually got called up to help answer a question. They were one of our Zone Leaders and an Australian Elder that had only gotten here the night previous. What a way to remember your first full day, huh? Elder Bednar poked fun at him when he saw the orange dot on his tag (which he called a "dork dot." I don't know about you, but I'd be totally fine to be called a dork by an apostle).

One of the things that he talked about was miracles, and how to get them. He told us that "the more you press for a miracle, the less likely you are to receive one." He told us that if we want to see miracles, that we only need to "pray for the eyes and ears to see and hear the miracles that take place all around [us] every day." If we learn to wait on the Lord, we will find that all the miracles that we really need happen to us all the time. It's just a matter of being able to recognize them.

An example of this actually happened to me this week. I was concerned about something that I couldn't understand, and I was praying to find an answer or an understanding, and I was even planning on praying specifically just for that in the Temple this week. But, I guess it turns out that Heavenly Father, in His wisdom, saw fit to put my concerns at ease sooner than that. Some of the Zone Resource teachers, by assignment, pull out missionaries to do one-on-one with them. I got to do that with Brother Wade (who, if you don't remember, is one of our absolute most favourtie people of all time ever in the whole MTC, so it was pretty fantastic to have that), and he asked if there was anything he could help me with, so I told him about what I was worrying about. He was surely inspired to tell me everything that I needed to hear, because he did just that. The Spirit was felt strongly by both of us in that conversation, and I came out of it feeling so much better and reassured that I was in the happiest mood for the rest of the day and I'm still, in fact, super happy from that experience. To me, it was a miracle, because part of Brother Wade's helping me was a couple of his mission experiences.

I hope that helps some of you that are reading this. I realize that I should probably start putting more spiritual thoughts and spiritual happenings on here because the MTC is chalk-full of them. We're progressing in here faster than we ever have EVER. Seriously, it's the most amazing thing, and I'm going to miss it a lot. I'm going to tell everybody who's on their way to the MTC soon that they need to bring a journal to write down all of the spiritual experiences they have in. You won't regret it in the least bit!

That's all for now, though.

Without wax,

Elder Shaver

Another Great Week!

안영하 새요, 여러분! 어떻께 되십니까? 저는 잘 있습니다!


Hello, all!


Another week down, and another week closer to 한국! I seriously can't wait!
Life's still good, I haven't been sick for weeks, which is fantastic. Life's so much better when you're not sick, incredibly enough. You can learn a lot better, too.
Focusing is getting harder and harder, though. I've decided that I hate classrooms, which really sucks, but it probably has something to to with being in the same classroom for ten hours a day EVERY FLOPPIN' DAY.

Seriously, I've run out of steam for MTC lifestyle. We hardly get any breaks. In fact, we don't get a break until PDay, which isn't much of a break because you've got a bunch of stuff to get done on those days, too. On the upside, though, we can finally start going to the temple on Pdays, now that it's actually open. Thank goodness! We got to do a session this morning, and it was glorious! The Provo Temple is BEAUTIFUL! It's going to be such a blessing to be able to go every week until we leave.


On another note, though; there were some pretty funny screwups that happened this week. I'll start with mine:


So my 동반자 and I are in an "appointment" with our "구도자" and we're about to read a scripture with her. D&C 9:7-8. I was flipping through my 한국말 triple to it, and accidentally went a little too far to Moroni 9:7-8. I'm still at the point where all 한굴 looks the same to me, and since the two aforementioned references are so close together, I thought I was there and so I handed the book over to her and we asked her to read.
Somewhere in her reading, we picked out the words "Laman" and "Ammoron" and other things that were definitely NOT in the D&C reference and so we figured it out and pointed her to the correct one.
After that lesson, we looked at the Moroni reference... and, well... You can look it up if you'd like to. It was hilarious. If the two of us were in Korea, we would have never recovered from that.


A 자매님 also made a silly mistake, not nearly as bad, though, and much easier to do. She said in a prayer "Thank you that my companions are dead." Instead of "thank you for my companions." The verb for "to give" and "to die" sound a lot the same. The joys of learning a new language.


On the upside of language learning: I was able to understand on of our "구도자들" for once. First time I've been able to actually pick up on what they're saying EVER. I can speak, and write and build sentences, but understanding what other people are saying is the darndest hardest thing in the world! Just goes to show how much the Spirit is helping me, personally, because we don't get nearly as much practice listening and understanding as we do everything else. We listen to each other's broken 한국말 all the time, but, it's broken, and super-slow and deliberate, so that doesn't really help anything. But with the Lord's help, we've been able to make some pretty crazy-awesome improvements and achievements in our time here. The older 동이 and the branch presidency always tell us how impressed they are with our district. Just the other day, President and Sister Snow joined us in a post-devotionsal discussion and took some time to tell us about just that. We don't always feel like we deserve that kind of praise, but we must be doing SOMETHING right! So long as we can keep track of where we're at, and see how much we improve, and always always always rely on the Lord's help, we'll be unstoppable!


One more quick note: I know all about the stashes that are left behind in the dorm rooms. KTown calls them "Narnia Holes." There was only one in our room, and it had a bunch of candy in it. Anyone coming to the MTC soon: make sure you look for them, because some people find some seriously awesome stuff.


여러분의 사랑은 저를 주셔서 감사합니다. Thank you for your love, and keeping me motivated. 저는 그리스도의 복음을 참되는 것을 알고 있습니다. I know that Christ's Gospel is true. I can't wait to start teaching it in Korea. Everytime my teachers, or other staff and volunteers come and talk about Korea, I get so excited because everything about Korea, even the weird things, sound so cool and amazing! I can't wait to meet them, and I can't wait to share with them the greatest gift anyone can give.



But that's all for now!


Without Wax,


Elder Shaver